In This Issue.....
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7/31/02
Articles and Links
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Recipe(s)
Backpacking
LOOK! BACK ISSUES!!
No Phillip The Fireman this issue again. All has been quite although while Phillip was at work yesterday there was a fire at Avocado Lake. When Phillip got home from work he went to cover the Piedra station for a few hours.
There will be no Reader Of The Week article because I have spent most of my time writing the backpacking article. There is also no Paul picture this week. That's because in the backpacking article you'll find plenty of Paul pictures.
¼ cup butter
1 clove of garlic, grated
2 pt. stock or stock cube added to 2 pints
Pinch of salt, and black pepper
Pinch of nutmeg
3 cups. runner beans or French beans sliced finely
4 cups. squash, diced into small pieces
3 cups corn
Melt the butter on a large saucepan and add the garlic to soften. Pour in the stock and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Add the vegetables and bring to a boil. Simmer until vegetables are cooked.
Wash the fruit and leave in a bowl with sugar oevernight. The next day, tip the contents into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Gently simmer for 2 or 3 minutes to lightly cook the fruit. The should be a fair amount of juice.
Cut the loaf into slices about ¼ inch thick and remove the crusts. Cut a circle from one slice of the bread slightly larger than the bottom of a 2 ½ pint pudding dish or similar bowl and place in position. Cut wedges of bread to fit around the sides of the bowl. If there are any gaps, push in small pieces of bread. Now pour in half of the fruit and juice mixture, cover with bread cut to shape, and add the remainder of fruit and juice. Cover the top with a couple of slices of bread, trimming off the excess.
Put a plate on top and weight it down with two or three cans of food. Leave it in the refregeratior for a day or two, or at least overnight. If, by chance there are any patches of bread not soaked the fruit juice, boil a few more berries and pour the juice over the white bits.
When the pudding is taken out of the refrigerator, run a thin, flexible knife between the pudding and the bowl to loosen it. Place a serving dish or large plate upside down, on top of the bowl. Quickly turn it over and remove the bowl. Serve with vast amounts of cream as this in an intensely flavored pudding.and a little goes a long way.
In the morning we all went to the little village. Mom, Phillip, and Paul went in the car and Rocky, Ryan, Rowan and I walked. In the town there was a general store, a resturant, and a bath house with showers and a massage place. We went to have some breakfast at the resturaunt, I actually had buffalo for breakfast. (which I thought was pretty cool). Mom was a litte upset because they ran out of potatoes so no hashed browns. They ran out of mushrooms for her omlette and they ran out of milk to drink. Later she overheard the waitress say they were out of sausage, too. After breakfast we went back to the camp, got our packs (Chico had one too) and started off on the trail. It was really hard at first, especially when we had to climb this big sandy hill. Rocky headed out in front off us because Rowan was getting fussy. Because we made a few stops we lost Rocky on the way to Tule Lake. We hiked about a mile to Tule lake and we hadn’t found Rocky yet. We were all a little worried because she had Rowan and didn’t have any water to drink. Uncle Ryan went back to find her and it turned out that she went up to Doris lake, where we were suposed to camp the next day. I went swimming with Aunt Rocky at Tule lake and we also ate lunch there (Eating lunch was pretty hard since we only had 2 spoons, one of which was a baby spoon). From there we hiked to the creek for water, all the water we had was taken to the creek to refill the bottles. The mosquitoes over at the creek were so bad that we ( Mom, Phillip, Paul, and I) continued on the trail—without our water (you would think we would have learned something after losing Rocky earlier). It was hard because we were going fast so we would not get bit. We were getting really thirsty and worried by this time but we kept on going, we finally made it to our campsite at Mono Crossing but still did not know where Rocky and Ryan were. Every once in a whille mom would whistle really loud so Rocky and Ryan would know where we were. After a little while Mom sent Phillip to go look for them, he came back about 10 minutes later with Rocky and Ryan. We all drank a whole bunch of water, it turns out we hiked about 2 ½ to 3 miles without water. We found out later that Ryan thought we had gotten lost, had back tracked to the creek leaving Rocky and Rowan to sit for an hour, he left us a note and two bottles of water in case we happened by. Looking back the whole situation was kind of funny. They were worried about having to camp with out food since we had all of it in our packs. We were worried about having to camp without water and we were really thirsty. Our campsite was really sandy, like a beach, mom was geting frustrated because Paul was throwing sand and getting all dirty. He also hadn’t slept much. He was very cranky. That night mom decided she wanted to go home because it was hard on Paul, so it was also hard on her.
This days hike was the hardest. We had to climb this really steep up hill part, and we had to go back almost all the way we came. We stopped for a little while at Tule lake so we could rest and eat lunch I also went swimming. After our break we hiked up to a half way point. Mom and Phillip went home on one trail and I stayed with Rocky and Ryan. After that we hiked a half mile to Doris lake where we would camp. Ryan took off his pack and went into the town (a half mile away) to get some water. He also brought back a lemonade for me and Rocky, I chugged mine in about 4 gulps because I was so tired of water. I went swimming at Doris lake and met some really nice people. I also jumped off this bag rock into the lake, it was really scary. The other cool thing about the lake was that when you stood still fish would swim around your legs. That night we all sat on a big rock and looked at the stars, we also looked at bats flying around. That night I slept in the tent with aunt Rocky and Ryan had to sleep outside.
After everybody woke up I went down to the lake to see how cold the water was, It was warm when I stuck my hand in so I got Aunt Rocky to watch me swim. I decided to jump off the big rock so Rocky could get a picture, I jumped and it was freezing! It took a long time for me to get out, and when I did it was even colder. I guess I forgot that the depth of the water makes it colder/warmer. After I got changed we packed up and were ready to go. It felt good to have to walk only a half mile. On the way down we saw a lot of lizards, I counted 21. When we got into the town we had breakfast in the resturant (once again I had buffalo). It was nice to know there were working bathrooms and we wouldn’t have to eat dehydrated food. After we ate we went to the general store and I was excited because I got to drink something other than water. I also got this really cool bandanna with a map of Mono Hot Springs. The drive home was pretty uneventful and it felt really good to take a shower when we got home.
Please note that the pictures below are in no particular order. However the very last picture was taken of Paul after mom put him in the carseat, buckled him, got in the front seat and turned around to offer him something to drink. She says that no more than 30 seconds had gone by.
Backpack baby
Cara at Doris Lake
Cara swimming at Doris Lake
Even the dogs carried something..
Rocky and baby Rowan
Doris Lake
Family picture
Rocky, Ryan, Cara, Paul
One of the few naps Paul got
One of the few naps Phillip got
Taking a break
Cara got stuck trying to climb over a log
Ryan and Cara at Doris Lake
Rocky and Cara swimming
Filthy, exhausted Paul not 60 sec. after he got in the car.
