Carson Pass

Posted on April 18, 2010 by Mike

This weekend was the annual Lindow Lab snowshoe trip. I’ve been fortunate enough to go three times now. This year’s trip was to Carson Pass near Lake Tahoe. Previously we’ve gone to Dewey Point in Yosemite and Echo Lake which was also near Lake Tahoe.

The weather was perfect, and the hike was picturesque. It made me sad that I didn’t bring my better cameras. Instead, I brought my Flip Mino and Jules brought her little Canon SD630 and here’s what we came away with.

Video from the Flip:

Pictures from the Canon:

Cheese

Posted on April 16, 2010 by Jules

I stopped by the farmer’s market to pick up some bread and cheese for a hike about a month ago. I grabbed my standby rustic olive loaf from Phoenix Pastificio, and then swung by the Cowgirl Creamery (CC) cheese stand. CC is well known for their creamy, soft cheeses, but I was intrigued to find that they had started to experiment with hard cheeses as well. I am a hard cheese girl at heart. In particular, aged gouda. You may call me the Aged Gouda Girl. I picked up a wedge (from Batch #27). Well, I will tell you the end result here: that cheese has a certain kind of funkiness and textural grittiness that I do not like. It was like eating somewhat milky sand. And I have smelled funky cheeses. Usually that funkiness makes me think of good things to come. This was not that kind of funky. I know they are still working out the kinks, so I hope their subsequent batches improve. I guess my first clue should have been when the lady at the CC stand tried a sliver from batch #27:

CC girl: “Oh, I haven’t tried this batch yet. Oh wow, there are so many holes this time.” *munch munch* “Hmm… it tastes different from the last batch.”

Me: “Uh, good or bad?”

CC girl: “Oh, not good or bad, just … different”

I guess that should have been a big clue. No salesperson would tell you that their product is off. It’s just “different” and “unique”. Oh, those imperfections in that vase? That’s how you know it’s HANDMADE. That’s what makes it so UNIQUE. (I admit I sometimes buy into this philosophy).

In any case, I think I shall stick to their softies until they get a few more hard cheese batches under their belt.

Backpacking at Henry Coe State Park, Round II

Posted on April 5, 2010 by Jules

Mike and I were planning to go to the DMV to take care of car stuff on Saturday, as well as visit Mike’s parents. However, the visit got moved to Sunday late afternoon, and on Friday night, we learned that the DMV suspended Saturday service. So what did we do? We planned a spur-of-the-moment backpacking trip! Is that an oxymoron?

This time around, there was a lot of water, and many flowers in bloom. We had a great view from our camp site at Willow Ridge, on the border of the Western Zone of the park (~7.5 miles from Coe Headquarters). We made it out of the park 30 minutes before the storm rolled in, and in time for Easter Sunday hanging out/dinner with Mike’s family (did I mention that we are all atheists? I don’t know what’s going on). We are backpacking ninjas.