Jackson lake, here I come!
It took me about an hour driving from my home to get to Lake camp at Wrightwood under a threatening sky looking thru my car windshield on 138 highway via Freeway 15 northbound to Las Vegas the Sin city.
When I got there at the camp site and looked for the camp manager to ask for the available camp site just for tonight (Sat.)
I already have reserved on-line for Sun. and Mon. nights.
I asked the fellow camper that walked pass when I spot the no-occupy site at #7 (#1 to #4 are available to reserve on-line but #5 to #8 are only first come first serve walk-in)
The guy said the manager is not around, he was at the hospital because his wife had a stroke since Monday and was keeping alive by life-support machine, her vital is gone and she?s having a brain dead syndrome and chances are she won?t survive.
Dying is never a good event for anybody especially your loved ones. And I?m sure it?s not easy to take particularly when you are old and needed someone.
But we all have to accept what we can?t change and go about our business as best as we can. It?s so true that our Lord Buddha said about ?Born, getting old, getting sick and die?
Nobody ever escapes it no matter how good, bad, rich, poor or anything else in between. We all came to this life alone and will leave it as lonely as we came.
I got hold of a manager about an hour later to secure the #7 site for Sat. night. He excused me profusely if he happened to write incorrect info. for my paper work and of course I fully understood how he felt at that moment.
I pitched up 2 tents, one for me and the other for Marla, she?s Philippine, in the late 30s or early 40s (I don?t care to ask) and one of our tennis gang members at North Hollywood since she moved West from Florida few years back. I also introduced her to the Hiking disease and she loved it. I took her to Yosemite and Chai took her up half way to Half Dome. They couldn?t go all the way because we started going up too late and wouldn?t be able to get down to the valley floor in day light if we went all the way up to the Dome.
Chai and Marla would leave Los Angeles at 6.00 pm and should be at the lake around 8.00 pm or earlier. After I pitched up the tent I walked to the lake which was just adjacent to the camp sites. And here it was;
It?s a tiny lake at the 6,100 feet elevation along the Big Pines highway about 3 miles west of the fame Mt. High ski resort that opened for ski season only around Dec. to Feb. each year.
The shape of the lake is almost oval shape and has quite a lot of vegetation around and in it. I asked the fisherman about the looked-like weeds in the water and he said it?s call Callow Lilies.
There were small trail that goes looping around the lake, on one particular spot there were ropes hanging down from the big pine tree just like swinging rope to use for jumping into the lake and there were few kids playing with it.
I decided to wait for Chai and will attempt to swing myself up like that the next day. (to my dismay when we got back there later that evening the rope was broken off short so I couldn?t do what I intended to do, I should have ?DO IT NOW? when I was able to!)
I notices that my motorcycle neighbor campers next door went up the hill behind our sites and came back with a bunch of firewood in their hands.
I went up and investigated and came down with the free firewood that I guessed the State workers cut and left them on the ground and free for anyone who wants to go up the hill and take them.
They arrived at 7.30 pm, I didn?t expect that Chai could get to the lake that fast from Los Angeles?
Chai pitched up his tent, and Marla moved into her tent and we?re all got set for a night. The sun still not setting until 8.30 pm. We took an easy walk along the lake trail just to kill the time and getting to know the area.
We had our quick dinners and started a camp-fire around 8.30 or so.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfo9_A8u8Wo
I think we went to bed around 10 pm, and woke up around 7.00 or so, it was a perfect night, no mosquito, no wind, quite a few stars up in the sky, no sign of rain. The temperature in the morning is around 40 F. And we went out for a little morning hike before having breakfast.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKcS2Sbcc7A
Chai is a health-nut, always awares of what he eats and stuffs and always takes good care of his body. He said he has only one body and no spare parts to be easily changed like cars or other machines that man built. He?s very meticulously in what he?s doing even clean up his tent, his tent tarp etc. At his home everything is at its place. Man, this guy is too much, I almost couldn?t stand him! He also picked up the book ?Walked to freedom? from Thai book store in Hollywood for me and refused to let me pay for it!
This lake vicinity does not have a true hiking trail to hike in walking distance, we have to go out for about 2 miles at the least for the good hiking trails. But there are few hills to break our sweat if we want to. We hike up the hill behind our camp site to the top of the hill and then Chai said he felt pain at his pelvis area that he was sustained from playing tennis and now it came right back again. So we have to take it easy and just do the easy hike so it won?t get worsen.
From that hill top we went down West to the Christian bible group cabins and walked along their cabins and wondering where the heck the people were? Not a soul in sight and then it dawned on us that it was Sunday morning warship time for Christian when we say a man tip toed to open the door of a hall-like building and stepped in there.
Since we couldn?t do any serious hike under Chai?s condition, I suggested them to hop in the car and go to the higher ground to the area that I?m more familiar with. So up we drove to the Grassy Hollow visitor center about 5 miles away. We walked in and Marla was disappointed because I told her I thought they have coffee to sale but they didn?t and she?s craving for caffeine like the typical American people.
From that visitor center we went to ?Inspiration point? (at 7,400 feet elevation) to take a look at the view point that you can see panoramic view of mountain tops from the picture that they engraved into some kind of map that you can actually look at the real mountains while also look at that engraved map!
And right here if you take a carefully close look you will see the thick patch of cloud between the mountain tops as a background between I and Chai just like the picture that poPPie attached for us.
We drove back into Wrightwood city (population of 5,000 and elevation of 6,000 ft). It is a little town that mostly becomes alive in the winter season when people flocked in for skiing particularly at ?Mountain High? ski resort. And here?s somewhere at Wrightwood downtown where motorcyclists congregated for their lunches.
We just leisured walked along that portion of town just to enjoy the mountain air and scenery for a while before headed back to our camp site again.
At the camp, we went our solitary separated ways to solely explore the nature as we please,
I?ve this strange and funny thing at the bank of the lake!
Yes they were Goldfish that we normally keep them in our aquarium tanks at home and feed them. Here they are at the lake and people fished them up to eat them!!
I talked to those 3 Korean fishermen and they confirmed that Goldfish are edible and they seemed to really like them! 555
I took another walk along the lake trail and all of a sudden this song popped up into my mind;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjtUoAjd6jI
And here are another pictures that I took along the lake trail that you might enjoy them too;
Chai and Marla left for Los Angeles at 4.00 pm. And I?m alone again but never lonely among these majestic creation pieces of nature.
My wife will come over with my son tomorrow (Monday) before noon to share my enjoyment.
The wind started to pick up at around 5.00 pm. And didn?t stop until around 2 am. So I mostly spent my time alone in the tent, read a chapter of "Walked to Freedom" and got lost in my thoughts.
I woke up as early as usual on Monday morning, the wind died down and everything is serene and calm again as it normally is.
I went to take a morning walk along the lake again and found only one old fisherman sitting half dozed off in his fishing chair while enjoy the warm morning sun and not too far from him I saw this school of young Goldfish in the lake! Must be quite a few of them. It reminded me of when I was a kid looking at the school of young Snake head fish (Pla Shon) that swam along under the protective eyes of their mothers.
I went over to the other side of the lake and found this young man;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb3M_UW8WlM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O69tfHpunTQ
I went back to camp site and chatted with my only neighbors and found out that they just graduated from high school yesterday and this is their way of celebrating their milestone;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v15B0saO8iA
My wife (she's my soul-mate, and always on my side no matter what) and son arrived around 11.00 am. They brought along 3 pieces of steak and we grilled them and we had a good outdoor lunch together;
My son left for home around 2.00 pm. My wife stayed over with me and we just took a leisurely walk in the wood and at the lake together like we always did whenever and wherever we went (She always likes camping and used to go backpacking with me when we're much younger, she's a decent USTA tennis player too, at her peak she was 4.5 level, I was at 4.0 level 5555).
We started the camp-fire that was built by the woods that my son gathered and brought down from the hills for us, and having another piece of grilled steak together.
We went to bed around 9.30 pm. It was a good night to sleep out under the stars and it was a little bit warmer (45 F) too.
My wife woke up at 7.00 am. And we decided to leave without taking another walk, we said goodbye and good luck to our only neighbors and headed home.
This is the picture of the Sandstone landscape view along the way that I took while looking north from ?Mammoth Rock? area few mile before we got on Freeway 15 again.
It was a leisure camping for an easy drive from home that took me about an hour to get there. There?s nothing spectacular for this no-name camp site.
Just a simple way of practicing to put your feet on the real ground and closer to nature as you supposed to be.
At that camp site we had a simple and primitive way of living without artificial light and power.
The only things that offer us there are just the necessities of water from the faucet, the non-flushed toilet (just the hole in the ground, if you know what I mean!), the fire ring that you can build your own camp-fire from the woods that you have to gather them yourselves if you don?t want to buy it from any sellers.
Those native birds will serenade you (except the Woodpeckers that would peck the wood almost all day long!) all day and mostly all night long with their songs for free,
the moon and stars will shine on you without charging you your arm, your leg, or even your life.
Nature will give you almost everything that you really need to live by until you intentionally got alleviated from your mother nature yourselves.
I?m going back to Mt. Whitney with Chai on July 5th and 6th (3 more weeks away), Marla can?t make it, she?s saving her days off from work so she can take a 3 weeks off at the end of this year to go back and visit her native land ?Philippine?
I?m planning to compose my journal and put it "here" again like this one when I?m back from that trip for anyone who cares to drop in and check it out at no charge!
So if you are interested about these trips, just sit back and relax with your PC turns on and mouse in your hand,
I?ll take you to those nature trips in far away land at the other side of this planet that you may never have been before without having you to leave your comfort of your homes in Thailand, DEAL??
PEACE AND LOVE AS ALWAYS from this old man.
And last greeting from my grand daughter "Samantha Santacruz" (Taken at Chiangmai in our March 2008 Thailand trip at the age of 2 and a half)
Bye, bye for now to all my younger friends.
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