It’s been a few years of hoping to go back to Yosemite and take Mia there for the first time. The pandemic has sucked for a million reasons. Sigh…it has been really bad. It feels guilty to be in a position to even talk about silver linings, however I think it’s important to enjoy them if they exist. Yosemite shutdown during the shutdown, then it opened strategically by reservation-only.

So early in the morning on September 1st I was able to reserve a date to arrive for any day in October. I chose October 10th. Why? It’s a Saturday..yeah.. but it was also supposed to be our wedding day (before Covid). It’s fall, off-season, could have interesting weather for photos, etc etc.

Turns out in September the entire state became on fire and especially the Sierra Nevadas, which carried into our trip. Hey, with everything else going wrong in the world and that could go wrong nowadays, a little smoke was the least of our worries. My concerns were things like if I sufficiently wiped my hands and the gas station pump enough with clorox wipes before getting back in my car, some clean (compared to LA) mountain- fire smoke was something I could endure. Luckily for us, the smoke situation and AQI actually improved each day we were in Yosemite, and assisted in making some purple-red sunset lighting.

We arrived around 4pm on Saturday to check in to the park, cruised the valley loop, hiked around mirror lake, and I was excited to see Mias reaction to the awe of it all throughout the afternoon. We stopped at tunnel view lookout for sunset and for about 5 minutes the smokey sky glowed bright pink and it was a great start to the trip.

We stayed at an airbnb in Bootjack/Oakhurst about a 1-hour drive from the hwy 140 entrance. Each night we had oven bake pizzas or easy pasta, packed sandwiches, snacks and a few beers as picnic supplies for the park, and basically made spontaneous and stress-free decisions for exploring the park for 3 days.

The second day we did a hike up the Mist trail around Vernal and Nevada fall, then down the John Muir Trail. Almost 10 miles, 2,600 ft elevation and about 4 hours, all with striking views and almost nobody on the trail (past Vernal fall). We got back as the sun went behind the valley walls and stopped by a well-known Merced river photo spot for sunset.

Day 3 will be another post.

As is appropriate, because of Covid and quarantine, there’s not a lot of news to report and I pretty much haven’t been taking photos or going anywhere. There’s a couple things, though.

On April 1, Mia and I adopted a dog from a rescue foundation. The back story is that the dog was found lost and brought to the Bakersfield animal shelter. This rescue foundation based in LA seems to go to overcrowded shelters and probably picks the most rescue-able animals and then resells them. The story is that after the vet check she was a german shepherd or husky mix puppy around 3-4 months and the photos and videos were cute so we went for it. A few days later we brought her to a vet ourselves and the vet here said that she’s actually got all of her adult teeth and is likely full-grown at 8-9 months. This also meant that she wasn’t the breed we were under the impression of, and must have some small breed mix. We’ve done a lot of research and there’s nothing definitive, so she is whatever she is. We’ve been busy training and going on walks and trying to socialize a dog during social distanced times (not easy). Every day, though, we’re lucky to have the time to take her on at least one long walk

In May and June my primary house project was the backyard. After a quote of more than $4,000 for a simple fence that wasn’t even the design/fence we wanted. So I decided to see if I could build one myself - I got to digging holes for poles, 10 in total. Poured cement, stained posts and wood boards, and painted 5ft high wire fence with black rubber coating. Then we got 14,000 lbs of decomposed granite (fine rock) dumped in the driveway and I spent 2 days moving it to the backyard and a couple weeks tamping, grading, laying edging… the whole deal. It looks pretty good now with the finalized fence, a rolling gate, and the nice flat durable low-maintenance dirt.

In July we stayed home and washed fireworks across south LA from the backyard (photo above), and as one week leads to the next and one month rolls to the next month, things are in a routine of dog walks, exploring the neighborhood trails on foot and bike, long work days, and busy housework-filled weekends.

Also in the photos is my friend Connor’s new sailboat. He’s the one who was my liveaboard neighbor in Redondo and he sailed his old Hunter across the Pacific and then a different boat (the Hunter took a beating) to Australia. Now that he’s back in the states I heard him say he’s done with boats, and about 3 weeks later he got a Mariner 31 (ketch rigged, cutter) and these photos are from early August when he sailed it from Cabrillo to Ventura past me with my camera in Palos Verdes. I was hoping to join for the trip but it started on a Friday when I was working and I was dog sitting solo so had to stay home.

Finally, I’m going to publish this here so that I’m personally accountable: I will take more photos to make this more interesting.

In “Stay at Home” orders in California. It’s been a weird week. Fortunately I’ve been really busy working and keeping my mind occupied with work and house things. It’s been raining a lot, which is unusual but definitely welcome (now that I think I fixed a roof leak).

I picked up my camera so here’s a couple pano’s: One of the rain rolling in on Thursday evening over Catalina Island. The other of the snow-capped LA mountains taken from the bedroom door.

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Time has really been flying by with the new year, I can’t really believe it’s March. We have gradually accumulated a normal amount of house furniture, browing craigslist and other selling apps for good deals on must-have items, and waiting for holiday sales to get anything new. I’ve had multiple battles with the thin and wavy drywall in this house, broken no less than 4 Philips-head screwdriver tips, and successfully diagnosed and fix our screeching garage door. I still have not been down to the mystery hut on our property. It’s seeing all these freaky unfamiliar spider species (coming from a boat, with not bugs) that kind of has me mentally scared. We’ve had family and friends over which I think has been the best part - sharing the space - and I think we’ve only bought take-out food 2 or 3 times. That’s a huge change from living on the boat. I can stand here and write this with the windows open, looking at a lizard sun bathing in partial shade from a palm tree across a rock in the backyard, and flinching frequently to the loud noises coming from the neighbor having a fence installed between our property.

Aside from house life, I traveled to San Francisco and Denver for work already this year, came back sick for 2 weeks - this is a scary time to be sick with anything or traveling, I know - and I’ve been going to see Journey, the horse either with Mia or also by myself when Mia can’t go certain days. I think he recognizes my jacket I always wear and knows that I should have carrots for him. Here’s some pictures from early this morning, I went with Mia over to the horse.

7 years living on my 30 foot sailboat and I finally reached my tolerance of the marina lifestyle. I love living on a sailboat, I love being on the water, I love the proximity to my recreational activities and trying to live a life with minimal impact on my surroundings. It was everything else that was slowly getting on my nerves. It was 7 years of accepting the bad with enjoying the good, but the bad variables outweighed the rest and we had our sights on moving onto land.

Rent in LA can be about $3000-$5000 a month, so it was a waiting game to save just enough to own a house on land, no way I was going to go from sweet inexpensive boat life to lining the pockets of a landlord. Fortunately that time came and some houses were for sale. Long story short: we moved into a house in the Southbay, on the boarder of San Pedro and Palos Verdes. This location shortened the amount of time for Mia’s commute, gave me the opportunity to finally work from home, and welcomes us to the next phase of our lives - pretty exciting!

The house is a 4-bed, 3-bath, remodeled (flipped, actually), with some really cool potential. It’s going to involve many weekend projects and for the first month it’s provided more than enough headaches, but it's all worth it as an investment. Anyways, the sailboat is up for sale now and I’m confident sailing will still be something I do, whether that be on the dinghy or if a trailerable day-sailer is in my future.

The process of buying a house sucks, I’ll say that much. But we’ve been hard at work and frugal about how to furnish it, build things, customize rooms, and design the landscape a little. After signing the papers is when the fun starts. Here are some photos from just 1 month living on land.

The holiday break was quick and busy. Starting with signing papers on a house (more on that in the next post), moving completely out of the storage unit and mostly out of the boat, then driving to SLO and the bay area.

Skip this paragraph if you don’t care, I’m just venting: I made the mistake of leaving the day after Christmas and a heavy rain + snowfall which closed every road but the 101 heading to LA. However, cross-referencing my traffic apps led me wrong… I went all the way to the Grapevine because a passage around the 5 closure was open, then it was closed when I got there, so I went towards Bakersfield to a road still open, except that it was flooded and closed, so I gave up and drove north 3 hours to try to make it to Paso Robles… along with thousands of other travelers in stopped traffic, idling, running out of fuel. Then got word that the pass back in Bakersfield is opening again, so I turned around and drove back… that was highway 58 through Tehachapi to Mojave and it was closed again after they decided to escort vehicles through and spin-outs and truck-against-truck accidents were happening everywhere. It was a crawl through the snowy summit passing families sleeping in their cars and people who wrecked theirs, then maneuvered some black-ice patches, arriving to my new house at 5am, having left at 9am the previous day. Worst drive I’ve ever had.

Always great seeing my family up there and it always seems too short - Had I known the future, I would have stayed an extra day.

Got the whole family in Carmel in early November to celebration Mom’s 70th Birthday. This trip included a coastal drive up there, some mountain biking in the Monterey hills, body surfing at Carmel Beach (the “surf & turf” as Matt calls it) and a lot of hanging out playing board games.

Our boat neighbors Chris & Mandy took us and another group out on their powerboat for the Great American Airshow in Huntington Beach. Warm weather and barely any swell meant that every boater in Orange County was out trying to anchor and entertain in front of the Huntington Beach pier, and miles of the beach were packed with people.

Then a few weeks later, Mia and I got a mooring in the channel and stayed out there for the night, getting out just in time for sunset.

Fortunately, my work asked me to Keystone Resort (outside of Denver) in October and the Salt Lake City area in November to work alongside coworkers and meet with our customers. I brought some camera gear just in case there was a chance to see the mountains - I had never been to SLC or Keystone but learned quickly that access to the mountains is only about 20-30 minutes away from the towns.

For Colorado, it was right before the leaf-turning period, they were just starting to. Every fall there’s a social media craze called “leaf peeping”, so some of the photos are in this style or peering through leafs at more leafs… just trying it out. For Utah, it snowed for a day while I was in Utah and my team and I drove up to Sundance resort (before a 10am meeting) while it was still flurrying up there. Then, I was able to cruise out to two different canyons just east of SLC before my flight home. Pictures Below.

Labor Day weekend was spent accepting the invitation from our friends Kait and Kevin to go chill at their Running Springs cabin. Running Springs is a community up in the mountains next to Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear, close to LA.

Being up in the mountain fresh air, hiking and going to a watering hole (used for snow-making at a resort), and just playing house cooking, hanging out, showing them how cool F1 is… it was a great weekend to get a summer-vibe fix and keep things mellow.