Top 10 Reasons to Hike

As my last post probably indicated, both my husband and I are very passionate about hiking. I was mulling over how I might communicate to others just why that's the case, and came up with the following Top 10 Reasons:

1. It's good for your soul. There is a spiritual connection within nature that can help you to make sense of this crazy world we live in.
2. It's good for your physical form. You burn roughly 100 calories per mile regardless of how slow or fast you go.
3. It's good for your heart. Even the easiest of hikes generally involves traversing terrain that will raise your heart rate and improve your overall cardiovascular conditioning.
4. It allows you to experience solitude even if the rest of the park is awash in tourists. Most folk, particularly in massively popular parks like Yosemite and Yellowstone, seem to prefer to experience the sights from their car. Hike in even just one mile, and you'll leave most of them in your wake.
5. Hikers are happy people! Hiking tends to make one sweat, resulting in boat loads of endorphins being released into the brain. And an endorphin loaded brain is a happy brain! 
6. You'll see amazing things the rest of the world will never experience. Wildflower filled meadows, pristine lakes, soaring skies, the roar of the wind in the trees, bubbling brooks, cascading waterfalls, and so much more.
7. Hiking is cheap! Other than the occasional fee to access a state or federally owned property, hiking is pretty much free.
8. It's a great way to pass a day. You can spend an hour, a few hours, or an entire day out on the trail. Hit the showers when you return, sit down with a snack and the beverage of your choice, and you're pretty much set for the remainder of the day.
9. It's a photographers dream! Nature produces amazing things, and you never know what you are going to stumble across. 
10. It's a great way to meet fabulous, inspiring people. Like the grandma we chatted with recently, out backpacking with her grandson to show him the ropes and introduce him to the back country. Or the newlyweds through-hiking a segment of the Pacific Crest Trail for their honeymoon, that stopped to take our picture. Or the German couple determined to visit and hike in every California National Park during their brief summer break, including, bless their hearts, searingly hot Death Valley. Or the many seniors we passed loaded down with backpacks, still hitting and enjoying the trails, leaving us inspired to continue to do same in the years ahead.

Convinced? Already there with me even before you read this post? Then please share your favorite hiking experience . . . I'd love to know!

Another reason to hike? You never have to wait for a view table!

Adventures in Lake Tahoe

We're here at the KOA in Lake Tahoe on Day 13 of our trip, and neither of us has killed the other yet! Actually, other than a few hints from me that my dear husband please keep his clothes confined to his suitcase (as opposed to spreading throughout the trailer), things are continuing to go wonderfully well.


We arrived in Lake Tahoe with the sun shining, and were thrilled when we saw our site, which was in the shade and backed up to a small creek. 

Our scenic site at the South Lake Tahoe KOA, with Echo Creek gurgling below.

We went to bed anticipating five days of glorious hiking in perfect summer temperatures of high 70's/low 80's, only to be woken at 4:00 AM by crashing thunder and rain pattering on the roof. Well, perhaps pattering is too kind of a description. Rain on the roof of an RV sounds more like the rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun. It's loud, really loud. In any case, we both jumped out of bed and dashed outside to put away our folding chairs and grab up our shoes, towels and picnic tablecloth.  We then spread it all out in our trailer to dry while we climbed back into bed and tried to get back to sleep. But remember the "loud" description? We both managed to grab a few minutes of sleep, but by 6:00 AM we couldn't take it anymore and decided to just get up and make coffee.



By 7:00 AM the storm had mostly passed by, and we decided to go ahead and proceed with our hiking plans for the day - 10 miles along the Rubicon Trail, from Rubicon Bay to Emerald Bay and back. The trail took us alongside Lake Tahoe just about the entire way, and it couldn't have been a better hike to choose for our first day here. As we sat down at mile six to enjoy our sack lunch we could see clouds gathering again. Knowing how quickly weather can change in the mountains, we ate our lunch as rapidly as possible and headed back up the remaining four miles of the trail to try and beat any rain (we ended up hiking the 10 miles in just over 3 hours, a pretty decent clip). The rain moved in just as we reached our car, which worked out perfect for us, but perhaps not so much for the folk still out on the trail!

One of about 100 scenic overlooks of Lake Tahoe during our Rubicon Trail hike. If you look carefully, you can see the clouds gathering in the background!

Enjoying yet another PB&J sack lunch, this time with Emerald Bay glistening in the background.

When we arrived back at camp we were met with a pretty sorry sight - mud spattered on everything that had it's feet on the ground, which included our folding chairs, BBQ, trailer tires and rug. With rain still falling, we took showers, and then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in our trailer, entertaining ourselves with books, DVD's and the internet. Still and all, by about 9:00 PM both of us were getting hit pretty hard with cabin fever, so we turned in for the night hoping brighter skies would return in the morning.

Which they did! We spent a little time sweeping down what we could, then we got ready for what sounded like an intriguing hike in my Sierra Wilderness book - 12 miles roundtrip from Echo Lake to Aloha Lake in the Desolation Wilderness, passing by another five additional alpine lakes in the process.

Talk about going from the pits to the sublime - the hike turned out to be absolutely gorgeous, and when we finally reached Aloha Lake I actually felt myself getting emotional over it's sheer, prestine beauty.

Exquisite Aloha Lake, just as nature created it.

Tonight, after returning to camp and finding everything dried off and back to normal, we are both feel tired, but deeply satisfied. 


After covering 22 miles in two days, tomorrow we're doing nothing more than a short three mile roundtrip hike to a waterfall, followed by a long soak in some natural hot springs!

Greetings from Northern California!

Greetings from Northern California! We've been on the road for 10 days now, and everything is moving along like a well oiled piston.


Our routine so far has been to wake up and leisurely enjoy coffee before starting our day. We have a simple breakfast, generally cereal and fruit, and pack an equally simple sack lunch, generally PB&J, fruit and cookies. We take off about 10:00 AM, and take as long as we wish to enjoy whatever daily activity or activities we've planned. When we do return to camp, we shower and then sit down to relax for a bit before I start dinner. Dinner is usually pasta or rice, grilled vegetables, salad, bread and something yummy for dessert. After dinner we either read, play cards, catch up on our email, or enjoy time around our compressed gas portable fire ring. When we fall into bed, we are regularly sleeping between 8 and 9 hours . . . something we rarely accomplish while at home. We're completely enjoying the rhythm of our days and aren't giving any thought to home, at least not at this point. Between our cell phones and our computer, we're feeling completely in touch with loved ones and friends. In fact, chronicling our travels online here, and on Facebook, has resulted in invitations to visit friends and family as they learn we're heading their way, which has been lovely.


We budgeted $2,400 for this trip, roughly $100 per day, and we're well on track so far. I'd projected that Pismo Beach and Petaluma would be our two most expensive legs, given the multitude of wineries in both areas, but we're doing just fine. We're actually just under budget in fact, a result of planning days that primarily center around physical activity, leaving us too mellow and content when we finish to be very interested in doing anything more other than returning to our trailer, showering, and sitting down with a book and a glass of wine, then eventually dinner, for the remainder of the day. 


Here are the budget numbers so far:

Pismo Beach (3 days)

• Pismo North State Beach no-hookups site: 3 nights: $113
• Gas: $61
• Groceries: No change from what we'd spend if at home.
• Wine tasting: $16 (One winery was free, the others were $5/$6/$5 each)
• Dinner at San Luis Obispo Farmers Market: $13
• Dinner at Pismo Fish and Chips: $25
• Ice for cooler ($2), Tomasco's Salt Water Taffy ($4), Lopez Lake day pass ($10), tokens for showers at campground ($1), Marie Callendar pie for camping club potluck dinner ($14): $31
• Running along the beach, bird watching, biking and hiking: Free!
• TOTAL: $259 (under budget by $41)

Petaluma (7 days)

• Petaluma KOA for 7 days with full hookups: $439
• Gas: $146 (Including toll fees, plus additional sightseeing miles)
• Groceries: No change from what we'd spend if at home. 
• Wine tasting: $49 (Purchased wine tasting card from Living Social that gave us access to free tastings at 30 Sonoma County wineries)
• Dinner at The Sunflower Cafe: $15 (Purchased half price Groupon dining voucher at home)
• Breakfast at Schellville Grill: $25 (Purchased half price Groupon dining voucher at home)
• Cheese tasting: Free!
• Cheese purchases at Marin French Cheese ($7), Sonoma Cheese Factory ($6), Vella Cheese ($8), Nacasio Cheese Company ($10): $31
• Ice for cooler ($7)
• Admission to Pt. Reyes National Seashore (Free!), Mission Francisco de Solano ($6), Armstrong Redwood State Reserve (Free!), Jack London State Historic Park ($10): $16
• Hiking, biking, walking along the beach: Free!
• TOTAL: $728 (over budget by $28)

Grand Total for 10 days: $987 (under budget by $13)

Here are some of the sights we've enjoyed since my last update . . . 

Hiking at Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve.

The Pt. Reyes lighthouse, just as the sun broke through the fog.

Enjoying the spectacular coastal views at Pt. Reyes.

Now onward to Lake Tahoe!

Greetings From The Road!

We're on day six of our 24 day RV Trip, and are loving life on the road so far. We spent the first four days in blissfully cool, Pismo Beach, escaping S. California just as it was getting slammed with the last hot, humid remnants of a tropical storm moving up from the Gulf. Our campsite at Pismo North Beach State Park was gloriously large, and backed up to scenic sand bluffs that opened onto the ocean. We spent most of our downtime sitting in chairs gazing out at the dunes, and at a grove of trees which hawks and turkey vultures frequented. Yes, I did say turkey vultures! In fact, we spotted several of them resting in a tree at the edge of our campsite one morning, wings spread open wide in order to soak up the sun. Turkey vulture sunbathers - it was a first for us for sure.

We also enjoyed hiking at Lopez Lake, biking into downtown Pismo to enjoy clam chowder, fish and chips, and salt water taffy tasting, biking, the famous San Luis Obispo Farmers Market, and wine tasting in nearby Edna Valley.

Enjoying some wonderful wines at Tolosa Winery in Edna Valley on leg one of our four leg, 24 day RV trip.

We moved onto Petaluma next, where we are currently, spending our first full day here hiking in Point Reyes National Seashore. Most memorable sighting other than the to-die-for coastal views? Banana slugs the size of my husband's fist!

Seaside at Point Reyes National Seashore, midway though the 8 mile Bear Valley trail hike. Lunch was, you guessed it, PB&J!

Banana Slug!

Today, day two here in Petaluma, day six overall, we visited Mission San Francisco Solano in downtown Sonoma, famous for being the last and most northern, geographically speaking, of California's 21 missions. After visiting the mission we spent the remainder of the afternoon dropping into as many cheese shops and wineries as we could, both of which abound in this region.

Mission San Francisco Solano

Tomorrow we're off to hike among the redwoods in Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve, then off to hike in the Tule Elk Reserve at Tomales Point the day after that.

Another Great, High Exertion Day

Yesterday was one of those high exertion days that turned out to be absolutely wonderful. It's also a model for how I want to live the majority of our early retirement days, particularly given that my personal creeds for many years now have been the following:

• Just Do It!
• Happiest when in physical motion!

                       and . . .

• You are only old when you decide to be!

Because we are currently on a quest to build up our bicycling mileage in preparation for entering some long distance events next year, we set a goal of 42 miles for yesterday's ride, which was up six miles from the prior week. We were shooting to achieve a 4 minute per mile pace, meaning we'd need to cover roughly 15 miles an hour. We headed out at 7:00 AM, and were on Main Street in Huntington Beach by 8:30 AM, 21 miles later and exactly on schedule. We parked and locked the bikes and headed to our favorite breakfast spot, No Ka Oi, for yummy and well-earned macadamia nut pancakes (me!) and Hawaiian french toast (hubby!).


Tummies full, we walked back to our bikes and took off for the return ride. I felt great as we started off, and was actually riding faster than 4 minutes per mile for most of the return trip, but started to lose my edge at about mile 38, gradually slowing down about 15 seconds each subsequent mile. I was feeling increasingly depleted, as was my saddle (!), but I knew I was close to the end so I mentally shut down my brain and just focused on getting it done. When I hit the return 21 mile mark, I looked down at my watch and saw 1:24:42 displayed - just 42 seconds off our return goal.


Feeling simultaneously drained and exhilarated, we returned home, unpacked, showered, and sat down to watch Act of Valor, a griping 2012 movie that utilizes real life Navy Seals. The overall movie plot line is fictionalized, but many of the scenes depicted within the plot line are taken from actual Navy Seal rescue missions. Either way, we were thoroughly engrossed from beginning to end.


We finished our day at an outdoor Shakespeare Festival performance of The Merchant of Venice, enjoying a picnic dinner brought from home. This was my first-ever Shakespeare play, and although I understood only about half the plot line due to the Olde English dialogue, what I did understand was wickedly funny, and I'm now inspired to take a class in order to learn more about this brilliant, ahead-of-his-time playwright.


When we got home, I headed directly to bed, and slept like a log for nine hours straight - another benefit of our high exertion day!


Here are the budget numbers for our picture perfect early retirement day:

• 42 mile bicycle ride to Huntington Beach and back - Free!
• Breakfast at No Ka Oi in Huntington Beach - $16.55
• RedBox rental fee for Act of Valor - $1.29
• Discounted GoldStar tickets to The Merchant of Venice - $20.00
• Picnic dinner - Free! (Same cost as eating at home)
• TOTAL: $36.55

A good reminder that living big doesn't necessitate spending big.

July Bucket List/June Wrap Up

June Bucket List Wrap Up

1. Pick another running event for this year, preferably a club event so I can share training for it and running it with my fellow club members. Revised, then achieved! After participating in dozens of running races over the last two decades, including two marathons, I found I was struggling to find a race that sounded excited. I also got sidetracked by several very intriguing bicycling events I discovered. So, instead of signing up for a running event, my husband and I have earmarked two races to do in 2013, the Solvang Century/Half Century in March, and the Bike the Coast Century in November. We're already up to 36 miles on our weekly bicycle conditioning ride, so I'm feeling stoked about both events. Plus, each is near campgrounds we enjoy, meaning we can turn both events into mini-vacations.
2. Overcome my fear and actually move up to and begin attending Intermediate Spanish and Conversational Spanish classes held through the ongoing learning program I'm enrolled it at our local university. (I've skipped them the last couple of weeks out of fear that I'll feel out of my element.) Achieved! And the folks in each couldn't have been nicer or more tolerant of my fledgling speaking skills.
3. Plan ahead for this summer's Concert in the Park series so I have both dinner and bicycles ready to go ahead of time, as opposed to not planning ahead and, oops, driving there and buying non-economical, prepared meals instead. Achieved!
4. Do detailed planning for our 25-day July RV trip so we have lots and lots of well thought out options to choose from each day. Not doing this too often results in "buying" our daily recreation, always more expensive and rarely as satisfying. Achieved! From recommended hiking trails to best-of-the-best Happy Hour recommendations, we are good to go!
5. Spend just a minute or two a day to consciously planning what we will do each evening in order to avoid the TV being turned on simply out of habit. It's fine if we plan ahead to watch a particular show. It's not OK if we watch it simply out of laziness. Achieved! A big assist on this was starting a needlepoint project that keeps me nicely occupied most evenings.

July Bucket List

1. Spend 15 - 30 minutes a day reviewing my Spanish.
2. Spend 15 minutes a day practicing the recorder (think of a flute, but made of plastic and much less sophisticated!)
3. Stay off the computer, other than a quick check of my calendar, tasks and e-mail, until my morning workout has been completed.

That's it for July . . . we're going to be gone for much of it in our RV, so I'm limited in what I can achieve. I'm sure my August bucket list will be overflowing as a result!

Homefront Preparations For First "Big" RV Trip

We're actively working out the final details for our upcoming 24 day RV trip to Pismo Beach/Sonoma Wine Country/Lake Tahoe/Mammoth Lakes, and things are falling into place nicely.


One of our biggest "To Do's" was to track down the license plate for our new trailer, which mysteriously never arrived. Best guess, according to the trailer dealership, is that the plates were accidentally sent to the Sacramento DMV  rather than to us, where they would have been promptly shredded upon arrival. The work around at this point was to go to either the DMV or our local AAA club to get a replacement. I will admit I was not a happy camper about having the buck dropped in our laps on this, but much to my pleasant surprise, we were able to get the whole thing resolved very easily, and at no cost, at our local AAA. We simply presented the title confirming our ownership, filled out a simple form, and within minutes had our new plate, stickers and proof of registration in hand. 


Under the category of "One Thing Always Leads to Another," we had recently discovered that two bikes would no longer fit on our current bike rack because of the way the bike receiver was positioned on the back of our new trailer. We found a new rack that worked on the new trailer, and $240 later we were good to go, but I'm still feeling a wee bit frustrated about having to spend money to replace a perfectly good bike rack. Oh well - on the positive side, we are now completely done outfitting our new trailer and look forward to simply being able to use and enjoy it for a good long time to come.


We made a list of the things we needed to account for during our absence, and came up with the following:

• Bill payment maintenance
• Mail maintenance
• Home and yard maintenance
• Vehicle maintenance
• Dog maintenance

Thanks to the rapid adoption of online billing, the majority of our bills now arrive electronically. One of the last holdouts had been our city trash and water bill, but, hooray, they finally went to e-billing just this last month. We'll be bringing our laptop with us, staying primarily at RV parks with WiFi, which will allow us to transact necessary life business while on the road.


Our mail will be collected and held for us by our local post office.

Preparing our home primarily involves clearing out the refrigerator, disconnecting appliances, turning off the indoor water valves to our washer and toilets, and leaving out some extra back up lights in the event the ones we traditionally leave on burn out while our home is being looked after by our neighbors. They'll also be starting our left-at-home vehicle a couple of times to keep the battery charged while we are away. 

Yard maintenance is pretty much zip. We have a gardening service for mowing and trimming, and our sprinklers are on automated timers. Our yard will likely develop some brown spots in the absence of my husband's daily hand watering attention, but we know the green will resurface quickly once we return home and the hand watering resumes. 

Dog maintenance involves transporting our dog Lady, over to my sister-in-law's home. She loves Lady like her own, and Lady is very comfortable being at her home when we are not around. (Before you ask, our Lady is not a hiking dog, trust me, we've tried. Taking her with us would therefore require leaving her behind in our trailer most days. In our hearts we believe she's happier staying with my sister in law in order to have constant companionship.)

The remainder of our preparations have involved detailing out our daily travel itinerary, the part I enjoy the most. We have a wonderful array of activities planned involving biking, hiking, kayaking and wine tasting, along with a list of interesting historical spots to visit. Preparing in advance has given me time to locate some terrific deals, such as a $49 wine tasting card I just purchased at LivingSocial.com that affords us free wine tasting privileges at over 30 Sonoma-area wineries during the seven days we'll be there.

Our travel budget for this 24 day trip is $2,400, or $100 per day. Included in the $100 per day amount are our nightly RV lodging fees, vehicle gas costs,  entertainment and all miscellaneous spend. It does not include the cost of groceries though. Groceries purchased and prepared in our RV while on the road will continue to be covered by our weekly Grocery fund, not our Travel fund.

We expect to live big on our $100 daily allotment, particularly since our favorite activity, hiking, is completely free other than the occasional trail head parking fee. We look forward to sharing our results here as we move along  . . . literally!