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A Mammoth Recap

7/30/2014

Migration
Every summer for the past few years, we leave the South and head West to Mammoth Lakes, California. A few weeks ago found us again making our annual pilgrimage.

There were a few hiccups along the way but all in all, it was an amazing trip and far too short.

I was literally just getting acclimated as we had to pack up and say goodbye.

Local Favs

Over the years, there've been several establishments that we keep going back to. There's the local bookstore, The Booky Joint, where we always end up at some point. It was one of my first stops. I needed to find a book on good routes for road biking. Mountain biking, I knew where to go, but I was more than a little intimidated as to where to give my new road bike a spin.

I did find a great book on this, but as things unfolded, I just didn't have the time to get but one ride in. It was a bummer, because the roads were calling me everyday.

The next stop was over to Mammoth Brewery. They'd moved from the tucked away little garage they were in for years to take over another one of our old haunts, the now defunct Whiskey Creek.

I ordered myself a flight of their seasonals. I had my growler in the car, but it never came out. As delicious as their beers are, I had decided to try to lose some girth around my midsection and having whole 32 ounces of fresh suds at my fingertips all to myself certainly wasn't going to help.

But a little sampling of their new stock; well that's another story.

Growing, Growing, Grown.....Groan

We have been taking pictures of Skye at this same location every time we've been up to Mammoth, since before the Village was completed.

Unfortunately, I can't find the oldest of these; but I did manage to get one from a few years back. In the older ones, there wasn't even a building in the background; just a construction site.

New Experiences

Every visit to Mammoth brings with it new experiences or new twists on the familiar.

This year would be the first where one of us, (Cindy) would take advantage of Mammoth's airport, which somewhat recently began offering commercial flights.

I've driven by the airstrip countless times but I've never actually been.

It is one of the smallest airports I've ever been to.

I liked it.

New Twists

I have seen bears in Mammoth before. I have never had them as up close and personal as on this trip.

Caught up in bounty of the Santa Monica farmer's market, I ended up buying more than enough "local" fresh food. Amongst the haul were a couple of bison steaks and a bagful of kabobs.

I decided to cook them up the night of Cindy's return. They had been marinating since the morning before and needed to be cooked before they went bad.

I got the fire going shortly after picking her up from the airport but it would be some time before it would be ready to cook on, not to mention, I had some corn on the cob lined up for Skye as well as a bowl full of stir-fry vegetables that would proceed the meat cooking element of the evening.

Finally, just a bit after nine, the fire was ready for bison.

Just barely...

The pine wood that they sold for firewood at the campsite was perfect for a quick not so hot blaze, but not so great if you wanted a hotter more intense fire.

The meat took awhile to cook.

We would eventually be eating perfectly cooked buffalo.

And one of the local bears wanted some.

He wandered up to our camp, just on the other side of our car.

I chased him off; a little stomping and yelling and pointing of a flashlight.

He lingered.

I ran at him and he took off.

But returned within the hour.

This time he was even closer.

So I chased him off again.

And then again..

Eventually he turned tail in a full gallop down the road and that was the last we saw of him.

Glamping

On this particular journey, I would spend several hours setting up our new tent/cabin.

It was a chore, but well worth it.

And deserved its own blog post.

Running Man

Of all the things I planned on doing in Mammoth, i only ended up doing two of them as much as I had imagined:
running and jiujitsu. The most epic of my runs was somewhat of an accident. An adventure that went a little side-ways but that could have been much, much worse.

I started off on what I had planned to be a moderate trail run/hike; to take an hour, maybe an hour and a half and cover around 5 miles.

45 minutes into it and I was feeling good and striding downhill at a lovely clip.

I sort of let myself go, ignoring the basic rule of what goes up must go down and its converse.

Just under 3 hours and 11 miles of up and down and up and down again, I got back to the trail-head, very dehydrated and exhausted.

Amazingly the next day, I didn't feel so bad.

Going, Going, Gone
On the morning we were set to leave, I made my way up to a hill just before sunrise. It was a gorgeous day. Perfect temperature. I wish I had time for one last jog, but we had to finish packing and get on the road.

I got some last pics to remember when I'm back in the lowlands, until I can return.

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WasSUP!!!

7/24/2014

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Love at First Try

I've been intrigued by Stand Up Paddle boards for years now. But never having been very good at skateboarding and never having been on a surf board, I was always a little intimidated.

Finally, last year I gave it a go. We were up in Mammoth at Skye's Shakespeare camp and on one of our free afternoons we went up to Lake Mary and rented some boards.

We struggled and I feel in a few times, mostly while goofing around but we both feel in love with it.

I love being around water, but I'm not into fishing, rafting or boating so much.

SUP seemed like a perfect match.

Skye was up at her cousin's and did went out with them. They owned a couple inflatables.

She said it was awesome and the inflatables were just as easy as the standard ones.

I decided to get her one for her birthday and pick one up for myself as well. I could call it a reward for the job I just finished in NOLA or maybe Father's Day or just that it would be better to have two boards than just one.

Resisting Temptation

When we were staying down in LA, the weather was absolutely perfect and the Pacific Ocean was living up to its name as far as being calm and peaceful.

When I jogged along the beach and saw people gliding along on their SUPs, I was super envious and was seriously considering grabbing ours and getting out there.

I'm glad I didn't for a lot of reasons.

Our time in LA was extremely limited. In fact there are several things we didn't get done that I wanted to and I don't know when we'll be back.

Dealing with getting properly cleaned off and folded back up while staying in a hotel could have turned into a real headache.

But most importantly, I think had I tried to get up in the ocean, even when it was relatively calm, I could have ended up getting a bit frustrated and regretting buying them in the first place. I might have been fine, but knowing how unsteady I felt at first on a glass-smooth lake with no waves or currents, I thing it could have been not so much fun.

So Many Possibilities

Skye doesn't even have her new puppy yet and she's already figuring out how to train him to be up on the SUP.

I'm hoping to get my yoga skills back so that I could do SUP yoga. I think that would be a blast.

Skye's already a few steps ahead of me on that one.

Pump You Up
The first time we went to try out our new boards, it was just Cindy and me. I started out by setting up Skye's board. After finally getting the fins in, it took around five minutes just to get the pump and the valve on the board hooked up. Then after pumping for what seemed like an eternity it seemed like the gauge on the pump was broken.

We got the pump out for my board and of course they were totally different and completely incompatible. So I just pumped to a point that I thought was enough.

That's about when it started to rain. A cold and windy rain with thunder booming ominously. We decided it was not the best day for our maiden voyage.

The next day I went up early and gave my board a try.
It seemed like the valve on my pump was broken as well until I got up to around 7lbs of pressure and then the needle began to twitch. I had to keep see-sawing away until I got up to around 11 psi. My arms were burning and I manage to break off a plastic tab on the pump that locked it in place.

But still I did manage to get out and cruise around the lake for around an hour. Luckily there were some folk onshore who had a bit more experience on SUPs than I and were kind enough to yell out advise. Slightly embarrassing but I did end up getting up on the board without falling in.

Until I was out in the middle and caught hit by the wake of a passing motorboat. That slight ripple was enough to upend me and send me into the icy alpine waters. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, warm and sunny so it was bracing yet refreshing.

Chilling Up at 9000 feet

We ended up out on Lake Mary a few more times and we saw improvement with each trip out. Being out on the water has always given me a sense of calm and peacefulness.

Our time up in the High Sierra's is coming to an end.

We'll be at sea level and in an urban environment the next time we are up and paddling. Looking forward to doing some SUP in NOLA.

I've heard Bayou St. John is a good place to go as well Lake Pontchartrain.

I sure will miss Mammoth though.

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Training Camp

7/18/2014

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A Working Vacation

For the past three years, Skye has been attending a Shakespeare camp up in Mammoth Lakes, California, one of my favorite places in the country. It's been a great excuse to escape the hot and sticky summers of the Georgia and Louisiana.

I invariably have more on my plate than I could possibly accomplish and this year is no exception.

I have the personal trainer certification course that I started a few years ago that I am determined to finish by the end of this month, I am working on my circus skills for Burning Man, as well as giving our "Safari-style" tent a test-drive and as one might imagine I am trying to get back in shape. I am, after all running an ultra-marathon at Burning Man in just a few weeks.

All in a Week's Work

I drove up on Sunday and felt the effects of altitude as I rode my bike up from our camp-site to the hotel we had booked for the evening (Our tent was supposed to take 2 people 3-4 hours to set-up, so we decided to not attempt the drive up and setting the tent up on the same day).

Getting Skye checked in, checking out of the hotel, and setting up the safari-tent (by my-self) ended up taking longer than expected. I had planned on sneaking in a run or a bike ride, but pretty much just managed to play around with my Indian clubs and a good amount of juggling practice.

Since then I've managed a few runs. The first time out, I ended up stumbling upon a local sheep herd, really close to our camp.

A Boy and his Toys

I ended up "acquiring" yet another bicycle, a beautiful mountain bike, which means now I have to fit in time both for the road and the mountains, but given Mammoth Lakes trails, I found it too hard to resist.

Keep in mind, Skye and I have our inflatable Stand Up Paddle boards to get up on and I'm trying to not get too far away from my BJJ training.

My polymath tendency was definitely at play up here in the land where it can be hard to breath.

Enough's Enough Already

I signed up at the local gym for couple of weeks, because that's where they have jiujitsu classes as well as yoga, and ended up throwing in a swim workout for good measure.

Throw Down Thursday

I got off to a slow start on Thursday, which included finding that our car had a dead battery.

But I made up for it.

We had planned to take the SUPs out for their virgin voyage on Wednesday, but Mother Nature had other plans.

So on Thursday I drove up to Mary's Lake at noon and got out on the lake with the sun high in sky and ended up with a good hour paddling around. Quick note, this was my second time out on a paddle board so there was a plenty steep learning curve.

Speaking of Steep and Learning Curves

I decided to break out the road bike today.

I would meet the gang up at Lake Mary's where they were paddle-boarding and kayaking.

It was my third time on my road bike and the ride was 5.5 miles all uphill, which really doesn't sound too bad except for my lack of time on the bike, 7500ft elevation and a serious headwind I was riding into.

I made it up in under an hour without puking. Both of which I was happy about.

I would round out the evening with an hour and half Brazilian Jiujitsu class, which had me getting choked out at one point. The guy I was rolling with had good technique but at a regular elevation, I would have never tapped out. It's sort of an excuse, but it's also a definite reality.

I was sucking wind in the warm up and training drills, so by the time we were rolling, it was all I could do to keep breathing.

I still had a great time.

A Time to Weight

I haven't lifted weights regularly in probably 15 years. I've done a lot of other sorts of training, of course. But as far as lifting goes, its been a while.

Today I started to re-introduce iron into my work-out regime.

I remembered my days of being a gym rat down at Gold's Gym in Venice as well as my amply stocked home gym.

It felt good.

But still, the elevation as well as not having done it for so long had me light headed and feeling a bit intimated and insecure. I will get it back. I just need to be realistic with my goals which is one of the most difficult things for me to do.

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Not Another Road Trip

7/15/2014

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Hello Again, Goodbye NOLA

As we drove across Lake Pontchartrain, it seemed like I had been on the bridge yesterday. I had only been away from the Big Easy for less than two weeks, so it wasn't that strange of a feeling.

But like the saying goes, "No rest for the weary". We had enough time to get Cindy sort of settled in, get the aprtment organized, and just like that we were repacking the car after having a "leisurely" brunch.

We were going to try to take it easy on this trip and make several stops each day to stretch and not kill ourselves. We put a limit to 8 hours of driving each day. That's us taking it easy.

We made it into Texas that night and knew that we would still be Texas the following evening, even though we were taking a route that just barely goes through the Lone Star.

I'm sort of just running through the Texas run because I touched on it in very recent blog post.

So a birthday lunch in Dallas, had a second birthday lunch in Amarillo at Tyler's Barbeque, which was not the best I've had, realize I've had a lot, but it was pretty dang good and really hit the spot, both for its flavor and authenticity.

Spend the evening in Childress, Texas and made it to Albuquerque where a friend was working on a movie there.

Luckily for us she had an early day, which is incredibly rare in our profession. Which meant not only did we get to see a dear friend but there would be yet another "birthday" celebration. I was fulling intent on stretching this out, across as many states as possible as an excuse to see as many friends as I could.

One more day on the road, bedding down in Kingman, Arizona before taking a quick break in Los Angeles.

L.A. Story

We stayed at one of my favorite old school haunts, the Jolly Roger. What it lacks in amenities it makes up in location and memories.

We did a lot of our LA type things; going to some of our favorite restaurants, seeing friends, hitting the farmer's markets.

I managed to squeeze in a long run with my most familiar running route, pier to pier around 5 1/2 miles. I did it the for the first time around 27 years ago, feeling nostalgic.

I hate to cut this blog post short, but I'm running short on time and long on things to do.

We all had a really good LA visit.

All the World's a Stage

Skye hopped a ride to Mammoth with one of her fellow thespians and Cindy had to make an unexpected trip back to Atlanta, which left me with a few hours alone on a drive that is familiar and dear to me.

Every time I turn up 395, I get filled with excitement and anticipation.

Home Sweet Home

Mammoth Lakes is as much as home for me as anywhere else at this point.

Maybe someday I'll be able to spend more time here than away. We'll see.

I've been here for just a couple of days and have had a ton of fun, been productive in a variety of interesting ways and well...

More for another day.

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Real Uh-state

7/12/2014

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The American Dream
Cindy and I bought our first house in 1994 after we'd been together for about 2 years.

I guess we both thought it was more than a fling and decided to take up roots. We bought this little box in Venice and were more than a little nervous.

We did a lot of work on the house and the yard. We loved the neighborhood. But being the film gypsies we still are we were more often than not, away.

And someone else was enjoying our house. Sometimes it was a house-sitting friend. Other times we had short-term renters. But after several years of paying more than we thought we could afford and the house doubling in worth we decided to cash in.

We were going to be in Montreal for the next 8 months, so we sold our little cottage.

We're in a hotel a few blocks further from the beach, so we looked up our Clune abode on Zillow.

Yeah that little box is at 1.8 million right now.

Ooops....

20/20 Hindsight

It's impossible to know what would have happened if we had never sold that house. I can tell you some things that I know wouldn't have happened.

An amazing, life-changing trip through Croatia before it was was fashionable.

Driving across America the days after 9/11.

Beyond those, who knows.

It wasn't the only house we sold that's worth more than a million now.

Our sweet Culver City duplex got torn down and made into a massive 5 bedroom 4 bath house that's on Zillow at 1.25 million.

Selling that allowed us to move into our Don Milagro estate.

The Black Beverly Hills

The Baldwin Hills is the most under-appreciated area in Los Angeles as far as I'm concerned.

We had looked all over Los Angeles for our next house. I had probably seen 200-300 houses in a few short months. When we checked out 4568 Don Milagro we were blown away.

It was 4200 square feet. We'd been living in around 1200, maybe.

It had 180 views of downtown LA and the Hollywood Hills.

The ceilings were in some parts of the house 30', and in our bedroom suite, and it was a suite, the ceilings were around 14'.
It was a palace.

We knew we were stretching. But what the hell you only live once.

We thoroughly utilized the space.

We threw amazing and epic parties.

We had a vertical urban garden complete with a lively flock of chickens.

I taught a home-school eco-class.

We hosted salons.

We had absinthe tasting events.

I moved 100 tons of materials off that hillside and brought 100 tons in. Cindy was not sure of what to do about my obsession.

And a few years ago we gave it back to the bank in a short sale.

Odds and Ends

We also had an amazing house in Corvallis, Oregon.

But we were never there, because nobody makes movies in Oregon.

We bought some slivers of land in Nicaragua in a development that went bottom-up when Ortega rather unexpectedly came back into power after trying unsuccessfully for the last 20 years.

It is with that history that I can even start to talk about and consider, buying property again.

The Big Easy, The ATL, and the High Sierras

The short-sale of our house kind of stung.

Yes we were stretched beyond our means.

Our monthly was un-godly and ridiculous, but we were paying for it by going deeper and deeper into credit debt.

We have weathered the storm, as it were, put our credit back together and with both of us working and Skye being the trooper that she is, we have cobbled together enough money for a down payment on a house somewhere.

Let's Go Shopping

I wasn't in Atlanta much in the last year, however when I was.....

On two occasions, we have headed out when we were both exhausted and not in any condition or state of mind to make big-life decisions, and gone out real estate hunting.

At one point I was out on a run and had a moment of brilliance that we should buy a church.

As it turned out it had a quarter million dollars in repairs just to get it to a starting point.

Still, we looked at houses, condos, lofts, farms, and all sorts of domiciles in between.

From Another Time

Cindy and I both have an affinity with New Orleans.

The city made an impression on me when I was 15 when my parents took us on a road trip of the South.

New Orleans made sense to me then and it has every time I've passed through since then.

But at the end of the day it is a city that is more below sea-elevation than not and subject to the whims of Mother Nature, not to mention the politics of Bobby J and others.

Love Affair from Afar

We have been talking about buying in Mammoth for over 20 years now.

We have pictures of Skye in the Village before it was the Village that it is now.

We have seen the ups and the downs.

We will be setting up camp there tomorrow.

The place is in my veins for some strange reason. But once again the timing isn't right and so it looks like we will be sitting tight with our bags of cash and missing out on that home-owning tax break and trying to figure things out in a topsy turvey world.

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Birthday Blahg

7/8/2014

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Juggling Issues

It's been just a little over two weeks since I finished my last job. I spent the first week recovering mentally as well as physically, as well as unpacking, reconnecting with the family, seeing friends and basically trying to reintegrate into my life.

The following week, which was last week, i continued to unpack and then repack, preparing for our upcoming adventures.

I managed to misplace one of my juggling knives and find it the next day, only to misplace one of my juggling clubs.

While this certainly is a "first-world" problem and I definitely can't argue this; it becomes somewhat relevant because I am hoping to be able to perform while at Burning Man and I am more than a little rusty.

I was never a great juggler.
I was better when I was a clown at children's parties when I was 19, but I figured it would come back to me relatively quickly and it has. I just never juggled anything on fire, or knives - most parents would've frowned on that.

That was then, and this is now....

On the Road Again

Saturday found us finishing up packing while loading up the car and getting the apartment in order. It would be a month or more until we would be there again.
Speaking of which, I was hoping that I had left our apartment in NOLA in decent shape. I was in a burnt-out daze when I left there, so hopefully the fridge wasn't full of rotting food and the sink overflowing with dirty dishes.

Cindy was figuring out what she would need for a cross-country road trip, a couple of days in LA, camping for a week in Mammoth as well as what she could drop off in NOLA for a job she would be on until November.

Skye was figuring out what she might need in regards to a costume for her Shakespeare camp as well as packing for being away for a month.

I was treating the camping portion of the trip as a test run for my new camp set-up at Burning Man as well as a training camp for the Ultra-marathon at Burning Man and then the 24-hour obstacle course race I am planning on doing in November.

We're carrying our usual assortment of bicycles, camping supplies and circus toys as well as couple of inflatable stand-up paddle boards.

We finally got out and down to our home-way-from-home down in New Orleans, which was clean but somewhat full of boxes of "stuff" I hadn't had a chance to go through.

Which is one of the reasons we didn't get on the road until the afternoon.

We had decided to "take it easy" on this trans-continental crossing and not drive into the double-digit hours, keeping it to 6-8 hours of driving a day.

Birthday Celebration

Sunday got us to Marshall, Texas.

I got up early to go for a run.

Usually I like to have a pretty good idea where I'm going. I decided to just run.

I ended up mostly running alongside the highway with trucks passing me at 70 MPH and the couple of times I was able to find smaller country roads, I was reminded of the way people out in rural America keep trespassers off their land.

Dogs.

It was a more than a little unnerving holding my ground as a massive pit-bull mix came roaring towards me, but he stopped more or less at the property line. On my way back down the same road he had wandered into the middle of the street, but was much more cordial, not barking, barely taking the time to look up at me.

Technological Advances

When we left Marshall, we weren't sure where we were going to end up. We were thinking Amarillo, but we also considered taking it easier.

As Cindy sped down the Interstate, I cruised the Internet and realized that even if we did make it to Amarillo, I would do much better with dining options in Dallas.

More researching on the Internet.

I found Stampede 66 which served "Modern Texas Cuisine"

When in Texas.....

It was perfectly fine.

Nothing spectacular but we certainly could have done much worse. I think that I probably should have ordered something more adventurous than Honey Fried Chicken, but it seemed to be a house specialty so I figured why not.

Again it was perfectly fine.

Between Atlanta with its ever-growing foodie scene and New Orleans which has been a culinary destination for decades, I have become spoiled.

I had much lower expectations for what my dinner might be in Childress, Texas.

I was happily surprised with the Thai place Cindy managed to find.

All in all not a bad birthday

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A Mammoth Recap

WasSUP!!!

Training Camp

Not Another Road Trip

Real Uh-state

Birthday Blahg

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