Backpacking Mineral King/Whitney

June 27-July 4, 2008
Leaving from Mineral King, we did a beautiful 7 day hike through Sequoia Kings Canyon and Inyo National Park. We traversed through the high sierras down to the Kern River, trout fishing, hot tubbing and summited Mt. Whitney. We did 107 miles, with 32,000 feet of elevation change. Needless to say, Camille was hurting the first three days. However, day four was our "rest day" and we didn't have to carry our packs (although we did hike Whitney that day), so from then on Camille felt much better, and Ryan, as usual, was full of energy the entire trip.

Lunch Break

First day, Franklin Lakes

First night, Forester Lake

Amazing personal hot tub right on the Kern River. Ryan caught some big trout and we had a few great dinners!!

River Crossing, there was a lot of water on the entire trip, we had some shoeless crossings, balancing on logs to cross, and rock-hop crossings, but managed to avoid any serious spills.

The top of Mt. Whitney, 14,492 feet, day 4 (halfway through the trip)

Yep, those are mosquitos. Some places were worse than others, and a few nights they were like clouds in the air...hungry little buggers.

Winter fun

Definitely better together...

Snowboarding with Garth and Holly, some of our fun winter trips!

Our little cabin, we all rented it for two nights, us and all the spiders...

Well, we have taken quite a break as we have settled into our house, but it's been quite peaceful around here lately. Ryan's working at RICK and Camille is substituting and going to school. We are enjoying the country life, flowers and insects and all! Hopefully we will keep this a bit more updated in the next few months!


Mom and Dad Lucio enjoying some amazing cake made by Terra!

A backyard BBQ at our house for Easter and for Mom and Dad's birthdays in March!

Hillbilly Housewarming Ho-Down

Our Kitchen

Our little fireplace, our sole source of heating our house... it really cranks up the heat though, so much that it is unbearable at times!

The BB Gun shooting contest

Apple Dunking Contest, C and J

Go T!! You can even see our faces underwater

He Haw!! You can't see it but R has an awesome mullet going on!!


Some pics of our new place and our housewarming party! It was awesome, complete with a BB Gun shooting contest, apple dunking, a game called corn hole, and another called "cinnamon bear spitting contest" (complements of M who saved the day when there were no watermelons with seeds to be found anywhere!)

The return north

Here's a few pics from our return up north.

Just a nice little valley. I'm afraid that most of our pictures so far have misrepresented the vast majority of Baja, which is hot, flat and covered in cactus. A little like this.

Back to misrepresenting. We drove back up entirely along Hwy. 1, and hit a few spots along the way that we had missed on the way down by trying to stay along the surf spots on the Pacific coast. This is near Mulege, which is on the Gulf of California side, has no waves, good fishing, and quite a few empty white sand beaches with warm water. We enjoyed everything except trying to sleep at night, which was near impossible in the back of our truck due to the heat and humidity.

Another shot Camille took during the drive up. It was hot, but thankfully our truck performed admirably. Not even a flat tire.

Camille took eight pictures of this boat, (she likes bright colors), so I figured it would be a bit of a travesty to not show one of them. Plus, it really is a nice photo.

Taqueria. Good food and a host of flies. What more do you really need?

Our last night in Baja, we spent at a beach just a little south of Ensenada. However, this particular beach is a little different, as natural hot sulfur water comes up through the sand at low tide. You just mosey out, dig yourself a hole on the beach and have an instant hot tub. If you dig too deep the water will literally scald you, but a nice medium depth tub is fantastic. And since the weather is so much more temperate on the Pacific side, you can actually be comfortable in hot water.

Final picture. Here we are in the tubs, the night before our return to the states. Hope you enjoyed the travels so far, and we'll keep you updated on our future plans. Who knows, maybe we can make a career out of this...

San Jose Del Cabo

Here are a few pictures from our time spent in San Jose Del Cabo. We spent almost a week living in the driveway of our friends Jeremiah and Shelly. We really can't thank them enough, as they were so gracious, particularly as they are in the process of beginning to build their own home while living in a trailer and raising two young boys. We feel so fortunate to have such incredible friends.

This picture is out of order, as it is of the wave we surfed during our camping trip with Jeremiah and Shelly. I didn't get it loaded right, though, so you get to see it now. The surf was definitely pretty fun, and bigger than anything else we got on the trip. Although there was a longer right point just around the corner, we did most of our surfing on the peak as we were the only people to surf it, and it was directly in front of the place we were camping.

The older son, Owen. He is two and a half years old, and already exhibiting all the traits of a good engineer. Likes his trucks and "dumpy," organizes all his toys in neat rows, and thanks to a little time in the backyard with yours truly, now enjoys spanning small dirt ravines with small wooden bridges.

And then there's Elias. 9 months old, and this picture really does a fairly good job of capturing his biggest trait, constant movement. When he's not trying to get away, he's looking to get a bit of whatever you might be eating. And the impressive part is that we couldn't find anything he wouldn't eat. He'd even suck on straight limes, and managed a pretty good job of finishing off a whole calzone by himself, (sans cheese), complete with onions, mushrooms and black olives.

Here's a little place in Cabo Jeremiah and Shelly turned us on to. Killer tacos and quesadillas, eight types of salsa, and flan for dessert.

Over the weekend we headed out on the east cape near Cabo to see if we could find a little surf. It was incredibly hot and humid, so shade and beer were in demand. We came prepared for both. Here's Elias, proving once again that if something is going into your mouth, he wants a piece of it too. He even has the fridge and cooler dialed in. As soon as they open he makes a beeline over to see what might come out.

Elias making his "ooh" face. That's the one that really shows how much he wants something.

Here's Owen. I really have to say how good both of these kids are, and how encouraged we were to see Jeremiah and Shelly and their obvious parenting skills. We took notes.

Here's the whole family, cooking dinner on the beach. Although Jeremiah and I tried our best to spear some dinner as well, it always seemed like the water was perfectly clear when we were out surfing, but all clouded up and messing when we were out swimming around. Oh well, maybe next time. I probably would have shot something poisonous anyway.

A friendly family of burros that new how to work the handout wagon. They were well fed, which judging by their amiable disposition, was probably more a result of generous campers than native food sources. Also, it took some serious convincing to get that one from the back of the truck.

South to Scorpion Bay

Driving the dirt roads in Baja, trailing Christian and Jasmine. No more washboards for me for a while.

Sunset at Punta San Antonio.

Driving back to Hwy. 1 shortly after realizing we didn't know where we were, and shortly before coming back out to where we wanted to be.

Parked at Punta Abreojos with Christian and Jasmine. Enjoying the sunset and airing out the laundry.

C enjoying the beginning of what looks to be another 200 yard wave at Scorpion Bay. Nothing close to the epic size we heard so many stories about, but definitely good, clean longboarding waves.

Check that out, showboating on a knee-high wave. Pathetic.

And here it is, the morning surf check. Sit up, see if it's worth it to get out of bed, and either surf of find something for breakfast. That was a tough couple of days.

Christian, Jasmine, C and myself shortly before we parted ways. Christian and Jasmine headed back north to meet some friends, and C and I continued on to Cabo. We really did enjoy our time with these two.