Farrah and I are going to be leaving the Tahoe area today. It will be difficult to leave the perfect weather and beautiful vistas but I’m ready to move on.  We’ll be driving south down highway 395 and we’ll stay at Mono Lake in California for a day or so before heading up Tioga Pass to Tuolumne Meadows and Yosemite.   I’m excited to experience the beauty and grandeur that I’ve only gazed upon in photographs and films.  We’re planning on a few days of backpacking and some climbing.  I’ll be turning 33 years old while we’re there and I can’t think of a better place for a birthday.  I am a fortunate soul.

When we’ve had our fill of Yosemite (and the crowds that coincide with such places) we’re going to head to Bishop, California in the Eastern Sierras for about three weeks.  Bishop is a place that has a lot to offer under the surface.  Sitting at the base of the jagged edged snow capped Sierra mountains one can peer out across the valley and see the sparsely treed, less precipitous White Mountain range.  The valley floor is split in places and the volcanic tableland of a long ago geologic era has spilled forth leaving dark gashes in the earth sprinkled with giant boulders.  Higher up against the Sierras one is filled with a feeling of awe as they traverse the many granite domes and boulders.   You can feel a resonant energy about the place.  Beautiful.  I can already feel my muscles, sore from climbing, soaking in desert hot springs under the stars as the cool desert winds blow to the South on their way to the Mojave Desert and beyond.