Soba Noodles & Green Beans: Anatomy of a meal.

 

 

 

In answer to the question you're now asking yourself: Yes, this is how long each bite takes.

Some pictures from Mammoth Lakes Ca

This last weekend we made another trip to Mammoth Lakes California, and this time we took some pictures of our new community. But first, here's a picture of why it takes us so long to get anywhere these days (literally, a potty break...) Tioga Pass finally opened for the first time this year on Saturday, June 17, which was the day we drove through. Here's a quick shot of the Gavito boy stretching his child-car-seat legs with mom while dad waited to pay the toll.
Yosemite was stunning, with all the rivers running full and heavy. Tuolomne meadows was more like a marsh, and Tioga Pass still had 6 to 10 foot snow drifts in places. The nice thing about driving through Yosemite to Mammoth Lakes is that it only takes about 5 hours from the Bay Area, versus about 6+ when going over the year-round passes of Lake Tahoe.
Here's just a couple of shots at Tenya Lake on the way over the pass.

We got to Lee Vining, just on the other side of Tioga Pass, and stopped for dinner at an outdoor cafe where there was live music. Gavin loves live music, and loves to dance!

He was fascinated.

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On Sunday, Dad got to go skiing for a couple of hours for Father's Day.


We all took the gondola up to the top of the mountain.
This was Gavin's first Gondola ride.

And here we are on top of the Mountain at about 11,000 feet before dad skiied down and Mom and Gavin rode the gondola back down. We're standing in the way, but Yosemite's Half Dome is visible about 40-50 miles away from the top of Mammoth Mtn.

The local park where Gavin is getting to know the swings (and the slides).

Going for a hike. It is so easy to, within two minutes out of town, be up some fire road and able to just start walking up a hill for a late afternoon hike

The crazy thing about Mammoth, and the Eastern Sierras in general, is that the mountains meet high desert. The town of Mammoth, at 8000 foot elevation, got over 600 inches of snow this last winter. But literally less than five miles away, at about 6500 foot elevation, you are suddenly in the desert.
Mammoth is an old (but still active, so they say) volcano. Consequently, there are small earthquakes all the time (which relieves the pressure and keeps the area safe - - it's when they're infrequent, like San Francisco, that earthquakes are unpredictable, big and dangerous) and natural hot springs everywhere! While dad had to work on Monday, Gavito and Mom went for a soak out in the middle of the desert.

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Well sheesh! - Is that all the pictures we took?! We got home late Tuesday night all safe and sound, although we sure did throw Gavin's sleeping schedule off. We were looking at houses to rent and think we found a good one. We're still shooting for a mid-July move date, and we'll keep you posted. But where ever we end up living, we will have a guest bedroom. Y'awl better be planning on coming to visit regularly!!!!