Outside is Still The Best side.

So,
     The kids are doing well. They both graduated their respective swim lesson groups and are happy to be moving on to the next level up. Teresa is still in the 20's as far as how many kindergartners she has to control/ teach. Last week I had planned to do a super late season backpack trip up Mt Langley (9th tallest in CA) but the weather had other ideas. A day before we were supposed to leave we had an insane thunderstorm which resulted in snow in the Sierra. 6 ft mudslides on the highways up to the Sierra and tons of property damage.

Trip Canceled.

Since I already had my bags packed. I rerouted my trip and thought about bringing along Whitney on her first overnight. We went to Little Jimmy trail camp in the San Gabriels.

View to the South from Trailhead. Whitney ready to go.

View to the North (where we were headed.)

Man skills enough to make fire in wet weather with wet wood.

These clouds were blasting through that saddle.

Foggy 2nd morning.

Tired pup.

We made the summit of Mt Islip since we had extra time. Whitney did pretty well, she barked at people but was friendly when they actually wanted to meet her. She slept in the tent no problem. As you can see it was foggy most of the time but really lovely until right when I was packing up to hike out and we had a short downpour that soaked everything before I could throw on my pack cover.

    While I was gone Teresa took the kids to halloween at the zoo.

Aiden wore his Batman Cape. Some kids dressed up.

Teresa handed the camera to the kids and they came up with these shots of the animals.

They had a good time and Teresa purchased the annual passes again so I'm sure we'll be heading back there often.
   

Till next time-

RTSZAW

Hola,
      This past week was full of swim lessons, school, and an eventually good doctors office visit.
On Friday I took Whitney for her first hike. I picked a short easy trail that I had done before down to Switzer falls. She started out a bit unsure about things but soon warmed up to it. By the end of the 4 mile 650ft gain/loss trail she was pretty obviously tired but she is only 4 months old so that isn't surprising. I hadn't hiked with a dog in a long time and she is still a work in progress so I spent most of the hike working with her trying to teach her obvious things like follow the trail, don't jump off cliffs, don't drink the standing water etc...

On the hike back she didn't like the uphill and was really worn out. We got in the car and started driving home. I got about 10 miles from the trailhead and looked down to find my Low Fuel Light on. There was nowhere to turn around so I had to drive another few miles on a mountain road to find a picnic area where I tried to get cell reception.

The empty picnic area had no reception and the cars passing on the road didn't have time to see me so I figured we couldn't stay there. Since we were in the middle of nowhere at least 20 miles from the nearest gas station to the south and much further than that to the north I decided to turn around. We made it about 9 miles before the car sputtered out and I pulled off the road. I remembered a Forest Service fire station at Clear Creek so we walked less than a mile there. They managed to dig up some gasoline for me while I apologized profusely for being the moron who heads out into the mountains without checking his gas tank first. I walked back to the car put the gallon of spare gas in the tank and went to give the exhausted, hot Whitney a drink before we walked back to the fire station. I realized that I had left her dog bowl at the trailhead. I was not having a smart guy day. We walked the gas can back to the fire station then headed down hill away from home to the nearest gas station with the car in Neutral most of the way. We made it to LA and filled up the tank then headed home.
     Once we got home I had a 150lb package waiting for me on the porch. I got out my tools and set out to build a trampoline. People online in the reviews had said that the directions weren't great. They were right. I managed to get it almost all the way built only to realize that I had misplaced the door to the enclosure, so I had to take the thing almost all the way apart then rebuild it. Eventually I got it built and the kids jumped until dark.

That is all for now.

RTSZA