The Great Camping Weekend

Or, more accurately, The Great Camping 24-Hours, but whatever.

Camping with Jeremy this weekend was so, SO nice. Quiet, peaceful, amazing. We attempted to drive up the 2, only to be thwarted by some type of accident blocking both lanes, right at the entrance to the Angeles Forest.

So, a little creative navigating and we found ourselves entering the Forest not through La Cañada, but through the nether-regions of Tujunga. Desolation, desert, and depression....for an hour. Jeremy was getting all disappointed that my California mountains didn't have any pine trees, and that everything in LA was a desert.

Chilao campground did not help. This was our first choice of campgrounds (once we got back on track and on the 2 again), since it was the closest. It has rave reviews, so I figured it'd be great! Not so much. The two best areas of the campground were closed to either protect a native species or for fire danger, so the only area left was the RV area called Little Pines. Little indeed...all the trees were 8 feet max! With almost no privacy, camp sites practically on top of each other, and to top it all off, just about everything was brown and dead, cause of the dry summer. This place might be a beautiful meadow area in the spring, but its awful right now. We didn't even bother getting out of the car.Onward to Buckhorn, 10 miles down the road.

Buckhorn is BEAUTIFUL! Tall tall trees, the camp sites are nicely spaced out, great hiking trail to a waterfall (at least, that's what they say...we only saw a trickle) and a creek running through the main part of the site. The creek was dried up into stagnate pools, but there was still water there, and it attracted all sorts of butterflies and chipmunks and stuff. Here's the view from our chosen site:


And our camp site:


We got there, found a perfect site, set up, and then went exploring. This campground is really well laid out. Lots of pockets of 5 or 6 sites, rather than all 38 being right on top of each other. So we hung out and just relaxed for most of the afternoon, playing cards and talking and stuff. Really nice. I gave Jeremy his birthday gift so he could use it that night:

A Jayne Hat! Made by me, in four days, and with much stress over the keeping of the secret. (My hubby is a hard man to surprise) He was so stoked, and had NO IDEA! Birthday surprise FTW!

We had fun cooking beanie weennies on our fire for dinner (Jeremy's choice), along with some biscuts and cocoa, and left s'mores for breakfast, cause we were so stuffed. Sometimes oldies are the best. Yay campfire cooking!!! I'm totally inspired for next time too...the campfire gourmet is on the case!

Buckhorn campground is totally my new favorite now. Its closed Nov-Apr but I can't wait to bring friends up for a group camping trip when it opens again. Its at about 6300 feet though, so very cold at night, and pitch black. Boy howdy were we thrown by how quiet is was, even with all the people camping and a youth group of about 20 teens screaming and laughing all the time. And dark. We totally failed our night vision check. Pretty stars though. :)

The next morning we took it nice and slow, slept in, and then packed up. We didn't feel like hiking again, so we drove up the road a bit to a picnic spot on the crest of the mountain called Eagle's Roost. Gorgeous view:

Those really blue mountains in the back are the mountains we see from LA, much shorter than the ones we camped on. So amazingly gorgeous. It was a great place to hang out, but eventually, it was time to come back to civilization....and take a nap (Apparently it was colder than we thought at night...we didn't sleep as well as we thought) :) I for one can't wait to go camping again (with a warmer sleeping bag) and I have the next place picked out! Just have to wait for some actual rain or snow and then its ON!

Quote of the week

First, some context: in Wednesday's debate, John McCain accused ACORN (a non-profit organization that focuses on registering minorities and low-income earners to vote) of "committing one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country; maybe destroying the fabric of democracy"


"Thank you Senator. The fabric of democracy is being destroyed by ACORN. I am so tired of hearing people say it was being destroyed by concentrating unchecked power in the executive branch, or politicizing the justice department, or condoning torture, or warrentless wire tapping of American citizens. It was actually destroyed by homeless people filling out registration forms with the name Mickey Mouse!" ~Stephen Colbert, Thursday, Oct 16

Hello Inflation, how are you?

So, I'm going to blog a bit on the economy, because I feel like I should be sharing some of my insights on what's going on, and I've had more than a couple friends who have asked me what it all means.

The latest news is the raise (again) of 30-fixed mortgage rates (currently 6.48%) AND the bond yield (interest) on Treasury notes(currently approx. 4%, up from 3.7%). Why do I bring up both? Because the are intrinsically related. Basically, when the yield on Treasury bonds or notes go up, so does the interest on your consumer loans (car, mortgage, etc).

"But wait!" you might say. "I thought the government was fixing the credit crunch, giving money to the banks. How can the credit crunch be fixed if credit costs more? I need things to cost LESS not MORE!" I hear you. The missing piece of this puzzle is the federal debt. Where did the money come from for these bailouts? Debt. Where does a lot of our government's money come from? Debt. And who lends the debt? Investors. Specifically investors buying treasury notes and bonds.

To attract more investors, the US has to raise interest (yields) on the loans they take out (Treasury notes and bonds.) What makes things worse is that many investors are selling their Treasury notes, or not buying new ones. Cause no one wants to invest in a country that's struggling until they are sure that country will come out on top.

So, the US Treasury raises yields, to attract money to fund the bailout, and those raised yields raise interest rates that you pay for your mortgage. Worse, high yields typically result in a lower dollar value and inflation, though it may take a few months before we see it. You see, the dollar's value is also tied into the yields on these notes.

On a more common level, the buying power of your dollar is tied to how much you can buy with it, and as living costs raise (by people paying more for cars, mortgages, store front leases, etc), the cost of everything else raises too. So your dollar buys less.


So, for those who are still with me, the point is there is no free lunch. Our government would like you to think that they can create money out of nowhere, or that they have gobs of it to pull out in an emergency. The truth is they don't, and we will be the ones who pay with inflation and further economic recession.

PS. I now return you to my regularly scheduled blogging

Jeremy's Job

For those who don't know, Jeremy has been looking for work. He went through an amazing internal process about what he wanted to do, and what he was really worth and capable of, and at the end of it, realized he really wanted to work in TV production and act. So he's been throwing his resume out to any and all people who will take it, pass it on, might have a gig, have a gig that is even remotely something in his field, etc and its been paying off. He's had many calls for gigs that are no pay, or deferred pay (same thing, usually) and a couple paying gig calls.

This last weekend, he was called in for a deferred pay gig, 5 days, that was done by a producer who usually has a bunch of well paying work and was doing this deferred one for a friend. He said to Jer, come and show me what you can do, and I'll hire you for my paying gigs. Ok..rocking. Except, that a few hours later, Jeremy was offered another 5 day gig, that paid $100 a day. What to do!

Well, he took the deferred pay gig, cause it had more opportunity for networking, and he'd already said he would do it. Then comes Friday, the day he's supposed to start...only, no call sheet. No phone calls, no emails. There is no info on when to be there, or even where to go. Six messages and several hours later, the producer calls to say that "oh, there was some creative differences with the writer and director, so the shoot's postponed"....gee thanks. So, Jeremy turned down a paying gig, and several other gigs in the interim, and no one bothered to say "hey, take some other gig, cause this one's not happening." So unprofessional!!! I was majorly pissed! (on his behalf...he seemed pretty calm about it, actually).

So, the happy ending is that I got to spend the weekend with my hubby, which was really nice. :) AND he got a call for a one day gig tonight, that may turn into a long term solid job. :D Its for an entertainment news show, and they are shooting the pilot tonight. By next week, they should know if one of the eight networks who are interested is going to pick it up, and if they do, Jeremy's in! AND he's in as a gaffer, which is a big promotion for him. Woo!!! Crossing my fingers!

See, the world does work out! Even when people are lame and rude. :)

Could it be Fall????

I love Fall. I think it may be my favorite season (though Spring can definitely give it a run for its money). After the sweltering heat and monotonous sunny days of summer, it is so wonderful to get clouds, and wind, and coolness, and even some rain. I know, summer isn't supposed to be monotonous, but in LA, it definitely gets there....gee, another 95F day, what is that, the 35th one in a row? Yeah, I get sick of that.

Its something I do miss a lot about Davis. I've never dealt well with really really cloudy or cold climates, but Davis was great. It had a very solid Fall and Winter, but with enough breaks in the weather that you got some sun once in a while. While LA is the exact opposite, lots of sun, with breaks in the weather that allow cloudy cold days.

The coming of Fall also makes me wonder how I would handle a Fall and Winter season in more northernly climes now that I'm taking my thyroid pills. Being an undiagnosed hypothyroid sufferer made anything dark and cold really hard to deal with. But who knows now! I could completely skip over the depression, the I-can't-get-my-toes-warm-even-with-three-pairs-of-socks-and-a-fireplace issues, the low energy, and just get out there and enjoy the fabulous Fall weather like everyone else.

What I want more than anything else is a really REALLY good rain. OH GOD that would be nice. Everything clean, and alive, and that wonderful smell in the air, the sense of everything jsut drinking it in around you. So nice. I miss that. A lot. Hopefully, we'll see at least some rain this month. I'll cross my fingers. :)