cookies and big decisions.

I don't know where to start but i'm going to try to spell this all out for whomever still reads this and for myself.  Recently, after a few glasses of wine, I got to thinking about what my life would be if I stayed here in Tahoe for another year, like I have been planning on doing for a few weeks now.  I made the decision to stay but the anxiety about what I am doing with my life didn't go away; it didn't feel like anything was solved or going away, it felt like I might be making a mistake.  Don't get me wrong, I love it here and it is quite possibly the most beautiful place I have ever been in my entire life, but it just doesn't feel quite like the right fit. I love my friends and of course potlucks are amazing, work is going well and I know I would have been content with another year at the conservancy BUT I feel like thats what happens to everyone here...once you get here its easier to stay and barely scrape by money-wise, and make do with the work and social life that you have instead of going in search of better because it is so beautiful here that its intoxicating.  When I go out and look at the mountains and the lake I can't believe I would ever leave this place, its truly an artist's and a photographer's dream!  The only problem is thats its just not me, I just don't fit, and how long am I going to put up with feeling like a square peg in a round hole because its easy and pretty and because so many others feel that same way and have put up with it for years?  I'm a woman of action and when things start to get uncomfortable or less meaningful or no longer ideal I do something about it.  I'm not going to wait for things to become meaningless or even painful before I go, the idea is to leave yourself wanting more, not less.  So its goodbye Tahoe for me, because I do love it here, but thats not enough anymore.  Now when I have a few glasses of wine I feel no anxiety, its sad that I'm going, and I'll miss everyone here terribly, but I know I'm doing what I need to do and I'm blazing a new path and and seeking out new experiences...and it feels right.  This is what I do, I keep looking until I find just what I want and then I go for it, its who I am, young and completely free, following my heart.  It feels right.

Sooooooooo with that said I will be peacing out of beautiful South Lake Tahoe come mid-February and hitting the dusty trail on a second epic cross country road trip...to visit friends and new cities and find out just where I want to go next.  Last night I baked cookies and this morning I got up to watch the sunrise, its time to start living up my last days here.  So here are my cookies, Ultimate High Altitude Chocolate Chip Cookies from this recipe, which came out great because I used a high altitude recipe (it'll be pretty sweet to be able to just bake things again, without fear of collapse or oily mess...).  Here are the resulting cookies:

Yayyyy cookies!  I have tons of them now, even though I made them HUGE soooo if you are in South Lake Tahoe and you want a cookie or 2 gimme a call and i'll be happy to share!  

This morning Matt and I got up at 6:30 to go watch the sunrise at the upper truckee marsh, it was so beautiful but not the best viewing spot, so perhaps tomorrow we'll look for a better one.  Anyway here are my favorite shots from this morning, not bad but I'm still getting used to my new camera and I'm pretty sure I can do better...so stay tuned, I'll definitely be taking more photos in my final weeks here because I want to take as much of the beauty with me as i can!  

First rays of dawn

Sunrise behind the trees and mountains

hey...its me!

Epic shot of Mr. Matt

The sun sneaking over Mount Tallac

Sooooo gorgeous!

Sun kissed mountains and lake and protected Tahoe Yellowcress habitat...this is the only place it grows in the WHOLE WORLD!  sweeeeeeeeeeet.

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today, the day before yesterday, and the day before that...

I have been taking photosss, I am just so out of the habit of posting them on here that i forget completely.  I'm getting back into it though, and I'll get to 365!  So here is Wednesdays photo:

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Here is Thursday's photo, from a walk I took along the river:

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And heres one for today, this is the first loaf of yeast bread I have baked at altitude, I was very intimidated at first because I am a little intimidated by yeast breads anyway, but this one came out very well!  I made whole wheat oatmeal bread from a recipe in the Vegetarian Epicure cookbook that my momma gave me.  I'm pretty proud of how well these loaves turned out!  Take a look for yourself, I can share the recipe and more information about the cookbook if anyone is interested!

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updates

11 days and 5 houses, 2 couches and 3 beds.  I'm 11 days into couch surfing and while I am not the biggest fan (I am a total homebody and not having a home doesn't really agree with me) I'm getting better at it every day.  I have been keeping busy, getting out of my little Lake Tahoe Basin comfort zone!  I have been applying to jobs like crazy.  Last weekend I headed to the Bay area with a bunch of ladies to hit up Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in Golden Gate Park, which was a blast!  Then this weekend I went visiting my old Placerville haunts on Friday, then hiking on Saturday and off to visit Bodie on Sunday.  I've wanted to get to Bodie since I got out here, so thats one more thing I can check off my California Bucket List!  After Bodie we made a few side trips around the Eastern Sierra to admire the freshly snow covered mountains and the changing leaves of the Aspens.  Here are some pictures, because thats what you really want to see!

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass with the Lovely Sarah

Mountian views from Saturdays hike

More Saturday hike...

Bodie - took most of my pics in Sepia tone because it only seems appropriate for a Ghost Town

Restroom break?

Very creepy old jail cell

Empty houses everywhere...would have been SO creepy if all the other tourists hadn't been there to keep us company

Cruisin

Old hotel billiard hall and saloon

Aspens

Mono Lake at dusk

Thats all from me for now, hopefully I'll have a housing update soon.  Until then, keep your fingers crossed for my low riding little car, shes doing her best packed with all my things but shes not all that big!  

weeeeekend

What a looong crazy weekend!  This is how my weekend went:

Friday:  I opted just to relax and slept in, went to the beach, and then played silly games with silly friends for the evening...as for my photo of the day?  I totally and completely forgot for one entire day to take a single picture...oops!

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Saturday: This was the Great Sierra River Clean-Up - an event that the South Lake area AmeriCorps volunteers partnered with Clean Tahoe, South Tahoe Refuse. Cal Trout, and a bunch of other great area organizations to put on.  We hosted clean-ups on 14 river and lake sites in South Lake and has a turnout of nearly 200 volunteers who collected over 2300 pounds of trash!  Hurray for clean and healthy beaches and streams!

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Sunday:  After the clean-up on Saturday I picked up my stuff and left on ,my first ever wilderness back-packing overnight with a friend of mine in desolation wilderness.  We hiked out to Ralston Lake from Echo Lakes on Saturday evening, made a warm dinner of soup and tortillas with cheese and then curled up in our sleeping bags for a night under the nearly full moon.  This morning we had a leisurely breakfast and then took off climbing up Ralston Peak from the lake.  Our route zig-zagged up the face of the mountain, over huge scree fields and through the little stream breaks then up the ridge line to the trail to the summit.  

Taken Saturday on the hike in, the sun is setting over Echo Lakes

Sunrise from camp

Ralston Peak...we climbed right up what you're looking at.

Scree Field!

View from the top

I made it!

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emigrant lake

No better day for a beautiful hike than today!  We took a trail from Caples lake dam, along the side of the lake, and then up the ridge to the pristine and beautiful emigrant lake (pictured behind all the green but before the snow below, and behind all the people below below).  

first view of the lake

our whole hiking group, taken by me with my mini tripod and self timer.  We're all laughing because shortly after this picture was taken the very wet (and antsy) dog started jumping up and getting everyone rather wet

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i've done it again, missed a bunch of days....but I did take a picture for every day and so i will post them all now.  

First...the cheesecake!  It came out great (in my opinion....) and it didn't look half bad either...

(this ones for wednesday)

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Next is for thursday, which was the CTC 25th anniversary party on commons beach, where I snapped this shot:

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next is today, sunsets and sand.

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minor setback

I inadvertently left my camera in a friends bag for a few days...but now its catch up time...and yes, I did actually take a photo each day for the ones that i've missed.

Thursday:

The meadow by my house, on my evening walk

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Friday:

Mt. Tallac as soon from a sailboat in the middle of the lake!

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Today:

Motley...(too hot for his socks)

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the most beautiful day at work

A few of the sites i saw at work today....

This flower i can't ID...hard to find because its so average looking...

These ones are a little more interesting....these are called Pine Drop - Pterospora andromedea

And these are called Columbian Monkshood - Aconitum columbianum

This is the view from the rock we climbed to eat lunch.

And this is the view from the road/trail we walked back to the car.  What a beautiful day!

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Tahoe Summit

Today I spent the morning at the Tahoe Summit in Sand Harbor on the East shore of Lake Tahoe.  I was going to write about the speeches made by Senators Reid and Feinstein, or the opening prayer led by an ageing Washoe Elder whose family members have roamed these shores since long before there even were senators, or the way the lunches we made in compostable containers with compostable plastic cups, but the syran-wrapped cookies were made in Texas (how sustainable), or even the disappointment I felt when I heard the prosperity plan for the coming years here in Tahoe involves trying to stimulate a feeling of community because well, tourists like a feeling of community when they come to visit places.  I was going to talk about all those things, to address what they referred to as a "lack of young environmental professionals in the area" (A lack?  Environmental professionals are everywhere up here.  Nearly everyone on the CTC crews, building their fencing, seeding their soil, cleaning up their urban lots, all of then have at least 2 year degrees in environmental fields.  Forest Service crews are filled with experienced environmental degree holders just trying to make ends meet.  The AmeriCorps program in the Sierra Nevada and here in Tahoe has become so competitive that people with masters degrees and doctorates are competing to volunteer up here.  There are plenty of young environmental professionals here, more than I've known anywhere else in my travels, so whats the matter?  There are no jobs.  These people are all working their butts off for 10 hour days doing little more than labor just to make ends meet and only to get laid-off every fall and hope to god they get their job back every spring.  The tourism industry up here has created an extremely variable and seasonal economy, I know so many people up here that spend their summers working long hours on a crew and their winters living off of unemployment and skiing, thats not a recipe for success.  Theres only so many years someone can comfortably do that before they have to find something year-round, before they need to get out of the tourist clogged streets of beautiful lake Tahoe, before they can't handle being asked by some other idiot stopped in the middle of highway 50 on a busy day where the lake is.  Tourism has created a transient town here, a group of people who come and stay for a few years, can't find real work, and move on to another place that offers them more opportunities, thats why you don't have a community.  Tourism is not the answer to Tahoe's economic woes, it is part of the cause.  Thats just my opinion though, and maybe thats because I am a young environmental professional with a decent resume and a respectable degree here in Tahoe looking for a full time job and being offered a second full time volunteer year, haven't I volunteered enough already?  Haven't I paid my dues?  2 full years of living at the poverty line for the experience has been worth every minute, but how long do I keep working for free before I recognize that I have $35,000 in student loans hanging over my head that I will someday need to pay off.   You want to hang onto people like me Tahoe?  Give us jobs that pay real money to do real work, don't demean us by making us work for free for years or laying us off every fall.  But thats just me...)

Anyway, I was going to say all of that but when I got out my computer to start writing my roommates cat came into my room and peed on my brand new comforter and just-washed sheets while I was actually in my bed and I got too angry to want to do any writing at all.  Heres a promise I need to make to myself and actually keep: when I move out of this house I will NEVER live ANYWHERE with a cat again.  Period.  End of story.

So heres my photo of the day, not a good one, but acceptable.  The Senators up on Stage in front of the Shakespeare on the Beach backdrop at Sand Harbor:

But mostly, the backs of the guys in front of me's heads.  Okay I'm done whining.  Thanks for putting up with me!

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Rubicon Trail

I forgot to post a photo yesterday, but I hiked a hike today that was so sooo beautiful that I think two from today is better then some old stinky yesterday picture anyway.

We hiked the Rubicon Trail today, which extends from Rubicon Point in D. L. Bliss State Park all the way into Emerald Bay, to Vikingsholm, and then back out the other side to Eagle Point Camp Ground.  It was about a 6.5 mile hike, of mostly flat and easy terrain.  We took a looong lunch down by the water in an area that was sandy for about 15 feet and then abruptly drops off about 1000 more after a certain point, which was very neat. We called it the abyss and were absolutely terrified of what lay beyond it...all the treasures and terrors floating around in the bottom of Lake Tahoe.

Then last view of the lake on the hike, right before we hit Eagle Point Campground.  

A crooked, self-timer shot of Reyna and I at the beginning of the 

hike, at one of the first look out points.  

A lighthouse at the very beginning of the trail, built in 1919, this was once upon

 a time the highest elevation lighthouse on a navigable body of water in the entire world!

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just another day at work...

I have reached 200!!! YAY!  Only 165 more photos to post until I'm done!  So anyway todays photo was taken at the top of eagle rock, a CTC parcel where we were working most of the day. So again...just to reiterate...this is my job.  I climb mountains, through streams, around forests, and I love it.  Teeter-tottering at the moment as to whether I would like to serve another year or not.  Another year here, at this great job, doing work i love?  Awesome.  Another year spent completely broke on the opposite side of the country from 80% of my friends and family?  not awesome.  grrr.

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doggy beach day!

i know i know...i forgot to post one yesterday...but mister wilson here is so cute he makes up for it i think.  

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beachhhh

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