inglorious wanderer

Today's peak bagging shit! A group made me their groupie stick. I told them I wanted a selfie of my back so the female in the group graciously shot me from behind.   "Why are you subjecting yourself to so much difficulty?" RN asks me all the time when it comes to my hiking.   There I was sitting at the fence of El Capitan Open Space Preserve waiting for RN to pick me up in the Fall of 2012. Short of breath, I just told another hiker to let Chad, the meetup organiser know that I was quitting.  RN and I later drove to Barona Casino which is less than a mile from the parking lot for breakfast. I never returned to the casino after partaking in the losers breakfast offering and coming face to face with the pot bellied laughing Buddha promising good fortune especially if one rubs it big round belly. But I vowed, eversince that shameful day at the parking lot of El Capitan Open Space Preserve to bag  "the box" by all means.   I met Chad again on a hike to Suicide ...

Mesa in Spanish is table in English. To the Kumeyaay tribe of Native Americans, the original inhabitants of the plateau that is  now known as the Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, the plateau has been referred to as  "kwe ah mac" or what the rains left behind.  Springs and creeks that the rains left behind nurture while globe lilies also known as fairy lanterns. Red flowers that look like coral red honeysuckles based on my Googe search hits,  checker looms,  lupines, summer snow,  and splendid mariposa lilies  are just among the many wildflowers growing along  the West Mesa trail.  A detour from the trail leads to Airplane Monument.  The Memorial Day artifact is a V12 engine of a World War I De Havilland biplane that went missing on December 7, 1922. The plane being flown by US Army   1st Lt. Charles Webber was supposed to bring US Cavalry Colonel Francis Marshall to Fort Huachuca, AZ. The plane was discovered by a rancher five month...

My fascination on Mexico is that of a fellow outsider. Despite being a member of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the country and its citizens donot enjoy the provisions of the treaty as much as citizens from Canada and the U.S. Which provisions? Google on, my friend! "Oh Mexico It sounds so sweet with the sun sinking low The moon's so bright like to light up the night  Make everything all right" James Taylor was not the only one who had romanticized Mexico. Linton Robinson, author of several novels  about life in Mexico has not only romanticize Mexico in his books, he has made Mexico his home for the last 25 years or so. Meeting him in person for the second time, he spoke about what gringos do in Mexico. The first time I joined the meetups he hosted, he explained to me that gringos are Americans from the north, most likely  Caucasians.  The Rosarito Art Fest 2015 is one of the most important fests of the year in Baja California, so does Linton Robinson say. ...

Finally made it to San Diego's Half Dome, a granite mountain in the southern portion of the Cleveland National Forest! Woohoo...I lost my head! The name Corte Madera comes from what the Spanish missions used to call the area: Rancho Corte de Madera. Rancho Corte de Madera was lumber yard. Corte means cut and madera means wood. The timber that built the original Spanish Missions headquarters at the Old Town San Diego came from Rancho Corte de Madera.  On a clear day, the Corte Madera Peak with 4,588 feet elevation,  provides a spectacular view of the southernmost portion of Cleveland National Forest.  This includes the Los Pinos Peak which the group of more than  20 hikers, plus a dog, also bagged. All in a day's work. The peak bagging came with a fruit challenge joke from Jamie  as retold by Hema, the selfless organizer of the group. The previous days' rain that made the trails muddy made the hike all the more fun, about 13 miles! According to the fs.usda.gov we...

Oak Oasis Preserve is where I came to know about the Trans County Trail initially. The Open Space Preserve has an interesting name. It sounded strange to me that then  there would some kind of a oasis at a town where two dams are located: the El Capitan Reservoir and the San Vicente Reservoir.  According to the San Diego County Water Authority, the San Vicente Dam is part of the Emergency Storage Project, a system of reservoirs designed to make water available to the San Diego region in the event of an interruption in imported water deliveries.  Oakoasis may just be a word coined from oak and oasis. I didn't see any creeks passing through the preserve but I did see partly burned  live oak trees where the Minshall house used to stand. The Minshalls donated the 400 some acres of  property that become the Oakoasis Preserve  to the San Diego County.  The Preserve is lush with wildflowers still in bloom while other parts of the county...