Table Mountain

Dale, Max and I and our neighbors Greg and George all drove up to the Angeles National forest, near Wrightwood, California for an overnight camping trip to Table Mountain Campground. This is one of my favorite campgrounds with beautiful tall Coltier pines, and Douglas Fir, and some Blue Oak trees. It is up at about 6000 feet and on the north side of the mountain overlooking the Antelope Valley and the cities of Palmdale, Lancaster, and Victorville. The campsites are well placed apart, and at this time of the year there is no need for a reservation as all the sites did not fill up. It was also a very quiet and serene campground, unlike some other campgrounds near the city. As soon as we pulled in and found a campsite the campground manager was by very shortly, even before we set up, to collect our fees and give us our "occupied" receipt to put on the post. We brought plenty of firewood, as we really wanted to make some great fires while camping. The gnats were a little bad, and bothered Max the worst, but as soon as the fire was going and he figured out that by sitting close enough to the heat, the gnats didn't bother him so much.

We had arrived in Wrightwood around noon so we had a lovely lunch at one of the local Cafe's. It was just as delicious as can be and we all were delighted with it and the charm of the small mountain ski town. After setting up camp and starting fire, (Max loves to start campfires) I made a little appetizer of smoked salmon & cream cheese on pita crackers, It was just enough to satisfy. George and Greg made our dinner that evening of a delicious fresh Parmesan, pimento, salad with a fresh lemon/olive oil dressing, and garlic bread. We had chicken breast, with angel hair pasta/panchetta and mushrooms, and some delicious steamed sugar snap peas. We were all stuffed after a superb dinner. We sat around the fire the rest of the evening, and chatted, drank hot cocoa and I told stores about bears in Alaska and Minnesota, and how we were in bear territory in the mountains, and everyone should be aware. All our food was put in the bear bin at night to ensure no scavanging.

We all awakened in the middle of the night to a noise of something going through the garbage dumpster on the other side of camp, and hoped it was not a bear, that would soon be heading to our campsite. Needless to say, we found out the next morning it was a coyote that was in the dumpster and not a bear. Thank goodness!

We awoke at sunrise and after some great coffee, we had a delicious breakfast that Dale and I made of his specaial crepe recipe with fruit, fruit syrup, and whip cream, along with a side of scrambled cheese & eggs, sausage and bacon, and orange juice. It was delicious and all too soon it was time to head back to Long Beach. It was beautiful temperature in the mountain, but down in the basin when we descended it was very hot for our drive through the inland empire. (In addition the AC went out in the SUV) We were glad to be back home in cool Long Beach and unloaded the car and started our laundry. It was such a beautiful, and relaxing weekend, and we will surely be back to Table Mountain again sometime soon to have another great camping experience!

Progressive Dinner Party

We attended this dinner party put on by the "Progressives" at our neighbor's Gary and Dennis' across the street from us. The Progressives hold these dinner party/fundraisers about every other month to raise funds for worthy cause each time.
This party was for Long Beach Organic's Youth Program, called Youth Environmental Leaders (YEL) Dinner was courtesy of: Chef Joe Corso/Tapenade Catering and Chef Paul Buchanan/Primal Alchemy Catering (two Long Beach Organic chefs/gardeners!) The minimum donation requested was $35 per person. The meal was delicious, the backyard was simply packed with people and a lot of funds were raised for a worthy cause.

The YEL Team supports Long Beach Organic's mission through service-learning projects and hands-on training at the community gardens and at environmental project partnership events (i.e., tree plantings and native plant enhancement and restoration projects). In the last two years, YEL Team kids have contributed over 7,000 eco-service hours to the organic gardens, to three native plant gardens, and to restorations at Dunster Park, Sims Park, Marine Stadium and White’s Landing. YEL kids also coordinated and planted 12 community tree plantings at the LA River, five Long Beach neighborhoods, and two schools.


Pictures from previous Progressive Dinner Parties can be seen in the below link.

http://progressivedinnerparty.shutterfly.com/

McCabe's Concerts

Dale and I were invited to an evening of entertainment at McCabe's Concert series, at McCabe's Guitars in Santa Monica by our AFS host-parent friends Karen and Mark. We met them at their place in Torrance, and then all drove up together to Santa Monica for a quick, and great dinner at a little Tapas restaurant/bar called Violet. (it promises promiscuous food) It was a great dinner of all different tapas and a nice bottle of wine and some great conversation, mostly all about our AFS boys! Karen and Mark's AFS student had gone on an overnight at another AFSers place, and we had Max catch up on his homework for the evening at home. We then headed just down the block to McCabes for a great evening performance by Richard Shindell, a guitarist/folk artist. McCabe's is first and foremost a guitar shop that has everything and anything for someone who plays guitars or wants to play guitars. They offer numerous classes on learning to play, through all levels, and well as songwriting, etc. It is amazing what they have. The back room is where they have concerts several nights during the week. It was very much of a folk music crowd with most everyone knowing all and everything about the artists they feature. It was a great evening, and Shindell gave a great performance, interspersing his songs with some great humor and conversation with the audience. It was very personal, and a great way to see the first hand talent of a great artist such as Shindell. Incidentally he lives in Buenos Aries, Argentina, and had recently chopped off the tip of one of his fingers with an axe while chopping wood. He had most of it healed, but by the way he played you would not have known it!

Below is a short review of Richard Shindell:





Scott Alarick of The Boston Globe says: "Shindell is a master builder of songs, yet always leading listeners toward the emotional essence of the moment or character he is evoking. As with all master craftsmen, knowing what to leave out is as important to him as what he puts in. Shindell has uncanny sense of the theater of a song, building his ballads sparely and subtly, set to sweeping graceful melodies." We concur.

Evening at the Hollywood Bowl

A group of us from work all went to the famous Hollywood Bowl for an evening with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by the famous Esa-Pekka Salonen. It was Symphony of a Thousand; Mahler symphony No. 8; We took the shuttle bus from the Hollywood & Highland complex, and the bus drops you off right at the box office, so you have no troubles parking. No sooner did we arrive at the Bowl and found our seats when the lights went down and the symphony started and Esa-Pekka took the stage to do his magic or making a lovely evening under the open sky, and the beautiful sounds of the orchestra. Their was a lovely cricket making a ton of noise under one of the seats. However interestingly, it almost seemed like part of the orchestra. I was not the only one that noticed, and it seemed to get louder in the loud parts of the symphony, and it seemed to be softer during the soft parts of the symphony. Perhaps the cricket was trying to talk back and forth with all the members of the orchestra. It was an amazing evening, and one could not help but be moved by the beauty of it all. I am sure I will go back to the bowl sometime soon, but was glad to see Esa-Pekka in his final season of conducting the LA Philharmonic.

Here is a bit about Esa-Pekka


About The conductor
Esa-Pekka SalonenConductor
Music Director
Walt and Lilly Disney Chair

ESA-PEKKA SALONEN, the 10th conductor to head the Los Angeles Philharmonic, began his 16th season as Music Director in October 2007. He will end his tenure at the conclusion of the 2008/09 season to devote himself more fully to composing. Salonen, who was born in Helsinki in 1958, studied at the Sibelius Academy in Finland. He made his conducting debut with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1979, and his American debut conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1984. He was recently appointed Principal Conductor of London’s Philharmonia.

Among the many highlights of Salonen’s career with the Los Angeles Philharmonic have been world premieres of works by composers John Adams, Franco Donatoni, Anders Hillborg, William Kraft, Magnus Lindberg, Witold Lutoslawski, Bernard Rands, Kaija Saariaho, Rodion Shchedrin, Steven Stucky, Tan Dun, and Augusta Read Thomas, as well as his own works. He has led critically acclaimed festivals of music by Ligeti, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Berlioz, Beethoven, and Sibelius and The Tristan Project. He and the Philharmonic have toured extensively since 1992. In October of 2003, Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic opened Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by Frank Gehry.

In March 2003, Salonen signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon. The following year, DG released a disc devoted to his recent orchestral works, featuring Foreign Bodies, Insomnia, and Wing on Wing. In January 2006, Salonen and the Philharmonic recorded their first CD together for DG, the first live recording from Walt Disney Concert Hall. (Salonen and the Philharmonic also have four live concert recordings available for download on iTunes from DG Concerts.) Before signing with DG, Salonen recorded regularly with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for Sony Classical.

Salonen is the recipient of several major awards, including the Siena Prize from the Accademia Chigiana in 1993 (the first conductor ever to receive the prize), the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Opera Award in 1995, and their Conductor Award in 1997. In 1998, he was awarded the rank of Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. Musical America named him 2006 Musician of the Year.



http://www.hollywoodbowl.com/index.cfm

BWCAW

Our annual trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in Minnesota took place the last week of August. We took the red-eye flight from LAX to MSP and rented a car, after stopping in St. Paul for a brief visit with my cousin Chris and his family near the airport and a great breakfast with my good friend Jennifer from Plymouth, MN. We drove up to Ely where we met my good friend Greg from Willmar, MN at the local hotel where we met up to coordinate and launch our trip. We all went out to dinner at the Ely Steak House for a great dinner. The next morning we all headed out for an early breakfast and headed to the outfitters for a 9AM departure to be towed to our first portage into Birch Lake. The day was sunny and clear and warm for a wonderful day of paddling through Birch Lake, through 5 portages and Carp Lake, into Knife Lake where we set up our campsite at about 2pm. It was clear and sunny, but at nightfall the mosquitoes made their presence known. We all escaped into the tents at night to be free from their persistent biting, and enjoyed our first evening under the stars. We had a super cold evening, with temperatures getting close to freezing. It luckily didn’t freeze and the remaining nights we had warmer low temperatures. (although it may have killed some of the mosquitoes)
We spent the next two days fishing, and exploring Knife Lake. Max got is very first small mouth bass, and we had some great tasting fresh fried fish for dinner a couple of nights. We enjoyed and relaxed and ate very well, and had no problems. On our 2nd to last night we canoed back through the way we came in along skirting the Canadian border, back down to Newfound Lake. We found a very nice campsite there, where we set up camp for the night in a small bay in a Cedar grove. The entire day had been rather overcast. It looked like it was going to rain, but didn’t all day long. It was not until that night about 10pm that it started to pour, and it rained much of the night, and was done by the time we got up in the morning to paddle out of the wilderness. We packed it all up and were back at the outfitters dropping off our canoes by 1PM. It was a superb trip, and with some great campers, everyone got along, and had a very, very wonderful time in the wilderness. It is a world of difference from Los Angeles and Long Beach, and yet was such a welcome change and a relaxing time. We drove to my dad’s place in Menahga for a visit and then to Baxter to visit my sister Anna and her family, and then to Spooner, WI to visit my sister Anita and her family. On the way back to the airport in Minneapolis, we stopped at Jill and Jeff’s place in Apple Valley for a wonderful dinner and visit.

Garden Bounty

The Garden was filled with bounty this season, and all the produce is now put up. We had almost 30 pints of tomatoes we froze from the garden. We grew Roma VF and Viva Italia varieties for making tomato sauce and such! We also put up about 32 quarts of pickles from the garden. I used Mom's pickle recipe and it turned out as good as I remember, I sent some to my sister and she also confirmed that they tasted just as good! I know we will have some good pickles to eat this winter. Sweet corn was also in abundance from the garden this summer. Kandy Corn was the reliable hit variety that I grew, and turned out well, with succession plantings. I also grew a new variety called Earlyvee. It was as the name implies, early, only 60 days, but very short, but good tasting. I also grew a white corn variety, called Jubilee, it was super difficult to germinate, tall, and nearly 80 days, but very tasty. The bags of corn pictured are the white Jubilee and Kandy Corn, mixed with Earlyvee. This will give us some good winter eating. Best of all this was all grown organically with horse manure and cover crops, and organic fertilizers.