Today was a lot of fun - there was a group raising funds for kids with cancer. They held a pancake breakfast this morning and the meeting hall at the trailer park was about 70% full and we were early.
Went out to the petroglyph site. This was a major trade route from the Central Americas up through the midwest. The glyphs were calling cards from groups passing through. Some were very representative and some were just surreal.
The tram ride was a lot of fun - for the last third of the ride, we were well over 1,000 feet over the valley floor. It was a great reassurance to see that the tram had been built by a Swiss company.
At the summit, we had a delightful conversation with Daniel who blogs at Predictably Lost - he was just coming off of a major long-distance hike. More at his blog.
My parents and I traveled through Europe when I was young (40+ years ago) and at that time, the Italians were having some engineering problems with their cable cars. The comment then was that when a cable no longer passes Swiss standards, they sell it to the French. When the cable no longer passes French standards, they sell it to the Italians. I am sure that everything is up to snuff these days, still...
After that, we went by a local REI store - Lulu got some hiking shoes and we both got new trekking poles. I could not find mine at home but that is another story...
Finally, one of the clerks at REI told us where the Whole Foods store was - normally, I do not buy into their overpriced hype but they do have a good meat market and we snagged a couple steaks and grilled them for dinner. Salad, nuked a couple spuds and finished them off on the grill. It is cliché to say that everything tastes better when it is cooked and eaten outdoors but this was certainly true tonight.
We are going to extend our stay one more day - laundry plus unpack, clean and repack the truck and the trailer - now named Beautiful Dreamer. Still need to name the truck. I had an old station wagon that I named Thunderbunny and I might re-use that name - it fits.
Needless to say, many pictures were taken and a few will be posted later tonight. Processing them and doing a double backup (one hard drive in the truck and one in the trailer).
