Yosemite National Park: Moonbow Bug Party

The Zinger's first overnight in Yosemite National Park

Our friends at the Yosemite Bug Hostel were all talking about getting a group camping trip to Yosemite set up. There was an obvious event coming up that none of us wanted to miss: an amazing moonbow sighting! Moonbows, Lunar Rainbows, or what John muir calls Lunar Spraybows need a few factors to make them visible. These include: clear skies, enough flow from the waterfalls, darkness, bright moon, and correct rainbow geometry and according to the University of Texas (moonbow experts for some reason), May 24 had all of these factors. So, we decided to head up to Yosemite that morning, set up camp and have a good time!

Our friend Cameo had just bought a motorhome (named the "Heart of Gold" or the H.O.G) she would be driving to Missouri to meet up with her boyfriend who relocated his chef position. So, we coordinated with her, Donny, Liz, Colleen, and Alex about weekend adventures. We drove up in the Zinger with Liz and followed Cameo and Donny in the H.O.G. Colleen and Alex had to work so they met us up there a little later. 

Walking Autumn and Gonzo. Two happy pups!

As the early crew set up camp, we made sure to get everything edible into the bear locker and all things drinkable into the H.O.G refrigerator. We got up there around noon and had until 8pm before we needed to meet up with Colleen who was getting off the YARTS bus. Cameo had brought her two amazing pups and because we were going to be leaving them in the H.O.G all night to view the moonbows, we needed to walk them around the valley floor to get their energy out. Although we were all antsy about being in the Valley without going on a real hike, time flew by and we finally met up with Colleen. After eating a balanced meal of PB&J and putting the dogs to bed for the night, we hit the Valley floor on foot with our destination being any place with the BEST view of the MOONBOW!

We did a little off-trail trip!

 According to the Texas State University's research on the Moonbow, there were two spots in which to get the best view. One was from a parking lot adjacent to Sentinel Bridge, the other at the bottom of the lower Yosemite falls. We tried taking pictures, but our cameras were just not good enough. Here are some pictures downloaded from offline taken from the two best viewpoints!

View from the bottom of Lower Yosemite Falls

View from the parking lot adjacent to Sentinal Bridge.
 We actually couldn't see the rainbow as seen in the picture but we think it
was because we were at the viewpoint a little too early

Walking around the Valley in the bright moonlight was an adventure in itself!  There were so many cool sights to see other than the moonbows.  Everything was illuminated and awesome looking.  We even saw lights on the sides of cliff walls, signs of rock climbers camping halfway through their ascents.  There were lots of other 'moonbowers' out and about and the park had a special energy that we had not felt on any of our previous visits.  Even though there were LOTS of people at the 'official' viewing sites our group had plenty of solitary adventure time walking around.  It was so much fun to have a big group of friends for this journey.  We must have walked a total of almost 10 miles!  By the time we made it back to our campground most everyone was ready for bed.  This trip was one to remember!  To see all our pics from the moonbow trip (plus some more from the Bug) check out this Facebook Album.

"Midpines, Pride Of The Sierra" - Yosemite Bug Rustic Mountain Resort, Midpines, CA

Make it 433 til June Mr. Mayor!

We're now in the middle of week 7 here in Midpines and things are cranking!  It's been a long process to get to where we are now but it seems our projects are finally bearing fruit (although not yet literally).

All 38 raised beds are double-height with new boards, many re-gopher-wired, and all filled with manure and mushroom compost.  Kim has been in charge of organizing garden planting while Curt has been in charge of creating and assembling the drip irrigation system.  All of our squash and cucumbers are planted and have sprouted.  The tomatoes have been transplanted and are doing great.  The peppers, eggplants, and basil are looking good but won't be transferred from their home in the greenhouse for another few weeks.  These are all the main crops destined for the Cafe at the Bug, where they will be transformed into delicious gourmet meals for the hostel guests (and us employees!)  We've also planted some beans, tomatillos, dill, okra, peas, carrots, radishes, beets, chard, lettuce, turnip, parsnip, and corn.  Our drip system is totally set up and functional in the North Garden (the big one!) and we've started to set up a system for the South Garden.

Overlapping projects for garden success!

We had a bit of trouble with some bitten chard and bean sprouts (as well as random bite marks on other things) and ramped up our regimen of pest control.  We created a pepper/garlic spray (using ingredients from the Cafe) for the seedlings in the greenhouse and got some neem oil and diatomaceous earth to rid the garden of slugs and bugs.

Givin' those plants a spritz of garlic/pepper!

Our bags of oyster mushrooms that we got at our mushroom class have gone nuts and we already cut and ate a batch.

This picture was when they were real small but after a few days they were huge.  Next batch we'll try to get a big picture.  We've had some fun weekend times with the Bug hosting a well-known area band called Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit (long name, good band- look them up on YouTube!)

We ended up picking up a similar aged hitchhiking man and because he couldn't find a ride all the way to Yosemite he came to the show with us!  We also got invited to Mariposa Fun Day (that's probably not what it was called but that's what it was) which was the next town over from Midpines (which is not much of a 'town' at all).  We drank some awesome locally brewed beer at Prospector's (on tap at the Bug Cafe woo-hoo), listened to some live music, got to check out the Mariposa museum of the olden tyme gold-diggin' days, and even saw the 'Cirque de Sierra' which was a circus style event hosted by what appeared to be local young people of Mariposa.  All good fun!

Curt and Doug after the Cirque de Sierra, clown noses and all!

For more good fun check out our latest pictures on Facebook!

California Adventures of the Yosemite and Bay Area

Last week we took a train into San Francisco for the weekend and earlier that week (on Tuesday to be specific) we spent the day hiking to the top of Yosemite Falls.  It was a super week!  In between adventures we worked hard in the gardens.  We set up the 1st stage of our soon-to-be-elaborate drip irrigation system and began construction on raising the 38 raised beds another board height.  This, in conjunction with deterring critters from just walking right into the beds (which were previously at ground level) also allowed us to amend the soil with 3 wheelbarrow loads of manure and 3 loads of mushroom compost.  This turned out to be a rather large project (we are still not finished as of the writing of this post) but luckily we had the help of Caesar, one of the seasonal workers, for some of the construction process.  We've also been watering our seedlings, which after a brief attack by an unknown predator(s) are now looking good and are hopefully in the clear.

We had worked the previous Sunday so that we could take Tuesday off to head into Yosemite.  Our friend Alex also had the day off so we went with him.  We were going to take the van but it was smoking from the muffler area and the engine was shaking around more than usual so we sidelined it and took Alex's car.  The van is currently in the good hands of a local mechanic named Luke who used to work for GoWesty.  We're very happy to have found him and he's already diagnosed the smoking as a slight power steering fluid leak.  He's going to upgrade our headlights for us (finally!) and the Zinger should be back in action for our next Yosemite trip.  Anyways...

After Alex broke into his house to retrieve his car keys we were on our way.  The road to Yosemite is winding and scenic.  As we followed along the Merced river (which appeared to be flowing uphill at times...) we joked about how they could film a car commercial on this stretch of road and Alex informed us that a few weeks prior they did indeed have a portion of the road closed off for a car commercial.  We arrived at the park to find a decent amount of parking spaces.  We had came on a Tuesday before the real tourist season had begun but there were still quite a few people on the trail.  We can only imagine how crowded this place must get in the height of the season!  Our challenge for the day was to hike to the top of Yosemite Falls, a 7 mile roundtrip hike filled with steep switchbacks and breathtaking views.  We saw huge trees growing from the rock cliffs, birds of prey circling the skies, hikers young and old, and of course the Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls.

From looking at the top of the falls from the parking lot we could feel the excitement in the air!  The falls are the tallest in North America and we ended up scaling almost 2,500 vertical feet to reach the top.  Out of the three of us, Kim looked the most like a normal hiker.  Curt had worn his work jeans and carried our 'water bottle' aka a gallon jug of water (which turned out to be a pretty good amount of water for the day) and then there was Alex, who appeared to be dressed as if he were about to walk down the street to a cafe for a cup of coffee.  He had way too many clothes on for a strenuous full day hike and had brought more alcohol than water.  But he had just turned 21 and was apparently in training for his trip to Peru where they drink lots of alcohol and go on strenuous hikes at much higher altitudes...

We were quite the scene compared to pretty much everyone else we saw on the trail that day!  After several hours of amazing hiking we made it to the top and enjoyed a nice bagged lunch courtesy of the Yosemite Bug.  Eating a BLT on top of Yosemite Falls was probably one of the best places anyone's ever eaten a BLT...  After lounging around the top for a while we made our way back down.  Going downhill looking out into the valley was great!  We caught the sunset and made it back to the bug in time for dinner- what a day!

Our next adventure came a mere 3 days later when we wrapped up work on Friday and took a bus/train/bus combo into San Francisco.  Because we were 'employees' of the Yosemite Bug Hostel we got hooked up with a complimentary 2 night stay in the Downtown Hostel (San Fran has 3 hostels in the downtown area!)  The bus picked us up right outside the Bug and took us into Merced where we caught a train into Emryville and then another bus that dropped us off right near the hostel.  We had a brief scare when we were waiting for the train to pick us up.  The train was running late so we decided to call the hostel and see what time they stopped taking check-ins.  Luckily it was 2AM but when we pulled out our confirmation papers we realized the dates were for the wrong weekend!  We say brief scare because everything got sorted out pretty easily.  They changed the dates for us and put us in their overflow room, which was way better than the alternative of putting us in male and female shared dorm rooms.  Hostels are great!  The next day we made the excellent decision to go full-on tourist and pay the money to get day passes on an open-top, double decker bus that ran all through the city.

We could hop on and off at our convenience and could listen to interesting facts about the city as we rode around.  It was pretty fun and definitely allowed us to see way more of the city than we otherwise would have.  Unfortunately we didn't realize the details of the on-and-off system right away and ended up missing the Haight/Ashbury stop (apparently no one else wanted to get off there?)  We did end up taking the bus driver's advice and hopped off at the Golden Gate Bridge to walk across which was really cool!

 We cruised through the city learning all sorts of trivia and historical stuff.  Just riding on top of a convertible double decker bus was entertainment in itself.  When we got hungry for lunch we hopped off in China town and found little restaurant where no one seemed to speak English.  China town is pretty overwhelming, we're sure we could have found a better place to eat but we were kind of afraid of getting lost.  The food ended up being pretty good albeit very similar to American-Chinese food only more expensive.

We hopped back on the bus and went past the Fisherman's Wharf district but decided to skip a walk through because it looked too crowded and we wanted to get some rest in for our nighttime event, a Dark Star Orchestra concert at the Great American Music Hall, conveniently located several blocks from our hostel.  For those who don't know and/or are interested, DSO is the biggest and best Grateful Dead cover band in the land, known for recreating actual Grateful Dead performances song for song.  We were getting to catch the end of a three night run at the Great American Music Hall, a famous venue that the Dead had played back in the day.

The show was sold out and we were excited as soon as we walked in.  The venue was really cool and not too big and the band had only one drum set on stage which according to Curt meant that they'd be playing something from '71-'74 and it was guaranteed to be a good show (no offense Mickey).  The show was in fact incredible and we had an amazing night dancing and singing and making friends, we even met Curt's West Coast identical twin- wish we had a picture of that!

Back at the Bug things have settled down, we're still working on the same types of projects and nothing too exciting has happened which is fine by us.  The nights are still cold but the days are getting hotter and hotter, next week is supposed to be upper 80's.  Luckily we should have most of the labor intensive work wrapped up in a few days and then we can work on finishing our drip irrigation system and start planting!  We'll keep you posted... until then check out some more pictures from our adventures!

Midpines, CA: Yosemite Bug Rustic Mountain Resort (The Bug)

The view from our daily hike!

So, after all that hullabaloo with the Zinger, it ended up making it the 12 hour stretch from Valley Center to where we are now in Midpines which is basically right near Yosemite!!! We're staying at a rustic mountain resort and have been introduced to many as their "organic farmers"(really? maybe, it's just weird when we're called something we've never really thought we were...haha). We arrived on a Saturday and were welcomed by Douglas, the co-owner of Yosemite Bug Rustic Mountain Resort who took us around and gave us an initial tour and then got us aquatinted with where we would be getting paid (in food) ...THE CAFE!

The Cafe

The Cafe at the Bug is really a big hang out area where locals, as well as guests who are staying at "The Bug", as well as The Bug's employees come to UNWIND and/or RECHARGE. Douglas introduced us to almost everyone he knew and we ate amazing food. Because it was our first night and "The Clangers", a local band was playing, Douglas kept the pitchers of local beer comin'! We really enjoyed our introduction (some might have called it an initiation) and couldn't wait to start working on the Garden.

Behind us is a steep uphill back to our tent cabin and ahead of us is a steep uphill to the Cafe. Really energizes the metabolism before and after eating!!

Where we are staying: Tent Cabin A, is a close walking distance away from the gardens, but a 10 minute hike both ways to the CAFE (each way uphill). We also have to climb 50 ft of stairs to the bathroom (yes, even in the middle of the night). So, if we don't get a bagged lunch at breakfast time, we hike 60 minutes everyday. It's actually been really great because eating the amazing cafe food all the time...we never ever have leftovers (and we have an excuse!).

Our tent cabin and the stairs to the bathroom...haha

There are two gardens here: the north and the south. We spent a few hours on Sunday mapping out both of them and Curt is currently putting our map into a photoshop document (rough draft below)

so that we can easily organize where to plant and put all the drip lines (soooo professional!) We might blow it up and laminate it too so that we can use dry erase markers for planning. There are 38 beds in all,  each are 16' by 2.5'. There are scattered tire planters, about 15 total, rose bushes, apricot trees, and a couple random herb plots. We definitely have our work cut out for us and the last couple days we have surely put our feet into high gear! Each of the beds have to be cleared of last years roots as well as completely cleared of all weeds WOAH....and there are a LOT of weeds, it took us 9 hours to clear out the South Garden beds and we are just about finished now with the North Garden. We then need to add onto the original beds to make them higher and then fill them with 4-6 wheel barrel loads of manure and mushroom compost (that's about 200 wheel barrel loads). 

South Garden

North Garden: before and after weeding

Curt's rough draft of the garden map for the North Garden!

The next project will be to get the compost area in working condition. We were really happy to find a pile of old compost that was basically a worm breeding pile! We made a sifter and sifted out the amazing compost and used it in our seed starting mix (4 parts sifted compost, 1 part vermiculite, 1 part perlite, and 2 parts peat moss). We are waiting for the seeds to come in the mail so we can start tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants in the greenhouse! 

Compost sifter from recycled materials and WORMS!

Well that's all for now! We've got to go eat some food and talk garden talk. We're excited for the upcoming weekend as there is another band coming friday (every weekend there is a band actually) and saturday there is a mycology event that Douglas invited us to join (YAY, we love mushrooms). Sunday we have scheduled a NOT DOING ANYTHING CAVE DAY! It might be a while until we make another post but we'd love to hear from all of you who have been following us. Let us know you're out there by telling us about your favorite things happening this spring!