Grammy Barber

While we were in Yosemite Mom called and told us that Grammy Barber had a stroke and was taken down to the Pittsburgh Hospital. They had the blood clot stopped and they thought she was doing ok. The next couple days was like a roller coaster of emotions. She would be doing really well and then there was more bleeding in her brain and then it looked better and then while we were in Sequoia National Park we talked to Dad and they didn't think she would make it through the night. It was neat being amongst the giant sequoias that day. They are 1000s of years old and tall and strong. We saw an information sign near one that had fallen trees saying how even these giants aren't immortal. We always thought of Grammy Barber as immortal too. She was 86 ½ we she passed away on October 11^th. She had fallen down the stairs when she was 80, broke her hip and fine just a few weeks later, she had some heart trouble too, but she was tough and mentally sharp as anyone could be. It was a huge surprise to everyone. Especially Pop, he kept saying when we were home that “we talked about this and I was supposed to go first”.

We got the news that morning... after triple A came and unlocked the keys out of Adam's jeep so that we could use his phone. It was the only one with service. She passed away at 7:30 in the morning after Mom had sat up with her all through the night. Mom left to go outside for a minute with Dad and that's when she decided that it was time to go. I guess she was able to hear everyone while she was in the the hospital and even Annie & I got to talk to her on the phone. She couldn't talk to us but they said she could hear us talking to her. We drove 5 hours down to Orange County to Melvin & Helen's house. Melvin was Grammy's “older brother”. We were able to find and book a flight home while we were driving to their house, so when we got there we were able to visit with them and some of the family for a few hours before we took the red eye flight that night. It was probably the most miserable flight of our lives. Neither of us could really sleep, I had broken out with hives and my whole body itched. We flew to Newark and then got to Pittsburgh at 7:30am. Sarah & Nate came down to pick us up. It was so good to see them. The whole family was able to be home for the viewing. It was hard going to the house and on top of losing Grammy, Rosie wasn't there with the other dogs either. Mom & Dad had to put her down a few weeks earlier.  We were so happy to be able to be home with the family through all this though.

The next few days were a blur. My hives went away after a couple days, Claire informed me that my “faced looked normal” then Annie broke out with a rash all over her face and body which turned out to be poison oak that she probably got while getting firewood back in Sequoia NP. Being home makes me remember why I appreciate the sun so much. It rained almost everyday we were home and if it wasn't rainy it was probably cloudy. I think we had our last 2 days there with some sun. The rain was fitting for how we all felt. So many people came to the viewing and funeral it was really amazing. She was truly a special woman.  She would always pick the most beautiful bouquets; she picked this one just a few hours before she had the stroke.   Then this was a poem that was found in Great Grammy Barber's diary.  Our Grammy Barber definitely lived life this way. It was easy to see how loved she was by so many by the beautiful abundance of flowers that were at the funeral.  

I would rather have one little rose from a garden of a friend 

than all the choicest flowers when my stay on earth doth end.

I would rather have the kindest words, and a smile that I can see, 

than flattery when my heart is still and life has ceased to be.

So bring me all my flowers now please, today. Be they pink, or white, or red. 

I would rather have one blossom now than a truckload when I'm dead.
--- Minnie Mae (Great Grammy Barber)

Yosemite

"No temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life...Awful in stern, immovable majesty, how softly these rocks are adorned, and how fine and reassuring the company they keep: Their feet among beautiful groves and meadows, their brows in the sky, a thousand flowers leaning confidingly against their feet, bathed in floods of water, floods of light..."

- Jphn Muir

At the top of Sentiniel Dome overlooking Half Dome (Nevada Falls is hidden behind us)

We met up with Tamara, who went to UCLA with Cody (friend we stayed with in Chicago). She works in the park and lives in El Portal which is only 20 minutes from the valley. We stayed 4 nights with her and her roommate Meg.  Yosemite is breathtaking.  It's without a doubt one of the most impressive and inspiring places that I've ever seen. (I know I say a lot of places are the most beautiful, and it's true, but this Yosemite really is) I couldn't imagine visiting during the summer or the “busy season” though. It was like a zoo in mid October. We had great weather and were really lucky to see the waterfalls with a decent amount of water flowing. It had rained a few days earlier in the week and then snowed a few inches too. Adam met up with us again and he had been in Yosemite just 2 weeks earlier and said the waterfalls were hardly a trickle of water. We hiked back to Mirror pond and up to the top of Nevada falls. Tamara's boyfriend told us about this secret trail that the trailhead had been covered up by a rockslide, but you can still climb up it. We had a hand drawn map and we felt like we were going on a treasure hunt. When we got to the top we felt like we had found a treasure too. We didn't see a single person climbing up and when we got to the top we had a panoramic view of the valley and 4 waterfalls. It was breath taking. We wanted to hike to the top of half dome, but the path was closed due to the snow and you need to get a permit a few days in advance. 

El Capitan, Half Dome, Bridalveil Falls

 

 One day we drove up to Glacier point and Sentinal dome and hung out for a few hours just admiring Mother Nature's masterpiece. Hanging out around El Capitain was pretty mind blowing. You'd just look up and search for people half way up the mountain. There were tents hanging 1000s of feet up in the air. It was almost a full moon and we stayed around the mountain until after sunset. It looked like lightning bugs all over the face of El Cap. The climbers had their headlights on and were spending the night on the wall. It was pretty wild to see. Meg is a climber and she had some friends over at the house that evening. It was awesome talking with them and hearing their climbing stories. Another night Tamara had some friends from San Diego that were up to visit. They were a ton of fun and we joined them at this party at the community center in El Portal. It was a good time with live music and free drinks to finish the night off.  

Yosemite Park is a place of rest, a refuge from the roar and dust and weary, nervous, wasting work of the lowlands, in which one gains the advantages of both solitude and society. Nowhere will you find more company of a soothing peace-be- still kind. Your animal fellow-beings, so seldom regarded in civilization, and every rock-brow and mountain, stream, and lake, and every plant soon come to be regarded as brothers; even one learns to like the storms and clouds and tireless winds. This one noble park is big enough and rich enough for a whole life of study and aesthetic enjoyment. It is good for everybody, no matter how benumbed with care, encrusted with a mail of business habits like a tree with bark. None can escape its charms. Its natural beauty cleans and warms like a fire, and you will be willing to stay forever in one place like a tree.  - Muir

Napa Valley

Thank God for couch surfing. We stayed with Tonya in old town Napa. She has a beautiful apartment just a few blocks from main street. She had a couple other girls surfing with her our first night there. Jessica use to live in the Bay area and was a member to all these different wine clubs and took us on a tour with her and Jillian to wineries all over Napa for free wine tastings. We did this with them for 2 days. We were even able to go back this secret garden with the Native American gardener. He was in the process of planting white roses all over the side of the hill so that when there was a full moon it would just glow. He said he had a passion for making the world a more beautiful place. He sure did too.

We had another couple that stayed at Tonya's house our 3^rd night there. Lindsey and Josh. They are from Ohio & New York and in the process of doing a year trip like us. They are doing 4 months in the states and then going abroad. Tonya hooked us all up with a free tasting at Cakebread winery because her friend works there. Lindsey and Josh have a great blog that is worth checking out too. Hopefully we'll be meeting back up with them along our journey.

Annie & I had bought a Groupon for a winery weeks ago. We thought that'd be the only one that we would really get to go and experience. Most tastings would cost around $20 per person for a couple tastings. Vezer was the winery and it was a ways out of Napa. Only 2% of the California grapes are even grown in the Napa Valley. The tasting at Vezer was actually our favorite. The tasting guide was really funny and we got to taste some of the wine straight from the barrel. We got to try the original Cabernet solo then he added a little Merlot and made a blend then he added some Zinfandel to make the blend a little sweeter. I liked it best with just the first two blended so he added some more Cabernet to dry it back out. Then we got a meat, cheese and dark chocolate platter and sat and tried a few other wines to finish up the tasting. Our Napa experience was far better than we could have imagined!

Josh, Lindsey, Annie & I at Cakebread winery

San Francisco

We drove down 101 along the California coast through the red wood forests. Those are some of the most impressive woods I've ever been in. It was a really long day of driving, but beautiful. We drove over the Golden Gate bridge that evening, paying the $6 toll, and met up with our friend Adam who we met in Alaska. He has family & friends that live in San Francisco and was staying there for a few months so we decided to meet up for the Hardly Strickly Bluegrass concert. It's a 3 day free festival in the golden gate park. We went Saturday and Sunday. It was so crowded that we just worked our way to one stage and stayed there for the day and watched all the shows. Our favorite band was Hot Buttered Rum.

On Monday we walked around and explored the city. The best part was checking out Anchor Brewery. It's not quite as old as Yuengling, but it's one of the oldest in the country. They've been around since 1896 and is There original beer and how they would brew the beer out west before they had ice available.  Back in the day was that they would put it on the roof to cool it down then the steam would be rising from the rooftops and the town would know that they're brewing beer. It was one of the best brewery tours that we went on they told a lot about the history and stories about each of their different beer styles.  All the beer is still traditionally made (not on the roof though) and it's all made in San Francisco but it's shipped throughout the US. 

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Oregon

DRIVE ACROSS IDAHO
Reluctantly we knew we had to leave Kelly, WY and continue on our journey.  We left after a good hike with Heather in the morning and drove across the Tetons into Idaho.  Then we stopped for a quick tasting at the Grand Teton Brewery Co.  Really delicious beer!  We drove the Craters of the Moon in Idaho and made our way to Boise to stay with a friend, Chelessa, whom I met while living in ATL. We didn't have much time to spend in Boise and Chelessa had class so we didn't get to spend a ton of time with her.  Annie did get a new mountain bike though!  We really wanted to get them before we got to Bend, OR which has some superb trails.

BEND, OR
We got to our couch surfers, Kevin's, house that evening and he cooked us a delicious meal of salmon, kelp, and quinoa along with some local beer from the Deshutes brewery.  We had a really great time with the couch surfing community in Bend.  Annie sent out requests to 3 different people and they all responded able to host us.  We stayed with Kevin both nights but we got to meet everyone else while we were there.  Tom & Candy invited us to a really awesome event called Ignite Bend.  It's a free community event where they have 10 people give 5 minute presentations about basically anything.  We learned about how you can swim with sharks, appreciating clear cuts, how we are being affected by the social online connections and Tom was actually speaking about couch surfing.  They have a few of these events a year with over 400 people in the audience all excited.  The presentations were all quick, to the point, really funny and well put together.   Tom's was talking about how people open their homes to people and we aren't going to be axe murders, which are the majority of people's initial reaction when we talk about couch surfing.

Even then with the Couch Surfing a lot of people don't understand why someone would let random strangers into their house, cook them food, let them shower, etc.  What do they get out of it?  I think there are a ton of reasons why, but a few of the main ones that we've found are that....


WHY DO PEOPLE HOST COUCH SURFERS
* People like giving back to other travelers.  A lot have surfed and been treated great and want to give back.  It's good Karma :)
* It's a great way to meet travelers and live vicariously through them when you're not in a position to be exploring the world at the moment.
* It's fun to share where you live with people from different cultures and backgrounds.  To learn about them and to teach them what life is like in that part of the world / country.
* It's also fun to do some sight seeing / touring "touristy" places that you never would do in your home town unless you're showing someone else around.
* It's an excuse to drink on weeknights!

Seriously everyone that we've met in the couch surfer community has been so nice and amazing people.  Most people that we've met on our trip have been this way.  I think that's one of the beauties of traveling is really getting to appreciate how many good people there are in this world.  Sure there are some bad apples now and then and we aren't naive and blindly trust everyone (we did get our bikes stolen in DC.... and we prefer to stay out of the big cities in general) but there are a lot of good souls out there.  Sadly I think that surprises a lot of people.

Anyways Bend is a pretty kick ass city. It's the "hub of Oregon's outdoor paradise".  The mountain biking was a blast.  It's been such a long time since we've really been on bikes out in the woods.  It felt great riding our new bikes.  We spent the morning riding around Phil's loop.  It's a good single lane through the woods.  Nothing super technical and not a lot of endurance climbs but just a fun fast trail through the woods.  The trail was sandy and that took a while to get use to.  I've never done anything like that out east.  The perfect day of mountain biking wouldn't be complete with some good brewery tastings.  We met up with another couch surfer at Boneyard Brewery for a couple tastings before we went to the Ignite Bend show.  After the show we went and checked out Pete Karsounes, ( http://www.petekmusic.com),  at Old Francis school.  It was an old school that they've converted into a movie theater, a few different bars, and restaurants.  We hung out there for awhile with our couch surfing buddies and then headed home.

The next morning we left to get to southern Oregon.  We drove through the Lava Buttes and down to Crater Lake where we hiked around that afternoon.  The geology of Oregon is pretty incredible. There are so many volcanoes.  It's pretty impressive to see the lava fields full of the obsidian stones from thousands of years ago.