TRAVELS WITH MATTIE

And just like that, it's basically July. How does this happen? Summer always flies, and this one more than most. This will be short since I'm just bumming out at Black Velvet Coffee in Mammoth before heading back into the mountains, but here's a quick recap of our recent weeks. We've been having more amazing adventures, road trips, and reunions. First: IDAHO!  We took a great long weekend to go hang out around Eagle, ID visiting Kevin, Dawn, Bigsley, Scout, Felix and Bandit at their new beautiful home just west of Boise. It was a gorgeous, easy drive through the desert to get to their little oasis home. When we weren't watching the quailies (hi Dan!) and foal at the little ranch just out their backyard, we were seeing some cool sights, going on very short hikes with Mattie, drinking great beers, watching osprey (and maybe a river otter) snag trout in the Boise River, sleeping in (such bums), catching a soccer game here and there, explori...

It's SUMMER!!! The biggest news, of course: Mattie Mae is kicking butt! Still on her steroid treatments, our little best buddy charged through an unexpected spring together and has made it to another summer. Summer has always been our favorite time together. We've spent countless weeks living in a truck along Lee Vining Creek, made a mobile home in the Eastern Sierra from Lone Pine to Hope Valley, trekked to different states and mountain ranges, swam in alpine lakes, slept in the sagebrush under meteor showers, fished big rivers and lazy lakes, worked from the Latte Da, watched soccer at the Ljung's summer home in Mono City, watched moonrises over Mono Lake and found new laughing places all throughout the Owens Valley. Now, we're starting another summer together. Here's how it's going. I was spoiled this spring and taught an intensive 5-week course instead of the usual 10-week quarter, so said goodbye to my office on April 28th to kick off our longest summ...