Sierra Escape – Parte Dos

The Argentine lentil soup with chorizo and bacon really wasn’t a big hit with camp, other than the Fletcher Group from down in Fletcher Village (1). “Come on GR, you know its funny,” Steele quips as he tries to pawn off his lemony chicken to the rest of camp, which is sitting around joking about the color and texture of the soup. They are awaiting fajitas (read Mexican) that are standing by as Steele wrangles his chicken off of the stove, freeing it up for the fajitas, which ended up being a real hit with the entire camp, (2) although the Chilaquiles I had whipped up that morning went down well.

Needless to say there we’re some food issues in camp on this trip. MT is talking to Cal about the Trader Joe’s Beef Stew he has brought up and Cal says that he happened to have a Stroganoff type dish last night. “That’s funny!” exclaims MT in only that surprised, wryly MT way. “I had a little Stroganoff thing going on last night TOO!” he blurts out in all earnest. Fletch and I both look at each other and start cranking up.

“I’m happy for myself,” Cal says at some point that evening while the sun sets to the West, still reveling in his solo home run shot in the Long Baller’s Softball game from the night before (3).

Beautiful weather all three days and at 6,500’ in elevation there was not a cloud in the sky the entire time.

Billy Joel comes onto the iTunes rotation (Fletch comes through again with the portable ninja camping speakers) with ‘Only the Good Die Young’. The next song, “Oh What a Night” is completely up for debate. (4)

Sarah and Marina take turns taking pictures of themselves over the container of soup. Desmond Deker comes on the iPod. Steele takes a shot at Fletch about his first snowboarding trip and a ride down the mountain on a snowmobile holding on to the woman’s midsection in front of him for dear life as the navigate down and off the steep and treacherous slope (ouch). Apparently someone had led him up something other than the beginners’ bunny run and he got stuck.

There’s a debate going on to one side of the fire as to the differences between a skank-style dance move and the chicken, but not funky, just the chicken. Cal brings up the similarities between the hustle and the robot. “What about the shopping cart?” MT asks, while he moves across camping bobbing and weaving his head with both hands in front moving forward and back as if he was pushing a cart to some sort of 70’s disco hit. “That looks the same as the baby stroller,” Cal exclaims in a rage of disgust. Continuing on with what looks like MT pushing an invisible cart around camp, he yells, “not when you’re doing this!” as he now adds in the move of pretending to reach out to an invisible shelf on each side of the imaginary isle of a supermarket, snagging goods left and right to add to his cart, bobbin’ and weaving the entire time, this time moving his head to and fro and side to side. [TBC]

1 - Parker Fletcher made it up to the lake for the first time this year at age ten, equipped with his own tent and sleeping bag combo, expanding the Fletcher Love Palace of last year into a full functioning multi-tent complex self-titled ‘Fletcher Village’ located in a pocket up and over a big rock just to the north of the communal camp fire and kitchen. His dad, The Fletch Monster, having flipped our canoe over just a year ago in October, dumping him and myself into the freezing cold fall lake, had never brought little son to the lake and has himself only been up once or twice before.

Parker thoroughly enjoys his weekend, running around, hiking, climbing, swimming, laughing and eating even though he has to endure rounds and rounds of campers shouting “Earmuffs Parker, EARMUFFS!”

2 – The Guizo de Lentejas actually was pretty good. Unfortunately, word spread that I had used lake water to make the stew, which was true. When you bring lake water to a boil for over five minutes, which I did, the boiling water kills off all bacteria and its not an issue. But the rumorous-truth had spread like wildfire and the stew was later nicknamed GR-dia stew. Steele, although he didn’t have a specific name for his Lemony chicken, did state the contents of his marinade several times which included, among other things like red pepper flakes, salt and shallots? Or was that the flank stake, which was very good the night before. Not sure who exactly was responsible for the fajitas but I know Mei Mei was in on it and I think Super Dave as well.

3 – Long Ballers is an eight-year running softball team managed by MT which is mostly people somehow connected to UCSF. This particular night they were playing was my first night back into town. Sarah Wheeler and I sit and chatted for a bit over beers and then got to the game just in the nick of time to see Cal Santos, in an awesome display of force, belt one to deep left field, high-stepping around the base round third fast enough to pull him almost out of the base running line in a sort of ‘whoop, whoop, whoop’ way like you might imagine the Three Stooges doing if they were playing softball.

4 – This was a long debate and fiercely fought by brave and valiant souls. The song we were actually listening to was performed by Franki Valli and the Four Seasons by not only did the iPod say Billy Joel, some members of the camp swore it had to be Billy Joel. I could go on but… well, do you really care?