"Home" for the Holidays

It’s been so long since I last posted, mostly because I haven’t known what to say. How do I describe the holidays when it’s been over a year since I’ve seen a single family member? How do I write about the fun stuff, like snowboarding and trail running, when so many around me are struggling with job loss, health issues, and isolation? This is my attempt at putting words to the past few months.

Back in November, when public health officials were desperately urging people not to travel for Thanksgiving, Owen and I decided to go anyway. Why? Because where we were going, there wouldn’t be many people. We were headed to Mojave National Preserve, the largest unit in the National Park System, sprawling 1.6 million acres across southern California. Within the preserve there is no lodging (besides two campgrounds), no gas stations, no restaurants, and no stores. I had a feeling we wouldn’t be encountering crowds.

En route to Mojave

I was right. We pulled up to a campground midday on Thanksgiving and had our pick of sites. Over the next several hours we cooked a Thanksgiving feast, backpacker style: instant mashed potatoes, stuffing with turkey and dried cranberries, apple pie brought from home, and ice cream kept cold in an insulated mug. I wish I could say that we enjoyed it amongst a backdrop of the setting desert sun, but it was so damn cold and windy that we hunkered down in the car to eat instead. 

Exploring near the campground

Near aptly named Hole-in-the-Wall Campground 

We spent the next couple days exploring the park and hoping that our little Toyota Yaris wouldn’t bottom out, pop a tire, or get stuck in the sand. Dogs are technically allowed on trails in the park but two of the hikes I wanted to try seemed very ill-suited for them. One trail had a section so steep that there were rings bolted in the rock to pull yourself up. Somehow Denali used her four-paw drive and scampered right up the canyon. Another trail required descending into a lava tube on a steep, rickety ladder. Owen carried Denali in his arms down the ladder, and she seemed to enjoy being in the dark cave-like environment. Denali had no issues on our last hike to the top of a sand dune. In fact she enjoyed it so much she playfully grabbed a mouthful of sand, thinking it was snow! We decided to cut our trip a little short and drove through the night to make it home in time to buy a tree from our favorite tree farm. And with that, the Christmas holidays had officially begun.

In the lava tube

30 minutes to get up, 10 seconds to get down

Christmas was not its usual affair. We were not in New Jersey, we were not with our families, and we were not gorging on Jersey's finest pork roll, pizzas, and sub sandwiches. However, thanks to a secret Santa gift from someone who knows my cravings very well, I did get my hands on fresh bagels shipped overnight from New York. As much as we missed our usual traditions, spending the holidays in our little cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains was not the worst place to be. Our wood stove was roaring most nights, our landlords generously shared mulled wine with us, and we recreated our favorite home cooked meals and desserts.

Someone found the Christmas cookies

Spotted this little guy in the middle of nowhere

In between the Zoom calls and virtual game nights, we went on a few microadventures. There was the spontaneous couch to 11 mile bike ride that Owen and I went on, leaving us unable to sit down comfortably for days. There was the double digit trail run Denali and I did, when I only wiped out spectacularly once. Then there was the day we drove seven hours to play in the snow for two. We even dusted off the snowboards and got in a day of riding. On New Years Eve, there was no Times Square ball drop at midnight (at least not on the west coast). There were no toasts with family and friends, no catch up the next morning with my mom and sister. But there was a midnight dance party with Owen and Denali, an impromptu drunken FaceTime call with Owen’s sister and her husband, and a late night walk under the stars. And for all that, I am very grateful.

My new trail running partner

Exploring the Santa Cruz coast

In my last post I wrote about a solo glamping trip I took this fall. What I failed to mention was that the primary reason I chose that particular glamping Airbnb, drove four hours, and shelled out a decent amount of money, was because it had a tub. Not just any tub, but an open air tub, out in the middle of the woods. I’m a bath person that doesn’t currently have a bathtub, so I was willing to go to some lengths to take a decent bath. The only problem was that when I got there, there was no hot water. There was no way I was doing a polar plunge when it was below freezing that night. Instead, when I got home I booked another Airbnb with a tub, and two months later, in mid-January, I finally got to enjoy a soak. 

Now that's a proper bathtub

January 29 marked the day I became officially in my “late, late 20s” according to Kelli, and I celebrated with a trip to Lake Tahoe with Owen and Denali. The area had just gotten dumped on with over five feet of snow and it was like being in a Whoville fairytale, everything shimmering in white and the trees frosted with powder. That is, until we tried to walk in it. What I imagined would be a quick, easy snowshoe hike out to Fallen Leaf Lake turned into an all day challenge. Our snowshoes could have been the size of cars and I still don’t think we would have floated on top of the snow. The upside was that we let Denali off leash, since there was no way she could take off quickly after squirrels/deer/birds/falling sticks that sounded like animals.

Fallen Leaf Lake

Lake Tahoe

Throughout everything, we’ve been enjoying the perks and quirks of mountain living. We learned about an infamous local known as the Naked Welder who apparently has some serious artistic skills. We got precious intel from our neighbors on how to trick an Uber driver into giving you a ride back to the mountains. And of course, it wouldn’t be mountain living without bad storms, closed roads, and power outages, right? In the four years we lived in San Jose, we never lost power for any significant amount of time. Now, it feels almost routine. At night, we don our headlamps, cook dinner outside on our backpacking stove, and eat by candlelight. If we’re lucky, we drink some melted ice cream for dessert. It’s not a bad arrangement. 

What was once a dry ditch

I'm posting this as we're frantically packing for another adventure. Hopefully I have more stories to share soon!