Notice how overcrowded and dangerous our local beaches are.

Leavitt Meadows - a view to the Marines' base.

The life that has stopped in March, has actually never re-started. We would keep on living outside of time and direction, without a chance to plan anything or to look forward to something, all being hopeless and a gray array of endless, repeating days of totality. Sometimes we bit off some joy, like when we went to Ralf's with our friends to have a beer. But Ralf stopped serving food, and it is still impossible to take kids along — not even to the patio.

We would set out on surreptitious trips in the vicinity — you would never know for sure which county decides what to close down — and it would usually be at least public restrooms — so you can imagine how it looks in woods and bushes and ditches. Closed parking lots mean cars parked on the roadsides, in driveways and any other wrong places — as people marinated in their own juices with (however lovely) family, simply need out. After all, vitamin D and exercise should improve one's immunity, so all efforts to imprison people in their homes make no sense.

As we thus stumbled through many shapeless weeks, the Independence Day showed up on our horizon (falling on Saturday, March 126 — quarantine was supposed to cease with the end of March, and so I gather, we still have March). I checked out the websites of city of Bridgeport, what would be left of their traditional celebrations — and it said, fireworks. No rodeo, no parade — that would be dangerous (while arson and store looting is a welcome expression of liberation). Finally they allowed street vendors — as they have already purchased their food and baubles (and their permits from the city, which would otherwise need to be refunded...). Well, we don't care about street vendors. We were more interested to find out if our pack station would be open, just as Mountain View Barbeque in Walker, our important stops, where owners long ago became our friends.

Tioga Peak — and lake's end with a ravine.

Tioga Road.

We also hoped that campgrounds would be open. Not that we would ever likely thought of staying there, but because we wanted everybody else to stay in them, thus not filling up our wild campsites in the woods. At least, that worked out, campgrounds were open, but in the meantime the comrades had restricted access to Yosemite to permit-holders only, and set up process of limited issue of said permits. There are only several passes crossing the roughly 400 miles long mountain range of Sierra Nevada — the one in Yosemite, Tioga Pass, being the southernmost — i.e. often used by people who don't even want to visit the National Park, but only cross to the other side of the mountains. Now, this pass had de-facto closed for public. Consequently, everybody flowed over to using other passes — and despite campgrounds being open, our favorite Sonora Pass received the bulk of formerly Yosemite-bound traffic. If you cannot imagine the ZOO that ensued, don't. You could end up feeling sick.

On Thursday, when we arrived, it was not so bad yet. Our usual spot was free, and when several sets of additional people arrived later that evening, we all spread out in the woods with no problem. We drove out towards Yosemite from its eastern end, not bothering to enter the Park proper — we fell in love with Gardisky Lake last year, and thus repeated our visit there. Hiking uphill this time felt somewhat merrier, perhaps because we had already been and knew it's worth overcoming the nasty switchbacks. Right in the beginning we met a hag who demanded noisily of us to wear muzzles.
This, at ten thousand feet altitude, on a sunny day, outdoors in the mountains, with nobody else but our family and her as far we could see, with plenty of room to go around each other. Which she demonstrably did, while continually muttering something into her oversize face diaper.

Lake, ravine, volcanoes.

Pools are all that's left of snow.

Later we met some multi-family group with innumerable small children; none of them wore masks, and peace ensued. At the very lake we spotted another group in the distance, but that was pretty much it. Only during our descent back we ran into three young Indians; one kept sitting down on a boulder and wheezing, so I encouraged him that if an old woman with a lame knee like myself could climb it up, he'd manage too.

But I'm getting ahead of myself — we were still at the lake now. There's less snow this year, slopes on the opposite side of the main valley, having born ski tracks last year, were bare now, and Gardisky Lake, too, sported no snowbanks along its rim. This has motivated us to circumnavigate it. There is a natural spillway on the other side toward Tioga Pass Road, and we expected a mighty view there. Our wish got granted and in the end our hike around the lake became a rather nice walk, interspersed with a bit of exercise while forcing our way through a dense grove.

Marmot.

A view across Gardisky Lake to northern slopes.

Our reward for the hike was a dinner at Whoa Nellie's Deli. Alas, ordering had to be done outside, at a window, wearing masks, which lead to a duel that could be named, "The Deaf and the Moron", which would be funny, if it was not so damned annoying! Lisa wanted a cheese pizza, server said they did not have it, but they had one with chicken and pesto. I asked if they had any pasta or something like that. She answered that she would get me the chicken pesto pizza then. And so on and on, three times is a charm, a moronic overload, until I yelled that Lisa will have a hot dog. All the rest of us ordered their signature tuna sashimi, at least that was no problem — and Sid and I had beers. In paper cups, but what can you do.

The evening at the campsite got worse — a trio of losers had parked their Prius right next to us. They were rather quiet themselves, but from seven till ten in the evening they would slam, in approximately ten second intervals, their vehicle's doors. Continually. Same happened in the morning, another THREE HOURS of door slamming. How they did it, I still don't get; three adults who did nothing special but had a breakfast and packed for a same-day trip (leaving their tent standing) — perhaps they kept running through the car or played some sort of game — I just don't know. Sadly, our wild campsite engorged with advancing weekend into incredible size and density of population, and we seriously considered evacuation. We don't visit nature in order to listen to our neighbors from multiple directions all night. A family council decreed that we would forgo the fireworks, pack up, and after our obligatory horseback ride, we'd go back home.

Not much water in the river either.

Off-road horses.

We had reserved only a one-hour ride, on the meadow — Lisa can't ride much because of her back, I have not sat in the saddle for half year, and Sid with Tom don't enjoy it enough, to warrant torturing ourselves with something longer. I was issued a new horse, Lloyd, who reminded me of Ned a lot. By his soft, long stride, by demeanor, and by his dark gray mane. But when we were done riding and I wanted to jump off, I almost dropped on my butt — ground was unexpectedly far; Lloyd is much taller than Ned!

It so happens that our packing and short ride was a very lucky choice — we made it to Jeff's before he closed early for the fireworks. And since most guests preferred to sit outside, we could sit INSIDE without any crowds (after three days of camping we were sufficiently outed), and had a chance to chat with Jeff and Amanda. We got our beer served in glass, and food on real plates, and overall started feeling like humans again — having a civilized dinner, having conversed with friends, who did not treat us like lepers.

Finally some practices are back.

I sew the bow tie crooked in the end.

Returning to the locked-down Bay was depressive, but we had only about a week to wash and re-pack, before we would set out to our big trip to fly balloons in Wyoming. Our small trip tested that my goaties would manage without my presence — goats would normally talk to me and did not show any notion of being surprised I came back. I concluded from this that Ashley and Trudy must have pampered them rotten. All that was left to do was give the boys another shot, write down a page of goat care instructions, which some people found funny. But I have encountered so much drama with my goat boys this year, I wanted to keep everything under control. Thus I wrote even an affidavit for my vet that she may visit and treat my goats during my absence. Nothing can be worse than having a sick animal, who can't get help because people are afraid to call a vet, fearing complications with billing.

On the second July week, Lisa's vaulting got a little going again. The club and the stables had finally considered that the girls could possibly even see each other, and kindly allowed practices. Individuals only, with much sanitizing and masking during transitions — but at least something. Yet again — I don't compute masks outdoors, in the air and in the sun, but apparently I'm not an expert. Sadly, the team show that started getting together in March, is all canceled. AVA tries to get some money and motivate, so this year's competitions are all virtual — a club captures videos of performances and judges rate those. I don't know how that's going to work, but again, something — some motivation for kids. I don't understand, why football and baseball and similar sports, where players touch the same ball, can be openly played, and individual vaulting, where a lonely rider on a horse in a closed circle, is not permitted — but again, I am apparently not an expert.

Compulsories.

Free style.

Lisa was relatively lucky in having her individual performance put together for a moving barrel, and therefore had thought of the theme, music, and costume. Naturally, things must change when adopting it to a horse — one cannot dare as many moves on a horse as on a barrel. We also had to alternate her costume — on the barrel she could perform wearing a shirt, which is not OK on the horse for safety reasons. If she fell, she needs to fall clean and directly, not catching on any part of her clothing. There's already enough risk in the fall itself, no need to add more danger of the horse dragging her on, or some tangled piece of cloth breaking her limbs. So we ordered a white leotard with a turtle-neck, and I, while cursing loudly, sew a bow-tie on — my vision is getting ever worse on short distance, and sewing is really not my hobby.

All that was left was actually take part in the circus. Despite these being competitions for fun, unrated, Lisa was pretty shaken. Eventually all went more smoothly than normal competition would be, there was enough time to change costumes from club colors to individuals, and time to take a breath. Moreover, I did not have to help out anywhere, and had time to watch and take pictures. Everything peachy.

Such was the last item on our list, and we could fully devote to preparations for our big trip.