A San Francisco Treat

Well faithful readers, we’ve made it to major destination #3 on our cross-country tour – and we appreciate your company all the way. As I write this posting we are enjoying the cool weather of San Francisco (actually hot right now), our home base for the next week as we prepare for Renegade Show #2.

The travels here from Bishop, CA were by far the most spectacular miles covered yet. We charted a course past Mammoth, onto Mono Lake, through Tioga Pass before barreling into Merced where the kind family of a friend agreed to house our trailer for the week as we moved onto San Francisco – Land of No-Parking.

That same friend, who shall remain nameless, recommended a brief detour on our way up from Bishop to visit a strange geological anomaly – Devil’s Postpile. The bizarre hexagonally shaped formations peaked our interest so we added the stop to our itinerary. Little did we know that the visit would be hell incarnate. See, the problem with Devil’s Postile is that it is beyond Mammoth, summer vacation paradise. Stack a Jazz Festival on top of a major mountain biking destination and you have tourist central. By the time we reached the actual entryway to the monument we had dodged no less than twelve bikers trying to run our car off the road. That’s when the bad news came. A friendly ranger informed us that our two-hour detour was all for not. A mandatory shuttle was the only method available for traveling to this monument. The entire excursion would have added another two hours to our already jam-packed day. Rejected and dejected, we rolled back down the mountain hexagonal-less and toward our consolation prize.
Mono Lake, while no Devil’s Postpile, is a pretty interesting pit stop. The combination of inland salt water and surreal tufas was enough eye-candy to hold us over through lunch. It was, however, hot…very hot. Maisy informed us all that hydration was the key to happiness.

Having our fill of desert climates, we headed west through the well-known Tioga Pass. Of all the roads thus far, this one easily put our Forester/Scamp setup to the maximum test. Second gear was the default as we ascended from 4,000 to 10,000+ feet in a matter of miles. The view at the top is well worth the climb.

We camped over in Hodgdon Meadows, which is sort of the bastard campsite in Yosemite but did us just fine for the night. Having already visited this park a few years back, we hightailed it to the city. After all, Maisy had a prearranged playdate.

Our old friend Sarah introduced us to our new friend Ahmory. Sarah is a fellow glass artist and runs a lovely outfit – Mediums to Masses (link). While the babies discussed various chewing techniques, Tracy and Sarah talked shop and offered support for the weekend, as Sarah will also be participating in this weekend’s craft fair.

We’ll close this posting by sharing a first for Happy Owl Glass. Meet Elaine.


While perusing the cheese at a local Berkeley market, Tracy was complimented on one of our limited Raccoon shirts. She liked the shirt so much that she literally bought it off of Tracy’s back – what a compliment!