We're ready to sail!!

Thanks to son-in-law Johns help, we built a pantry to store food, splash-backs for the kitchen sink and stove areas that have clip on containers for the frequently used items, installed a bathroom medicine cabinet, paper towel holder, soap dispensers and a Kleenex box holder.  

WHEW.  It was a whirlwind – but best done like a live amputation – quickly!

Juniper played in the stream while all this was going on.

The next morning … snow … again.  In and out of the camper moving items back and forth until the pack and construction process was complete.  It was a mud bath, but easily cleaned because it’s soooo... small.   Something to be said for downsizing.

Snap-shot day –
We helped Becky with Lake Tahoe’s snap shot day - when water samples and feeder stream assessments are taken from all around Lake Tahoe.  We hiked a mile to a secluded beach that she had been assigned to survey.  We collected data, made stream pathway drawings, collected water samples, tested some on site and brought some back to the central lab.  It was a great excuse for a walk through beautiful woods.

In the forest we saw unusual 'snow flowers’, which are really fungus.

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We leaned one thing interesting … Incense Cedar trees which have incredibly thick bark (up to 10” thick- see bark size reference with glasses), 

have become a host for the invasive mistletoe plant.  

The mistletoe grows all over the cedar (like Spanish moss) and the tree eventually dies.  Resistant to forest fire, and succumbs to mistletoe!

We said our good-byes (just for a few days) and they launched us off onto our first expedition.  We were very excited.