Local trails near Sonora

I'm loving this California assignment! There are so many things to do in the area, and I work with a lot of travelers who are always wanting to get together and do things. These are two of the local hikes that I frequently go to with my co-workers:

Table Mountain:

Natural Bridges:

View from the top of Table Mountain:

San Fran

Spent the weekend in San Francisco.

Discovered a new SF favorite: Ferry Building Marketplace. Lots of specialty shops, including a cheese shop, coffee shop, ice creamery, olive oil shop, gluten free bakery, and a shop that only sells pig parts. I tried a cheese plate from the cheese shop, coffee, specialty ice cream, and a burger at Gott's Roadside over the course of the weekend. I just kept ending up at the Ferry Building! On Saturday they had an outdoor farmer's market and I got some fresh fruit.

Biked all over SF. The city has plenty of bike lanes and even though some parts are super hilly, it was way more fun to bike around the city than to drive. I really enjoyed biking through Golden Gate Park especially.

Hiked at Point Reyes National Seashore. The trail along the bay wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped, due to all the fog (but that is only to be expected in San Francisco). It was a long drive to the other end of the park to see the lighthouse. I got there just as the trail was closing, but still got to see the views of the shore and lighthouse from above.

Mirror Lake

Last weekend I went to Yosemite again for some more hiking. It was an absolutely gorgeous day! I'm really loving all the California sunshine! I did an easy 5 mile round-trip hike to Mirror Lake. It was a little muddy since it had rained the day before, but the trail was pretty flat compared to last week's hike.

It was kind of hard to get a good picture of the reflections, since California is having another drought year and the lake isn't as full as normal.

Still, I love how these turned out! There were several places along the lake where you could see various reflections of the surrounding mountains. It was really cool.

I love Yosemite. It seems like I see something new and awesome each time I go back there!

Yosemite Falls Hike

I am on my third assignment now, in Sonora California! This little town in Northern California is only about an hour from the entrance to Yosemite Park, so I'm planning to visit a bunch while I'm here. A couple years ago, when I visited California for the first time, Yosemite was the highlight of the trip!

Last weekend was National Park Day, so I got into Yosemite for free! I took the opportunity to do a day hike to the top of Yosemite Falls. It's one of the hikes that I didn't get to do last time.

Distance: 7.2 miles round trip
Time: 4 hours (2 hours to top, 1/2 hour for lunch, 1.5 hours down)

It was a strenuous hike, and it got especially steep near the top. I was determined to make it up with as few rest breaks as possible. I made it into a competition to see how many people I could beat. I passed a lot of people on the way up without getting passed once (of course no one else knew they were in a competition)! The views at the top were worth every step.

I hiked over the rocks to the source of the waterfall. There were less people over there and it was a great spot to eat lunch and enjoy the view. There's also a few stairs that you can walk down to look over the ledge where the waterfall drops- but be prepared to get hit with some spray!

I loved this hike, even though I had to walk an extra mile to and from the parking lot which added an extra hour of walking time. On the way there I had to walk because the shuttle was full, and on the way back, I decided to walk and look around a little bit more. The valley floor was somewhat crowded due to the free park day. After my hike, I stopped in the visitor's center for a bit and then got a sandwich at Degnan's Deli (their chicken salad is delicious!).

I can't wait to go back to Yosemite for more hiking! I still want to do Lower Yosemite Falls and Mirror Lake (shorter, easier hikes) and Glacier Point (almost 10 miles round trip, which will be an all-day hike).

Country songs to put a smile on

These are my current country faves because they make me happy!

Sam Hunt - Leave the Night On
"It's still early out in Cali, baby don't you wanna rally again?"

Billy Currington - Don't It
"Get on it, take a shot you can sip on it, find a floor we can dance on it, slow song it"

Zac Brown Band - Homegrown
"Small town and it feels like home, I've got everything I need, and nothing that I don't"

Ski Season in Colorado

One of my reasons for taking an assignment in Colorado during winter was the chance to ski out west. I've done plenty of skiing in New England: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont, but never out west. I've been wanting to go for awhile, so this year was the perfect chance. I got the Epic Season Pass which gave me access to all Vail Resorts.

Vail
The Mountain: LOTS of terrain. There were several good black diamond and double black trails, as well as many blues and greens. The back bowls were closed when I was there. It would be even better with all the bowls and glades open. It can be hard to get from one side of the mountain to the other to ski it all.
The Resort: Vail is ritzy. There are lots of expensive stores and restaurants, and it's hard to find bargain lodging if you want to stay close to the slopes. The nice thing is that everything's within walking distance. The wide cobblestone streets are really pretty, and it's nice to be able to walk around without worrying about traffic. (I did find one great cheaper restaurant called George's - it's in a basement and set up with couches amid tables. It was so cozy and the food was delicious!)

Breckenridge
The Mountain: Breck is similar to Vail in terms of the type and amount of terrain. There's plenty of black diamonds, glades, and bowls. When I skied, the conditions were slightly better at Breck. It takes a little more time to get to the base of peaks 7 and 8 - you have to take a gondola lift from the parking lot.
The Resort: Breck had a lot more bargain options than Vail for lodging. I stayed in a two bedroom condo off of the four o'clock run for less than $200 a night. Breck's main street has lots of dining options and shops that are more affordable than Vail. It's a little farther to walk, but there's street parking and parking lots that are free after 4pm.

Keystone
The Mountain: I had so much fun at Keystone! It may have been that it was just a good powder day, but every run was awesome. I skied the North and South bowls, which was my first time skiing hike-to terrain. The bowls had wonderful barely touched snow, then the trails dumped into pristine glades. Those were my favorite runs of the year!
The Resort: I can't comment on the lodging because I didn't actually stay at Keystone. One of the great things about Keystone is that it's within an hour drive of Golden, Colorado. I stayed there and drove in for the day. It seemed like there were more locals than at Vail or Breck. I ate lunch at LaBonte's BBQ and their signature bowl was amazing.

It wasn't the best ski season- it's been unseasonably warm this year in Colorado. But I did get a few good days of powder, and I'm glad I finally got the chance to ski out west - I loved it! I already want to come back to Colorado to ski again next year.

Movies Based on Books

I recently watched a lot of movies based on books, so I thought I'd do a little review here.

Mockingjay: Part 1

This is the most popular book to movie franchise right now. I saw the movie a few months ago. I loved the Hunger Games books. I think the movies are pretty good, but certainly not as good as the books. I don't especially love the casting. Jennifer Lawrence is a good actress and I like her a lot in other movies, but she's not how I pictured Katniss. She has grown on me with each sequel though. I liked this movie, but I'm even more excited for Part 2, when we get to see more of Peeta! It's kind of annoying how movie companies keep splitting the last book in a series into two movies, but it makes a little more sense with this book because there are two distinct parts.

The Host

I saw this about a year ago, but I wanted to include it because I really liked this movie! I actually never read The Host, but it's written by Stephanie Meyer, the author of the Twilight books. I watched this movie not expecting too much, but I thought it had an intriguing premise: aliens are trying to inhabit earth by taking over human bodies as their "host". It turns out some humans are able to resist better than others. It sounds weird, but it's a really good fun story. It's kind of hard to describe, but definitely worth a watch.

Divergent

This is probably my favorite movie of the bunch. I read Divergent and liked it (although the other books in the series weren't nearly as good). The movie made the book come alive almost the way I pictured it, which rarely happens! This is one movie where I thought the casting was perfect (unlike the Twilight series and Hunger Games). I loved the casting for Tris, Four, and Eric. I also thought they did a good job with the fear landscape scenes. Maybe this book was easier to adapt because it has more action sequences and less thinking/feeling/emotions that can't be conveyed onscreen. For that reason, I thought the movie was just as good as the book. Maybe even a little better, because Four is smoking hot! (and so are his tattoos!)

The Fault in Our Stars

I never read this book, but I'd heard a lot about it. I knew it was a tear-jerker, so I decided to watch the movie instead of trying to get through a depressing book. The movie was cute, but not great. Shailene Woodley did a good job and was completely different from the character she played in Divergent. However, her love interest was embarrassingly awkward at times. Maybe he was awkward like that in the books, but it came across as really lame in the movie. If you can get past some of those totally cheesy initial lines, the love story is pretty cute, especially the fact that they bond over a favorite book. But both characters have cancer, so you know it's not going to end well. 

I kind of hate depressing endings, but this one at least had some depth to it. I cried a bunch watching the movie, so I can't even imagine how much I would've cried reading the book.

Overall, I would recommend all of these. The first three are more light-hearted and fun, and I would watch all of them again. The last one is a tragic story that I will probably only watch once. It makes you contemplate life and death and the meaning of our existence, which is sometimes more than I want to think about when I watch a movie.

Edit: Forgot to mention another recent book-to-movie: Gone Girl

My mom read the book and said she wouldn't recommend it. She said it was dark and she didn't like the ending. So I didn't read the book, but I was interested in seeing the movie to see what all the buzz was about. It was a good psychological thriller. It's a movie where you're constantly second guessing everything that happens and trying to figure out how the characters are manipulating each other. I heard that the movie's ending was different from the book, so I read the last 100 pages of the book to find out how they differed. People lied. They are a few minor details that are changed, but overall the endings are the same. The ending is kind of frustrating, but with a plot like that, you can't expect to like how the story turns out.