"To lovers of the wild, these mountains are not a hundred miles away. Their spiritual power and the goodness of the sky make them near, as a circle of friends..." - John Muir

We survived the reunion...or rather the WBC reunion survived us. We left Orange County at 11:30am, and made it to a watering hole in Ramona for some liquid nourishment. We hit the road again, discussing wombats and burping a little tequila, winding 40 more miles in to the hill towards Mount Laguna and the Sierra Club's Foster Lodge. Once we arrived, we broke open a cold Newcastle, toasted a beautiful drive, and made camp. From the beer to the wine, to more beer and more wine, to a pot-luck display worthy of any discriminating family's holiday get-together, then back to wine, beer AND port, we celebrated a successful WBC finale, getting our certificates and watching DVDs (great job E!) of all of our dry miles and wet miles. A few took a night hike to the point via the darn windy PCT, saw a falling star, then turned in for some much needed rest. Around 3am, with the wind howling all around us, a tree fell, and yes, a few of us did hear it!

Chef Al and Chef Jeff prepared some tasty omelettes, even though we all know they didn't wake up at 6am! From there we cleaned and packed and bid farewell to the group. We swung by Julian, grabbed some pie (of course!) and did a memorable drive-by of our favorite Escondido memories (cough cough). We managed to make it out of Escondido without calling 911 and slid into home (and couches) by 1pm. On the way to the aforementioned couch...the second Whitney permit was spied tucked in to the mailbox.

Looks like we will be spending Independence Day in Independence CA. How fitting! See you there!