Teddy Bear Hills

Summers in Northern California are brown; winters are green. It doesn't rain between about May and November. There can be fog, mind you. Drippy, blowy, cold fog. But that only tempers the inland heat, back in the hills, mostly out of reach of the marine layer. September can be brutal and October can be dangerous.

Today...today was perfect for cycling. Not too hot, not too cold, just right. The hills looked like animal hides. I almost wanted to scratch their giant, tawny contours.

The grass smells toasted at this time of year. It smells sharp and warm. So do the oaks, the madrones. But that lick of fog kept us on the moderate side of fire, of burn.

I rode the clockwise loop above and around Briones Reservoir. The Three Bears, as they're known to cyclists here, Mama, Papa and Baby, are all good climbs. If you're in good shape, they're not too slow, not too fast. They're just right.

Gin time in the waning summer

This week, when I saw this pop-up camper in Mammoth Lakes, I wanted to play cards and sleep in it. So what if it was after Labor Day and the signs of fall were all over the Sierra Nevada. No matter that the temp's were going down to the 40s at night, the aspens were turning yellow at 10,000 feet and Tioga Pass had already been closed once due to snow. The days were still mild, I was still on vacation and no one was in town yet for ski season.

With a couple of gin and tonics in hand, I approached the owner. Not only was he game for a guest, but he remembered how to play gin rummy and offered to teach me at the little camper table by the light of a lantern. Soon we were having a hilarious time.

I think the hardest part of gin rummy is keeping score. It's sort of like bowling that way. But my host knew his way around a tab, and we really didn't care all that much about who won anyway. The point was extending summer another day.

Even though my new best friend lives in a real house nearby, he agreed to keep me company for some late-season outdoor snoozing. This Palomino camper has lots of space once it's popped up. I slept soundly and waked to the howl of a coyote at dawn.