A beautiful sight: Kings Canyon by day

Well it was the long weekend this weekend, and what better way to spend it than with 7 of my buddies going "camping" in the beautiful Kings Canyon, located 5 hours away near Yosemite Park - just as nice, not as crowded.

Yes it was a long drive!



... But there were beautiful waterfalls to see ...



... great places by the river to do Quiet Times ...



We even went to see the world's biggest tree! Here's a branch (?!) that feel from it - and my friend Eric finishing it off ...



Going camping was a lot of fun. Though all we really did was pull up in a camping spot, buy a LOT of food and drink, and enjoy ourselves with lots of hanging out, and the occasional hike. OK, it was more like a stroll to the nearby toilets, but a strong imagination is part of nature, right? =)

Where bears (seriously!) like to prowl: Kings Canyon by night

The scary thing about these campsites is that bears actually do prowl around at night. Here's a picture of one I secretly took ...



... from a brochure in the gift shop.

Night time means it's time to get the fire going ... (here it's smokin' in our campsite) ...



... get some food going (here's a traditional (Seriously!) American campfire snack called SMORES - where you toast the marshmallow, biscuits and chocolate ...



... break out the ol' guitar for some singalongs ...



... and then do what men do at night:

PLAY BOARD GAMES. We became absolutely obsessed with this game, "Settlers of Katan", which is kind of like a combination of Risk and Sim City and Economics. Very, bvery business school ...



Finally, we went on a cave tour!!! Check out the 'tites (yes, I forget which one is which)



(OK, so we went to it during the day, but it's, like, night on the inside ...) =)

It was a fantastic trip; a great chance to bond with everyone, to get away from the endless noise (and non-stop emails! whoa) and chill out.

Ah.

Arts Week: Somewhere out there makes yet another appearance

Yet another cool "almost summer" things we do here is arts week - this time, the Schwab courtyard - located 2 metres from my window and so often the focal point of parties and the like - is transformed into 3-4 nights of classical and contemporary music (different night each) as well as dance and artwork (painting, etc). Culture indeed!

Of course, I couldn't hold back and volutneered to sing a few songs in the evening on this beautiful grand piano we rented ...



... it was a great atmosphere, with everyone grabbing a rug and a glass of win and finding a spot on the grass as the sun slowly sank ...



... what did I sing? Love sons from the 1980s of course, including TWO duets with my friend Meg (who has an incredible voice) notably "Somewhere out there" and "Endless love" ...



... not to mention "Amazing Grace"!

Blessings
john

La, la la la la la: My first smurfin' world record

The world's biggest "fun run" is NOT actually the City to Surf (though I think it is if you count the people who pay). The Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco is a similar 12K run that involves well over 100,000 people - starting from the middle of San Francisco all the way to the Golden Gate bridge. It really is a beautiful sight:



This year, 300 of those people (including me) decided to try and use the race as an opportunity to set a World Record (my first - hopefully not my last!): the most number of human smurfs in the one place. And we did it! Check out http://baytobreakers.imeem.com /

Someone went to all the trouble to get blue body paint, design these cool white hats that flopped over, get little white shoes and make pants for everyone (though for some reason, no one would sponsor us except this internet gambling company ... can't imagine why? http://www.goldenpalaceevents.com/charity/smurfiest01.php).

The results were VERY cool.



They even made this huge mushroom which had a 2nd story for a DJ (Dressed as Gargamel of course) and also dispensed "smurf juice" ...



Seeing we took up the entire road, we slowed the race down considerably, and ambled along at the net pace of about 1 mile an hour.



To our defence, we were somewhat slowed by the thousands of onlookers (many people who had houses on the route were throwing brunch/dance parties) cheering us on and throwing tortillas (?!!?) at us.

Which was all fine until the engine giant mushroom itself broke down, meaning we took mile-long shifts to push that thing - mushrooms can be heavy!!!



As for the race itself, there were also a LOT of people (generally middle to old aged people!) who ran the 12K completely naked, except for wearing a yellow balloon. I'm not sure why, and somehow some photos of them ended up on my camera, but I won't be publishing them here ...

Oh yeah, and I think some Kenyan guy won. But he didn't set a world record ... =)