The Curious Housewife

Duck Lake, Carson Pass Area, CA Yesterday was a very blessed kind of day. My hiking buddies and I enjoyed a wonderful outing up at the Carson Pass area. We hiked from the Information Station to Duck Lake (shown above), on to Lake Winnemucca and then on to Round Top Lake. The weather was perfect and the views were beautiful. Things were pretty perfect. On the return portion of our hike, however, we encountered a problem. Nearly a mile from completing the hike, we came upon four hikers. One of the hikers was in distress, draped over a rock, and suffering from a probable combination of dehydration, heat stress, some level of altitude sickness and insufficient food intake. She was responsive but not talking. The group asked us for water. Thanks to one of the ladies in my group, we had plenty of extra water to offer. We did what we could to make the hiker comfortable and stayed with the group until help arrived. Search and Rescue arrived first, assessing the situation, and then the p...

Round Top Mountain and The Three Sisters-Carson Pass area, CA This past week I went on a lovely hike up highway 88, near the Carson Pass area of California. There is still plenty of snow though much of it has melted. People are hiking, boating, kayaking, and generally enjoying the cooler weather afforded by the higher altitudes. I had a wonderful time with my hiking buddies walking up and down hills, checking out wildflowers and being rewarded at the top of the ridge with a view all the way to Lake Tahoe! At the end of the day, I was tired, happy to get home, a little keyed up but very peaceful. It was a coincidence then that the next day I happened upon this article in a magazine. The premise of the idea sounds very familiar! H ave you heard of the term ecopsychology ? I hadn't either but the idea of it is probably familiar for many people even though they may not know about the formal field of study. Ecopsychology studies the relationships between humans and the natura...

Cowell Creek, Arnold Rim Trail, Arnold, CA This last week I was on the hunt for some decaffeinated coffee. Easier said than done, apparently. For many years now we have bought our coffee at Costco. I haven't even looked at the coffee aisle in a regular grocery store in a very long time. Because of this, I have missed some important trends in the coffee industry. In a nutshell, a consumer's choices are now endless. Looking at all of the tiny little packages was nearly stupefying. I felt under equipped to choose, given my lowly BA degree. A person needs some kind of PhD in Coffeeology to even figure out what is what.  I got home from the store and wondered what the hell had happened. I did a little research and turns out it's those damn Millennials again. In an article by Forbes here  and another miscellaneous article here  it's easy to see why there are so many choices at the grocery store. Nearly gone are the larger cans of basic coffee. Replacing them...