Super Moon Camping - 1st Backpacking Trip in 2013

It's been quite a long time since I last posted on this blog. Life has fallen back into a routine and time seems to fly faster than ever. I can't believe it's been a whole year since I came back from our trip around the world. A whole year in which I haven't been on a plane, nor left California at all - yet, a year of a lot of personal growth, keeping busy and feeling really happy and content with myself. Of course, not everything is perfect and satisfying, but the key is to weigh in all the positive aspects of your life vs the negative ones - and see how much more good than bad there is, overall. 

This blog post is about the first backpacking trip of the summer. I was invited by my friend Lynda to join her and some of her friends on an overnight backpacking trip in the Sand Ridge / 5 Lakes basin area in the Sierra-Tahoe National Forest. The hike is about 14 miles round-trip and I would label it as easy to moderate. There are lots of flat portions and the uphill parts are short. Overall, a relaxed hike, could be a good warmup for other, more strenuous hikes. The trail passes by several beautiful mountain lakes, and you really lose track of them. Every half an hour or so, there is a new lake in sight.  But I'll let the images do the talking: 

The second night of camping was the summer solstice night - which also happened to be the famous "supermoon" night. It was the perfect place to see it. The photo above is right before the moon peeked out from behind the ridge in the background. 

Indian Summer Days

Last weekend, my friend Jenni generously invited me along with some of her other friends to spend the weekend at a vacation house that her parents have rented up in Calistoga. The house was out of this world, an incredible 60 acre wine country estate with a pool, vineyards and apple trees. I brought my digital SLR (Nikon D90) with a 50mm lens and spent the weekend taking a lot of photos. It felt good and reinforced the conviction that photography is my one and true passion, as well as fueled the desire to shoot more.

All the photos below are straight from the camera, completely unedited. I changed the light temperature and color balance in the camera to obtain this green-yellowish color cast.

Oktoberfest,The California Way

On the last weekend of September I was invited at the very last minute to join a bunch of nutty Germans and some other fellow Europeans in celebrating Oktoberfest at a farm outside of Petaluma. I had no idea what to expect - but I ended up having a blast, meeting a lot of interesting people, laughing my heart out at kids being goofy and saying funny things, eating tons of delicious German food and drinking my favorite wine in the world: Grüner Veltliner.

Slow Food Picnic in Sonoma

Last Saturday I had the pleasure to be a guest at Slow Food's fresh food picnic, organized at the beautiful Ranchero Mark West farm tucked in the hills of Sonoma County. I would like to herewith extend my thanks to my two new awesome friends Jonathan Sutton and Tony Ferrari, chefs at Hillside Supper Club, a new slow food restaurant in Bernal Heights, San Francisco. I had a great time thanks to them and would like to share the moment and story with you all in this post.

 Above: some of the delicious food served at the event.

Hiking The Lost Coast

This past weekend my friends Devin (aka "Young Man"), David (aka "Siesta Dave") and I went on a hike up north to an area known as The Lost Coast. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about this magical place: "The Lost Coast is an undeveloped section of the California North Coast in Humboldt and Mendocino counties. It was named the "Lost Coast" after the area experienced depopulation in the 1930s. In addition, the steepness and geo-technical challenges of the coastal mountains made this stretch of coastline too costly for highway or county road builders to establish routes through the area, leaving it the most undeveloped and remote portion of the California coast."

Photo by Devin Steenwyk. This is Wheeler black sand beach, where we camped the first night.

A Weekend in LA: Gang Wars and Pool Parties

Ever since I came back from our trip, I promised myself to leave town every weekend. San Francisco is usually cold and foggy in summertime and since I'm unemployed, I'd like to maximize the funemployment as much as possible. I spend the entire week in front of a computer applying for jobs, so I don't feel too guilty for switching off adult responsibilities and switching on hedonism over the weekend.


So far, I've been out of town 4 weekends out of 5: once to watch an RV Demolition Derby near Clear Lake, another time to watch and photograph my dude friends riding dirt bikes outside Yosemite, once to camp by a river with 30 of my friends and, most recently, to get wavey poolside with LA's infamous Swim Team. Next weekend, we'll be doing a 2-day hike up the Lost Coast, so stay tuned for some breathtaking coastal California shots.

California River Rats

As we were driving back to San Francisco yesterday afternoon, weaving South on Highway 101 through golden hills crowned by intensely blue skies, my friend Jenny sitting next to me in the car kept exclaiming: "Gosh, it's so beautiful here!" She must've said it several times, enough to wake me up from my constant taking-for-granted of the majestic landscape that makes California such a visually stunning place. Jenny was visiting for the weekend from Cincinnati. You often need that outsider's point of view to remind you of how lucky you are.


Every summer for the past five years or so, my friends and I have been spending the 4th of July weekend camping by the Eel river in Mendocino county in northern California. We usually gather around 30 people and every year we set a theme, that we loosely adhere to. In the past, we had themes such as Indian Summer, when we built a tee pee and decorated the place with Native American paraphernalia. Another year we had a Hawaiian theme and we roasted a baby pig. One year we bought glow-in-the-dark sticks and we broke them open, splashing the paint all over our bodies and danced around covered in glowing paint.

The Beach

Here's another post where I will rant about how perfect my life is. Despite various life vicissitudes, such as seeing loved ones getting old or sick, facing impeding death of close relatives, confronting one's own health issues, struggling to find love, purpose and mindfulness, despite all that - I look at the life I've lived so far and think of it as pretty fucking amazing. Wow, what an eclectic collection of adventures and experiences it has been!

July 3rd 2011 - Travis's birthday camping trip, Groveland, California

Dinner in Berkeley

It's been 3 weeks since we came back to the States and life is slowly but surely starting to settle in. That entails going to friends' birthday BBQs, cooking healthy delicious dinners, thriving on California's amazing produce, getting fit with yoga, swimming and bike rides, escaping the city with ever-entertaining weekend trips. One thing I came to realize at the end of our trip: there's no place like home. And California is now the place I call home. After exploring the world, I can truly say it's one of the best places to live in. Its wide-open spaces, abundance of nature escapes, mild weather, and overall sense of well-being are some of its perks that should never be taken for granted.

And then the trip really never ends. Every week and weekend are so full of interesting events and adventures, that both Anne and I decided to continue posting in this blog.

Home is where your friends and family are. I guess I am fortunate to have two homes, on two different continents. My entire family lives in Romania, and whether I want it or not, half of my heart beats for that place. All my childhood memories, my upbringing, traditions, customs and family ties bring me back to that place.

Megan is one of my best friends in San Francisco and last Wednesday a small group of us got together at her boyfriend's house in Berkeley to cook up a delicious birthday dinner for Megan. This post is dedicated to her and this special day.

The other half beats here, in California, where I spent the last 9 years of my life. I am fortunate to be part of a wonderful, quirky, fun and loving group of friends. For a solo immigrant like me, they've come to represent my adoptive American family. They've taught me new words, slang terms, hip terms, taught me about pop culture, laughed at me whenever I say things differently from them, or when I involuntarily act as a foreigner. But above all, they're creative, passionate and inspiring. Together we have more fun than most people do, and that is really what holds us together.

 Above: Corina, the bombshell from Norway, chopping veggies for one of the best shrimp ceviches I've ever had.

One thing I missed while traveling was fresh produce. There's a severe lack of fresh vegetables and salad ingredients around the world. Being back, I appreciate the luxury of having such a wide variety of vegetables and fruit available at our fingertips all year round. Megan's birthday dinner was a celebration of fresh, organic, locally-grown food. Her roommate Cole picked up all the ingredients from the famous Berkeley Bowl market and cooked up a delicious Latin American fiesta. Bossing the kitchen like a pro, she delegated veggies choppers, peelers and dough makers.

Above: all the dishes are now ready to eat. On the menu: sopes (thick corn-flour tortillas pan-fried in butter), ground beef chilli, red coleslaw, grilled chicken, pan-fried plantains, cotija cheese. A real fiesta indeed! Good friends and great food - some of the best things in life. With the risk of sounding like a California hippie (which I partially am), such moments fill me with gratitude for what we have here, in this moment of our lives, for being healthy and surrounded by people we love and who love us. Despite the fact that we live in the midst of one of the most consumerist societies in the world, some of us here live our lives in the simplest and most rewarding way possible.

Below are a few more photo captures from Megan's birthday dinner.

Cole's dog, Becky, likes to stare a lot. So we had a stare-out.

Bailey's delicious strawberry, blueberry and peach pies.

The best shrimp ceviche ever known to mankind.

Veggie shopping basket.

Fried plantains.

There's no friendship like Anne and Megan's.

The hot couple visiting from San Diego.

Feeding your boyfriend little scoops of ceviche = love.

Cole killing it in the kitchen.

Warm sopes and fried plantains.

What a babe!

While everyone else is in the hot tub, we talk about Edible City, Andrew's new documentary.

Bailey making pies.

Fresh plantains.