emeralds, rubies and hobos

August 28, 2011April 9, 2021 mike 0 Comments camping

I have been to Emerald bay a few times now and the experience has been different each time. This time it was with some friends from college. I first started going to church in college, so these were among my first church friends.

I’m not sure why this area is called Emerald Bay. Maybe it’s the fact that the lake here is surrounded by green, making the whole area a green jewel.

Or maybe it’s the fact that the water in the shallow areas looks slightly green, but remains crystal clear enough to see the bottom. Or maybe its the way the light reflects off the pale green water, almost like if a light were shined on an Emerald.

I don’t really know. All I know is that each time I’ve been out here I’ve been thoroughly amazed. Near our campsite there was a short trail to a lookout area on the end of a peninsula. Standing on the end of the peninsula Lake Tahoe wraps 270 degrees around you. It’s a pretty amazing sight, it’s areas like this that originally got me into photography. I went out there early in the morning and took about a dozen shots to make a panoramic. When I got home I happily discovered that nine of them stitched together pretty cleanly in Photoshop.

For dinner we made hobo meals. At the supermarket the other day I found a red wine that I thought would work well with in the hobo meal. Well actually I don’t really know much about wine, so I was mostly sold by the ruby red colored smiley face on the wine’s label, along with its description, “a red wine blend for our friends.”

Hobo meals are pretty simple. You basically take some meat and whatever vegetables you have on hand, add some wine, sauce and seasoning, and then wrap it in foil.

Then you take the whole thing and toss it on the fire.

The end result is a stew that is tastier than the sum of its parts. Camping in general is sort of like that to me. You take the ingredients- sleeping in a tent, sitting by the fire, hiking by the lake, season it with good friends, and the results are far greater than the sum of its parts.