In May of 2015 I was lucky enough to be invited to Guayaquil Ecuador and speak on my master’s degree research looking at Teak nutrition.  With a full meeting schedule, daily evening rains, and  an early departure to make it back to the states for wedding I was unable to spend much time exploring Ecuador, all the more reason to return.  The time I did spend in Ecuador was enjoyable with numerous interesting talks, meeting lots of great people, and excellent food.

Following the conference I headed to Miami and then onto San Diego for a wedding.  In San Diego I met up with Kate and had lots of fun hanging out in southern California with friends and family.  Just outside of San Diego we took a short hike through the trails at Torrey Pines Reserve and along the Pacific Ocean.  Surprisingly the water was not too frigid.  From Torrey Pines we headed up to Bernardo Winery for a wedding.  The next day I woke up first thing to take Kate to the airport so she could get back to work on Monday.

Having nothing to do at 6:30 am on a Sunday I decided to head down to Tijuana.  My rational was two fold; an authentic mexican breakfast in a city I had never visited and, to “visit” Central America in order to be able to say (sillily) I was in South America, Central America, and North America all in the same weekend.  Having a rental I left my car in a paylot and walked into Mexico.  At one point I was unsure if I had entered Mexico as nobody ever checked my ID.  Coming back to the states was a different story with a clearly delineated government entry point and passport check.  While walking in I observed a significant number of cars trying to get into the US.  Once in Tijuana I picked up a cab and asked him  to take me to a breakfast spot, huevos rancheros!  After breakfast I walked around for a while before heading back towards the border.  Even though it was only around 8:30 am I had stop for churros from the roadside vendor.

Following Tijuana I headed to the Salton Sea, Joshua Tree, Manazanar, and Mt Whitney.  Unfortunately I picked up a cold somewhere along my trip and was dragging during this portion of the trip.  Even without the motivation to get out and really explore I was captivated by the scenery across the southern half of California.  The end of trip was at Mt. Whitney in hopes of being able to summit on this trip.  The significant snowpack and sub par health resulted in making it  4 miles up the mountain before calling it good and setting up camp.  Even without summiting it was a stunning hike and neat to end the hike in a snow squall in mid May.  My next summit attempt of Whitney will be planned for later in the summer, one of these times I will make it to the top.