i'm sitting in the dentist's chair in south lake tahoe with my mouth full of analgesic... the dentist is optimistic he can save the tooth. i fractured it while eating gorgonzola crackers with ma & pa in a great campground at sonora bridge, and over the next few days slowly shards of tooth fell out of my mouth and then the magic steel band fell off.

[fortunately the dentist - and marvellous assistant marisa worked their mad skills and i now have a functioning plastic replacement tooth - yeehah]...

ma & pa walked in from sonora pass with me, until over 10 000 feet, and then 4 days later walked in and met me on the last few miles of trail heading into echo lake and we walked out together. in this last stretch i saw a bear - i was beginning to doubt their existence. it was huge: cinnamon brown, fluffy and quite cuddly looking... also sadly camera shy. ma & pa saw one too in yosemite...

one night during the section i just walked from sonora pass happy meal and i camped on a ledge with the most magnificent view. the wind built up and was gusting in bullets, hitting the trees above us in warning before buffeting us. during the night i got up to pee and was looking out over this amazing lake, snow capped mountains and forest in the moonlight when i suddenly saw my inflatable sleeping mat and quilt flying high overhead, down toward the snowy valley below.

happily the wind meant my shoes weren't frozen, so i shoved my bare feet into them and went for a nocturnal, moonlit stroll to recover my un-punctured (yay) bed. it was pretty funny (potentially disastrous, although only 17 miles out of town, so if it had not ended well it would have been expensive rather than dangerous)...

there have been times during the last week of walking where i have seriously laughed out loud at how preposterously beautiful it has been. sadly the internet in tahoe library is down, and so i can't upload any photos (not that they do it any justice) and i'm in a fabulous cafe called the keys which has great smoothies, but don't think i can upload... anyway, the wildflowers have been insanely, riotously, prolific, and everything is so green and alive (terrible spring words like vernal and fecund keep coming to mind - i don't how to explain how vital and vibrant it all looks - the sunlight seems to glow through the flowers and foliage)... sometimes it all looks so quintessentially north american - with huge volcanic mountains with partial snow, and endless pines, firs and spruces, and green meadows where you expect to see a bear...

the snow has slowed me down a great deal, and i'm about a week and a half behind where i intended to be at this stage, however i feel like in the next few sections i might be able to catch up a little time, although the doomsayers keep telling us it's all snow - snow all the way to canada... well, ma & pa have finished their castaway smoothie (mango, coconut and something else tasty), and we're heading over to the cork & more (best coffee i've had in north america - which is a very easy contest at this stage, but this stuff was actually genuinely good - and great salads too - by any measure)... this is a tough existence...

thanks heaps for your comments and emails - so so appreciated... i'll be in sierra city in maybe 5 days (think sierra city has a population of maybe 200, crazy metropolis)...