This year we celebrated our thirtieth members’ meeting and our President, Steve Medley’s, twentieth anniversary. We always hope for warm, sunny weather and Mother Nature granted at least half of our wish. Although the sun shone, a frigid wind developed that chilled most of us to the bone. In protest, I refused to change out of my shorts, but I certainly suffered for my stubbornness. Our keynote speaker, John Simpson discussed his new book Dam!: Water, Power, Politics and Preservation in Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite National Park, and another presenter, Garrett Burke, told of how he developed the design for the new California State Quarter.
For those of us who stayed the night in Tuolumne, we were treated to an icicle display the next morning. Since the temperature had dropped to an unseasonably cold 17F overnight, the water from the sprinkler system had frozen on the courtyard outside Tuolumne Lodge.