Walden Pond in SummerTook a rare Friday morning off to join my family for some cold lake water and sunshine at June Lake. It wasn't nearly as crowded as in this shot of Walden Pond, outside of Boston, but the consensus was that our little secret beach paradise in the High Sierra hadn't been quite so busy for as long as anyone could remember. A couple nights earlier the boys and I had been hard-pressed to find 20 feet for the old fuselage at one of the campgrounds down along the San Joaquin. The news reports seem borne out in the field: people are out playing in the Great (Free) Outdoors this summer. And why not?
Beckett and Jasper at June LakeStill, it was hard not to imagine that someone had spilled the beans. Had someone put our favorite beach on TV in Orange County? Which line of thinking got me back into an old, old, useless twist about travel writing and the dangers inherent in sharing the places we love. The result, in part, was a preliminary foray into an online travel magazine/community called matador.