Amy Winehouse joins the "27 Club"

27 year old Amy Winehouse died unexpectedly on Saturday July 23, 2011.  This coincidently is the same age many other notable musicians have lost their lives such as: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Kurt Kobain, Ron "Pigpen" Mckernan, and many more.

While Winehouse's death was unexpected it was not a complete surprise.  Her abuse of drugs and alcohol had been going on for some time and seemed to be getting worse.  She had repeatedly been checked into rehab centers to deal with her addiction, but it wasn't enough.  Her death has believed to be from a drug overdose although the full autopsy report has not been released.

Winehouse has joined the mysterious "27 Club", a name that is used to acknowledge famous artists who have died at 27.  Most of these artists were also heavily involved with drugs and alcohol, but not all died from overdoses.  Kurt Kobain took a blow to the head from a shotgun, while Brian Jones drowned in a swimming pool.  The coincidental age of all of these deaths does seem to be rather strange.

This mysterious age of death continues to accumulate more notable musicians. Amy Winehouse while the most current will most likely not be the last.  Her unexpected death saddens us all, but her name lives on with the rest of the "27 Club".

Take me by the hand available for your listening pleasure!

Here is the recorded version of the song, "Take me by the hand", that I put up as a vid a few weeks ago.  Hope you enjoy Click here to listen

The Tayee lakes

     “I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” -John Muir

Every year my dad and I do a weekend backpacking trip.  A few years ago we hiked 50 miles across Catalina Island in thirty hours.  It was a lot of fun.  Well this year my dad and I hiked through the Tayee Lakes.

There are four lakes that make up the Tayee Lakes.  Our goal was to reach the fourth lake, set up camp, and fish to our hearts desire.   The fourth lake rests at 11,000 feet.  The hike itself starts at 9,000 feet and 4 miles away from the fourth lake.  It was a tough hike, but a lot of fun.  

We ran into a little snow trouble in between Lake 3 and Lake 4.  Here is a Vid of my dad following the snow covered trail to the fourth lake.  One slip and We would be falling about 200 ft!

It took us about two and a half hours to reach the fourth lake.  It was beautiful.  Most of the peaks were covered in snow.  Huge boulders surrounded the lake, but there was a small flat area just big enough to fit our tent.  

After we set up camp we dropped our poles in the water.  Within a few minutes both of us started catching fish.  They were biting like crazy, and so were the mosquitoes.  I think by the end of the trip I had so many mosquito bites that my bites had bites.  We caught and gutted a total of five fish that day.

Sunday we hiked back down the trail and drove over to South Lake where we did the remainder of our fishing.  It started off really slow.  I mean realllllllyyyyy slow!  Two hours and neither one of us had caught a fish.  As we were about to pack up  my dad's pole started to bend rapidly.  He yanked up the pole and reeled in a nice sized Rainbow Trout.  This started a fish catching frenzy which ended in a total of eight fish caught in under an hour!  We were so excited!

So our fishing trip was a success and the four hour drive home was cake.  I had a lot of fun hiking around with my dad for a couple days.  There is nothing quite like surviving in the wild with nothing but what you have on your back.

Fourth Week in, Stache still thin

 

 Well my stache is growing at a crawl.  Oh well, Ill just keep on keeping on.