Ukulele Goes to Big Sur, CA

Last weekend I went on a much needed backpacking trip with Bobby and some friends. We ended up in Big Sur on the Pico Blanco Camp Trail. It was definitely a trail in need of some care. Trees had fallen over about 30% of the trail. It was not only hard climbing over and around the trees but what was even more challenging was finding the trail after climbing.

Because of my attachment to my new found hobby, I had to bring my ukulele along for the ride. It wasn't too bad since Bobby carried the bulk of my things. After hiking/climbing about5 hours we met some backpackers returning from Pico Blanco Camp. It sounded like the hike was not going to get easier and there was a 'tick valley' to beware of. I was ready to turn around at that point. But we kept going...until 30 minutes later when we met another hiker who was on his way down. He also brought no good news. At that point three of us turned around and headed back to the Boy Scout Camp which took about 1.5 hours to find. We eventually set up camp there - having to cross a knee-deep ice cold river.


The other two turned around about 30 minutes after we did and eventually made it down the mountain before sunset. At camp I took out my ukulele and began playing some chords - eventually teaching a fellow camper how to play the chords for "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. She caught on pretty quickly and even learned a new strum pattern.


The tunes I played that night included "Somewhere over the rainbow/It's a wonderful world," (which is really difficult to sing) and "Puamana" (my husband's favorite song now). It's the song I learned in my first ukulele class. I definitely mis-pronounced and even skipped some Hawaiian words at various points in the song. If you're not Hawaiian you won't notice anything unusual about my performance.

Here's the link to the campfire song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfoQaRBiyuE
The next day we hiked about 3 hours to get back to our car and head over to Big Sur's famous Nepenthe Restaurant. The view was worth the hour long wait before we got our table.