One of the more troublesome elements of where I live is the summer heat. There's usually a couple of weeks in July-August where the mercury hits 100 and won't back down. The persistent sun bakes the mind until coherent thought becomes a dim, almost-forgotten dream. But, as they say, every silver lining has a cloud. Were it not for our annual fry-fest, you would not be reading this, a thrilling tale of intrigue, danger, and rotting dead animals.

I would like to take credit for this trip's destination, but the idea was inspired by my cousin Scott. I called him to find out whether Saturday would be good, and also to poll him on where we should go. Scott had just awoken from a drug-induced stupor period of intense meditation, and was a little groggy.

"Where should we go?" I asked.

"I think we should go someplace..."

"high." said Scott.

So I looked at my maps, and asked a few questions, and finally added Wishon Reservoir to the list of possible destinations. At 6,600 feet, it was high enough to provide some relief. Of course, it's also a two-and-a-half hour drive. Saturday morning I polled the crew; (almost) all the votes came in for Wishon. And we were off!

So we drove. We drove through Parlier ("A Fine Community!"). We drove through Sanger, where Scott recalled his days working in construction ("I helped build that Domino's Pizza. I got the second pizza ever made in that restaurant.") We turned onto 168, on the way to Shaver Lake. On the way, we passed one of those "scenic overlooks" that tourists and marmots are so fond of. I took this picture:

Onward we drove. We turned onto Dinkey Creek Road, just before the town of Shaver Lake. Strangely enough, this minor road was in better repair than 168! But enough about highway maintenance, we had things to do, places to go! Eventually we turned on to McKinley Road, named after the McKinley Grove of giant sequoias that we stopped in for a potty break. (There was a pit toilet; or did you think we used the sequoias?) Finally, we came to a bridge over a creek; I think it was called "Bear Creek":

We climbed around for a while, noticing a peculiar scent that turned out to be the strong, masculine odor of decomposing deer, with just a hint of maggot. We walked/climbed/struggled upstream, finding a nifty "cave" made by fallen rocks, as well as a fine swimming hole. We filmed some more material for our epic motion picture, "The Seventeen-and-a-half Really Tall Things," our brilliant and insightful, yet completely imporvised dialog sadly drowned out by the roar of the nearby waterfall. We ate snacks. The weather was cool.

But the adventure was not over yet, no! We all piled back into the car, and continued on to Wishon Reservoir. After another twenty-odd minutes, we rounded a bend and the sparkling lake broke upon us. After some confusion on my part as to where to stop, we found an empty parking lot. Here is the view facing away from the lake:

Here is the pristine blue beauty itself:

Immersed in nature, the boys decided to plan Bang! Bang! is a card game from Italy, that involves "outlaws" trying to "shoot" the "sherrif", while his "deputies" try to protect him. I was the first player eliminated, so I took this photo of my kin, deep in philosophical introspection:

Finally, I also took two "panoramic" pictures, stitched together from many individual photos. I forgot to turn off the autoexposure, and I didn't have a tripod, so these look a little funny:

This second one (very large) has an odd curve to it. I couldn't get the panorama software to correct it.

So we ate a bunch of stuff, then packed up and went home. I found a pipe. The End.

• View the gallery directory for this trip.