My history with this little mountain jewel is pretty fascinating–at least to me, and this is my blog, so read on.

Medicine Lake One: Sometime in the late 40’s we lived in Mount Shasta and went camping often. One such trip was to Medicine lake. My dad hand-pumped an old navy surplus life raft and turned my sister and me loose on the water. He undoubtedly retired for a libation after that chore, but we kids didn’t know or care. We just splashed and paddled our delighted way to summer fun. As it happens on this earth, high-altitude splashing a paddling comes with a price, and we paid it in terms of a yummy sunburn.

Medicine Lake Two (Maybe 35 years later): “Hey, Susanne, says here there’s an outfit sponsoring cross-country ski trips to Medicine Lake. Ten miles in and out. I’d Like to see how it looks in the winter. You up for it?” She was. We drove to Mount Shasta (maybe 5 hours), jumped in a couple of vans, headed for the trailhead. Brilliant weather. Small group. Very promising. Here’s a list of things that arose thereafter.

1. Mother and daughter (adults) team had rented equipment which they wore for the first time that day.
2. Our cabin was piled high above the rooftop with snow. Picturesque, but not so appealing when you have to tunnel down into it.
3. The outhouse was maybe 10 yards or so from the cabin, so to seek relief, one was required to tunnel out of the cabin, cross a few yards of frozen ground, then tunnel down into the facility. Process was repeated on the way out
4. Before long, the blisters acquired by the mother-daughter new equipment team began to tell. They couldn’t join in the sightseeing excursions and were generally pretty miserable. In turn they infected the mood of the rest of the party. It was decided that everyone would be happier if the two ladies were snowmobiled out.
5. Their exit did not proceed without incident. The vehicle ran out of gas short of the road, and one of the guides had to ski to the trailhead for more. But they finally made it.

Medicine Lake three: This time was different. 5 people, 5 dogs (an occasional 6th when Copper came to visit.) in one house. Our puppy (5 mos.) had another (7 mos.) to play with, and they chased and chewed and tug-of-warred till they wore us out. It was ideal weather in a perfect environment.

But, finally getting back to the title of this piece–there’s an annual auction on Labor Day to raise money for the resident group’s anti-fracking fund (The fracking would be to get at water in the aquifer.) I was asked to contribute some books for the auction. Glad, of course, to do so. Then came the most flabbergasting thing: The two sets of two books sold for a total of $290.

Keeerap and hooray for labor day. Thinking about how to arrange more auctions.