How Laura Bush Spent her Summer Vacation

by Leah Garchik
San Francisco Chronicle, July 18, 2001


For 15 years, Laura Bush and four female friends have escaped together for a week every summer. They arrived at Mammoth Lakes on July 8 and a day later came to Tuolumne Meadows Lodge with an entourage of some 25 people, including Secret Service agents, a White House communications team, various aides and several park officials. The group took up about 15 of the 70 cabins at the site.

Asked how far ahead most people make reservations, one park worker said "a year and a day," but officials there insisted that no just-plain-folks had been bumped to make room for the Bush party. Mrs. Bush and her pals ate breakfast and dinner in the lodge dining room, ordering off the menu (the food was better than usual, one guest from Santa Cruz told TIC).

Roland Henin, master chef for Delaware North Company, Yosemite's concessionaire, was called in to preside. He told TIC that the first lady was pleasant and undemanding and came into the kitchen to greet him. He wasn't taken aback by her only off-the-menu request, jalapeno peppers with her hamburger -- he said he likes Dijon mustard with his -- and dispatched a staff member to the store to make a quick purchase in case she preferred canned to fresh.

A guest described Mrs. Bush as "friendly but not chatty," saying hello to people she began to recognize after a few days. Waiters reported that they received 20 percent tips.

Chef Henin raced from the lodge to the High Sierra Camps -- with full starched gear, toque and polished shoes -- to get there ahead of the Bush party on Wednesday, when the group arrived at Vogelsang (en route to Merced Lake, then Sunrise). The party's only special request, he said, was that a birthday cake for one of the women be ready Friday night. It was baked at the Ahwahnee Hotel and brought up the mountain by mule; Henin finished and decorated it at Sunrise.

The final leg of the trip was at the Ahwahnee, where the Bush party ate in a private area rather than the main dining room. When the weekend was over, the most visible evidence of the visit was the guest book at Parsons Lodge in Tuolumne Meadows, wherein Laura Bush lists her hometown as Washington, D.C. There's a star next to her signature.