Worst and Best: Home, 11/7/23

 

Leaving Beatty, Nevada and heading north, it was apparent that we needed to spend one more night in Nevada because it was raining in NorCal and probably snowing on the high pass we'd have to travel.  NorCal's weather would clear enough the next day for us to get home without getting snowed in or on.  Hopefully.  With that caveat, we aimed for Fort Churchill, located a bit south of Reno, a site we tried to get to on a previous trip, but missed 'cause I turned right instead of left.

We spied so many wild burros on our way north.  This guy/gal danced in circles when we stopped Tergel to watch it, like it wanted us to come to the fence ... or move on already!

Goldfield:  "Living Ghost Town Ahead"  Nevada has plenty of towns that have figuratively "dried up and blown away" mainly due to mines playing out and residents moving elsewhere.  But their dilapidated houses persist and the junk in the yards doesn't rust and disappear.  It'd be fun to take a metal detector around, see what would you could find, except for:  snakes.

Dramatic skies unfolded as we rolled along.  Wind really kicked up and things got scary around Hawthorne.  If we could've found a spot to hunker down, we would have.  Tergel is a real "high profile vehicle," and being broadside to fierce winds is not funny, not fun at all.  Obviously we survived, but we sighed with relief when we got to our campground.

When we saw the sign:  Camping 1/2 mile, we turned in, and, yup, this was the Fort Churchill campground.  Nobody else around.  No hookups, but all the space you could ever want.  We backed up to the Carson River, and proceeded to hit the trail alongside the river.  Venerable Cottonwoods, golden in the waning sun, shaded the path.  Nights and mornings have been chilly since we left Louisiana, and the forecast is for more of the same.

Carson River was moving fast, and full.

Autumn leaves littered the trail.  We only went a mile-and-a-half; we didn't want to be caught out when it got dark.  It was a lovely, peaceful walk, notwithstanding cows that had used the trail earlier that day, leaving their distinctive calling card:  The juicy cow patty.  We minded our steps.

We buttoned up Tergel after dinner, pulled in the slides and turned on the catalytic propane heater early.  But I was still mighty surprised the next morning when I saw the outside temp at 23.5 degrees.  That's cold!  Cold enough to turn on the furnace, too!  Wasn't much to do to leave the campground.  We pulled out 9am/ish, and a half mile up the highway, pulled into Ft Churchill State Historic Site, parked, and began a walking tour.

Ft Churchill is a state park preserving the remains of a US Army fort and a way-station on the Pony Express and Central Overland Routes dating back to the 1860's. Built to provide protection for early settlers and the mail route along the Pony Express, the fort became an important supply depot for the Union Army during the American Civil War; it was abandoned in 1869. Most of the original adobe structures have melted into the Nevada ground, and those that do remain are in various states of ruin or arrested decay.

With the warming sun, being Out and About was quite pleasant.

Again, we were all by ourselves.

Officers quarters: one-and-a-half story buildings made of adobe walls 20" thick.  Of course, officers lived in relative comfort compared to enlisted men. 

Few people are buried in the cemetery.

A lonely place to spend "eternal rest."

Back in Tergel, it was time to head home, after gassing up in Ferley NV for less expensive gas than California's.  We had our fingers crossed for good weather.

Those golden Cottonwoods alongside the Truckee River were so striking!  You know I'm always happy to see the welcome home sign!

We began seeing snow on the peaks and I-80 was wet.

By gum, despite our calculations, snow fell on us as we drove up to and over Donner Pass, and we were driving Tergel verrrry slow.  Snow, sleet, and rain hit us, but no ice coated the freeway.  Down, down, down, we drove and eventually broke out into sunshine.  We did it!

Home again, late afternoon on Tuesday, 11-07-23, after 5+ weeks away, including that fabulous trip to Belize.  I was thrilled to see autumn leaf color, delighted that I hadn't missed NorCal's superb leaf-peeping show.  That dratted bear (above, left) turned up the following afternoon (welcome home!); it'd demolished our bird feeders while we were gone, so I won't be feeding birds anytime soon. 😞

A couple of days later, we jumped in the Prius to go see Matt and Jen and Evie in Fair Oaks.  Uh-oh.  The Prius' dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree and it screamed and flashed "PROBLEM."  Well, the Prius went to the shop, not Fair Oaks, and we learned two days ago that after 19+ years, the major big battery rolled over and died.  Broke my heart  (the worst).  I loved that 2005 car -- brought it home Oct 2004.  She didn't show her age, either.  Sigh ....  but we knew she couldn't last much longer.

We also knew we needed a car more suited to driving in snow and ice:  I present you --

The new member of our family -- a red 2024 Subaru Crosstrek.

Picked it up this afternoon.  The Best.

August 2023

 

Today is the 21st -- we're closing in on September, which (to me) means cooling-down time, even if some of the hottest days of the year occur in September.  But the heat IS on its way out then.  Here in the West many of us dislike hot, dry summer days, fire weather.  Knock wood, we have enjoyed one of the nicest summers with cool nights and warm, not-smoky days.  Why, we're even enjoying rain from the remnants of Hurricane Hilary today, with truly cool temps.  Amazing August.

Jimmy and Matt have talked for years about taking our Sea Eagle down the American River like Matt and I did in 2015 (click here to see that run).  Jimmy and I haven't had it in the water for a long time.  Well, today was the day!  And it was a hot one.  Speaking of hotties, check out these two, above!

After pumping up the kayak (raft?) at Marshall Gold Discovery SHP, they had to figure out the best way to get it down to the water.  Some guy had plopped two chairs and an umbrella in the path at water's edge, but he agreed to move 'em out of the way.  A number of small kayaks were in the water, having fun shooting the rapids.  The guys were careful not to run over any of them!

Also, don't run over the duck!

Good luck, guys.  Hold onto your hats!

There's plenty of white water ahead!

A smiling selfie after tackling the first rapids.

Meanwhile, Evie and I drove to Lotus Park to await their stop.  We waded in the cool/cold water a bit, ate some lunch, drank an energy drink.  We didn't have to wait long before they zipped in.

The only day the guys could get together was Sunday, and you see how crowded the river was!  Mostly commercial outfitters with six- or eight-person rafts.  And then there was our little two-person Sea Eagle!  Plus a few SUP's!

Once ashore, they dumped the water out of the kayak, just like Matt and I had to do when we did this same trip eight years ago.

And then, it was back in the water.  Their take-out point would be Greenwood Creek River Access where Evie and I'd be waiting (they figured it might take an hour-and-a-half).  In the above picture, the main river current is close to the opposite side.  I don't remember how many Class II rapids they went through, enough to make it a fairly thrilling ride!

And here's where they ended their run.  But they finished within an hour and called me while Evie and I were still at Lotus Park playground!  As I pulled into the parking lot, they were carrying the kayak up the hill.  We walked down to get the rest of the gear, and then returned to Marshall Gold Discovery SHP to Matt's car.  We'd talked about late lunch afterwards in Auburn, but decided against it.  I know the guys had fun!  Maybe we'll do it again.  (Love those golden hills!)

One Saturday in August, I bought a box of Sun Crest peaches from the farmers market, peeled and quartered them, filling the giant pot with 14.6 pounds of ready-to-process peaches, and netting 13 pints and freezer bags of delicious peaches for winter.  Good job, Nickie! 😊

Next came the Nevada County Fair, from Aug 9-13.  This year's theme:  Country Roots and Cowboy Boots.  Again, we picked a Sunday, the last day of the fair, because that's the only day we could all get together.  I hope you can read Jimmy's shirt.  Enlarge the pic if you have to.  It's cheaper for old folks to get in.  Seniors is the word.

Every year the central walkway is lined with gorgeous Marigolds.  Jimmy is watching people careening down and getting soaked on the White Waterlog Flume.  I had to enlarge the pic to see what the other guy was carrying:  A little kid!

We got there around 11/ish before it got hot, but the day did heat up into the 90's ... too hot to spend any time in the sun!  Of course we stopped at the prerequisite photo ops, as seen above.

All the piggies in the AG livestock "exhibit" were all asleep, panting.  Fans blew air over them, but they were hot.  Kinda stinky, also.  Raised by 4H kids, they were shown at auction and won ribbons for best of (fill in the blank).  They probably didn't know it, but the green stripes down their backs meant "custom," as in prime bacon and ham.  The kids were very proud of their pigs, er, hogs.

We saw horses and cows and pigs and bunnies and, yes, chickens.  This handsome dudette, above, produced an egg, which the owner gave to Evie, below!  She was thrilled to hold it, a real live egg from a real live chicken (I think it was the above bird).  She didn't break it, either!

Look, Mom, what I have!  I think we all carried it for a while, Jen, me, Matt.

These two!

Matt and Evie

Other than lots of hikes around the neighborhood, there's not much else to talk about in August.  We are really enjoying our 65° daytime temp today, with light rain falling.  Highly unusual, but we'll take it.  As you can imagine, we're very dismayed about the devastating fire in Lahaina, where we were in May.  Horrible.  Sad to see the flooding from Hurricane Hilary in SoCal, too.  Everyone on earth needs to take care of our planet home.  It's all we have.

Woo-hoo, a clear day! Friday, 9/18/20

Oh my goodness, when I opened the back door this morning and gave the air the "sniff test," I didn't smell anything ... nothing, except perhaps a tiny breeze hinting of fall ... the sun was low in the September sky, and migrating Robins were filling our Dogwood trees.  No smell of smoke, and our A/Q was measuring in the "moderate" range rather than hazardous or unhealthy for the first time in what seems like forever.  Fact is, we could see across the trees without that layer of gauze we've seen since the hot days, fires and smoke began five weeks ago.  We were surprised to see cloud cover, as though rain might be in order, but none fell and those gray clouds gave way to a stellar blue sky peppered with fleecy white clouds (below).  Hallelujah!  You can really appreciate a day such as this when you haven't seen the likes in a while!

All that adds up to a "hiking" day, but the high country A/Q measured in the unhealthy class.  No thanks, we chose not to go there!  Locally, we could spend a couple of hours hiking the trails at Empire Mine St Pk, a few miles away in Grass Valley, and so off we went.

We couldn't recall when we'd last been there, but this blog comes in mighty handy.  Posting tells the tale and I looked it up on the label at left on your page.  Our last visit was March of 2017 (wow!).  I guess I don't need to add that neither the Visitor Center nor any other bldgs was open due to COVID. 

I don't know how we do it, but we managed to walk 5.5 miles in circles!  It isn't possible to get lost in this compact state park, altho we traipsed all over, doubling back a couple of times, but WE DIDN'T CARE.  We were thrilled to be Out and About today and enjoyed each minute of the two-and-a-half hours we wandered around.  Other like-minded people were here, bikers and walkers and joggers, each one happy to acknowledge the beautiful day.  (Most were masked or stepped off the trail.)

This particular section winds through a miniature Manzanita forest.

Dried flowers mingle with Manzanita.

Look at the fascinating pine bark of a mature Ponderosa pine:  Yellow-brown to russet-colored and broken up into scaly plates separated by deep, irregular fissures.  To me these plates are composed of picture puzzle pieces.

We see so much old mining paraphernalia, none of it recognizable as such to eyes a century later.  What we did notice, along with the fresh breeze, was falling leaves.  After a hot, dry summer, isn't that a happy sight?  After all, the autumnal equinox is next week.

Tailings are a fact of life in a gold mine.  The Empire Mine is "one of the oldest, largest, deepest, longest and richest gold mines in California."  Between 1850 and its closure in 1956, the Empire Mine produced 5.8 million ounces of gold, extracted from 367 miles of underground passages, so sayeth Wiki.  And all that produced tailings.  That hill you see above and much of the ground we walked on is or had been tailings.

I forgot to add that horses are allowed on many area trails in the park, and we dodged a whole lot of horse apples to prove it.  Jimmy said one section we were on should be renamed "horseshirt" trail, but read that word without the "r."  (And, he didn't really say horseshirt, either.)  The very cool horse above was wearing red sandals!

More old mining stuff.  I can't say equipment, 'cause I don't know what it is/was.  Like most of the trails we hike, these were up and down.  We hiked to the top of Osborn Hill and then down roundabout somehow or other.  We both like walking on pine straw -- it's the best at cushioning the path.

This is the first time I've seen painted rocks left on stumps, and I saw two.  Plus a SF Giants baseball cap hanging on a branch.  Somebody will nab it up.

More tailings of some sort.

We finally made it back to Smartie and it was 12:30.  I'd packed no lunch, knowing we were close enough to go home for lunch.  But today was different.  As we ended our trek, I suggested to Jimmy that he could take me out for lunch.  He said okay, but where?  We haven't been into a restaurant since, what? February? March?  Long time.  We were in the neighborhood of our favorite little Mexican restaurant, El Milagro, in Grass Valley, so we drove the short distance to see if they were open.  Sure enough!  Patio seating or inside the dining room.  We chose the empty dining room.  We felt safe.  The waiter was masked and everything looked clean and wiped down.  And we ate, oh my, we ate a fine lunch.  And tomorrow we'll finish the lunch leftovers!

Jimmy's humongous poblano sauce burrito.

Mmmmmmm

Oooh, my poblano sauce chicken enchiladas with black beans and rice.

Muy delicioso! Muy bien.

Back at home, I put Roma tomatoes on to bake for tomato confit, and then went into the garden to pick another pint-plus of my own yellow cherry tomatoes.  Jimmy read for a bit on the back deck.  We puttered.  You understand what I'm saying?  We were outside!  Tomorrow is supposed to be another 75/°ish day, oh the joy of it all.  The bliss.  We're ready.