This is my favorite spot in Monitor Pass. Slinkard Valley is the one you see below. To give you an idea of scale, here's a little close up section ... the little white spot you might not see in the image above is a pretty large storage building waaaay down in the valley.

See it?


I didn't get very many good photos along the way today, because I got really sidetracked by those swallows in my previous blog. :)

But here are a couple shots, anyway. Just to give you an idea of this area termed "The California Alps" - where they have what is "lovingly" referred to as the annual "Death Ride" for bicyclists.

When we got home, we were fairly well beat.

Apparently it was a rough day here at home, too, or Dante is still recuperating from yesterday. haha. What you're seeing here is the way he lays a lot. It's just too damned cute and usually by the time I get my camera, he shifts or moves in some manner. But this time I had my camera in-hand and ready to shoot.

As for the rest of the weekend, we planted our pear tree, installed two closet organizer systems, an under-the-counter garbage can .. it was a good weekend and the house is just a few more steps closer to being "set up." It was a good weekend, and I hope all of yours were, too.

Ok, so, you know that point in a horror movie where the camera pans WAY out, you know someone's about to die, and all of a sudden all you see is a huge swarm of birds fly up in the air at one time?

That's what Jeremy saw tonight, a few minutes after I'd disappeared over a hill, which caused him to come make sure I was still alive.

(I was.)

Tonight I got a chance to see something up close and personal that I'd never ever seen before. Sandy, forgive me for posting these photos before the scenery of Monitor Pass, but I was just so amazed by it! And I know, of course, it has to be BIRDS, right? Ha.

So, we ended up, right before sunset, at the reservoir.

Gorgeous. First I pissed off a couple geese by walking up to the water, and then I walked out onto the walkway for that little building and I pissed off hundreds and hundreds of Cliff Swallows! Boy, was it noisy!

But incredible!

Let me show you their nests.

Yep .. made of mud, built under the wooden building.  See all the white specs with a kind of orangy-brown beneath? Those are the birds! Poking their heads out and watching me.

When Jeremy came up to find me (to make sure I'd not fallen in the water), he thankfully had his 100-400 mm lens with him, so we did a quick swap so I could get some more close-up shots of these incredible birds.



Damn, they were cute!
















Oh, but there were fish, too. Here, let me show you. These things were HUGE!

I have no clue what kind they are, and I know this photo does them no justice, but they were easily a foot long or longer, each.




Oh, and there were lots of flowers there, too.


The sun set pretty quickly, and the birds let us know it was about time we got the hell out of there. :)

Ok, next post will be the scenery shots from the Pass. I was tickled pink to have experienced these Cliff Swallows, though, and I want to go back with a tripod and get much better shots!

Tint .. this is Truckee, named after a Piute Indian chief, Tru-ki-zo. He was the father of Chief Winnemucca (a name you'll also often hear around here). The very first settlers who came to this area encountered Chief Tru-ki-zo, who was apparently very friendly, who came up to them and hollered "Tro-kay!" ("Hello!") They mistook it for his name, and thus the area became known as Truckee. :)



 





















Just thought you might like to see some pics from this morning. As you can see, I had a blast playing with the macro lens and the new buds on the trees. I didn't have my tripod so they could be much better .. but it was fun!

Just a quickie blog because we have to be in Truckee by 10 and I'm sure we'll be stopping to take photos along the way.

For those who've heard/read about the earthquakes in Reno, we're fine. Though, Jeremy did feel the 4.1 that happened yesterday (he works in Reno) and apparently last night there was a 4.8, too.

The map to the left shows the earthquake activity around Reno in the last week, so yeah, something's definitely shakin' there. If you want more info on recent earthquakes, go to the USGS' site! You can also go there to get more info on the individual earthquakes seen in this pic by clicking on the different sized squares around the Reno area.

And for those of you traveling to or CONTEMPLATING travel to Reno, don't let this panic you. On the USGS site, just take a look at all the earthquakes in California in the last WEEK! Seriously ...  it's not a huge deal at this point. :)

(but to those inquiring about us .. thank you! Appreciate the thoughts ... everything's good!)

Of course, the best for last. The BEST reason to visit northern NV/CA?

US, of course!!
(and of course by "us" I mean ALL of us .. including the dogs)

So ... have we convinced ya? :)

Ok, so, this is a continuation of "Why Northern Nevada/California?" - I'm trying to convince you in the only manner I know best: photographically. :)

WEATHER
We have our share of interesting weather here, including fires and what they call here the Sierra Wave (other places just call it the lee wave), which creates, as an old friend of mine used to call it, a "river of clouds" in the sky. I love the weather patterns here.


JUST SOME SCENERY
Most of it's been covered in the last blog and above in this one .. but here are just a few more.

And in the final blog to this series, I'll give you the best reason to visit northern NV/CA!

Recently, a Multiply get-together was suggested by Sandy. A debate over where it should be held ensued, and as someone suggested Reno, a question was brought up: Why Reno? Well, I thought I'd expand upon that a little and make it "Why northern NV/CA?"

These are my stomping grounds, and by golly I'll try my best to answer that question.

I know some of your are really tired of snow after this winter, so I'll keep my snowy scenery pics 'til as close to the end as I can make it. :)

This area has a ton of diversity. Desert, mountains, lakes, waterfalls, ghost towns, wildlife, and extreme temperatures.

Within 2 hours' drive from Carson City (the capitol .. located about 20 min south of Reno), I could have you exploring ghost town ruins (even crawling around in them, if you so desired), witnessing Mono Lake (made famous probably mostly by Ansel Adams), swimming in Lake Tahoe, hiking the "California Alps" or Kit Carson Pass up to 10,000 feet or a little above, in Sacramento, in the Black Rock Desert (where burning man is held every year), exploring hidden waterfalls, driving through Sunrise Pass, where you're almost guaranteed to see wild horses, watching cheetahs run, out on "The Loneliest Hwy In America" where you would likely not see another car for hours – well, you get the idea. This area is an outdoors-person's dream. Probably not the best place for "city slickers" or people looking for a lot of culture (unless you really consider "Cowboy Poetry" cultural).

Let's break it out into categories (I'll do my best).

WATER
It's not quite the desert .. it's the high desert. So yep, we have water!



ANIMALS/WILDLIFE:


Ok .. I'm getting nervous this is too long and I'm going to lose it, so I'm ending this post here. Next one will include NV/CA weather and scenery. :)

Em's comment on the Fort Churchill blog reminded me I needed to get on the stick and post some of the other pics from the weekend. :) Em, you remembered exactly right about Hope Valley and the freak hailstorm we had earlier this year. This shot is from a little way up from the Valley. About 5 miles up Hwy 88, toward Carson Pass, is a small group of lakes, one of which is called Red Lake. One of our favorite hikes is up to Frog and Winnemucca Lake, which takes you up to about 9,000 feet. The far side of Frog Lake overlooks this lake, but we were lucky enough to get this view right from the side of the road. It was just moments after the sun rose above the horizon, lighting up the mist rising over the lake. You can see all the gorgeous aspens glowing with the orangy-yellow of morning alpenglow (that's the golden light we get here at high altitudes, right after sunrise and before sunset) and even the snow has the golden glow ... really gorgeous. COLD (I believe this was the morning that the temp thingy on the car said 19º).. but gorgeous. :) On the right is the mountain peak called Elephant's Back, which is located right along the hike to Winnemucca Lake. We love seeing this early snow .. hoping it's a great snowshoeing season!

Jeremy and I went on what was supposed to be a 1.5 mile hike up to a lake. The actual hike ended up being just under 6.5 miles round trip! More than double what we expected. We didn't plan properly (didn't eat the right breakfast, didn't bring enough water, didn't bring substantial food with us) and I got a bit sick during it. Could have been blood sugar, dehydration, whatever .. not sure. Either way, it was a GORGEOUS hike. I was a little out of it and sadly did all my shooting at iso 1600, so we're thinking of going back next week ... this time we'll be better prepared.

(if you enlarge the image and notice the vertical white line on the mountain, about 2" or so from the right edge, that's a huge waterfall)

Today we went on a 5-mile hike to Winnemucca Lake. What a gorgeous day. There was, however, way more snow up there than we expected! Good side: fewer people. Bad side: harder hiking. The picture above was taken by my friend Kat. It's all 4 of us, with Winnemucca Lake behind us. Later this summer (the spring flowers should be blooming up there in early July) we hope to hike up a couple miles higher, to some of the other alpine lakes.

All I can say is, after hours and hours starting the "big dig" of our new pond (ie - pool for the dogs), and then hiking today, we are wiped out! It's not so bad that I hurt while sitting still, but there's almost no movement I can make that doesn't hurt something.

We hope to finish the pond/pool tomorrow, and then there'll be new pics. I hope everyone's having a fun weekend, and that those of you in the U.S. are having a great holiday weekend.

After work, I went for a drive to one of my favorite places - Monitor Pass, otherwise known as the California Alps. It is really one of the most incredible drives in this area, in my opinion, and rivals Yosemite's beauty in many ways. Jeremy had to work late, so I took my time and did a little offroading. Got to get very close to some mountain deer (thought they were whitetails, but they had black tips on their white tails .. going to have to look that one up). The scenery was gorgeous and there's no way I could do it justice, but this will give you a little idea of how I spent my evening.

This weekend we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We left at 4:30 a.m. from home for the 5 hour drive to get there. We wanted to get there early and thank goodness we did! It was fairly impressive, but we both agreed we would have gladly paid double to go on an "adult-only" day. Now don't get me wrong, all you kid-lovers out there ... yes, the kids drove us INSANE. But I don't blame them for being excited .. it's a neat place! I place the parents who use the aquarium as a babysitter, just letting their kids run free, run into people, push, shove, slap their grubby little fingers all over the glass, etc., while they sit back on a bench and yell at them from afar, talk on their cell phones, basically ignore any bad behavior. And even worse than that .. some of the parents were even MORE annoying than the kids! Running their strollers into us and never even saying 'excuse me' or anything. By the time we left, we had HAD it with people!

Add to this the fact that my right shoulder, hand and elbow were hurting. The night before, I'd gone to gas up the Explorer, and while it was filling, I tried to step over the hose to get to the back of the car to wash the window. I tripped. And fell. Hard. In fact, I thought I'd re-broken my hand where I broke it in the motorcycle accident in '96. I just wanted to lie on the ground and cry, but of course in those situations where you do something boneheaded in public, where people are watching, you don't want to admit that you made a mistake, so adrenalin shot through my system and I jumped up like I was actually a stunt person in my off time, and that I really MEANT to trip like that. I tried to hide my limp back to my driver's seat, all the way muttering "ow, ow, ow" under my breath.

After we had a nice seafood lunch in Monterey, we headed up to Oakland for our hotel room for the night and the boat show the next day. I've never been to Oakland and don't know California very well. After I got back, my boss said "I don't even GO to Oakland!" and another friend said "Did I know you were going to Oakland? I'm sure I would have warned you first." haha. It wasn't so bad, but let me tell you how uncomfy Jeremy and I felt as we left out hotel room in the late afternoon, cameras and all kinds of gear hanging off us (to the tune of thousands of dollars), turned the corner and came face-to-face with pimp alley (our hotel was apparently right next to the XXX theater). We lived through it all unscathed, and the boat show was really neat. We've decided now that every year we will attend a boat show in a new city we haven't visited yet, and just fly to it for a little mini-vacation. So, if you live in an area near water, watch out .. we may be coming there soon! :)

Here's a first look at our new boat. We drove to Sacramento today and bought a Hobie Cat to sail around the area, and took this picture near Echo Summit on the way back to Nevada via Hwy 50. Jeremy is beyond excited, and I'm excited too, but also a little nervous and overwhelmed as I know nothing about how to control a sailboat. We'll be donning our new wet suits and testing the boat out tomorrow afternoon, so maybe some more pictures then.

The vast difference in temperature and climate between the valley in which we live and the mountains in which we explore can sometimes be remarkable. Especially in the spring! Jeremy and I started out this afternoon in the valley at around 60º and ended up playing in the mtns, where it was decidedly chillier. Well, the air temperature wasn't so much colder, but the ground temperature sure was! Especially for stupid photographers who didn't plan well enough to bring closed shoes for exploration. To be fair, we didn't expect to end up where we did. But to be more fair ... we know better! So here you see me, running through the snow in sandals, camera firmly attached, and Jeremy trying to wash off his muddy feet in freezing cold mountain spring water. I really thought these photos represented us and what we do on our weekends.

I went out at lunch to play with our new Canon 100-400 IS lens (our first 'L' glass .. wheee!). I figured I best practice on moving birds since we'll be photographing the eagles soon (saw my first one this morning!) ... these shots aren't great, but I'm pretty happy, for my first time out.

After we saw the covered bridge, we found an aqueduct on our drive home. We decided to walk out on it for a while to try to get some neat photos. Well, the photos weren't so great (at least mine weren't), but this shows you where we were walking (and our Explorer in the background with its new Thule box on top .. now we don't have to carry everything in the back).

To my recollection I've never seen a covered bridge before this weekend. On Saturday we took a drive to the south Yuba River State Park in California and the Bridgeport Bridge, one of the longest single-span wooden bridges in America measuring in at over 230

feet. The bridge was originally constructed in 1862 and was part of the Virginia Turnpike Company Toll Road that served the northern mines and traffic to and from Virginia City and the Comstock Lode in Nevada. We decided that early morning in the spring will be a much better time to shoot it, but here's a crappy mid-day, mid-winter shot of it, anyway. :)