Monday, July 25th - Exploring the local area

We took time these last few weeks to stay local and enjoy the local flavor of things around the campsite.  We really like attending the local farmer's market in Grass Valley that happens each Thursday night -- live music, good food, great produce and other knick-knacks.  Kind of reminds me of the old Saturday Markets in Eugene with many of the same personalities as well!

We're enjoying cool nights where we often have campfires and cook dinner outside.  We still have some of our beef in the freezer from Idaho, but we're starting to run low!  Not sure what we'll do when we finally run out.  Last night we had big rib steaks, potato salad and grilled corn (we grill it in the husk, right on the fire). I'll never get tired of campfire cooking!

Lately, each of our days seem to start the same way

Sadie looks outside to check the weather, then asks us when we're going to the lake...  We usually start the day with a walk so she can stretch her legs, but the lake is where she really wants to be...

We've found it's better for us to take her to the lake to let her unwind a bit than find the alternative when we return:

This used to be her pillow.  We left her alone a bit too long once and we're guessing she got bored.

Once at the lake she has taken to the water like a sea otter and she will literally run herself silly if we don't make her get out.  She runs back and forth frantically and chases (herds) the waves.

An hour in the water seems to be a good limit.  Last night she went an hour and a half and she was really tired and sore.  After her lake time she sleeps like a baby, content as can be.

She also likes us to splash water at her if we're in the lake at the time.  Here we are trying to talk her into swimming.  She likes to go in to her shoulders, but swimming is a bit beyond her comfort level at this point.

A short way down the road from the campground is an overlook to an old mining valley that we visited one day

Here's Diana and Sadie sitting at the overlook's edge

In the opposite direction (toward town) is a river that runs through so we also took some time out to rock climb and walk the river bank looking for GOLD!  (Apparently the old miners took it all as we didn't find any).  We've now picked up a few gold pans at the local surplus mining outfitters store so we may still strike it lucky yet!

Here's Diana searching for big gold nuggets!

and here she is scaling the rocks like a lizard!

Back at the lake, we've taken the last few weeks to just relax and hang our feet in the water.  Isabel is taking swim lessons downtown with her friend Jerod from here at the camp so we're running her into town on alternating days.

Diana at "Bandy's Cove"

The weather is hot every day now and the humidity is melting our Idaho leather skin!  Our fishing competition is officially in the books as Isabel recently found a bluegill hole and insists on counting each and every fish she pulls in, whether it weighs 1 oz or 1 pound!  We should have agreed on a  minimum size/weight before we started -- we'll make a note for next time...  The score when we stopped counting was something like: Tom 6;  Diana - 4, Isabel - 137.

And now for the latest wildflowers and we do happen to know the names of these two:

Digitalis

Wild Iris

Catching up

We've had a busy week of activities here at camp as the weather is now cooperating for the most part.  Just Tuesday, however, we had another almost full day of rain!  We actually had to turn the heater back on during the morning hours yesterday (after several days of near 100 degree temps)!  The news people said it was only the fourth or fifth time we have had rain this late in June since they started keeping records.

Anyway, enough on the weather rant.  We're back into the 90's today and expected to reach over 100 by the 4th of July.  The park is filling up early so it should be an exciting, busy weekend!  Here is a photo of Diana and I in the work truck on our way to clean camp sites. Note the custom headliner in the truck... It's seen better days, but it runs great...

During our down time we like to get on the lake as often as we can as it's beautiful out there!  Here we are at 6 am heading up the river arm of the reservoir to find some fish.  There are so many boats on this lake every day that we try to plan our trips for early in the day, midweek.  We only saw one other boat on the water during this trip.

Here I am steering. The water was perfectly flat for us...

And here's the bounty for all our hard work.  We caught several fish during the trip and decided to keep and eat these two, though normally we catch and release. They are both smallmouth bass and measured between 13-15" each.  We filleted them, breaded them and cooked them in cast iron and they were delicious.

We also have the opportunity to take the camp canoes out and we recently made our maiden voyage.  We wish we had brought our canoe with us, but I still have to figure out how to pack it without making it a major production.  In the mean time, these canoes give us the opportunity to practice our paddling.  Here we are heading out of our harbor headed to the sand bar located about 1/2 mile away near a creek enterance.

We landed at the sand bar and walked around for a bit to explore before heading home.

Walking Sadie has become an impotant part of each day.  She has A LOT of energy and needs to have an outlet or she gets bored.  When our loop is empty we spend a lot of time throwing her Frisbee and letting her chase it.  When the loop is full, we find other ways to entertain her.  She goes almost everywhere with us, though she can stay at the trailer alone for a few hours if need be.  Here we are during one of our walks as we came across Isabel and her friend down by the boat docks.

  

Sadie has also adapted very nicely to our new relaxed lifestyle and when she is not running about, she has learned how to stop and smell the roses.  Here are just a few of her favorite ways to relax...

Occasionally, she even lets us sit in the chair...

And Finally, wildflowers.  We'll never get them all on here unless we post more than one at a time, so here are  a few this time...  Let us know if you know any of their names.

June 23 - Visit with Don and Sharon

Had a nice visit with Don and Sharon a few days before at our campsite as they were passing through on their way home.  They then decided to spend a few days in Nevada City at their timeshare so we were able to get together for a few hours and share some excellent BBQ they brought from their restaurant in Reno!  It was nice to catch up and we discussed a possible future meeting in Reno sometime during the upcoming "Hot August Nights" celebration there.

Malakoff Diggins

We worked 7-11 today -- mostly cleaning up after the busy weekend.  It was the first weekend with nice weather Friday, Saturday and Sunday so the campground was nearly full.  We worked Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.  BBQ'd ribs on the open fire last night and man were they good!  Even Diana complimented them and she's not really a rib fan.  I put them in the crock pot for about 6 hrs before painting them with sauce and placing them on the grill.  I should have taken a picture of them...


Saturday morning we had the opportunity to run out to Malakoff Diggins to attend "Humbug Days".  We never could figure out the significance of "Humbug Days", but we did enjoy all the activities. According to the web site, Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park is the site of California's largest "hydraulic" mine. Visitors can see huge cliffs carved by mighty streams of water, results of the gold mining technique of washing away entire mountains to find the precious metal. Legal battles between mine owners and downstream farmers ended this method. The park also contains a 7,847 foot bedrock tunnel that served as a drain. The visitor center has exhibits on life in the old mining town of North Bloomfield.


Here, Diana and Isabel were just starting the process of making handmade candles.  The candles finally came out looking great, but I'm not sure we would have done it had we known it would take over a half hour.

They offered wagon rides around town.

Here's a photo of a kitchen scene inside the town museum

We spent time in the town park playing a number of old fashioned games and panning for gold.  Here, Isabel is skunking me in a game of marbles.  I was only able to knock one out of the ring to her dozen or so.  I think Sadie is laughing at me.

Here's a photo of Isabel and I enjoying the view at the overlook.  It really was beautiful after all this time even though mining this way caused a lot of destruction.  I'm sure it didn't look as good as it was happening.

Sewing is still a central theme in our thoughts and I couldn't help thinking about someone asking me to fix this sewing machine!  This sewing machine was used to sew several layers of canvas together.  The machine itself stands about 4 feet tall and 6 feet long.

One of several houses in town.  We love the architecture.

Here is one of the cannons they used for hydraulic mining.  

After returning to the trailer I was refilling Sadie's food container, but she couldn't wait...

And Finally, the wildflower of the day.

With all the rain, then sun, then rain, then sun, the fish are confused and currently refuse to be caught so Isabel still leads the fishing derby.  She is leaving now to temp them with worms and Diana and I are contemplating joining her later this evening.  Wish us luck.

There really is sun in California!

Well, the last two days have been absolutely beautiful and the weather people say the sun is here for a while now!  Just this week we were on our way to town and this was the view out the windshield

Hail was pounding the truck and the road was white.  Today it's in the 80's and sunny.  The firewood is finally drying out and the lawn chairs are back in a circle around the fire pit -- for good, I hope!

We had a chance to get out last week during a window of good weather so we decided to visit Sutter's Mill where the gold that started the California gold rush was discovered.  On the way we stopped in Auburn and walked through the old town.  This statue can be found right along I-80 in Auburn's old town district

Here's a replica of Sutter's Mill, rebuilt on dry land since the first mill was eventually overtaken by time and water.  It was in the mill race they were digging for this mill that they found the first gold.  I guess Sutter wasn't  too excited since he thought the discovery of gold might lead people to overrun and take over his land (He, of course, was correct!)  They say that, in the end, Sutter died in poverty, never seeing much profit from his land, his mill, or the gold.

Diana and Isabel are standing at the monument where the mill originally stood

At its peak the area around Sutter's Mill had a population of around 10,000 people.  Here is one of the churches that served the area.  This church started as an Episcopal church and was later sold to the Methodists.  The park service still rents it out for weddings and other occasions but we don't think they hold weekly services here any more...  There was a huge bees nest in the bell tower and bees were flying everywhere which must make the weddings exciting!  

Isabel is standing on a rock that the Indian women used to mill acorns on.  On top, where she is standing there are several depressions made by hand millstones.

Diana and I are standing in front of a cave (or mine?) entrance just above the rock formation Isabel was standing on above.

And now, here is the wildflower shot of the day. There are so many beautiful wildflowers here that we find ourselves taking pictures of all of them.  Rather than posting them all at once, we'll try adding one to the end of each post.  Those of you who are better at taxonomy than we are can help us by posting their proper names.  This shot was taken at Sutter's Mill with the flower draping itself against a background of granite with a quartz vein.

Back at the campground -- here's our wildlife shot of the day.  These deer are part of a larger group that live here.  They wander through our loop each morning and throughout the day and have effectively put to rest the notion that we might be able to have a tomato plant or two at our site...

There was also a confirmed black bear siting the night before last down by the lake, but we weren't there to see it or take pictures (not that I really mind missing the close encounter).  We'll see if we can get a hold of the pictures that were taken so we can post them.  

Fish Count

By the way, the latest fish count stands at:

Isabel - 5 small mouth bass, 1 perch (she fishes while we are at work so she has an unfair advantage!)
Dad - Still just 1 undocumented, but witnessed (by Isabel) rainbow trout
Mom - 0 - (she stayed at home to rest and relax during our last 2 outings)

Sunday, June 5th - Weekend Update

Spent our afternoon fishing after finishing work at 1:30.  Today is the end of a string of three work days that each started at 7 am.  Even though we weren't really excited about getting up early we decided we like the early shift (opening gates, opening store, gate house, sweeping, etc).  It's quiet and peaceful working before the campers are stirring.  We had more rain this AM after rain most of the weekend which kept a lot of campers at home...  They say it gets warmer and dryer in California but we have yet to see much sun!  

Isabel and I were walking along the banks of the lake looking down at a vein of quartz and dreaming of gold when I happened to look up to see this little doe laying very still no more than 3 feet away.  The only thing moving was its little twitching nose.  It couldn't be more than a few weeks old, if that!  We snapped this picture and moved on quickly as not to upset it or its mother who we saw a bit earlier.

We know it must be able to get around OK because on the way back it had turned itself around and was laying facing the opposite direction.  I couldn't resist one more picture to show its big blue eyes!

And now on to another experience which will be very familiar to Californians, but new to us.  I had heard about "In N Out Burger" years ago when I was working in California but never had the chance to try it even though I tried twice.  Each time the wait was 35 minute or more and I didn't have time to wait!   Most everyone we talk to here says we "HAVE" to eat at In N Out Burger and get a "Double Double".  Now, finally, we were able to actually get in, place an order and eat.  It WAS good!  I'm not sure we'd wait 30 minutes for it, but they do make a good burger!  I also like their simple menu:  The Double Double, which is their double cheeseburger, the cheeseburger and the hamburger, fries (which are peeled and cut right in front of you), and drinks.  That's it!  Simple, easy to order, good prices. (Also, the owner is a Christian and places bible verses on the fry holder and drink cups). Notice that my burger had a few bites before I remembered to get a picture.

Here's another happy customer (and she's usually not a big burger fan)

Also happened upon these two trees  in our camp holding hands.  At some point a limb from one tree somehow grafted itself onto its neighbor!

Also had the opportunity to visit Sutter's Mill where they first discovered the gold that started the California gold rush.  I'll post those pictures soon on a separate post.