Wookie-Boy is Cutie-Pie

Grandma said I could dress up Wookie in my baby doll clothes. He looked like he enjoyed it a lot, but I still don't know if he did. I just knew he liked the bandana because the other clothes walked around weirdly in, but with the bandana, he just rubbed his face with it.

More Camping

We hiked and swam & enjoyed the pools. Nice. Some of us saw some of the Perseid meteor showers.

Did a bit of fishing on the Carson River (no luck, but saw some big ones down there!). Waited for the cows to cross before proceeding up Ebetts Pass. They weren't in any hurry. Neither were we.

Got the usual "camping flat tire" (hoping to end this streak), and were travelling on the spare.

More about camping

So, after driving up Sonora Pass, we dropped off Dad, who was riding his bike to Markleeville over Monitor Pass (52 miles and a lot of elevation), and we went off to meet friends in Lee Vining for ice cream, before heading to Bodie.

C & K=girl have never been to Bodie, but have heard about it, as its C's middle name. So, it was exciting to see the ghost town.



We were with friends (2 girl children & mom) and C has an aversion to girls lately, so he & mom hung out a bit.

We are studying churches in anticipation of an upcoming trip to France and UK. When we entered the church at Bodie, C pointed out that the rose window is made out of wood at the Bodie Church. :)

After a fun afternoon, we drove the same route Dad took to get to Markleeville, and set up camp. C and K=girl attempted to set up the tent, and did a pretty good job, but needed some help. When Mom intervened, the tent pole smacked back and hit her in the nose pretty bad. Suspected broken nose-- required ice. 40th birthday to remember, for sure.

Friend T was watching from the sidelines with calm bemusement.

Talus or Scree?

We recently went on a camping trip, and along our journey we crossed Monitor, Sonora and Ebetts passes. Lots of talus on Sonora pass, or was that scree?

C did a bit of research:

Scree: an accumulation of rocky debris, lying on a slope, or at the base of a hill or cliff; talus.

Talus: 1) slope formed especially by an accumulation of rock debris 2) rock debris at the base of a cliff.

He concluded: (with some frustration) that they are the same thing!

At the top of Sonora Pass, we noticed some dramatic looking trees, which we thought might be Bristlecone Pines. However, they turned out to be Sierra (or Western) Juniper (juniperus australis). We could tell by the location (grows from 7,000 to 10,000 feet, notably on Sonora and Tioga passes) and the bark was described as a cinnamon red. (From the Conifers of California). Dad says he also looked at the leaves and it didn't have needles.

At Grover Hot Springs State Park, we were lucky enough to be able to watch a snake in the stream, swimming up and down, slipping through the rocks. Weren't sure what it was, but it sure was neat! We were able to identify it later as the Western Aquatic Garter Snake (thamnophis couchii). Neat!

Finally, just outside the pool at Grover Hot Springs, where the overflow from the natural spring floods the ground, we saw some critters squirming around in the warm water, along with some mosquito larvae. We thought they were leeches, and asked the lifeguard, who was stumped. The next day he told us he thought they were larvae of some kind. So, we decided to research it.

From some cursory research on the internet, we found out a lot of interesting things about leeches and were not able to rule out that these things were leeches. Did you know leeches are closely related to earthworms? The bloodsucking kind (and they are many other kinds) inject an anesthetic to keep you from noticing you are being sucked, AND an anti-coagulent to keep the blood flowing!

More on the trip details in the next entry.

Swingin'

It was fun. I felt like I was going to flip over.

--K-girl

What They Never Show In the Home Magazines

Have you ever had this happen?

This made the power go out for a while.

Note the disoriented woodpecker at the top of the pole.

The guys in orange showed up pretty soon, though.