Interesting plants

Rode up to Susanville Peak today and along the way I found this interesting plant. I've seen this thing before, but the pods were never full before. Usually the pods are flat and kind of resemble pea pods... These things are full of air and I popped some when I ran over them, that's what alerted me to their interesting weirdness. There were droplets of water inside so my guess is that the water vapor has something to do with the swelling. They were sealed pretty good and don't deflate easily, you have to squeeze them pretty hard to pop them.

I just love to see new things when I'm out riding and they are all there for your viewing pleasure, if you just stop and look.

Doubtless I have missed these things many times by not paying close attention to the vegetation on my travels. Now I need to find a good flower book so I can identify this thing. There was a lot of smoke from the fire down near Paradise blocking the nice views I got from the top of the hill but looking north you could still see Round Valley Lake and Eagle Lake off in the distance.

Sauntering..

In green meadows full of flowers.. barefoot even.. Ya gotta love that! My wanderings today brought me by quite a few beautiful meadows as yet not trampled by cows. It was a gorgeous day, warm with light breezes and not a cloud to block the sun. Needless to say I was making vitamin D for several hours.

One of the things about the east side of the Plumas that always bothers me is that the creeks don't run clear like their counterparts on the west side. Most of the creeks you find have a sort of coffee color to them. I always attributed that to cattle when I was working for the Forest Service, but now I'm not too sure that's the only cause for it. Never-the-less, I wouldn't want to have to drink any of this stuff, even using my water filter.

My ride today was up near Wemple Cabin and even though I did see some people, they were few and far between. I guess I would have preferred not to see anyone, but that's the way it goes...

Still... it was all good...

This n That

So I spend the day Monday working on my truck. Everything goes just fine, changing the u-joints is pretty easy and a simple procedure. It was really nice that I live right in town and the machine shop is right around the corner... had to get them pressed in.

Anyway, so then yesterday it was time for a bike ride up in the woods. I wanted to go up to Wildcat Ridge and see what the burn from last year had done to it. It is pretty ugly in comparison to what it looked like last year at this time but the birds were singing and it was a very pleasant day.

You kinda have to overlook the ugliness of such a fresh burn and there was a lot of new growth on the ground to provide a nice distraction from the black. All the trees will need to be replanted. Some of the meadows have a variety of colors and are still in full bloom.



But today was another story... had stuff to do, places to go people to see... the usual. Computers figured high on the subject matter list. Wouldn't you know it!

Big Springs

Went for a long bike ride today, up the old Bunyon logging road to the Goat Mountain area. I got to a place that was on my map that said Big Springs. I've never really explored that side of Hiway 44, so I had never been there before. The ride was an easy one with no challenging hills or trails on it, and it was a beautiful day, nice and warm and sunny... just the way I like it.

Tomorrow I have a little repair job to do on my Toyota. The rear u-joint is worn out and it rumbles when I'm up to highway speeds. I found that out yesterday on my way back from Fortuna. I had my fingers crossed that it wouldn't get worse, and it didn't. That part has over 230,000 miles on it so it lasted a long time. I'm changing the front one too as long as I'm at it.