Finally warmed up some

OK, so global warming seemed to be in the news a lot last year when we had above average temps in the spring. This year, with the temps mostly below average, nobody is talking about global cooling. I just wonder where they take these temps that are supposed to show that the atmosphere is warming. If you ask me, I'd say we are starting another ice age and that would be much more devastating to the human race than global warming. In either case the fact that the atmosphere is dynamic and in a constant state of change is apparent. How short sighted are we to assume that we have any idea what the "normal" temps are for any given piece of planet earth. With our limited collection of environmental data it's hard to draw any concrete conclusions.


Now the earthquakes over by Reno are a new thing I never heard of before. Oh my god, California is getting ready to slip into the ocean! Or is that being caused by global warming too?


No matter what is happening with this world we live on, ya gotta love getting out and riding a bike when the weather is nice, as it was yesterday. Today it's a fishing day up at Antelope Lake, tomorrow up to Hat Creek to visit with my grandkids, and then Sunday more fishing.. Life is good!

Last Chance

Creek, that is...

I just love the look of those meadows up there in the early spring. The willows are starting to think spring and they have the coolest yellow tinge to them. It won't be long before they turn green. My bike ride was only 14 miles but I got a late start so that's my story, and you know the rest.

I took some pictures of these pretty little flowers in the past but I had forgotten how small they were so I added a penny to give them some scale. Since the weather is supposed to turn shitty again I thought I better get out. I was intending to go fishing but some stuff in the morning gave me a slow start and the wind was starting to blow pretty good, so the bike riding seemed like a better thing to do.

Either way... it's all good.

Antelope Lake

My first day fishing at Antelope Lake this year. Man, was it windy! No, it was fucking WINDY!!! Yeah, that says it a little better. I fished for several hours before it cooled off and started clouding up and managed to catch a couple of really nice bass. The largest was a little over 2 lb, I'm guessing. Had it not been for the wind I'm sure I could have caught some more. But then, isn't that being a little over confident? You never know.

The lake is down around 6 or 7 feet from the high water mark and I hope it fills up. There is still a lot of runoff going in, so I'm hoping they let it fill up. I'll try to get up there again later this week if it warms up.

Lookin'

Yep, lookin'... Looking for this stuff, in particular. One of the rites of spring for me is going out looking for asparagus. Of course I need to squeeze that in between bike riding, fishing, hiking, and whatever else I have going on... and spring is a time when I have way more things to do than I have time to do them. Life is tough! Well, maybe not tough, maybe difficult. Well, maybe not difficult, how about complicated. No, not complicated either.. oh hell, life is good for me, what else can I call it? Oh yeah, RETIRED!!!

Back on my bike...

In the past 2 days I have put a little over 35 miles on my bike. Yesterday I went up the Bizz and down the trail system in the Susanville Ranch Park. Even though it could have been a little warmer for my blood, it was comfortable enough that I had a very nice ride. The day before that I went up the Janesville Grade and found that you still can't drive a 4 wheel vehicle up there yet. I did see a guy on a snowmobile who was doing some really weird stuff with it... and another guy had a quad, which should have done well on the hard packed snow. There is not enough snow for a snowmobile and I'm sure that snowmobiler probably didn't do his machine any good running it on dry pavement. I took this picture yesterday of the trail I was following. My tracks looked like the first of the season. It's supposed to snow tomorrow so maybe the bike riding will be out for the next few days. Ya gotta love the wild weather swings in the spring!

Great times..

Had another great week last week down at Shasta Lake, fishing with old Bob and Dennis. (Dennis is the oldest, by the way) The weather forecast was predicting rain so we were mentally prepared for that but not only didn't it not rain all week, but the weather was very pleasant even though it wasn't very warm. The wind didn't cause much in the way of boat control problems so we caught a bunch more fish than we did last year. We caught fish from right against shore down to 20 feet deep or so. I even caught a couple on crankbaits. With the lake level being a good 30 feel lower than last year at this time, some of our usual good spots were high and dry.

We still had a fun time and I loved hearing Dennis call me an SOB when I kept catching fish and he was having trouble getting a bite. I caught 182 fish, Bob got 116 and Dennis got 62.

Back to winter

I spent a fantastic week down in Death Valley with my friend Chris and his friend Steve. Steve lives in DC so he's a city boy now but he did great with the hiking we did down in the desert. The weather was beautiful the whole time we were down there. The only thing close to cold that we had was when we camped at the higher elevations and that was only in the morning before the sun hit us.

Chris had all of his stuff packed into his truck, with a bike on the back and a canoe on top. We got some interesting looks from people considering that we were in the desert with no water for floating that boat. We took the 2 worst roads into Saline Valley at the end of the trip, going down Lippincott and going out of Saline via Steel Pass. There were no problems other than the fact that my second day down there I ran over a small bush which punctured my tire on a side wall so I had to make a 100 mile detour to Pahrump to buy a new tire. That was 200 miles round trip and took most of one day to do it. Next time I go down there I might just bring an extra tire with me in case that happens again.


The hot springs, as usual, were the highlight of the trip for me. It was mid 80's most of the time, maybe a little warmer in the bottom of Death Valley and I came back to Susanville last night and woke up to snow this morning. It's not sticking but the temperature as I type this is 32° and there are snow showers. Talk about a shock to my system... I have to get ready today for my fishing trip down to Shasta, I'm leaving for there in the morning so I need to get repacked, laundry done, and buy some more food... and oh yeah, beer. The weather next week when we will be down there is predicted to be rainy in mid week so the nice tan I started down in the desert might fade some before I get another chance to work on it.

Here's a short clip of the worst spot on Steel Pass..