Cabbage and onions

Started my day with cabbage and onions... well, trying to give them away I guess I should say. But that soon passed and I had to get out and get on my bike. It was quite nice again today, plenty warm enough for bike riding but the muddy roads made me stay on the pavement. I decided to just ride around town and that's pretty much what I did. I also had to play around with my new camera too, so a closeup of some lichen growing on a rock looked like something to photograph.

There is a new bypass in town that hasn't been opened yet so it really makes a nice bike riding road. They have even put a bike lane along this one too which is what I wish they would try to do all over the valley. If that was done, it might encourage people to ride bikes more, right now there are many roads where you have no room to ride a bike other than on the edge of the traffic lane. I ride against the traffic as much as I can, which is against the law, but it's the only way I feel safe since I can see what's coming at me. This road starts at the college power station on Highway 139 and comes out on the Johnstonville road a little way east of the Post Office.

Tomorrow I'm heading down to Redding to ride the Clickapudi Trail in Jones Valley and maybe to catch a couple of fish along the way.. film at 11.

Interesting day...

I had a rather interesting day today. I made myself a lunch and headed up to the Miller Trailhead on the Bizz. Since we had snow and rain the last couple of days I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to go for much of a walk but I had to try. There was enough snow to make walking a little difficult in places but it was still doable. I went up a little over a mile and sat under the same tree I ate my lunch at a while back. Worked up quite a sweat getting up there, post holing every now and then in the snow but it felt good to get a little exercise.

This picture shows some of the interesting patterns in the snow but I'm not exactly sure what caused them.

Anyway, so I come home and I'm clearing the snow off of my boat and I look under the cover and I see that my boat is half filled with ice. I take the cover all the way off and I just have to laugh.. the boat had filled up with water and then froze so now I have this huge block of ice in every compartment and everywhere. I can't even get to the drain plug in the back since it's covered with a block of ice and water on top of that. Ya think it's time for a new boat cover? So I had to buy a short hose so I could siphon the water out but it will be a while before the glacier melts.

I need some warmer weather... heading to Redding in a couple of days and I'll get some bike riding and fishing in to change the pace a little.

Lovely day!!

Took my bike out to the valley today and had a nice relaxing bike ride. I really took my time, probably the slowest ride I have done for quite a while, but the weather was just too nice to go any faster. There is still some snow on the ground, obviously, but the roads were nice and dry.

While I was riding along I could hear meadowlarks singing through the music in my headphones and I had to stop and listen to them for a while. I just love to hear meadowlarks, they are a sign of spring for me. My Aunt Elsie was an avid birder and she told me once that meadowlarks sing when they are happy. You don't hear them much during the dead of winter, in fact when I used to live out in the valley I didn't hear them at all in the winter. But they were singing today, and I enjoyed hearing it.


There were some nice puffy clouds in the sky and even though they shaded me out occasionally, it was mostly sunny out there. That's Skeedaddle Mountain way out there.

I found the Nexus of the Universe and got a picture of it. That's it in the last picture. Very little traffic all day which was good for me, picking up cans and stopping to take pictures.


What a fantastic day!

We're talking spring here!

Well, I'm over in Fortuna right now, until tomorrow, and spring is starting to show. For a guy who is starting to dislike the long cold winters in Susanville, this has been a welcome break in the monotony. The color green has come back to my life. Yesterday Tracey and I went out to a creek in the redwoods near here and had a marvelous time with the dogs, taking pictures and laying in the sun. Since it's still mid February that was a really nice change from the cold, white, slushy, muddy mess that is the outdoor experience that I have been used to lately.

I say it all the time, but ya gotta love it!!

Warming and drying..

Yeah, right! OK, I guess it has been warming but the drying part is going to be a slow process.

The day before yesterday I got to get on my bike for the first time since Death Valley. I went out in the valley near Standish and went for a short ride... 13 miles. That's about all I could take, my butt has to get used to my bike seat all over again. I hope this starts off the bike riding season of 2008. 13 miles is a short ride for me normally and this one was all flat so no challenges. Still it was great to be out and it was nice weather-wise.

Yesterday I tried to take a long walk up the Bizz... not a good plan. I ended up going a little over a mile up the trail but I had no tracks to follow except the cross country snow skiers tracks, and I was doing my best not to destroy their trail by walking in it. See Chris? I'm learning. The snow is still over a foot deep and it's heavy and full of water and is tough to walk in. Anyway, I found a nice patch of pine needle duff under a big yellow pine that was dry enough to sit on and ate my lunch there. On my way back down I stopped at the second trestle and was looking at the river when I noticed these bolts had been tampered with. Someone has taken the nuts off of most of them and has removed some of the long bolts. I'm not sure what this does to the integrity of the bridge railings, but they had to be there for some reason and removing them can't be a good thing. Tomorrow before leaving town I'll try to notify someone to go out and look at it. I'm not sure if it's the County, City or BLM. Kind of pisses me off that someone is doing this kind of vandalism. It would sure be nice to catch them doing it.

Think Spring!!

44°

Yeah, that's right... 44°. That felt like a real heat wave today so I went out to enjoy it a little. I parked at the depot parking lot and walked from there. I must say that it was truely the nicest day we have had in quite a while. I saw one person at the beginning of my walk and he was going back the other way and I never ran into anyone else the rest of the time I was there.

The snow is pretty deep in places up on the Bizz, and I'm sure it gets deeper the higher up you go. This year would have been a great time for me to get into cross country skiing. This first picture is looking back from the first trestle to the Hobo Camp area. You can see the trail that goes to Hobo Camp on the right.





I have taken many pictures in the last few years from this vantage point. It always strikes me as a picturesque scene. Must just be me, huh? Oh well, I don't care, at least I like it.

I did find a fair number of critter tracks, mostly birds but this one looked like something with toes and claws. I thought at first maybe raccoon but I think it might have just been a squirrel. Half the fun of walking up here in the snow for me is trying to decipher the tracks you find.

So 44° today and maybe warmer in the next few days... won't be long till my absolutely favorite season, spring.

News Flash!

Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot