Feelin' a little punky...

Lately I have been feeling a little empty for some reason. So of course, bike riding somewhere pretty always feels good and Eagle Lake is close by and makes a great place to go so I did. It was a beautiful day and I rode from over near the CDF fire station all the way to Eagle's Nest and back. The paved trail is such a nice one to take and I had it all to myself. It was nice that I didn't see anyone since I was deep in thought most of the time and didn't need any distractions. Ridin' and thinkin', a great place to ponder.

Anyway, the lake is low and it looked to be about a foot lower than it was last year about this time. Since this is a natural lake and the level is not regulated in any way, the effects of the extended dry season this year are apparent. I remember some years ago when the lake levels were so high that the road along the north east side, Highway 139, was very close to the water. They were even talking about moving the highway up on the rim rock, but that never happened. The bottom picture is looking across Gallatin Beach toward the Jetty and Marina. There is an osprey nest at the top of one of those trees in the foreground, but it really wasn't the focus of this picture. Yada Yada Yada...

Eureka Ridge

Yesterday I drove over to Sloat and went bike riding with Chris up to Eureka Ridge. It was a 27.7 mile trip according to my GPS, with a 3600' elevation change. The route we took was not too steep, there were no places I had to walk my bike up. The Cold Fire from June of this year burned some pretty country and went all the way to the top of the ridge so we had to ride through some badly burned areas along the way. This picture of one of the burned areas shows how the fire was really quite mosaic in places. Spots like this will recover much sooner than some of the other "nuked" zones we saw.

On my way over I had to go through Greenville where I'm hoping to be meeting an old friend soon. I've had this lady on my mind for the last few weeks and driving through Greenville didn't help matters much. Not that I don't want to be thinking of her mind you, quite the contrary, but I guess I'm just chomping at the bit waiting to finally meet her face to face again after all these years. Soon...

Hops and agates

Got back yesterday from the coast and a fantastic visit with Tracey and her family. Last Saturday we went to the Hops in Humboldt in Fortuna. This thing is very convenient since it's bike riding distance from Tracey's house and after a few brews bike riding makes more sense than driving a 4 wheeled vehicle... not to mention much safer. I also have to say that I drank a little more than I did last year and was very close to having a little too much, but then my alcohol tolerance is way down there so it doesn't take a whole lot for me.

Tracey and I went up the coast later in the week and went agate hunting in her usual spot. We found plenty of them, well, maybe not plenty as far as Tracey is concerned, but still we got enough to keep things interesting. It was a beautiful day, a little windy but warm enough for shorts as you can see.

We used to be avid rock hounds and picked rocks up from all over the place, so Tracey is continuing in that tradition, having a huge selection of agates at home. We added these to the collection. The ones on the left are the ones I found and the the ones on the right are Tracey's, but they all live at Tracey's now.

Goin' to the coast..

My last week has been great, as usual. Yesterday I kinda stayed in the valley. There is a road that connects Belfast and Rice Canyon Road and I rode that one. It was 22 miles round trip and not too hot, but then I like it hot.

This was the only water I saw on this ride and it wasn't anything I wanted to run through my filter, even though I think I could have if I had to. But I had enough water with me for the length of ride and temperature combination yesterday. I took this picture because of the contrast here, and the fact that it almost looks like a bullseye. There was a feel of fall to the air, and I'm starting to think we are going to have an early winter. We'll see..

Tomorrow I'm heading over to the coast for a week or so and when I get back I am really, really hoping to meet up with a very dear old friend of mine. Needless to say I'll make that happen one way or the other.

Something new.. but old.

Something new to me, I guess I should say. Yesterday while riding my bike up in the Babcock area I came across an old cabin that I never knew existed. It's located along an old railroad grade and I'm guessing it had something to do with the early railroad logging days or maybe a line shack for running cattle or sheep. Traces of the old logging lines can still be seen in the meadows, which seemed to be the easiest place for them to put them. You can easily see why locating roads and railroad tracks in meadows was not very environmentally sound, the remnants last for years.

This one even has what looked like an old telephone line running next to it. I looked a little bit for glass insulators, but they were all picked up many years ago I guess, I didn't find any. As far as I know, the last time there was any railroad logging here was in the early 1900's, so this old train track is an old one, but still totally visible. I see old logging railroad grades all the time up in this country since it was flat enough for a pretty extensive system, but I had never been down here on this one. I just love it when I get to see new stuff, even if it's old.

Swimming weather!

Threw my bike in the back of my truck and drove up to Antelope Lake yesterday for a little swimming and bike riding. I went swimming for a couple of hours then took off around the lake. I ended up stopping 2 more times to go swimming again since it was a nice hot day... just the way I like it. It's about 13 miles around the lake and a pretty easy ride. There weren't many people driving around so the traffic wasn't anything to be concerned about and the water was soooo nice!

I took this picture of Long Point from near where I had parked my truck. It was late in the day and the lighting was different than I am used to seeing, which gives this picture a little bit of relief. Still a little green left now that almost the whole area around the lake has been burned off. Today I might end up back here, depends on whether I end up near the lake or not... yep, bike riding again!

Mannn...

I have been a busy guy lately. Not doing anything very important, mind you, just busy all the time it seems.I've been doing the usual climbing, riding, hiking, yada, yada yada. I had a partner the other day, Chris got a day off so I took him out and tortured him. It wasn't all that hard to go where we went but there was a little chugging uphill to do, as there always is.

We went up to Tom's Thumb and tried to climb it. It's climbable I'm sure, but neither one of us felt confident enough to try to get all the way to the top. Chris made it to a ledge about 2/3rds of the way up and I stayed a little below him. Falling from there would have been very bad and we didn't have that much to prove by climbing all the way anyway so we decided not to push it. We walked all the way around and tried another spot on the back side, which might also be doable, but we didn't go too far up.

That second picture is the place I'm talking about. The perspective in this picture actually makes it look a little steeper than it was, I think. That's as high as Chris tried to go, by the way.

It was good for me to have somebody to go with since climbing on this rock alone is not a good thing and lately my mind has been on an old friend of mine most of the time so having someone along gave me a diversion from my normal thought patterns.

I spent most of the day today working in the warehouse, putting my pallets together for next month, but now I'm feeling kinda lazy this afternoon for some reason. I have nothing important planned this coming week so I guess I'll be out and about as usual... Life is good!