Twelve (or Ten?) Months of LFD (2017)

I'm doing the year-end meme wherein I compile the first sentence of the first post of every month. Meme rules are as follows, as per DrugMonkey (2014):

Post the link and first sentence from the first blog entry for each month of the past year.

I also add the first photo from the same first post. Previous takes on this Twelve Month meme at LFD were posted for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2016.

Aaand...here's the year 2017 for LFD:

January:

It's been icy cold in the far northlands, with temperatures hovering not too far above zero for several days.

February:

It was a late fall day, and I stopped along Route 447 to see if I could get close to some of the brilliantly colored trees along the Truckee River a few miles north of Wadsworth.

March:

I planned to have this descriptive section as part of the last post—the one about being packed and ready to leave town—but this "little bit" grew and grew, and eventually it had to find its own home.

April:

I was looking back through some photos and realized I had some of the Roan Cliffs from the spring of 2006.

May:

What is this?!!1?1!?

It all started when I was trying to find out what rock formations and rock types I was seeing while making the long trip to work and back out near Elko.

June:

I'm moving slowly on this mini-series about the Humboldt River while working essentially 12-hour days and while (hopefully) recovering from some long-lasting bug I caught on the road or out in Elko more than two months ago.

July:

Returning once again to my spring mini-series about all the rivers and lakes that are at higher levels than I've seen in quite awhile (most recent post), I decided this time to show a few pics of the Truckee River, which I drive by quite frequently.

August: Nothing.

September:

It's been a busy summer, such that I really haven't had time to get much blogging done—and I had so many good posts planned!

October:

This is a classic road song with "road" right there in the title, courtesy once again of MOH.

November: Nada.

December: (this post).

I'm doing the year-end meme wherein I compile the first sentence of the first post of every month.

Road Song: Copperhead Road

Steve Earle: Copperhead Road (lyrics)
Album: Copperhead Road, 1998

This is a classic road song with "road" right there in the title, courtesy once again of MOH. I can't say that I have any particular memories around this song, but the music video is quite evocative with respect to the eastern backwoods (which I remember well from my years back there), Vietnam, and what might be protecting the younger John Lee Pettimore III's current crop, which isn't moonshine.

Road Song: On the Road Again

Canned Heat: On The Road Again (lyrics)
Album: Boogie with Canned Heat, 1968

I haven't updated my road song list for quite sometime, in fact my post list by "road songs" indicates that I added the last new one in August, 2015, more than two years ago!! One The Road Again, not to be confused with the song with the same title by Willie Nelson, is an oldie from the Woodstock days, one I had pretty much forgotten about until MOH reminded me of it last week. In my mind this is old time hippie music to go along with Tupelo Honey (Van Morrison), Sugar Magnolia (Grateful Dead), and Creole Belle (Jesse Colin Young).

Sorry I can't guarantee that music videos I post will remain online. Enjoy while you can! 😊

Wandering Amongst the Granite Knobs in the Northern Sierra

Granitic knobs in the northern (way northern) Sierra.

It's been a busy summer, such that I really haven't had time to get much blogging done—and I had so many good posts planned! But it's been really difficult for me to do much of anything while working essentially twelve to fourteen hour days (depending), and on days off I've been working around the house, gardening, and attending to other things besides writing.

Nevertheless, MOH and I have found time to get out and about a couple times; these photos were all taken on a particular jaunt of ours back in early July. While traversing from west to east across the Great Basin Divide, we unexpectedly drove by some lovely exposures of granite—well, probably it's technically granodiorite.

It was just barely past spring at our elevation of 5500 feet.

Pinemat (Ceanothus prostratus) takes over a stump.

From our parking area beneath tall pines next to a spring, we wandered up to the the closest knobs.

The view southward from our "Granite Hill."

From this perspective, it's easy to get a feeling for the magnitude of several wildfires that have burned through this area in fairly recent years. At least two, maybe three, fires were evidenced by different tree heights.

Upward we climb.

I think exposures of granite and other granitic rock are fascinating, and it's hard not to stop and stay all day, even when the day is a scorcher.

A wildflower has taken hold along a fracture or joint.

This bouldery countenance reminds me of the tufa formation "Old Woman with Basket," also known as Stone Mother, on the east shore of Pyramid Lake.

Looking off to the north, as the last photo does, it's easy to see at least two plantings of Ponderosa Pine, which followed two or more forest fires. As the trees grow, forest managers come along and thin the trees.

This tree was five to nine years old when cut, depending on how one should count the rings.

Here are a few of the great mafic inclusions we saw while wandering around.

Some vertical joints within the granite.

A cobble got stuck in one of the vertical joints.

A swarm of inclusions!

High Water Across the West: Not at West Gate!

I was surprised when driving through central Nevada back in early May that things didn't really look all that green or wet, at least as compared to what I'd already seen in northern Nevada along the Truckee River, at Rye Patch Dam and the Humboldt Sink, at the Pitt-Taylor Reservoir and in Winnemucca, in Carlin Canyon, and at Honey Lake. Still, I expected Eastgate Wash to be running, because it does so often, at least in my memory. I didn't have a chance to check the wash out at Eastgate, where I expect it was running, but here it is at West Gate...dry on May 3rd.

At least the nearby West Gate windmill was pumping, so there was plenty of water for any blue bellies that might happen by.

Update from the Lake: It's Been a Green Spring

It all started with the squirrel, who was out in the side yard chomping on some seed we'd thrown out, or maybe it was a peanut. Somehow it inspired me to grab my camera and wander through the yard.

I walked around toward the front, and grabbed this shot of our wild patch of clover, growing along the fence protecting the Carolina allspice.

The clover isn't anything we actually planted, but it's kind of pretty.

An iris.

When I got around to the backyard, I made sure to get a photo of the ripest lemon on our small, two-year-old (to us) lemon tree. The tree arrived with green lemons, and it's only this year that it's really started growing.

Iris budding out near "the island."

I'm not really sure which of our fruit trees this is, but I'm thinking it's the plum. If not, it's the cherry, the peach, the almond, or the apple.

We planted peas randomly throughout last year's garden area, mostly to fix some nitrogen, but we'll also harvest seeds for eating and reseeding.

Last but not least, the raspberries were starting to go to town.

All pictures were taken in early June.

High Water Across the West: The Truckee River

Returning once again to my spring mini-series about all the rivers and lakes that are at higher levels than I've seen in quite awhile (most recent post), I decided this time to show a few pics of the Truckee River, which I drive by quite frequently. Actually, I drive by four times a month unless I happen to bypass Reno by taking another route: 1) across the Black Rock Desert, 2) via Wadsworth to Pyramid Lake and northward (this route is currently impassable because spring floods washed out the road), or 3) over the mountains from the Pyramid Lake highway to Highway 395 (when having to turn around because the preferred road was washed out north of Sutcliffe).

The first photo was taken at a scenic overlook near Patrick along I-80, looking to the southeast. The river is high between us and the dark brown mass of intrusive dacite that forms a synform known as Giant's Throne (you can read a little about this feature here or purchase the field guide here).

Here (above), from the same location, I zoomed in on the river just south of I-80. The trees were just getting their spring leaves and were bright yellowish green.

After a bit, I pulled off at the westernmost Fernley exit and drove south into Wadsworth, a small town along old highway 40 (which is not signed 40 anywhere in Nevada, afaik). These photos, above and below, were taken at a bridge over the Truckee in the eastern part of Wadsworth.

I zoomed in on the water roiling downstream from a cottonwood tree sitting farther out in the water than usual.

I couldn't resist a photo of this old church. Once upon a time, while in high school or early college, I painted a watercolor of a similar church located back east in northern Virginia. I'm still fascinated by the style — not sure why.

Unlike some other rivers in the west, the Truckee was nowhere near impacting the old highway 40 bridge from below.

The railroad bridge spans the Truckee less than 50 meters away from the highway bridge.

For some reason, this view looking downstream reminded me of swamps in southeast. Maybe it's just the way the trees were sitting out in the river.

While down on the river between the two bridges, I grabbed one more shot of trees out in the river. And after standing there for a few minutes, I remembered I had to get back on the freeway. 😢

All photos were taken on 14May2017. The river is still high.

High Water Across the West: Rye Patch Dam and the Humboldt Sink

Rye Patch Dam on April 19th. The water in Rye Patch Reservoir is high, but not at the high water mark that can be seen just past the spillway.

I'm moving slowly on this mini-series about the Humboldt River while working essentially 12-hour days and while (hopefully) recovering from some long-lasting bug I caught on the road or out in Elko more than two months ago. Also, my current work schedule of  9 to 10 days in a row gives me 2 to 3 days off that don't involve driving, so my off days tend to be filled with chores and not that much writing. Anyhoo, there I was traveling south on I-80 past the big bend at Humboldt Station, where I had stopped to take a few photos of the water in the Pitt-Taylor Reservoirs, when I decided—rather spontaneously—to drive down to Rye Patch Dam. As you can see from the first photo, the reservoir is high, but not quite to the high water mark.

Rye Patch Reservoir and Majuba Hill.

Here we're looking just west of north across a shallows, and we can see Majuba Hill just right of center in the distance. The main, deeper part of the reservoir is long and linear where it follows a canyon cut by the river into Lake Lahontan sediments.

The same view in June, 2016, from Google Earth.

A few Western Grebes swim in the shallows.

A closer view of one grebe.

I couldn't resist this view of the Humboldt Range.

Snow-capped Star Peak hides behind clouds. The Cordex Pit of the Florida Canyon Mine operations might be barely visible below Star Peak.

After my brief sojourn at the Rye Patch Dam overlook, I proceeded back to the interstate, speeding ever southward and then southwestward as the road made another broad bend near Lovelock. I was shocked at what I saw when I drove past Granite Point.

The Humboldt Sink had water in it!

At first, I thought it might be a mirage, and although these photos don't really do justice to it, it was indeed water, a small lake that has persisted, at least through my last drive by the area a week ago on June 11th.

A closer view of the Humboldt Sink and the West Humboldt Range.

And that's all for now, time for work! I've got a few pictures of even more water from another trip, but I can't promise when I'll get to it!

High Water Across the West: The Humboldt River at Winnemucca and Humboldt Station

When I started putting these photos together—while thinking about our last post about the Humboldt River in Carlin Canyon—I somehow (and quite erroneously) figured I could throw a whole bunch of high-water Humboldt River photos together in one blog post. The thing is, I have way too many, from several different localities and a few different days, and I hope to collect a few more before the water ebbs. So for today, we'll stick with these two spots, which I visited while driving I-80 from Elko to Reno on April 19th. The first shot looks westward toward Blue Mountain from the westbound exit onto West Winnemucca Blvd (exit 176).

The flooding in Winnemucca was really quite extensive when I drove through on April 11th (no photos) and then again on the 19th: several backyards and a few basements or first floors of houses near the defunct "Barrick Arms Apartments" were under water. The water had receded incompletely when I saw it last (May 28th).

These first pics show the Humboldt River's floodplain looking more like a marshy lake than it's usual dry self. Water level was slightly lower on April 19th than when I first saw it on the 11th.

Here's a phone-camera panorama, with Blue Mountain way off on the left and Winnemucca Mountain taking up the right half of the photo.

This Google Maps Street View image, a flashback to 2011, shows a more typical appearance of the same panorama, albeit from October rather than spring.

And just because, I've included a picture centered on Winnemucca Mountain. It's a prominent feature and a landmark for miles and miles. If you look closely, you'll see the two-toned "W" painted on its southeastern slope.

On that same day (the 19th), I pulled off I-80 at Humboldt House (exit 138, marked "Humboldt") and drove old Highway 40 back toward Imlay.

I crudely spliced together two or three photos looking northwest across what I thought was Rye Patch Reservoir.

It turns out that the entirety of the water seen in these photos is contained within the Upper and Lower Pitt-Taylor Reservoirs.

Here we see Majuba Hill behind blue water in the Lower Pitt-Taylor Reservoir. The light beige horizontal line between the water and Majuba are bluffs underlain by Lake Lahontan's Sehoo Formation. A narrow part of Rye Patch Reservoir proper runs between us and those bluffs, but we can't really see it, even though the water is running high.

Here we can see both the Lower and Upper Pitt-Taylor Reservoirs. The Lower is closest to us; the Upper is beyond the horizontal pale beige line separating the two bodies of water. The wide upper part of Rye Patch Reservoir lies not far beyond the Upper Pitt-Taylor, hidden from us by some irregular low hills. Off in the distance, we're looking at pointed, snow-covered King Lear Peak, part of the Jackson Mountains. The 8923-foot-high peak (2720 m) is about 45 miles away.