Re-balancing Act

As part of my days-off re-balancing program, I found this little nook out in our "gazebo." Our gazebo is actually a rectangular, roofed picnic-type area, which we enclosed and finished off with materials mostly scrounged from other people's remodel projects.

That's' my laptop sitting on an inactive potting table. The view is great, and the place heats naturally from the sun, so it might be a good place to hang out in the winter - a little crowded right now, and no electrical outlets.

View through old, frosted windows.
View looking out the other side window - the building is mostly a storage area at present, with homebuilt cedar-strip canoe taking up most of the space.
View looking upwards, making me think of winter treks through the coming snow - hopefully not coming here too soon, as we will leave our drip system on.

That's just a quick note - and now, back to the road!

Fall at the Lake

It's both green and yellow at the lake this year, as can be seen by this leaf lying on our cinder-covered ground...
...and by our two-toned aspen trees in the backyard.
Seeds are falling from fir cedar trees, twirling out of the sky...
...and the tops of some aspens are barely turning color before the leaves are falling off.

On another front, our drip system stayed intact this last month while we were away, but a few small trees didn't survive the two times the system went down over the summer. The little brown trees are a sad thing to see. We would take the remaining green ones out to our little house in Nevada, but we have no outdoor water line, making outdoor watering quite difficult. So we leave them here, and hope for the best. This fall and winter, we'll be asking some local friends to check in on things.
Wood heat is popular here, as I mentioned yesterday. It smells good, when not overpowering, and reminds me of campfires. We heat with #2 heating oil (similar to diesel), which used to be fairly inexpensive, but which has gone up in price a lot over the last two years.

Just Another Road Trip

Prior to taking off on yesterday's "just another road trip" trip, MOH and I went over to our newly rented storage unit, on the outskirts of the little town we stay in while working, he on his cycle and me in his Prius. Our storage unit is primarily for stashing the cycle during the winter, partly so we can have a bit more room in our gravel driveway. We will also be able to store a few other things there: our tiny rental is getting full, what with us bringing out winter stuff, then summer stuff, then camping stuff, then this-and-that stuff, and... Right now, it's mostly empty, though.
On the road we saw a few dust devils...
...and a couple lizards. This one was scampering around on some white tuff, either a base-surge tuff or an air-fall tuff, not that the photo shows anything particularly diagnostic, or typical, of either type of tuff. (Sorry, I just had to try for T-type alliteration, there.)
We duly stopped at a few faults, one barely shown across the road beyond the Prius, our erstwhile field vehicle.
It's hunting season out in the deserts, steppes, and mountains of central Nevada, and it's also that wood-cutting time of year. Notice how I neatly erased the license-plate number from the wood-hauling truck
We saw a nice sundog as we were approaching Reno. This one was in the sundog position on the right side of the sun, and showed good rainbow-like colors. A circle around the sun never developed, but a second sun dog vaguely showed up in the sundog position to the left of the sun. I looked hard for a Kern arc straight overhead, but didn't see one. I saw one once at Pyramid Lake. The sun was almost down, and straight overhead there was a circular rainbow, which is very rarely seen and even more uncommonly photographed. I had no idea at the time that such a thing could even exist, but there it was. I'd like to see another one someday.
The sunset while driving through and around Reno was wonderful and brightly colored...
...including this strange oval sky "hole." (That's not a technical term!)
We stopped at B+N, bought a few books, had some coffees, and bought some 16 oz bags of coffee at much better prices than we usually see in small-town Nevada.
After stopping on the road for some after-dark gas, we finally made it to our home at the lake. The air was cool - exactly 46 degrees F according to the Prius temp sensor - and it was nicely damp compared to the dry air from whence we'd just come. The past-full moon was up and shining through thin, high clouds, and haze from woodsmoke was hanging over the ground.

Walkscore

I found this quiz at Karina's Ruminations of an Aspiring Ecologist. The Walk Score quiz takes your address, comes up with how close you are to grocery stores, hardware stores, schools, restaurants, etcetera, and comes up with a number rating based on walkability. It doesn't always show the correct location for everything, it misses a few things, and sometimes shows things that are closed.

For our little house in the Nevada outback, I get a score of 74 - very walkable. It says we have a grocery store within 0.69 miles, though I haven't heard of that particular one - the one we use is 1.25 miles away, a bit farther than I like to walk for groceries. We do have numerous restaurants, cafes, and bars (and a couple casinos) within 0.15 miles, two drug stores within 0.15 miles, a park, a school, and miscellaneous stores - clothing, video, electronics, gift stores, and a pawn shop - within 0.3 miles. I'm also very close to the library (0.3 miles) and the one-movie theatre (0.5 miles). The hardware stores are farther than I'd walk to unless I was just out for a walk and dropped in, at 1 to 2 miles away. I was surprised to find that we are virtually next door to a coffee shop or espresso house that is probably half-way across town (1 mile?), if it even exists with the name they gave. It definitely isn't next door!

It doesn't list several of the very close-by restaurants or bars, possibly because they are inside hotels, and it lists a few things that I'll have to check out, and at least a couple that aren't open currently. It doesn't list how close I am to the red-light district, which is definitely within walking distance but not of interest to me (this could be a selling point for some Nevadans or passers-through staying at nearby motels). Actually - now that I look again - it does show the red-light district: one adult bookstore I'd never heard of and one "ranch" listed under bars.

For our home at the lake I get a walk score of 15 - car-dependent. For sure! Our house is within walking distance of two restaurants (one closed), one coffee shop, a couple real estate outfits, and a defunct gas station selling sundries. The closest grocery store is almost 2 miles away; the one we use is almost 8 miles away. It doesn't list the nearby coffee shop that is sometimes closed in winter, nor does it list the restaurant that is open or the old gas station that has a few groceries. They are within 0.1 to 0.3 miles and would raise the walkability a little, perhaps. It doesn't list the fact that we are within walking distance of voting, the fire house, a heating repair outfit, one or two jewelry shops, and a boat storage and repair place. (It also doesn't list the nearby beach and picnic area or the boat ramp - we walk to the boat ramp for the view.) It does list a school, which is a tiny charter or private school within 0.15 miles. Most stores and all gas stations are 7 to 8 miles away, so we drive, and although one could consider some kind of mo-ped, I wouldn't use one on a two-lane, 55 mph highway with curves, hills, and trees. (MOH will use his motorcycle to get groceries - it's at the other place now, though.)

What's your score?

Hazy Days Again

Due to the fire near Yosemite, it was quite hazy in Reno during our recent visit there, as you can see from this barely discernible view of Peavine Peak(above). The photo was taken from about six miles east of the peak.

More haze north of town, as seen from Highway 395 near Hallelujah Junction.

It was also hazy at the lake, but the water was enjoyable!

Spring at the Lake

It's spring at the lake, and MOH and I are lucky enough to have some flowers that come up by themselves every year.Our yard is covered with reddish basalt cinders, which were put down at one time probably to keep weeds from coming up. Now, the "weeds" come anyway, mostly in the form of some native bunch grass, which we have to chop down after it turns brown.

We have some flower beds of wildflowers and other plants, and those have to be watered with drip lines, which I managed to repair recently - the snow plow had broken one whole section while trying to dig the driveway out of the snow earlier in the year.

On Our Way Home

A mini-sundog welcomes us on our way home to the lake.

Update from The Lake

MOH and I are back in the field at our little house after a three-day interlude away from the Nevada outback, which included a visit to the lake and a two-night stopover in Reno. Our update from the lake is that there is significantly more snow there than at our little house in the Nevada outback - significantly more snow than we've seen at the lake in a number of years. Supposedly we are in the midst of a La Nina, although the winter overall reminds me of the 1982-83 winter, during which one of the largest snowfalls in the Sierra Nevada was caused by an El Nino. It was a very good year to learn how to downhill ski, and so I did. [I mean, it just reminds me of that winter; doesn't mean I'm saying we're not in the middle of a La Nina!]

On the way back, we drove through miles of high snow berms showing the depositional history of the snow and a few disconformities. Correlation between "outcrops" seemed good, except where local slumping and man-made disturbances had occurred.

While gone, we missed the exciting event of a large earthquake nears Wells, NV, which has been thoroughly discussed here and here and here. We were in Reno at the time - asleep, probably - and didn't feel a thing. Possibly the earthquake waves propogated north and south, parallel to the grain of the Basin and Range more easily than they propogated east and west, against the grain. That's only a theory, mind you, with me trying to explain why there are reports of the earthquake being felt as far south as southern California, and not so many reports from Reno and Sparks, NV.