Monday - I pulled the steri-strips off my wound this morning. It looks to be healing nicely. (There's no way to make a close-up like this flattering!) Now I just have to keep sunscreen on it to prevent scarring.
So for our day off, we took a drive, imagine that. Our first stop was the wood store that was closed yesterday. They had some nice merchandise, and there is certainly plenty of raw wood around here to use. We didn't buy anything, but enjoyed looking.
I could probably think of someone for this next one.
My favorite.
I'm sure Brenda needs this windmill -- it was only $200.
From there, we drove 31 miles back to Quincy to see what we missed yesterday. Quincy's claim to fame is a logging and sawmill company, which we found. It deserves the fame! It was huge, with stacks and stacks of boards as well as many stacks of logs. Sierra Pacific Industries was the name on the gate.
We saw several log trucks on the highway as we drove back to our campground, I bet we saw at least 20.
Joe decided to drive out through the country around Quincy, and we came upon a field of horses, with BABIES! Two women were there trying to give the horses some shots, and they let us enjoy them. The babies were about 2 weeks old, and there were 7 of them. So Cute!! Some of the mommas were friendly enough to allow us to pet them, but the colts and fillies wouldn't get quite close enough.
Dave spotted some geese at the far end of the pasture, so we got to see some wildlife today. We saw a squirrel later too.
They have a barn quilt trail around Quincy and we were lucky enough to spot some of the quilt pieces on our drive.
I really enjoy looking for these pretty paintings.
As we headed back to camp, I finally got a picture of one of the train trestles we passed yesterday. There are some pretty awesome ones through here, crossing some very deep canyons and clinging to the sides of mountains. We even got to see a train, not crossing a trestle, but we had wondered if these were still active tracks and we witnessed that they are.
Our plan was to make a side trip to the town of Taylorsville, where a restaurant was advertised for "pies made from scratch," so we thought Dave would like that. But when we finally found the shop, it was closed on Mondays (it closed at 2:00 the other times, and it was 3:00 when we were there so we would not have been successful anyhow). Very disappointed, we went back to the RVs.
It was 100 degrees during most of our drive. The locals do not like this heat spell coming through here, which is supposed to be in Phoenix tomorrow. But just before 6:00, we had a few showers, so maybe that will cool things off. Just a week ago yesterday, they had snow and sleet (that was the day we were driving through snow on our way to Bishop). Some of the snow is still lingering on the north face of the mountains, but I doubt it will survive this week.
Joe said this morning that we could take an evening drive to try to find some wildlife, so after dinner we headed out. We waited until about 6:45, hoping to see some evening movement of deer, bear, or something. We went north about a mile, and turned onto Hwy 147 to circle Lake Almanor. This is a huge lake, just up the road from our campground, and one of the reasons Joe chose this campground, but so far we hadn't even seen it. So tonight we circled it, beginning with the East side.
We crossed the North end of the lake and drove through the little town of Chester. Here, we checked out a couple of campgrounds, thinking we might just move up here tomorrow, but nothing looked all that exciting, including Chester, so we decided we could probably move on a little further. Joe had researched another campground about 20 miles up the road, closer to Lessen Volcanic National Park, our next destination, so we decided to run up there to check that one out. Again, it was not wonderful. But Joe talked to a camper there and she informed him that Lessen Volcanic National Park was only open about one mile past the visitor center, due to snow! Well, that certainly changed things. So, of course, we drove on up there (only about 4 more miles). By now it's 8:00, still daylight, but we haven't seen any wildlife.
So we found the Park, and there were patches of snow all around, and water falls falling off the mountain carrying the snowmelt to various creeks.
We circled through the Visitors Center parking lot (it was closed, of course), and then began the drive through the park. Sure enough, we were only allowed to go back a mile before we hit the road closure.
We could see steam coming off one of the thermal pools behind the barricades, and we could have walked to it, but it was 56 degrees now, so a picture from here was good enough.
There was lots of banks of snow around this parking area, as well on the slopes behind it.
As we drove back out of the Park, we continued past more snow and more waterfalls. No live wildlife, but we did see a dead deer.
Joe found a little road that wasn't blocked, so of course we had to take it. But it only went about 1/4 mile before we hit snow again. So he turned around. I did remind him that our Buick was a luxury car, not a 4-wheeler.
Finally, we headed home. Our little "circle the lake" drive turned into about a 100-mile drive, on top of our earlier drive today, which I would guess was about 100 miles. So much for an "easy day." And now we have to figure out where we go from here, since Lessen Volcanic National Park is not an option. Fortunately, we did get to see a little bit of it tonight. But we didn't see much of the west side of Lake Almanor because it was dark by the time we came back past it. It was about 9:30 by the time we got back to our RV.
This campground here at Canyon Dam worked out for us, lots of trees and shade. The biggest problem is that there is no Verizon service, only ATandT. But I think we are moving on tomorrow, so we will be back on the grid! As soon as we come up with a new plan.
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