Helooo from the high desert! by NIKI2

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Helooo from the high desert!

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Sunday, November 11, 2012 21:05
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Wednesday, November 7, 2012 9:19 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

I came up yesterday to visit my ex-ranger friend Paula; she and her husband are house sitting and will be back around 2 today, so I've been on my own except for Virgina, who's housesitting THEIR house!

Anyway, I figured it was a good place to hide out from last night's insanity AND avoid the temptation to watch. Paula is one of those "TV?!?! Not in MY house!" people.

It's gorgeous here...high desert, JUST on the Eastern Sierras, snow still on the mountain tops,got here JUST as the leaves are turning...it's a four-hour drive which leaves me in a lot of pain, but it's worth it. She's got a "guest cottage" that faces away from the house, so the view is unobstructed, and about twenty feet from "my" door are three horses. It don't get no better than this! Shall I tell you about the stars at night?

Anyway, I got up here around 5 pm last night, which was just as the polls were closing Back East, and managed to take a couple of hours to get settled in before the urge struck. I ended up spending about two hours in my car, with the radio on, smoking. Can't smoke in Paula's house (tho' SHE got me started smoking in our teens!) or the guest cottage, so it was the car or nothing.

Tough to listen to, but came out in the end. I kept coming in to give Victoria updates...she's a Brit who moved here decades ago and is now a citizen, and just can't believe the bullshit this election year--mostly the lying. Lucky for her, she hadn't heard about Mourdock or Akin or most of the insanity, but she'd heard enough to be totally disgusted. She was dealing with the election by trying not to think about it mostly.

I came in to tell here they'd managed to get rid of Mourdock, Akin and Scott Brown...so I had to tell her about "rape is a gift from god" and "women can't get pregnant from rape", etc. She was, to say the least, shocked...is there a stronger word??

Up here, they don't follow politics as much as urban areas. It's "co-op country" where everyone goes in on food, they make a lot of their own stuff, grow a lot of their own stuff (them as can, given the Winters), etc. So Victoria (and I have no doubt Paula, who HTES politics) haven't been following the insanity...COMPLETELY. Victoria has heard enough to leave her shocked and unbelieving, but not the worst. Lucky her.

So I sat in the car, listening to whatever stations I could pick up (mostly Reno from here) and sweating it out. When Obama took Ohio I whooped and came in to the main house to tell Virginia to break out the bubbly, it's okay now--I actually thought she was going to pass out from the relief, her knees got weak! I know how she feels.

Anyway, I started this thread beause it doesn't belong in the 'gloat" thred. I've got nothing to gloat about. For me, it's "relieved", "grateful", along those lines, where the Presidential race is concerned. As for the Senate, I'm glad the Dems held it, jubilant they got rid of those three crackpots, and that's about it. I haven't been able to check on our statewide measures, from what I heard last night getting rid of the death penalty went down (assholes!) but lessening the three-strikes thing was winning. Small favors.

I'm in pain--as usual when I come up here--so didn't sleep much. Plus the damned huskies have never been away from home overnight, so the damned wooses were fussy and every time I stood up for a glass of water or something, bounded for the door. Embarrassing...I mean huskies! So at 3am I tried to get on here on my iPhone, but couldn't log in and had all kinds of other problems. This morning, after getting the guys out with the sulky (it's actually warmer HERE today than back in Marin!), it occurred to me that tho Paula is anti-electronics (except where it impacts her convenience, like a dishwasher!), her husband Jim has a computer!

Turns out they even have a "guest" pass (Paula has and has always had a LOT of visitors). So here I am.

I'm going to try and read through a few of the posts, but won't be on for long 'cuz I gotta go lay down until Paula gets back so I'm in SOME kind of shape to be a proper visitor! I'm grateful, more than words can say, that the threat of Ryan (because I firmly believe he and the Tea Partiers would have been in power) has been eliminated.

I wish it would mean more bipartisanship, but I fear not, in fact it may get worse. I heard a pundit saying they would proably blame Romney for not being conservative ENOUGH, and would continue with their #(&#$!&(@#$ game of obstructionism. I fear it may come true, sadly.

But at least for now disaster has been averted, maybe this will tone down our hard-core righties here a tiny BIT (y'think???), Dems held the Senate, and life goes on. Hope all is well with all, and I'll be back to my old self in a day or two. I miss this place, even for a couple of days...cut off from my "socialization" . And I can't even blather at Paula when she gets back today, anti-politics person that she is. Ah well, you guys'll be there when I get home...

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Wednesday, November 7, 2012 9:32 AM

BYTEMITE

I was hoping you guys would abolish capital punishment too, it's more expensive even than life without parole.

Have a good time up there. Everything continues no matter what the idiots in politics and DC do.

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Wednesday, November 7, 2012 10:09 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Post some pics, Niki. Sounds lovely.

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Wednesday, November 7, 2012 10:40 AM

CHRISISALL

Enjoy some quiet time...

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Wednesday, November 7, 2012 2:25 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

Have a wonderful time with your best friend, they are very important and they make you feel so good inside, like things are right, even when things are going wrong, just being with them makes things better.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Friday, November 9, 2012 8:22 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

That was an interesting experience, to say the least! I had carefully checked the weather--going up there is something I DON'T do if there's weather, since I've got to go through two passes that are about/above 7,000 feet. Changed my plans from Wed-Fri to Tues-Thurs 'cuz weather moving in Thursday night.

Woke up Thurs around 4, went out the door to go to the big house, and felt droplets on my face. ?!?! So I grabbed the dogs, tossed everything in the car and took off. Goes up from high desert into the Eastern Sierras...as I got up to Hope Valley, rain turned to snow. Eeep. Crawled over Luther pass, in the pitch black (bear in mind I've only got one really good eye--cataracts--and do NOT drive at night if I can avoid it), where it got steadily heavier, praying I could make it down to South Shore (Lake Tahoe).

Lightened up as I got there...at the fork there's a big illuminated road sign saying conditions up to Summit, like "chains required", etc. It read "Ice and Snow, Take it Slow". Wasn't taking any chances, so stopped to buy chains. It was wet snow down there, barely sticking, so I didn't put them on, and as I crawled up to Summit, it stayed that way, then actually got LIGHTER as I got higher (go figger). Got to the top of Summit...whew!...all down hill from there. Hit some hail, then as I went down the mountain the light started to come up, weather turned to rain (sending prayers of thanks to the Weather Gods), then hit FOG about 20 miles outside Placerville! But I was out of the worst, and just outside Placerville everything disappeared, clear all the way home. Damned mountains!

NOT something I want to do again, thank you! Called Jim a couple of times on the way home and he told me the Volvo has four-wheel drive, so I wouldn't have needed the chains unless it got real bad...gonna try to sell them on ebay. What a waste!

Pissed me off; Paula and I had planned to get out that morning at dawn. We'd tried the previous evening, but Kochyok had chewed through one of the traces that afternoon (#$@#Husky@$#!) and I couldn't find the other one, so I turned back, dropped off the sulky and walked 'em about 30 minutes with my cane. Would have been perfect--except for a couple of small "hills" (whch hardly deserved the name, but ANY uphill is hard to make the brats go). The dogs would have been happy to trot at Paula's walking speed (which I could never keep up with even when I was young!), be urged up the "hills" and downhill they'd have gone like bats out of hell, so all in all we'd have pretty much paced Paula, who had three of her dogs with.

Paula fixed the trace that evening, and I had found the other trace, so we were going to try again the next morning. So much fo that idea! Have to go back up when weather's "safe" again...

Pissed me off too because I'd seen some gorgeous stuff on the way in...coming down from Summit it's all glacier-cut granite, and water runs down it in places, carving out just enough for trees to grow. So it makes this great canvas with the colors turning (tho' I was just there for the end of the turning)--grey, line of yellow, grey, line of yellow, all the way down. Of course, crawling back up in the dark and snow...no photos possible. Lots more I wanted to shoot, too...so much for that.

So all I got were a couple of shots at Paula's. Given it's high desert (5,000-7,000 feet), it's pretty rugged, very dry and some would say ugly. But it's got a beauty all its own. NOT my choice; she rangered at Grover Hot Springs, about 25 miles South of there IN the Sierras, lots of Pine, snow on the peaks, etc., which I adore. But what can you do? That's where the built their home, and they didn't ask me. There was snow on the peaks when I went through this time--sometimes it never completely disappears, but down on the flats where she lives the snow doesn't stick much. Their place is actually only about five miles beyond the end of the Eastern Sierra mountains proper. I like the mountains better, myownself.

This is the view out the "guest cottage"--it's situated so that its back is to the big house, so there's nothing but desert out my door.

Kind of a "panorama" of the high desert

View looking North from "my" doorstep

View straight ahead at the paddock with two of the horses (East, into Nevada desert)

View looking South

Desert, away from the house

Out sulkying Wed morning on a nearby road

After I unhooked the dogs we walked down one of the roads toward one of Paula's "neighbors", and of course, being huskies the dogs took off down the road and disappeared. Came trotting back some twenty minutes later...

Damned huskies!

The dirt road I sort-of sulkied with Paula Wed night

Stopped at Placerville for a chai and pastry on the way home (I was HUNGRY by then!). I've always loved Placerville--they've retained all the original buildings in "Downtown Historic Placerville", and all around it are great old names from the past, Shingle Springs, Hangtown, etc. It's grown horribly in the past couple of decades, but it doesn't seem like it when you pass through as everyone lives in the surrounding mountains. At least they've preserved some of it.

It's a four-hour trip to Paula's; the first two hours SUCK, as it's just four-to-six-lane freeway from here past Sacramento to Placerville. From there on it's a joy, all the way through the mountains to the other side of the Eastern Sierras.

That was my "thrill" for the week...MONTH! To my surprise Jim said he'd come with next time (he's never seen the new house, refused to go up there again since she moved because we used to camp in a place called Pleasant Valley, then hop over to Paula's to visit. Pleasant Valley is GORGEOUS, a little valley surrounded by beautiful mountains, but he's not into the desert and not real social, so saying he'll go back with me (now we've got chains, even!) was a lovely surprise. We'll go back SOONEST!

Tit for tat got us where we are today. If we want to be grownups, we need to resist the ugliness. If we each did, this would be a better reflection on Firefly and a more welcome place. I will try.

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Friday, November 9, 2012 8:51 AM

CAVETROLL

Sorry to hear that you are in pain. And troubled by the dogs. Big babies they are, I know mine are too. The high desert is stark but beautiful. And those old main street building are too cool. Lots of those have gone the way of the dodo. The scale of them are more in tune with people instead of the glass and steel monstrosities that replaced them.

Kwindbago, hot air and angry electrons

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Friday, November 9, 2012 8:59 AM

OONJERAH

The "Bell Tower" in the center of Placerville. I'd have angled
the camera left to get the old Newstand, my favorite downtown
place as a kid.

The Placerville Soda Works. Had lunch there with family last
year. Damn, it's cold in there! There is a mine shaft in the
back.

Tortilla Flats. Most of the town doesn't look quite that shabby.

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Friday, November 9, 2012 2:23 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

I'm not in pain, Cave, I WAS when I got there, but thanx for your kindness. Long drive (with inability to move right foot), stopped to let the dogs sniff SNOW--okay, so it was leftover snow only at the high elevations, but they're HUSKIES, dammit! Tho' actually they were far more interested in sniffs of something that had been there than the snow itself...sigh...and dragged me after it something fierce (which didn't help)! And it was by stopping that I discovered a huge plastic "protector" or "shield" of some kind on the undercarriage of the car was dragging, so had to wrestle it off. Then carrying heavy bags from car to main house, etc., etc.

Didn't help that the damned dogs, never having been away from home overnight, kept me up most of the night asking to "go home now, please!" (talk about big babies!). Thankfully Virginia had a bottle of something with the label worn off, and it turned out to be ALEVE--my pain drug of choice which I'd completely forgotten to take. I took it right away, took two more that night, and was fine the rest of the trip. Duh!

Believe me, Placerville treasures its old town, and preserves it carefully! Yeah, Oonj, I was trying to get a shot of both, couldn't twist the camera right. I actually DID manage to get both in a vertical shot, but when I looked at it, realized I'd tilted it slightly so it looked bad--I was pooped from fighting the weather all the way there, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

And I should add a disclaimer that the shoddiness of Tortilla Flats is FAKE...or at least highly enhanced...it's just such a damned neat shot I couldn't resist. In my opinion, NONE of Placerville looks "shabby"--well, in Old Town anyway; outside that, yeah, there are supermarkets and junk stores and other things which I consider shabby...but Old Town itself? NEVER!

It was unfair of me to put up my own puny three pics, since they do it on the internet FAR better!

It's a damned photogenic spot, I've wanted to hang around many times, but we always go through on the way to Paula's, and that four-hour drive is a bitch without making it longer. Someday, tho'...

Just for you Oonj:

Somewhere along the line I "got" that you were familiar with the Sierra foothills, Oonj...but I've got you down as "South Florida...Sierra Foothills??"

Tit for tat got us where we are today. If we want to be grownups, we need to resist the ugliness. If we each did, this would be a better reflection on Firefly and a more welcome place. I will try.

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Friday, November 9, 2012 7:40 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Thanks for the pics Niki! Lovely

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Sunday, November 11, 2012 9:05 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

Niki I'm glad you and Paula had a nice visit, and glad you got over the passes okay, driving in the snow can be scary, especially by yourself, as in without any other humans in the car, hopefully the dogs kept you company so it wasn't as scary, knowing that someone was there trusting you and knowing it would be okay.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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