Last weekend was fantastic! This weekend has been a little too work-filled, so I'm ignoring it. But last weekend was my birthday, so I headed out to the Walker River Canyon area, for an evening jaunt amongst the sagebrush, ranging from golden hour to nightfall. This area is on the eastern side of the group of mountains containing the old mining towns of Aurora and Bodie. It's a little crazy looking at this basically unpopulated area, and thinking that at one time there were 10,000 people in Bodie crawling all over looking for gold, and that Aurora, not too far away, was simultaneously the county seat for Mono County in California and Esmerelda County, in
Nevada. That year, the townsfolk in Aurora actually voted 2 separate times, once for California and once for Nevada, until the surveyors were able to determine that Aurora was just barely over the line into Nevada. Sadly, not long thereafter, Aurora dwindled away, as gold was found in Bodie. But Mark Twain used to live in Aurora, prospecting for silver.
Anyway, I didn't end up as far into the mountains as I'd originally planned – between the torrential downpour the afternoon of my final survey in the area, and the downpour the evening before, several of the washes had carried an impressive amount of water, and had started to wash out the road, leaving it a muddy mess. I probably could've made it through, but decided not to risk it. Not sorry – it was a great place to stop. On my walk, crossed a couple of washes, with recent pinyon pine debris washed up... from a forest several miles away. On the main channel, it was actually at least 2 feet up the bank.
Gorgeous sunset!
The next morning, I went for a jog with the pups up the valley, passing old prospects and tailings piles, along with a few small active mines. A beautiful morning. By the end, Minnie's healing leg was a little tired, but she did really well, and Cash showed he's coming along beautifully. A very happy couple of days!
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