A very Halloweeny start to Fall in Nevada City.

I know it's still over a month away, but for us, we are already in the spirit and ready for
the best holiday of the year.  This weekend we made an executive decision to get outta
town again and stay outside to enjoy the new crisp fall weather.  Only an hour and half
away is Nevada City, CA, a quaint mountain town on the western side of the Sierras. 
We slept in on Saturday and then threw the camping gear, the cooler and the dog into
the VX and headed out.

Sick Day

I took a sick day today.  Not really sick, just sick and tired.  My brother and I went for a hike. It was
long and vertical.  Very strenuous, but I feel good now.

WrApPeD iN pLaStIc PaRt 3

The plastic is almost worn out.  I have one more idea for contents, but I am not sure if it is going to work out.  Part 3 may be the last in this series.

WrApPeD iN pLaStIc PaRt 2

WrApPeD iN pLaStIc PaRt 1

At work I found these boxes that have this weird method of holding the contents in place.  Basically, you place the item to be shipped under a piece of stretchy clear plastic that is stretched over a piece of cardboard.  Then you fold the endges of the cardboard and it tightens the plastic over the object, securing it in place.  Anyway, I had these things, and I was ready to throw them out, and then I had an idea:

Surreal Death Valley

After Bodie we drove down to Lone Pine, CA and stayed the night in a hotel.  The next morning we
took off for Death Valley.  The drive into Death Valley National Park from the west side was amazing.

Death Valley National Park is a massively spread out, diverse place of over 3 million acres.  On the way
in we stopped at a ranger station to find out where to camp.  We learned that a campsite known as
Mohogany Flat would be a good spot due to it being at 8351 feet above sea level.  So we made our way
to Mohogany Flat first thing, as we wanted to make sure we got a good spot.  Getting to the campsite took
over an hour.  There were very few others on the road out there, and the campsite turned out to be virtually
empty as well.   On the way in, we stoped and checked out some old charcoal ovens left over from the
mining days.

The end of August in Bodie...

Friday afternoon we arrived around dusk.  The light was perfect as the sun set opposite some
stormy but non-threatening cloud formations.  We had no time to loose and snapped up as many
moments as we could.