The Smell of Sagebrush after the Rain

Can you guess where I've been?

I left with a friend on Friday morning, picked up our hostess in Pioneer and met up with the other car that would follow us over the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Dayton, Nevada. There were five of us. We were invited to a girl, gourd and wine weekend by a friend who owns a second home in the sagebrush country of northwestern Nevada.
This is the land of jackrabbits and wild horses. Do you see those bunnies with the long ears (below)? They were all over the place.

Dayton, Nevada is east of Carson City and was once called "Ponderer's Rest" when first settled. Gold was discovered in "gold creek" in 1849 and in 1861 the town was renamed Dayton after a local surveyor named John Day.
This is also where they filmed John Huston's movie THE MISFITS in 1961, with Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable.
Wild horses still  range on the slopes of this long group of mountains called the Virginia Range, southeast of Dayton.

We drove over Carson Pass (highway 88) and down into Nevada, stopping for lunch in Minden. It was warm and muggy. There was a storm to the east of us and we could see rain falling.
After lunch we drove into Carson City to a wonderful fabric store.

I had no idea where I was going but I had, JILL, my friend's GPS device. JILL had a voice and she had attitude. With her power adapter that fit into my "never been used" cigarette lighter and a portable mount that let her sit comfortably on my dashboard while I was driving, she could find a rattlesnake under a rock. You just gave her the address, or area, and she laid it all out there on the screen.
 JILL (and I swear this is the name that she came with.) would tell you, in a sweet and clear voice, where you needed to turn and got us to our destinations in no time at all. When you choose a different route (which happened a few times) she would say, "Please make a u-turn."  If you didn't do what JILL said, she would say, "Recalculating" and give you a new way of getting there. If she couldn't find another way, there was a noticeable change in her voice. She seemed annoyed. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I was reminded of Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's kind of scary when you annoy a talking computer program... with a brain.
We had some good laughs at JILL'S expense. I almost expected her to tell us that she would never ride with us again because we didn't follow all of her directions. Actually, she did make a few mistakes of her own. She told us to go seven tenths of a mile further one time and we were at our destination already. Even a computerized and gifted program can have a bad day. I guess.
 I'm going to get one of these amazing machines though and then I will never get lost again. It knows where you are and where you want to be. If you're traveling in a strange land... this is HUGE.

So we arrived at our first destination, with JILL'S help.

  This was Fabric Chicks Creative Oasis. It's in Minden, NV. Here is their website. If you are anywhere close to this location and you love fabric, you have to see this place.
Stay focused on what you came in for because, if you don't, you will leave with half the store in a bag.

This store is filled with everything (...and I mean everything) for sewing, quilting, fiber art and all the accessories.
Even the bathroom was charming. Check out the pink bra at the top of the ladder and the roll of toilet paper on the bottom rung. What a great use of an old ladder.

We bought our fabric and headed for The Bead Store in Carson City. One of the reasons for the weekend was to add beading to our gourds. Our hostess was going to help those of us who hadn't done too much beading and this store was an oasis for all the beading supplies we would need. The folks who own this store were really helpful and very nice.
We pulled ourselves away from the wonderful stores and headed to our weekend home on the range. We drove back to Dayton, followed the Carson River east on highway 50 and ran right into the storm that we had seem in Minden.
This is a lovely golfing community that has beautiful homes and ,coming from California, prices that are unbelievable. Homes are very inexpensive and the economy has left housing available and affordable here. I was ready to move to northern Nevada.
The storm was in full swing when we arrived. We waited until the rain passed... which didn't take long. Then we unpacked our cars and settled into our lovely home away from home.
The fragrance of this area was wonderful after the rain. It smelled of sagebrush and high desert... nature's gift in this beautiful wild place. Man is encroaching and populations are growing fast here, but it's still a desert  and any step outside of the towns, in any direction, brings you into the wild.
It is still, in places, the last frontier. Roads end in the sagebrush and you can still see old dirt trails everywhere.

Later we went to dinner, came back and settled in for the night. I slept in here.....

A den off of the living room.
Very nice accommodations for the price of making desserts for the weekend.
The food was ready.
The plans were made.
We looked forward to a wonderful weekend.
 We talked for a while and then each of us went into a different room... and crashed.

 This street looks very normal from the front side, but tomorrow I will show you what is behind them. Stay tuned...

(Click on any photos to enlarge.)

"An Old Man Loved is Winter with Flowers" Part 1.

This was a trip to Susanville, Calif.  for my Uncle's 90th birthday party and it was worth every moment. We were heading to our Uncle's territory, in the high desert of the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains, to a well deserved party in his honor.
My sister and my cousin Suzi met us on the highway. The Prospector drove me down to Lodi and we loaded my things into my sister's car. I drove north on Highway 5 to Chico and Sis drove into the mountains to Chester. The forecast was for light snow. We brought chains but never needed them.

We played a little....

 We worried about the snow, which never got too heavy and made the trip from Chico to Chester a Winter Wonderland of a drive...

This is Deer Creek on highway 32. It was stunningly beautiful. It was also very cold.

We finally reached Chester and Lake Almanor which was covered with ice and snow around its edges. What a beautiful photo shoot this was.
About an hour later we drove over Fredonyer Pass and into Susanville, CA. (elevation 4200 ft.) on the east side of  Lassen National Forest.  about 85 miles north west of Reno, Nevada.
We had reached our destination.
*************
The Roseberry House Bed & Breakfast was waiting for our arrival. 

The innkeepers, Richard & Charmy Sorem, greeted us with such warm hospitality that we felt like we were members of their own family.
Then we went upstairs to our room.....

 Sis and I had the queen bed and Suzi had a charming single in the "alcove".
No one else was staying in the house so we had the whole upstairs to ourselves. My sister and I spent one miserable night sleeping together in the beautiful antique bed and the next night Sis chose to take another room across the hall. It was a joint decision. The rest of our stay was much more comfortable.
I had no idea that my sister talks in her sleep and hogs all the blankets. Tellin' on you sis!! I love ya but we can't sleep together, can we?
*******************
The next morning we woke up to snow falling softly all over town and  came downstairs to one of the most amazing breakfasts ever, cooked by Richard, and served in the wonderful old dining room.

This was a luxury I'm unaccustomed to. It was a most elegant and filling breakfast.  My cousin, Suzi, having just returned from Ireland, was very impressed with the variety of food. She had seen a lot of meals prepared and served in the last few weeks and this one rivaled them all.
After breakfast Sis and Suzi went for a long walk. I stayed in and read my book. Took a nap. The oldster was tired. I wasn't about to go for a walk in the snow.
I got a call from my cousins, in Ashland, Oregon, wondering about the weather and asking which pass we took through the mountains.... checking to see if we had arrived. They were raised in this town. They had no fear and seemed to take all the late snow rather matter of fact. 
Sis and Suzi came back from their walk in the snow with stories of what Susanville calls ".... just down the road." and decided to take the car next time if they needed something on the other end of town. It was their turn to take a nap.
Tomorrow I will continue... with a little history of  Susanville, a walk downtown and getting ready for the Birthday party.