Sierra City 2011

[garote]

I haven't been on the traditional Sierra City trip in years, so I was determined to go this summer. Erika and I found it to be very restful. Here, have a bunch of images! (Click on any of them for larger versions.)

These first four were taken during our hike up to the waterfall in Fiddle Creek, near Wild Plum Campground. I didn't bring my fancypants camera, so we used cellphones. Still no coverage for AT&T in Sierra City, by the way ... but a few bars for Verizon.



For one afternoon I hung out in the Sierra City graveyard, sipping icewater and listening to a "Bryant and May" audiobook mystery about a series of murders in a London opera house during World War II. Good vacation reading, full of wooly digressions about the social impact of the war and the workings of a classic opera production. It almost had an Edgar Allan Poe flavor to it at times, but with that progressive pace of long-form writing that Poe never got the hang of. The two detectives - Bryant and May - felt like they were modeled after Siskel and Ebert.

After a few hours I shut off the book and listened to In The Nursery, enjoying the synesthesia evoked between the airy piano and the warm sunlight on the stones.



In this mode, I stumbled across a variety of wild pea, and took a closer look ... but stopped short of snacking on them. They were, after all, growing in a freakin' GRAVEYARD.



Sierra City, IT'S FAAAAAN TASTIC!



Bonus photos: A guy painting the mountain range above Upper Sardine Lake, and Erika feeding a domesticated bird at the RV park. The bird's chances in the wild are probably about nil, but it was a foundling from an upset nest, so, whatchagonnado.

Comments

[bluepapercup]

Poor bird! I think it was a juvenile Robin. The bird came to the RV park with our first set of neighbors. They were from Auburn, CA and had found the bird after it fell out of a nest in their home. The man apparently took it in, fed it, and it took to them. When I first met the bird it was riding around on the man's shoulder and would hang out in the RV with them. They left it behind though, I guess hoping that somehow it would figure out how to live in the wild in Sierra City. The morning after they left the bird was hopping around our site and squawk-chirping at us. I thought it might be hungry (since the folks who left it there were the ones feeding it, and they were gone now) so I got a few morsels of food out. It liked cold broccoli okay, but it didn't want any other fruit or vegetables, and the only thing it would eat after that was little pieces of chicken. I figured it needed protein since Robins usually eat worms and bugs. The part that really tugged at my heartstrings was when it flew up onto the table and opened its mouth like it wanted me to drop the food right into its beak. In the end it ate a few pieces of chicken that I pre-chewed and then dropped into its mouth and then pecked at and ate some chicken I dropped on the ground for it. garote is right, it probably won't survive, but at least I kept it fed for a few days. *sigh*

Besides that, Sierra City was GREAT! A+++++ would relax again.

[rudetuesday.livejournal.com]

"Graveyard Peas" is a good title.

It's good to see you outdoors, with people. I hope you're laughing a lot and getting hugged.

:)

[bluepapercup]

He is definitely getting hugged! And not just by me. As to the laughing part, I like to make G laugh as often as possible, even (especially?) if it requires fart jokes.

;)

[garote]

**FFFAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRT**