Sierra Trip to Honor Steve

Friday, Nick and I drove to Plumas-Eureka State Park where we would meet my sister-in-law Lorie, and her two sons Logan and Aaron. This park is in the Northern Sierras, about 60 miles north of Truckee. Although it is not as grand as the High Sierras to the south, it is less traveled and beautiful in its own right.

Nick doing a nice "Reverse Bird". Since we arrived early, Nick and I hiked up the canyon about four miles to Rock Lake for a swim.

We passed pretty Grass Lake on the way.

Nick at Rock Lake, seeing how far he can run across the water.

My turn to contemplate how shocking the snow-melt will be.

What form!

Rock Lake is a little gem of clear water.

As we came back down to the camp site, we were jazzed to see our Oregon kin. Lorie had already started preparing buffalo burgers - much better than beef, I must say.

Saturday, we drove a few miles to begin our hike up Mt. Elwell. Logan is scoping out Long Lake, a mile or two from the trailhead.

Nick and Logan.

You can faintly see the trail on the far right middle of the picture. It was a steep hike gaining about 1,700 feet in little over a mile.

Group shot!

Shadow, looking like a bear after salmon.

Crossing a little dam.

What a pretty spot, just four hours from Napa.

Logan on the false summit.

Nick photographing something. Those are the Sierra Buttes in the background.

From the actual summit, we could look down the other side and see Rock Lake, where Nick and I had hiked to the day before.

Group shot on the summit.

After eating lunch, we started looking for the right spot to honor Steve. Nick found this little area, near the summit, but well off the trail, that looked down on the Lakes Basin.

We all felt this was perfect, like a window looking over the lakes below, and the distant snow dappled buttes. This mountain is one of the most northern Sierra peaks, and therefore closest to Oregon. To the left of Long Lake a couple miles is Gray Eagle Lodge, where Mom used to come as a kid with her family.

Remembering Steve.

The view below.

The view of Long Lake, as we made our way back down. We took a refreshing swim on our way out.

Looking back up towards the top of Mt. Elwell, and the place we honored Steve.

Steven Clark Williams

October 3, 1962 - September 16, 2009

A New Bum at IBRRC

This is Jerry, a Black-crowned Night Heron, who is now hanging out at IBRRC waiting for a chance to steal fish from the food cart. You have seen pictures of Kramer, the Snowy Egret, who has been doing the same thing for several years. Sometimes, the two wait side be side observing the staff for inattentiveness. You can see by Jerry's band that he was a former patient that found his way back.

Jerry should normally be hunting for fish at dusk or during the night, so he is not a normal bird. BCNH's are the world's most widespread heron.


It was great to volunteer, yesterday, as I had missed two weeks due to house renovating. Right now, we have dozens of sick and and injured herons and egrets. Probably two dozen have broken bones that are splinted or wrapped.

Progress Report - Saturday was Big

After over three days of stripping wallpaper, work could proceed in the kitchen and elsewhere. That's Sal on the ladder. He and his crew spent all day Saturday taking out old lighting, installing recessed lights in several rooms, and doing drywall and texturing work. Sal is super nice to work with and does a great job at a reasonable price.

The same shot later in the day. Notice the hanging cabinet is no longer there above the bar.

Well, looks like I won't ever be running for president. Fernando, in front, had his ten year (?) old son helping all day with the drywall work. He was mixing mud, cleaning tools, and masking.

The next day - still rough, but wait until the cabinets are white with brushed nickel hardware, the walls are painted, the trim installed on the lights, the floor is done, and the granite goes in.

Sal hung these two chandeleirs in the living room. Home Depot's very own Hampton Bay, Alta Loma series. I think they add a strong, Tahoe feel.

The front bedroom is now the office.

The hallway also got new lighting. Well, I have been doing my best to stimulate the economy the past couple weeks. Tomorrow, it looks like some serious vacuuming is in order, and then I begin priming and painting the kitchen.

Where's Bob?

There he is! He's taking a sledge hammer to the kitchen tile. For three days he tortured his ears, breathed cement dust, scratched himself with broken tile, nails, and chicken wire. Why? The house is going on the market and an updated kitchen will pay back the cost five-fold, or so he's told.

What a mess! There is a fine layer of dust throughout the house now - not the usual furry kind, but gritty cement powder that defies vacuuming and sweeping.

Bob had company, too. Rocket and Nick stayed for the week. Nick had a job painting elsewhere. Below is Rocket on his favorite perch. From here he can see to the kitchen and down to the front door.

Rocket, doing his cat imitation.

Below, is the kitchen tonight, a scene of multi-tasking. It will be even more fun when he has to remove the sink tomorrow. Bob is now onto stripping wallpaper that has melded with the skim coat of drywall mud behind it. NEVER, I repeat, NEVER put up wallpaper!!! You or one of your survivors will pay dearly someday.

Plans call for granite counters and new sink, recessed lighting, cabinets professionally painted white with new hardware, new flooring, new counter depth refrigerator, and no wallpaper.

So poor Bob will not be hiking, doing night photography, consulting with Obama, or his other usual hobbies, although he will get some relief on bird rescue days. He is getting an education, though. To be continued.

In Middle America

I just returned from a week in Belleville, Illinois, to visit my daughter Andria and two grandkids. Her husband Dave is on a six week training in Virginia. We made three trips into St. Louis, MO. This post does stray from my usual nature blog, but we did do quite a few nature activities, plus, I haven't posted for quite awhile.

The Saint Louis Zoo is one of the finest, as far as zoos go. It is also free! Here, Nora and Soren touch the sting rays and horseshoe crabs.

Below, I enjoyed these wild and free animals that visit the zoo.

A common grackle hanging out at our lunch table...

with a "St. Louis" cardinal.

Some evenings we caught fireflies to bring into the house for the night, and would turn them loose in the morning. They are actually beetles.

We also went to the Science Museum. They had an enclosed freeway overpass where you could look right down on the traffic through port holes and also clock vehicle speeds with radar guns.

There were several display cases of space memorabilia which I was drawn to after seeing Megan Prelinger's book on the subject.

On Father's Day, my surprise was a trip to "The Tie Dyed Iguana" in Belleville. It was a very clean reptile store that is about the only place in town with a refreshing hint of counter culture.

The counter had an interesting collection of stickers such as, "If you remember Dead Tour you weren't there."

Nora bought some night crawlers to put in a habitat we made from a gallon juice jug. Unfortunately, we put in too much compost, which got really active and cooked the worms. We had to recompost the whole mess two days later. Biospheres are tricky business, to say the least.

OK, below we have the awesome and unique "City Museum" in St. Louis. Over a number of years, about 20 artists converted an old shoe factory into a very tactile kind of art piece made of found objects in industrial St. Louis. Kids and grownups can hurdle down three story fire escape slides, climb through webs of welded steel to considerable heights, and crawl through dark tunnels that come up in various unexpected places. It is too much to describe - you have to see it and experience it.

This was my first look from the parking lot. Yes, that is a school bus teetering on the roof.

This is the entryway. Everything you see is made of recycled objects.

Here, Nora braves crossing a "pool of acid."

You could climb through steel webs to get to two airplanes. It is a little scary as some of the gaps seem just a little too big, and there are places you know kids could hang themselves on. On the City Museum's website, they have a section on "frivolous" lawsuits.

Putting faith in artist/builders.

The four of us had the ball pit to ourselves where we enjoyed pummeling each other.

This wall was made out of bottles.

That is quite a vault door!

We walked through this giant kaleidoscope...

and felt like pet rats on this wheel we turned by walking (and crawling).

Nora exploring inside a giant Slinky.

Here we feed the kids to the sharks. Actually, we are traveling through an underwater tube in the shark tank. That is a sea turtle by Soren's foot. Well, that does it for now.