a nevada mountain

Traveling in any direction from Reno brings a different set of scenery. Go west and you're in the Sierra Nevada range, forested, full of bears and other wild things and covered in snow through the winter into spring. Go south and you hit grasslands, cattle, horses and miles of wildness. Go east and you hit barren sandy land until outside of Fallon where the terrain takes on a wild desert beauty. Go northeast, and after the first 100 miles or so of alkali and sparse sagebrush - the country the pioneers pushed their wagons through - you get sagebrush covered desert backed up to lush mountains. A spring storm turns these mountains picturesque. 

my nevada

run to winnie

It's been a great week that started last weekend with a car club run to Winnemucca. Cruising along I-80, then hopping onto old Hyw 40 was great in our new 1967 GMC pickup. It was a perfect weekend to be traveling through the desert as slower speeds, windows open for air conditioning and temperatures in the moderate range with occasional clouds. Heaven. Relaxing. A blast from the past. Renewed my appreciation for the colors and contours of Nevada and the very fun of having all of us on the run staying in a line, no hassle with traffic, and then ending up in a 1940s motor hotel, again all lined up in front of our rooms, each named for a place in California. it was traveling at its best, stopping to talk and see the byways along the way. Thank you Scott Shady Court Motel for still being there and having space for all of us, visiting from room to room and just hanging out. Eating at the fine Martin Hotel Basque restaurant (that happily seated our gang around the family-style restaurant). Talk about just plain fun. It was a great way to kick off the summer.

Old building along Hwy 40

Grandson Patrick stands at the front of the line of oldies but goodies

Our new old pickup in front of our room

And there we are, side-by-side at this quiet stop.

Isn't this bathroom just cute - and clean!

A stop on the way home - this place and property behind was quite a desert museum!

reading…

A glimpse at inspiration

Did you ever get hooked on Joan Didion? I first discovered her in a book of essays I was teaching from, and she has been a mainstay ever since. I am transported by her flow of thought through words. My heart was cracked when she lost her husband. Her mind has always served as inspiration. She made me realize the infinite possibility of words.

flowers, sun and feeling better

Hello poppies in almost summer

After being sick for several days - an intestinal thing that kept me running between the bathroom and the bed - I finally made it outside yesterday. The occasion? I was watching my grandson for a while. I discovered that it's warm, really pleasant, one good reason to live around Reno - sweet summer evenings. And I was blown away by these. It's late for Oriental poppies and these are volunteers. It's all magic. These are growing outside the flower bed in a tiny speck of dirt. Maybe the seed blew there. Maybe the birds that tend my yard decided I needed these - here - now. And I did. And I do. And I get to enjoy for a little while longer before the heat leaves just the beautiful green plant.

what, you say

No, it's not a iPod.

What is this? What is that photo of? This old radio/cartridge player sits in my closet taking up floor space. I'm very good at cleaning out my closets, going through everything and getting rid of stuff that I haven't used in a year. But not this radio. When there was a Gemco in town, and when my mother was alive and when my sister was alive, we all put these portable radio/cassette players on layaway at Gemco. They would provide our music when we all went camping. We all got the same player; we all took them camping. All my family, my brother, my sisters and parents, our children - we would head out to Lahonten, a reservoir that is a big ole camping lake, and we would - camp. For a weekend or a week, we would ski and swim and float and cook and eat and play games and stare at campfires and sometimes fireworks and sometimes the strange lights on the far mountain range. Our dogs and even my mom's cat would be there. We'd build sand animals and castles, bury each other, bathe in the lake and be a big ole family. And we would listen to cassettes, some I had recorded and others that we bought, and just sit together under the broad, star studded sky. That radio that ran on batteries is more than that - it's history, and it's something my mom and my sister and me shared. I have that left of them.

some garden work

Flower bed revisited

It's been cold and windy and generally crummy for months, but with a few hours of warmth making an appearance,my husband and I managed to redesign one of the small flower
gardens in front. This had originally been a daisy covered flower bed, but through the years, other flower, weeds and a strange weed vine took over. It was taking most of my gardening time just trying to keep the encroachment out, and the daisies had almost disappeared. So I dug everything out last fall, covered it with a layer of black plastic, weighed it down with big rocks and waited for spring. Spring didn't come, but we got to work anyway. This is the result, a sort of river bed effect with a couple of big planting barrels. I've already filled the one with a Persian daylily and some other Sunscape daisies and some allysum. One job done, so many waiting.