New Adventures...

I haven't posted any real "adventures" for a while, mostly because we haven't been feeling that adventurous lately. Hopefully that will change once I have Saturdays off, starting in October and the weather cools off enough for us to get out and do more! Dave and I have opposite days off, which kinda limits our time out away from home unless one or both of us takes time off work!

We have gotten into the mountains a little this summer, but unfortunately, most of my hiking has been done at work and at night! We started doing night hikes in addition to full moon hikes at the park so for the summer we've been doing about two night hikes a month.

One thing I've noticed about where we live now is that to go hiking, we have to actually GO somewhere, either the 2 1/2 hours up to Lake Tahoe or into other areas because we are pretty much surrounded by farm land. There are some cool areas nearby, like Wilson Canyon, we need to explore...so hopefully soon there will be more real adventures to post!

 

Full moon along the park's nature trail

 

 

Two hikes in a row we got to see/hear rattlesnakes!

 

 

It seems to want to thunderstorm right before the full moon hikes, which I think is great, but it kind of keeps the people away! Last one we only had 4 because of the storm, but we got some great pictures (like these horses with the clouds) and some good sunsets!

 

 

Looking west at sunset.

 

 



Caterpillar

We found this little guy (or girl?) in the parking lot at work:

After a little bit of online searching, we found out it is a two-tailed swallowtail butterfly! This thing was a couple inches long and really strange-looking so it stood out really well. I learned that they start out green. When they turn brown, it's time for them to go looking for somewhere to build their cocoon so they can turn into one of those huge yellow and black butterflies!

Moonrise Over Mason Valley

I managed to get a shot of the super moon last night before it got too dark!

Night Heron

I was lucky enough to see this Night Heron this morning on the way to work! It looked kind of funny: a big bird sitting on a little tree, and it stayed still while I took its picture and drove away.

Kicked Out

This Great Basin Rattlesnake was just looking for a nice, shady place to rest during the day when it made its way into the shop at Fort Churchill State Historic Park. We kept hearing a weird noise in the shop, and we thought it was our seasonal in there doing some work--he had been using the air compressor, so I thought that's what it was.

With a little coaxing, it made its way out the door, and was then re-located to a shady area, outside where it belongs!

Bald Eagles

Once in a while on the way home, I see a bald eagle hanging out in a tree off of Sierra Way. I took a few pictures but couldn't get very close-up. I did stop twice and look at it with binoculars, which is pretty awesome.

Dave got this picture of a couple sitting on a telephone pole above one of the ponds at Mason Valley:

His picture was better than mine.....!