RenegadeRider

Does this look like a happy crystal miner? -- or even a crystal miner? Well yes! She is, both. A crystal miner and a happy crystal miner. We joined a group of friends on an excursion to an abandoned crystal mine located on Forest Service land northwest of Reno. According to the "experts" crystals mined from this location had been used for radios in WW II. The others at the mine raved about this specimen. It was within about two inches of the surface. It was somewhat yellow and also somewhat cloudy in appearance. Other, much smaller specimens were clear and colorless. A fun day was had by all.

Yesterday I, along with my trusted companion, Riley, hiked to the top of Mt Rose. The hike had one of the items on my to do list for quite a long time. The weather conditions were ideal with mild temperatures and light winds. The trip was much longer and more arduous than I had expected. The last two miles were very slow going indeed. I seemed to stop to rest about every 100 feet or so. And I don't mean vertical feet. We made it to the top in about 4 hours. Here we are at the summit of 10,776 feet. My GPS agreed very closely. Lake Tahoe in the distance. The entire trip, including a half-hour rest at the summit took about 7.5 hours. We both moved very slowly today.

We got this cactus about 5 years ago from our friends in the San Diego area. It was growing by their front door and had become very large. Barbara invited me to lop off a few branches. We took it home and stuck it in a pot. We have subsequently transplanted it in a larger pot and it seemed to be happy with that move. This year I noticed a strange growth. At first I had thought that it was something like lint that had fallen at that spot. But then the spot began to grow larger until it became obvious that it was a flower spike. The budding flower grew into this. And then opened into this. Once the flower opened it began to wither away. It had lasted only a few hours in its' full splendor. Within a few days the flower had fallen to the ground leaving behind a mere hint of where it had been.

Where was this when I needed it?

Yesterday, August, 6, it snowed in the mountains . Here in Reno a chill wind blew persistently. I neglected to bring warmer clothes as I participated in an event for "Hot August Nights" classic car celebration. None remained for photos this AM. Clearly it was a sign of global warming.

Well, here it is. Dianne has sent this photo to all her friends. So I might as well join the festivities. This blog was originally started to report on our travels, but it might be changed to health concerns of the decrepit and infirmed. I went to urgent care for initial treatment. Dianne was concerned enough to later shuttle me to the emergency room because she was concerned about the possibility of a concussion or fractured skull. A CAT scan put her mind at ease. The swelling was extreme, largely from internal bleeding due to the blood thinners prescribed by my cardiologist. My eyelid, which was completely black (much more so than in the photo), was so large that I could not open my right eye. As swelling subsided enough to open the eyelid slightly we could see that the eyeball was bright red from blood. That too has mostly returned to normal. Anyhow, there appears to be no long term damage to report, except, possibly for pride.