My bike along the Garden Hiway

It’s been a busy month already.  I went to a haunted house with Tom and Karole, Tom showed me his wonderful new laser vortex and his laser lit jack-o-lantern. I rode my motorcycle along the garden hi-way and last weekend rode all the way up to Greenville. There I visited with James, Emily and Michael. We drove down to Indian Falls and did some apple squeezing at the Dawn House. It was a long ride but well worth it. I had a great time and enjoyed some wonderful scenery on the way.

Tom s Laser Jack-o-lantern!

Scenery along the way to Greenville

Picking apples for pressing

I’ve completed my new 2009 calendar designs check them out,

and let me know what you think.

Caves of Mexico and Texas

Caves of Mexico and Texas

California Wildlife

California Wildlife

California Scenery

California Scenery

MLG Caving

MLG Caving

Florida

Florida

beautifully colored snakes at the reptile expo

This last weekend I joined Tom, Karole and Rolf for a trip downtown to check out the reptile expo. Lots of neat reptiles to see, I had fun photographing the chameleons as usual and we got to play with an emperor scorpion under a blacklight to observe how it glowed. Scorpions have a florescent compound in their outer shell/cuticle and they’re nocturnal hunters which makes a blacklight a perfect tool for scorpion hunting. Anyway we had a good time and later Ric joined Tom,  Karole and I for a delicious mexican dinner.

emperor scorpion

Same scorpion under blacklight

I sold off my old yamaha a couple of years ago so I’m pretty excited to be back on a bike again now that I picked up a suzuki intruder, it’s a 1994 but it’s low milage and in great shape.

1994 suzuki vs 800 intruder

View near the reservoir

Last weekend I rode the train down to Fresno, then was met by my Parents who drove up from Bakersfield. We spent the night at my Aunts then got up really early to drive up to Wishon reservoir for the Western Regional meeting of the NSS. Turned out there weren’t planned activities for the day except for caving trips so since I hadn’t packed my caving gear we went for a drive up to courtwright reservoir to enjoy the scenery. That night there was a wonderful dinner, followed by the usual busness meeting, auction and schnapps tasting.  On the way home we stopped and walked around the Mckinley redwood grove. A very enjoyable weekend.

Hungry cavers line up for dinner

Dave plays with his balls

James and Emily got some tickets to tour Shasta Caverns and since it’s been a few years already since my last trip there, they decided to take me along as a belated birthday present. One thing Emily hadn’t counted on is that even though Greenville is much closer to Shasta, being North of Sacramento, they still had a 3+ hour drive because of the way you have to travel versus my 2.5 hour drive up from Sacramento.  Still they managed to get to Redbluff before me and we headed off together for the cave. The tour is touted as three adventures in one because to get to the cave you have to cross the Mccloud arm of lake Shasta in a boat, then take a bus up a very steep road to the cave. Emily’s friend Cassie and her two boys came along.

There was a trail of blood on the ground leading to the campsite. After a trip into the middle section of Millerton cave, facing rattlesnakes and floating dead bodies, the blood was of little concern to us. I plunged a fork into the exposed flesh and tossed another steak on the grill. Mmm that smelled good. Nothing like a good juicy bbq steak and corn on the cobb dinner following a days caving. Ric, Don and I lounged around the bbq waiting eagerly for our dinner to be done. Ron and Tracy had already left since they weren’t planning on camping they’d started their drive home soon after we got back from the cave.

Large wasp along the trail

Following our adventurous river trip the previous weekend what was their to do then another river trip- this time underground. Ric, Don and I drove down to the campsite Friday night so we could get an early start Saturday morning before it got too warm.

Ron and Tracy arrived Saturday morning as we were finishing breakfast and off to the cave we went, we say several large wasps, and an interesting spider along the way.  We started out visiting the short lower section where we saw several frogs then moved on to the middle section. In the middle section we had a bit of a surprise as Don and Ric spotted a small snake- When I stopped to take it’s picture I realized it was a rattlesnake that must have fallen in the stream. We were all careful to avoid it. A little further upstream we found a small pool full of  several dead rats and mice. Perhaps the snake had been in pursuit when it tumbled in.

All in all a very enjoyable trip though once more we did not go all the way through the middle section.

The rattlesnake in the water

Ric at the entrance to the slot out of the pool

Weekend before last I had the good fortune to get invited by neighbors up the street, Paul and Kathy, to go river rafting on the American river. We loaded up in their van with Don, Ric. After a brief stop to get their friend Eric and a truck that would be our ride back to the van after rafting we then headed up to the middle fork of the river. We left the truck at the take out spot then headed up to the oxbow powerhouse where we’d put in. From here we had 16-17 miles of river to negotiate with several class iv rapids and the infamous “tunnel chute” where miners dug a tunnel through a hillside and then blasted a chute to divert the river into it. It was a really great trip. I haven’t edited my pictures yet but I shot mostly video from the bow of the boat so I’ve posted a video of our trip. I wanted to post it here but wordpress isn’t letting it show up so you’ll have to click on over to smugmug to check it out at Rafting the american river video.

Welcome cavers

I’ve finished editing my pictures from the pre- ICS trip to the Giant Caves of Mexico, and my pictures from Texas and the congress itself. It really was a wonderful trip, besides the caves in Mexico I got to visit Kickapoo, the Devils sinkhole, caverns of Sonora and witness a spectacular bat flight at the WMA train tunnel where they have approximately 3 million freetail bats roosting. I’m writing up a longer report on my trip to Mexico which hopefully I’ll get done with this week. Summers still going strong though so lots going on and plenty more to post about later.

The main room in kickapoo

Pool in Caverns of Sonora

Bats flying out of the Fredricksburg WMA tunnel