Monday, July 26, 2010
High Sierra Camp

Larry: A fairly restful night of sleep what with the sense of security that our bear alarm gave us. We also sat 4 glasses of ammonia out on our perimeter - something suggested in one of the brochures. Covering all bases as we have seen big bear sign. The skeeter population is diminished for some reason. We had the whole afternoon - evening to ourselves! The claim owner checked in on his way out of the canyon, headed home for a few days. He had found a nice pwt nugget. It gave us encouragement. I'm sitting here this morning thinking about Jerry's boil hole (my son found a goodly amount of gold in a boil hole years ago). I'd like to really check out that bank. C asked me last night if I actually enjoyed camping? What draws us to the woods? We relish the solitude up here. Being present with God in the form of the trees, the rocks, the water, the silence, the wild life (we saw a very healthy coyote last week), the birds, the night - stars and moon, being alone with each other. So, yes, I still enjoy our camping experiences. Although, we both agreed that a PU/camper combo would be sweet.

Charlotte:  A cool clear morning. A long night. It was warm and I kept having hot flashes. We are all alone here. It is very pleasant this morning and there are very few mosquitoes. We went by way of Target yesterday on our way up here to get repellant. We forgot our glasses in the car and so asked a lady if she could read the ingredients since we were looking for eucalyptus Repel with Deet. She said this is so funny - you stop me to read a repellant container and I am a biologist and my specialty is mosquito control - Wow! Did researching repellants on and off all week bring us an expert? We were having a challenge deciding what was safe to use for long term. We got a whole education on repellants. Now we have something for our skin and something stronger for our clothes.Think of the odds of that happening? How many biologists specializing in mosquito control live in Placer County or Auburn? If we had been 15 minutes earlier or later? If we both hadn't left our glasses in the car? She asked if we just wanted to keep the mosquitoes from biting or did we not want to see any? We have been wearing long pants and long sleeve shirts but those little buggers can bite through.

 Picked up groceries, got gas and had lunch at KFC with plenty left over for dinner last night. I think we got to camp by 2:30. We rested awhile before even starting to set up camp. I even took a nap in my lawn chair. It was especially warm for the high country. Thank goodness for the breeze. There were lots of military jets flying over. We wondered what was going on. We used the new high powered repellant on our clothes - no mosquitoes. We'll have to have more than this morning test. Wow! It sure is quiet this morning. We must take time to appreciate our environment and the gift of being here.