Don't be stupid

A few weeks ago we went to Ozzfest in Mountain View, CA. I’ve been going to Ozzy concerts since the ‘80s. Ozzy was great. Zakk Wylde was awesome. It was definitely worth the $20 parking. Smuggle your own beverages in since the beer is $8 for Bud, Coors, and Miller.

Since it was on a Thursday we decided to make a long weekend out of it and went to Lake Tahoe. When I was younger my friends and I would party on Mt. Baldy, Cucamonga Peak, and other places in the mountains in Southern CA. It sucked when some idiot would start a forest fire and ruin our party spots.

On June 24 2007 someone left a camp fire unattended (the official wording for didn’t put it out) and started the biggest recorded forest fire in the Lake Tahoe basin. I’m sure a lot of people who are just like I was back in the day are bummed that their party spot was ruined. They’ll find another; we did. The real tragedy was the 254 homes that were destroyed. Not to mention the people whose homes survived but their neighbors’ didn’t.

Don’t be an ass. Put the fire out when you leave.

Fannette Island

Fannette is part of Emerald Bay State (California) Park and the only island in Lake Tahoe. The structure that looks like a castle is the “Tea House” built by Mrs. Lora Josephine Knight. To learn more about it visit the Emerald Bay State Park home page.

Chaw’se

I caught this guy coming out of a mortar hole in grinding rock at Indian Grinding Rock SHP on my way to South Lake Tahoe. If you’re ever in the area it’s a nice place to visit. Here’s a description from an article, “The Rock and The People” on their website:

Chaw’se is the Miwok word for grinding rock – a slab of stone on which the Miwok people ground acorns and other seeds into meal, slowly forming the cup shaped depressions in the stone that can still be seen today. Along with the mortar holes, the main grinding rock within the park also features a number of decorative carvings: circles, spoked wheels, animal and human tracks, wavy lines, etc. Some of these carvings are thought to as much as two or even three thousand years old and are now becoming difficult to see. This association of rock art and bedrock mortar pits is unique in California. Except for one other small site, Chaw’se has the only known occurrence of mortars intentionally decorated with petroglyphs.

Solitude

A man fishing on Red Lake in the Sierras.

Red Lake at Sundown

On the scenic route from Sacramento to Lake Tahoe there are a lot of lakes. This one is called Red Lake. The low angle of the sun made a nice contrast on the man fishing.

Mr Nuts

On the way to work this morning a squirrel was loudly complaining about a cat in the vicinity. For some reason he seemed to think that we were the appropriate authority to lodge the complaint with. After barking back and forth for a few moments in squirrelese a man passed by and scared him off.