When I looked over the list of topics for the 20 Days of Chill Writing Challenge, I noticed that this one would be the easiest. It probably will be the longest as well. I love traveling and try to get at least one travel/camping trip in every year. Most years, I'm successful.
This past summer I went on a short week (5 days) camping trip with my friend Craig to help him get to Yosemite National Park and hike the John Muir Trail. I've already written two posts about it, Part 1 and Part 2. This is Part 3 and a continuation of the trip to Bodie which I started in Part 2. If you've just stumbled upon this blog because of the 20 days of Chill challenge, I suggest that you might want to go back and read the first two parts before reading this one.
As I noted last time, we got extremely lucky at Bodie as the photographic elements all came in alignment to give me some great conditions in which to take photos. We had light sprinkles from some thunderstorms that were passing through the area, but we weren't getting wet and the puffy clouds were just excellent.
After we explored the cemetery in Bodie and found a geocache over there, we then walked over to the main part of town. Several of the buildings are open and we could walk through parts of them to see some of the insides, but it was mostly exteriors of the buildings. I think I posted in Part 2 that I went shutter clicking happy, and why not?
There have been so many times in the past when I've traveled when I've had totally cloudless skies. Now, cloudless skies are nice, but from a photographer's point of view, they don't lend much interest into your shot if a third of it is one color or monotone in nature. Clouds give your photographs some depth, and I had it that day, so I went nuts.
And it wasn't even difficult to go through the images and decide which ones weren't going to see the light of day anywhere outside of my computer screen as I just love most of the images that I had taken. I experimented with Black and White with almost all of them, but settled on color for quite a few of the images. But as you can see, I did process at least on in Black and White.
Historical areas like that have always intrigued me. As we walked around the town, reading the plaques about the various buildings, we just had to marvel at the intestinal fortitude of people who lived in this area in the 1800s. People were tough back then. It was hard work from sunup to sundown with not much relief at all. Creature comforts like forced air heating were non-existent. Can you imagine living in a place, covered in snow for most of the winter months without some kind of gas heating system? I would suspect that most of us if we were instantly transplanted back to the 1870s would be dead within a week.
But since we were born when we were, I think we should feel very fortunate. Because of the hard work of people before us, we have been afforded all sorts of luxuries, many of which we probably take for granted. We have that forced air heating, almost instant access to information, a good educational system and the ability to travel and learn about places such as Bodie.
After walking around the town for several hours, taking in much of the site, but not getting to the mine area of the town, we had to leave to get to our next camping stop, which was a good hour and a half down the road. Because we didn't see it all, I'm sure I will be back to explore more parts of Bodie, including the mine section. I just hope it doesn't take as long to get back for a second visit than it did for me to get here in the first place.
The top photo is a photo I submitted for the Sharpshooters International Photography Club. Each week, members of the club submit photos and the club publishes a photo stream every Wednesday. Please stop by on Facebook (link above), like our page and view some of the fantastic photos that members have to offer each week.
Thanks for coming by for Day 4 of the Chill Challenge. I'm actually amazed at myself that I've been able to keep this up for the entire time so far. Of course, I still have 16 more days to go, but I'm getting into a rhythm right now.
Yesterday I went on a hike with two of my geocaching friends. Our goal was to find the oldest cache hidden in Orange County, which is also the 6th oldest cache in all of California. I know some of you are already rolling your eyes over this, but finding a cache that was hidden over 12 years ago, at least in my mind, is pretty cool.
I first started geocaching back in March 2001 and didn't think anything about finding older caches. I just went out and found caches, period. Of course, with the hobby only less than a year old at that time, there weren't a lot of caches out there, so most weren't very "old" anyway.
Fast forward to about five years ago and someone came up with Challenge caches. These are caches that you have to do something geocaching related before you can go out and find the cache. I found a very easy Challenge cache yesterday that involved having found already 10 caches with some family member (Dad, Mom, Grandma) in the title of the cache. I looked over my list and discovered I have 7 caches with the word Dad in it, so I knew I qualified for that challenge already.
Some challenge caches require a lot of planning. One of the challenge caches I've already completed, but haven't found yet is the 58 California county challenge which challenges geocachers to find a cache hidden in every county in California. I found the last four counties back in August 2011. I just haven't gotten out to find the final for that one yet, but it's high on my "geocaching things to do list."
Finding the cache we found yesterday filled in another square on the grid that is the Jasmer Challenge. The Jasmer Challenge challenges geocachers to find a cache hidden in every single month that geocaching has been around. The older caches are getting harder to find and there aren't that many of them, so time becomes a factor in all of this as well.
As you can see by the grid above, the months I still need are May, June, July, August and October of 2000 to complete my grid. Those last four months are going to require some traveling if I want to fill in the grid. The closest cache to me that was hidden in October 2000 is 328 miles away from my home. The distances for the other four months are likewise as far. If I want to complete this challenge, I'll have to travel to Oregon for sure, and possibly to Kansas. The oldest cache, hidden in the United States is there.
Since we do go camping every summer, it's not out of the realm of possibility that we have this challenge completed in just a couple more years. Hopefully, the old caches on my list will still be there when I get around to finding them. Either way, it's the adventure of challenging myself to do something new that keeps me going.
Both of these objects originally belonged to my grandmother, were passed down to my father and have subsequently been passed down to me. My grandmother died when I was 3, so I have no memories of her outside of these objects.
The school bell is the bell used by my great aunt as she rang her students in for the day at a one room school house in rural Indiana in 1896. My father has a photo of that class, which includes a pretty 5 year old girl sitting on the front steps of the school - my grandmother. Her oldest sister was her first teacher. My parents used that bell to "ring" us in for dinner as we were growing up.
My grandmother later became a teacher, she married a teacher and her youngest son (my father) became a teacher. I have carried on the family "tradition," as I am finishing up my 29th year of teaching. My daughter is preparing to become an elementary school teacher. I guess it's in our blood.
The book is a condensed biography from a ten volume set written by John G. Nicolay and John M. Hay, Abraham Lincoln's personal secretaries. The 10 volume set was published serially in The Century Magazine from 1886-1890 and then published into book format in 10 volumes from 1890-94. Nicolay died in 1901 in Washington and this condensed version was published two years later.
I have no idea whether anyone would be able to procure a copy of this book today, but I find it interesting because it is a first hand account of Lincoln's actions from 1856 until his death in 1865. You can feel the love that Nicolay had for the man throughout this work. It is a treasure that I will cherish forever and I hope that whoever inherits it from me will cherish it the same.
