Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

And this is what I woke up to!!! Thank you sweetie, I love you!

Valentine's Day 2014

Happy Holi Days!

Yay, it is that time of year again, Holi.  Holi is one of my favorite times of year.  It is the Hindu Festival of Color-- a yearly festival celebrating the return of color to the world. Holi is celebrated on the Phalgun Purnima (or Pooranmashi, Full Moon) in the month of Phalgun according to the Hindu Calendar. This year the celebration starts on March 8 and lasts two days, ending on March 9th--the actual day of Holi.

Originally a festival to celebrate the coming of spring, good harvests and fertility of the land, today Holi is seen as a time to shed inhibitions and caste aside differences and enjoy a day of fun and festivities.  According to The Festival of Colors, "Holi celebrates the spirit of life which is happiness and merriment. This festival is about letting go of whatever has happened and enjoy life together with friends and family. Liveliness of spring season takes its heights, when colors and flowers swathe the courtyards and streets throughout the country."

It's Holi, celebrate the color in your life!

Lions and Tigers and Birds, Oh My!

We had an excellent president's day weekend. 

We started off Saturday morning with a trip up to the Animal Ark for their Wild Winter Weekend.  The bears and tortoises were hibernating, but we were able to see everyone else, mountain lions, bobcats, tigers, coyotes, a gray wolf, foxes, cheetahs, raccoons, badgers, owls and falcons.   Most of the animals are lifetime residents of Animal Ark and can not be returned to the wild. However, they do have a bear rehabilitation program and release bears back into the wild once they are ready.  One of my favorite things about the Animal Ark is that all the animals have unique stories posted detailing the circumstances that brought them to the Animal Ark.  The stories are fascinating and really help visitors understand what the Animal Ark is all about. 

Rayna, the gray wolf

Meeting Whoopi the Peregrine Falcon

 

Cheetahs don't like the snow, this is either Moyo or Jamar, not sure which

After our trip to the Animal Ark, we headed to our usual game of afternoon pick-up frisbee.  The wind was really roaring and the game was somewhat ridiculous due to the high winds, so we ended up not staying terribly long.  

On both Sunday and Monday we went for hikes with the entire family, goats and all.  On Sunday, we hiked up behind our house, where we threw the disc around and hiked slow, letting the kids graze, sniff and pretty much do whatever they wanted.  On Monday, we all went for a 4 mile hike up past Verdi to Old Quilici Ranch road.  We hiked along the southeast bank of the Truckee along the water access road, which is a great place to hike with the family.  It has rolling terrain, with a nice, wide trail and is quite picturesque.

 View of the Truckee River

 Dan and the kids

 The Truckee

 Goats playing near the water

Throughout the weekend we participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC).  Some of the birds we counted were, brewer blackbirds, mourning doves, red tail hawks, mallards, coots, and a pied-billed grebe, just to name a few. 

What a great weekend spent outdoors with amazing animals and my awesome family!

My Inner Animal!!!

The World Wildlife Foundation has a fun little quiz on their website called Find Your Inner Animal.

"Would you live in the mountains like a panda? Are you reclusive like a turtle? Sleek like a snake? Answer these 8 fun questions about your personality and interests to discover the one animal that you relate to most. There are over 100 possible species!"

Check out the quiz to see what you are.

Can you guess what animal I am????

I love it, I'm sooooooo excited about it, and I feel like it fits me quite well.

Can you guess what I am????

Can you????

You'll have to wait and see!!!!

I know, I know, you can't handle the suspense any longer.

I

am

a

Bighorn Sheep!!!

Yay, Bighorn Sheep!!!

And, this is the description that goes along with it:

"You are a big-hearted gentle soul who loves hiking in the mountains with your friends and family. You prefer colder climates and rigorous activities. Quite competitive, you enjoy sparring with others athletically."

Pretty accurate, although I do tend to like warmer climates rather than colder ones.

Hats, Hops, and Hucks: 2011

Team Prime BID

For those of you who don't know, one of my favorite ways to stay in shape for my wild adventures is to play ultimate frisbee. Frisbee tends to be much more of an addiction for me than anything else--it is so fun! This past weekend was one of the most incredibly fun tourneys of the year, the annual Hats, Hops, and Hucks (HHH). Hats; because it's a hat tournament--you tend not to know any of the players on your team and you have to wear a hat, Hops; because there's a lot of beer involved, and Hucks; because people love to throw that disc deep.

This year, 2011, was the 20th anniversary of HHH and there was a great turnout, we brought something like 30 folks from the Reno area--almost every team had a Reno-ite on it. Our team had 3 on it and another team had 6. There was only one team I knew of who didn't have anyone from Reno on it, but there could have been more.

Anyway, we got there around 7:30pm on Friday, registered and met up with other Reno folk. One great thing about this tournament is that food and camping is part of the registration fee, so once you're there you don't really have to worry about anything. Saturday morning we had a breakfast of eggs, pancakes and hash browns, then we hit the fields.

This year the theme was "Come and Get It", referring to food. There were three pools and they were aptly named breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was in the dinner pool and the name of my team was Prime BID, after Prime Rib--of course. On Saturday my team had a bit of a hard time gelling, we won 1 out of our 4 games. However, Saturday games just determine seeding positions and don't determine how you end up in the overall tournament. With our 3 loses, we ended up being seeded 12 out of 15 teams--not as high as we were hoping, but we were having a blast.

On Sunday we started out playing the 5th ranked team, INSIDE-OUT Burger and after a hard fought battle, we won!!! All while having an amazing dance party on the sidelines. We were super pumped! Our next game was against another bracket breaker, DISC-CUTS and Gravy, a team who was seeded 13th after Saturday, just beat their their highly ranked team and now the battle was between seeds 12 and 13, crazy! It was a super close game. We were down 1-7, but made an amazing run and came back. The result came down to a universe point, the score was 12-12 and whoever scored the 13th point got to move on to the semi-finals. We pulled it off and were in the semi-finals. It was a super close and fun game, although a bit nerve wracking.

Sideline dancing with FLICK'n CATCH a SCOREI

In the semi-finals there were 3 teams from the dinner pool and 1 from the lunch pool. We ended up playing a team named SWINGlini and CLAMS, a dinner team who we played on Saturday and lost to--they were actually one of our bigger losses--but Sunday we turned things around and we ended up winning. Yay, we're in the finals!!!

Over in the other semi-final game, the teams were FLICK'n CATCH a SCOREI vs. PULLed Pork, the game was really close and it came down to an universe point, which FLICK'n won. FLICK'n was in the dinner pool too, we played them on Saturday and had lost. The finals were so much fun. Both teams played really well, but in the end FLICK'n CATCH a SCOREI were able to pull it out and beat us 11-17. It was pretty close until the end, when FLICK'n went on a streak and we just couldn't catch up.

Congrats to FLICK'n CATCH a SCOREI, it was a great game!

Overall, it was a wonderful weekend of ultimate. Both us and FLICK'n CATCH a SCOREI ended up playing a total of 8 games each!!! So much frisbee, so much fun, I wish it wasn't over. But, there's always next year and I can't wait for it!

An intense game of Ninja!

Thanks Mo for all the hard work you put in to make this tournament happen!

It's Time for Holi:

A celebration that I desperately wish was observed widely throughout the States. Holi, the Hindu Festival of Color, is a yearly festival celebrating the return of color to the world. Holi is celebrated on the Phalgun Purnima (or Pooranmashi, Full Moon) in the month of Phalgun according to the Hindu Calendar. This year the celebration starts March 19th and runs 2 day finishing on March 20th--the actual day of Holi.

According to The Festival of Colors, "Holi celebrates the spirit of life which is happiness and merriment. This festival is about letting go whatever has happened and enjoy life together with friends and family. Liveliness of spring season takes its heights, when colors and flowers swathe the courtyards and streets throughout the country."

Last year at this time I had already seen my first wildflowers mainly lomatiums and violas. I haven't seen any yet this year, we have had a few late snow storms and to be fair I haven't been out for a hike in awhile. My new job is keeping pretty busy, but hopefully I'll get out into the hills soon. We are going to be at the ranch this weekend (for Holi) and I'm sure we'll go for some hikes, hopefully I'll get lucky and spot a wildflower or two.

Happy Holi everyone, let the color of the season dye your soul a shade of joy!!!

Trail Builder

I have always been interested in trail building, but I have never really had the opportunity to get involved with it. This past weekend the Tahoe Rim Trail Association (TRTA) put on a trail building class, so I decided to partake. It was a lot of fun. I didn't know anyone in the class, but the people were nice and I soon felt quite comfortable in the mix. A lot of the people in the course had been hired for the summer at various organizations through the Americorps program. They are either crew leaders or crew members who will be out working on the trails all summer. As for me, I think I'm just going to volunteer at some of the local trails--at least for now.

The class was interesting, I learned about the different tools that are used on the trail such as loppers, pruning and pole saws, Pulaskis, Pick Mattocks, McLouds, and rockbars. I really enjoyed getting dirty and the physical labor involved in building trails. We worked on a section of trail that had quite a bit of manzanita in it. The manzanita was difficult to work with, but made for an interesting experience. We had to deal with a lot of manzanita roots, but there was one huge manzanita root we had to remove, it was tough but we got it out.

There was an advanced class going on at the same time as our class. They were learning how to do really cool stuff. They learned how to set up a griphoist system to remove huge boulders. They also learned how to shape and split rocks to build stairs and shape unmovable rocks into safer forms. We got to watch them for a bit, i can't wait to take that class in the future it looks like a ton of fun.

For now I can't wait to get out onto the trails and help with some trail building and or maintenance. The TRTA is planning a Reno to Rim trail with building starting in July, that is definitely a trail project I would like get my hands dirty on.

See you on the trails!

24 hours of wind, pain and fun!

Wrestling a bear--think I'm winning?

This past weekend Dan and I decided to join in on the annual 24 hour Reno bike scavenger hunt/race--Scalleycat. The event has been held for several years and we have always wanted to attend, but in the past, life and location has kept us away. This year the stars aligned and we were able take part in the biking fun.

We started out at a local bar where we got our bike bible, which is the list of missions to complete during the scavenger hunt. The missions are worth varying points depending upon how difficult they are to complete. The bible contains way more missions than anyone can complete, so you have to pick and choose which missions to complete and in which order to complete them in. To get points you have to take a digital picture of you and your bike completing the mission. Oh yeah, and you compete in teams of two, one to be in the picture and one to take the picture. We didn't take the race part of it too seriously, we just wanted to ride and have fun--we even got 7 hours of sleep during the race.

Our route

We ended up riding a little over 60 miles. The first night was cold and windy and it even snowed on us a little. When we rode out to Patagonia we had a major head wind with rain and snow flurries, which made the ride out west quite interesting. We got to do all sorts of fun things during this great event. We drank beer, took shots, ate funky food, wrestled bears, climbed to letters, jumped into a massive dog pile, turned into unicorns, played with all sorts of animals, gave my mommy flowers, made new friends, hung with old ones and at the end, we danced the night away. All in all, it was an amazing 24 hours.

Here are just a few of the photos from our ride:

Dog pile in the middle of the Cal Neva dance floor.

I was turned into a unicorn at the Alibi

Giving my mommy fresh picked flowers.

New friends and a Rhea (these guys got second place, sweet).

Dan, Conor and a mountain goat.

Dan riding down 10 steps.

Euskadi; Flysh Fun

After our wonderful day in Donostia we decided we wanted to go back to Zumaia and check out the flysh up close and personal. This time we didn't hike to Zumaia, we took the bus both ways. Dan and I walked around Zumaia for a bit, we wanted to find a bank so we could exchange some money. At first we had a hard time finding a place, but we asked a few folks and in the end we were able to find a bank that could exchange our money.

At a church we passed as we walked around Zumaia

Dan found a new lady :(

After we got our Euros we went for a walk in a beautiful, green valley that we saw while we were playing on the cliffs the last time we were here. We walked by several neat old homes, one of which had a huge, beautiful garden that I was, of course, absolutely jealous of. At the end of the valley there was a staircase that led down to a small beach. Dan and I went down to explore the beach, Dan took a bunch of pictures and I collected sea shells. The beach was so tiny that when the tide is high, it's under water. It was a really neat, cool little spot.

One of the neat homes we passed in the valley

Dan going down the staircase to the small beach

The small beach we hiked down to

Cool flysh layers

We decided to hike back up to the cliffs we were at on Sunday and make a loop rather than go back through the valley. It had been raining the last couple of days so it was quite muddy and a lot of fun.

Dan and the muddy trail up to the cliffs

Dan and me on the cliffs

We then decided to hike down to the big beach, where we had a blast playing on the flysh and taking a bunch of pictures. Just to remind you, the flysh in Zumaia is the longest set of continuous rock strata in the world. They date from the mid-cretaceous period to the present, over 100 million years. The flysh is so cool when you see it up close, all the layers are like works of art and they hold so much history and information, it's crazy.

Dan and the rock horse sculpture

Flysh up close, it reminds me of a mountain scene cut from paper scraps

Dan on the flysh

Flysh in the water

Dan can't stop taking pictures, even when the tide is threatening to trap him

We had a wonderful day playing at the beach. This is such an amazingly beautiful part of the world, exploring is sooooo much fun!

Yay Spain, I mean Euskadi!

Map of Euskadi

So, as it turned out I didn't get to go to Spain, I went to Euskadi, more commonly known as, the Basque Country. I left a frozen Reno early on the 8th of December and flew into Bilbao on the evening of the 9th. Dan was at the airport to greet me with a coke and a bag of potato chips--such a sweetie!

Flying over a frozen Reno

and a frozen Tahoe

Just had to throw this in here, we flew over Yosemite, awesome!

We took a bus and a tram to hotel which was located in the heart of Casco Viejo--the old part of the city. On our way to the hotel we did end up walking past the Guggenheim, what an amazing building. Casco Viejo is really nice, there are a bunch of shops, bars and restaurants, all located just outside our hotel. We could walk everywhere.

The Guggenheim, all lit up. The first night in Bilbao

Dan under the holiday lights in Casco Viejo

The first night I was in Bilbao we didn't do too much, I got in around 8:00 pm (20:00) so we walked around ate some pintxos and drank some wine and beer. Supposedly there was a big festival the night before so things closed down really early my first night, mostly between 10:00 and 11:00 pm (22:00 and 23:00)--I like using the 24 hour clock, I should start using it more often. So we hit the hay pretty early.

The next morning we woke fairly early and grabbed some pinxtos and coffee. They have pinxtos out pretty much all day, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Pinxtos (pronounced pinchos) are similar to tapas. They are little snake foods and they are typically served in bars and taverns. Pretty much every bar we went into had plates and plates full of pintxos. There are many different varieties of pintxo, but every place had small ham sandwiches, small cheese sandwiches and tortillas, which are actually an egg and potato quiche. Every place had a lot more pinxtos than those, but they varied quite a bit. Some had stuffed mushroom caps, some had fish salad, some had artichoke hearts or peppers, bacon was used quite a bit. It was fun to try the different kinds of pintxos, most of the ones I tried, I liked. I should have take a picture of a bar full of pintxos, but alas, I didn't think of it at the time.

After pinxtos and coffee we went for a walk. We walked up this huge flight of stairs, I didn't count how many stairs there were, but it was one mighty long stair case that led up to a huge city park. The park was beautiful. It, like the hillsides surrounding the city, was lush and green. I couldn't believe how green everything was there in December--a lot of people still had gardens going, I was soooooooo jealous. The park was interesting in the fact that it was on a hillside, parts of it were super steep, other parts had been flattened out to build play sets or sport fields. There were a lot of nice walking trails throughout the park and tons of people had their dogs out for an afternoon romp. That was one thing I loved about all the cities we visited. They are designed for people, not for cars. You can walk pretty much anywhere you want to go. Even if you live out of town, you can drive into city, park and then walk to all the places you need to go. It is awesome, once again sooooooo jealous.

Entrance to the city park

After the park, we headed to a tram that took us to another park, located high on one of the hilltops just outside of Bilbao. You take a tram, because this hillside is super steep, I don't think there is even a trail for you to walk up it, although there is a windy road. The tram ride up was fun, we went through a tunnel and going up the super steep slope inspired some butterflies in my tummy, but in a fun way. Once at the top, the views were amazing. You could see pretty much the entire city, including the river, and the Guggenhein. Bilbao is near, but not on the coast and from the hilltop park you could even see the coast. It was beautiful.

Inside the tram

View of Billbao and the Guggenheim from the hilltop park

Dan over Bilbao

Bilbao with the river, the Guggenhein and green hillsides

Way off in the distance you can see the coast

We then took the tram back down the hill and stopped off for beer and pinxtos.

So, this gets us about halfway through my first day. I wanted to do these posts much shorter than my Romania Series posts, but so far it's not looking that way. Stay tuned for more on Euskadi, coming soon!!!

Ch Ch Cha Changes

Dusty enjoying the lonely beach, the changing of the season

Since I've been back from Romania there has been major changes in the weather here in Northern Nevada. It has become cold - not everyday, but many days and the days that are warm tend to have a hint of chill in them, like a little reminder of what is coming with the winter months. It has been raining quite a bit too. Last Tuesday it rained all day, resulting in the first snow for the Sierras and the canceling of our ultimate Frisbee game. It has also been quite windy and on days like yesterday we have had a weird mixture of rain and wind, not necessarily occurring at the same time.

Dan and Bodie playing in the first snow of the season

Over the weekend we went for a hike at the Tahoe Meadows, it was windy and cold at the summit. We were shocked because it was warm and sunny down in Reno, perhaps the reason we were shocked was because we were still holding onto the belief that the weather hadn't really turned, but the cold pins and needles on our faces made us believers. After our hike we stopped by the lake, Tahoe that is. Crazily enough it was the first time we had been to the lake since being back in Nevada. I can't believe that we've been back almost a year and hadn't been back to the lake, especially during the summer months, although being at the ranch made it a little more difficult to head up on a whim.

Bodie's first glimpse of Lake Tahoe

On the rocks please

Bodie with a cloudy, rough Tahoe in the background

Speaking of change, on our drive up to the lake we had nice views of the changing leaves. Mainly, the golden rivers of the quakies. I love seeing the gold rivers cascading down the mountain sides. In northern Nevada we don't have a lot of native trees that change colors with the seasons, chiefly it is the bright gold of the quaking aspen and poplars.

The main cause of color change in leaves is day length or inversely the night length. The night getting longer and cooler is the trigger that signals the leaves to change. During the growing season or warm season, chlorophyll (which is the pigment that causes leaves to appear green) is continually being produced and broken down keeping the leaves green. When the day length shortens, the chlorophyll in the leaves is destroyed allowing the other pigments (carotenoid-yellow and orange and anthocyanins-red) in the leaves to show through.

Leaves turning color at Tahoe

It the time of year for some reds and yellows

Got leaves?

The last change I'll discuss is that I have decided to post on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9:00 am instead of on Mondays and Wednesdays. I tend to play on Sundays making it difficult to have a post ready by Monday morning. Sorry for any inconvenience.

And just for good measure, another picture of the cutest baby goat in the world.

Resources:
Why Leaves Change Color, (n.d.), Retrieved October 19, 2009 from: http://www.na.fs.fed.us/Spfo/pubs/misc/leaves/leaves.htm