Monday August 12, 2013 Guerneville, CA.
Started the day out on the slow side
I awoke this morning all stuffed up and with a headache, likely from not getting enough air last nigh sleeping, because of the stuffiness, so I wasn’t in the mode to do much, so I sat around the yard today until I got going in the late afternoon.
Around five P. M. I thought it would be a good idea to go for a little ride up in the forest behind my house, so I found the key for the little four wheeler and tried starting it up. I got it going but it died and I thought I flooded it. After messing around with it for awhile, I remembered we started turning the gas off at the tank on it awhile back. Hummmmmmm.
It started right up, once I righted that little problem and I was off, finally.
I wanted to check out some water springs up on the hill and check out how the loggers left my neighbors property and just go for a little ride though the forest.
I decided I’d head to the top of the ridge first,………….but.
A tree blocked the road, so I detoured though my neighbors property. Boy, that was a big mistake, the roads where all messed up by the loggers and there were water bars every so many feet that I had to go over, being very careful not to tip over. I made it though all of them, but I was so busy I didn’t get any pictures, but I will say, I was glad to be though that mess and onto the old trail that was more or less smooth.
I almost forgot, I stopped at this spring that feeds my brothers water tank for his garden and cleared the pipes before moving on up the hill.
This is the trail I was following to the ridge top.
When I ran into this downed tan oak tree. Now, it looks fairly small, like I could move it, but there is two thirds more of this little guy, so I turned around and headed over to the logged area of my neighbors, back down the road.
After going though the mess at my neighbors from the logging, I came out on a ridge top, where I could see the fog sneaking in over the mountain tops. The Russian river is down there.
I continued on up the ridge back until I got to the real ridge top that overlooks Guerneville and the Russian River valley.
The green patch is Korbel grapes and Guerneville is to the top left of that, with the Russian river running from left to right, near the top of the grapes.
I took a break at the top, then headed on down another road, but came to a stop when I ran into these trees down, so I turned around a tried another road to the main trail.
This is the main fire road, or trail that was built by my great grand father with Chinese labor a long time ago. It was used to haul mining stuff out of the back country for the war efforts of olden days, then became a main fire break for Guerneville, before the time of airplanes and helicopters to fight fires.
I ran into this tree but was able to get under this one.
I ran into more down trees blocking the road and at one point I thought I might have to go back though my neighbors logging mess, but did find a way down without that.
This is a water spring I went by on the way. I’m not so sure you can make it out, but it had some good water puddles for the wild animals to drink out of.
On the way down I went over to our stainless steel water tanks to check the gage, which I circled in red on the tank. About two thirds full, not bad for feeding five houses. We have about twenty thousand gallons of water storage in the tanks.
I returned home just before dark and was glad I got my butt in gear to go for that ride.
Had a nice day with a slow start. :O)