The Three Faces of Peter

What do these photos all have in common?

At Home

At School

At Church

No prizes for guessing correctly. But then you knew that already. Melody is putting a book together of pictures from my life and these three caught my eye.

Nevada City Friday

Melody and I spent the day in Nevada City as a kind of 'last day of vacation' trip. We visited the Empire Mine (10's of millions of dollars pulled out over the course of 75 years) and saw the really fun sights there. I especially enjoyed the scale model of all the shafts that were drilled. Absolutely incredible. Pictures below. We got everything in just before it started raining.

Not a petrified log, a core sample from a mine shaft

Me, in front of the mine office;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;The mine owner's "cottage"
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The main mine shaft;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;A scale model of all of the shafts
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Melody in front of the cottage's waterfall and ponds

After we saw everything we wanted at the mine, we drove down to "Cousin Jack's Pasties" (Cousin Jack is the generic name for a Cornish mine worker). Anyway, the pasties are great and the atmosphere of the little home-made restaurant is really fun. I had a side order of bean and sausage soup that was fantastic! Later we walked around the historic section of town in the rain and looked in all the shops that were for people with money than we had to spend, visited a cool bookstore, by-passed a ton of bars and saloons, and got some great hot chocolate at a nice little candy store.

Two-story fire house in Nevada City

Geocaching Thursday

So I went out geocaching again this Wednesday. This time I looked up a couple of newly placed multi-caches in the Spenceville Wildlife Area, and one that I had visited with Mike a few years ago called "Scoping it Out." You start with finding a tree that has a sighting scope fixed to it that has an outcropping of rocks in it's cross hairs. At the rocks you find hidden the coordinates of a partial rock wall some distance away, and that's where you find the cache. This is the view from above the rock wall. You see that it was a cold, wet day. No rain - wet nonetheless.

I love tromping around the expanse of this area. Rolling hills, ditches and creeks (mostly wet, occasionally dry), rock formations, cows, sometimes a snake - there's even an old 3 acre olive orchard in one section. It's always pretty. The only problem is finding someone that will keep up with me. Maybe I'll take Grant out next time.