Black Diamond, Black Heart!

We went to Black Diamond Mines searching for the remains of a long dead coal mining industry and the mining towns that grew around it. At one point around 2000 miners (all the men of the town including boys 8 years and older) spent their days in tunnels under these hills. When the coal mining industry died (due to the low grade coal found) the families couldn't sell their houses because the company owned all the land so they packed up the entire house, structure and all and moved it. Mostly what is left is a graveyard and some tunnels that people like us can go poking around in, that is if we could find them.

There wasn't much around except dry grass, dead trees and the abusive sun. Oh! and some kamikaze crickets that would viciously hurl themselves at us with unheard of speed.


Those distant trees are the cemetery.




We spotted a rare wild Dani who followed us the entire day. Because they are known for their good luck and well, honestly, Andy and I grew fond of our little companion we decided to wait for her to catch up during the rough parts of the hike.


Hey wait! Where are we? Our map would not tell despite having marked our path in peanut butter. At this point our party suffered a crushing defeat. Due to our dwindling rations and the sinking morale of our wild Dani we were forced to turn back mere feet from the elusive Prospect Tunnel (our own personal gold mine.) Damn You Black Diamond Mines!


I have now studied the map in detail and have realized our mistake. I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the East Bay Regional Park District and their sorry cartography skills. Now, I am a woman possessed, I will see the Prospect Tunnel and "Jim's Place" for that matter. Black Diamond Mines we will conquer you!


The Little Dani that Could

A strange salt deposit. In the middle of nowhere, at this point I think we heard our first coyotes


Nothing like a hard hat to lift broken spirits.

Gay Bomb!

The Pentagon, yes The US Department of Defense asked for 7.4 million dollars to develop a non-lethal bomb that would release a chemical to turn enemy combatants into homosexuals. They say that the enemy soldiers would become gay and then their "units break down because all their soldiers became irresistibly attractive to one another"

Read more about the Gay bomb! Gay Bomb!

Obscene or No?

More amazing hand painting courtesy Julia's mom can be found on Nancy's blog.

I Made It To Oregon City!

Despite some trials and hardship our party made across the Oregon Trail!

Of course Dani was the first to fake sick, she just wanted to shop at the fort gift shop.

What can I say, it felt like we were never gonna get there.

Rainbows upset Dani's tummy :(

Oregon Trail web clone its not exactly like the one of old but close enough. It really manages to convey what westward expansion must of been like for those that actually undertook the journey. Apparently, it was very boring and you get the poos a lot. Despite the common misconception if one of your companions die-- you don't even get the option to eat their remains.

Addendum to BBQ before I was born

In lieu of going to Andy's for a BBQ today (something about being tired after a marathon or whatever) I am posting pictures from a BBQ after I was born.


My Mom and her sisters:
We were together for my Grandpa's funeral, the last of his generation.
Please note the ciggerette in my aunts hand. Its good to see that somethings stay the same.

Me and My mom:

My mom, me and my cousin Shell (who sent me all the pictures):

BBQ before I was born

My cousin sent me some photographs of a family BBQ that happened before I was born. I am in love with them. I get this weird sense of time vertigo when I look at them. Its strange to see evidence of the world existing before I was in it.

These are my aunts. This photo is classic, I love the smoke and the cigarette.

I think this photo is amazing. My mom is in the center and my aunt to her right and my great aunt to her left:

This is my Grandma and Great Uncle Joe:

and my Grandpa and my aunt:

There are 3 generations of my family in this photo. I was talking with my mom about this picture and she said that "all the adults in this photo are now gone." It took me a moment to understand that she wasn't including her sisters and herself as adults. Its funny because I am about the same age as she is in these pictures and I don't think of myself as an adult either.
Everybody:

Sobriety, Obesity and Growing Old

William Kentridge makes my heart hurt, in a good way and was the first artist to inspire my crusty old tearducts to produce.

Still from Weighing.... and Wanting (I believe.)
Somehow this is the saddest and sweetest question anyone has ever asked.

Stills from Felix in Exile:This text is stolen but says everything better than I could... because I am lazy.

Felix in Exile was created in 1994, amidst ongoing public debates on the relationship between the country’s division of ownership and the formation of identity which accompanied the first open elections in South Africa. The film tells the stories of Felix, a man living in exile in Paris, and of Nandi, a woman working as a land surveyor. The woman is Felix’s alter ego. She stands for the longing for one’s homeland, and how for his sake someone bears witness to the incidents in the new, democratic South Africa. No differently than with the fears and memories that flood over him in his room, the world ultimately overpowers Nandi as well—she is shot.
Her many gazes are found in the mirror. The drawings Felix produce flood his sparse room like water, like memory and longing. On the other hand, Nandi is embedded in a cosmic distance that dissipates in the misery of black South Africa. In the topography of the landscape, Nandi’s surveying instruments search for traces of history, for a standard of existence, for a direction.
The drawings and images of Felix and Nandi pile up one atop the other, functioning in both cases as seismographic documents of an emotional shock. The victims of the story are discovered on discarded daily newspapers and written as such into the landscape. Nandi too, finds death. Felix, on the other hand, finds himself once again in the deserted landscape of his homeland, but now with a suitcase full of drawings.

A lot of quality is lost in these youtube bootlegs but I still love them.

Tide Table

Journey to the Moon

I'm not sure of the title

Rough and Ready was neither rough nor ready

So we didn't go
but we did go someplace...

Woodruff Creek:
The Woodruff Creek mosquitos welcomed all of us but Andy most of all fittingly.

From Woodruff Creek just follow the dirt road up into the moutains and eventually you will find Forest City.Population 40 but not a soul to see

There was mining equipment in weird states of repair and disrepair.

Everything looked abandoned, restored, and abandoned again.

The school house was the one place we could go in, except for the outhouse. Where we saw evidence that bears do in fact go in the woods and do use TP.

The light inside was amazing

Malakoff Diggins the result of hydraulic mining. Miners sprayed high pressure water and just washed away the mountain.

This drain tunnel goes on for 7, 847 feet under The Diggins:

We went in about 20 feet when thoughts of The Decent turned us around.

We all have our talents:


The next morning we went on an awesome hike to the Yuba River
and found
Another Cave!!!!!

Then we skipped rocks in the melted snow water of the Yuba (one of us in their underpants.)