Following the surreal experience at the Bonneville Salt Flats and the long long drive, Nevada City was to be our home for the next week. It is not in Nevada, nor is it a City. In the British sense of the word anyway. More of a quaint village with narrow winding streets and skinny footpaths. In California, not Nevada. Not even Nevada County, California.
This was officially our laziest week of the whole trip, activity-wise anyway. As Baz Lurhman once said “Live in Northern California once but leave before it makes you… soft”. That one hour time difference was a killer. Not only does this mean my work start time was brought forward to 8am, but also the end of Summer is approaching, and the sun isn’t getting up so early any more either. Or maybe we’re just soft.
What we did instead was to make good use of the slightly longer evenings in our Inn Town campsite (not really what you’d call ‘in town’ but I guess we’re over that now). Well, we drank more and barbecued more 😋, we marveled at the tall trees, and we played leisurely games of Cornhole and Yahtzee (yes I pretty much got my ass whupped every time).
Check out the BaseCamp skulking as a wannabe extra.
Can’t believe we never thought to use it for bacon sarnies!
I particularly liked the Sierra Commons co-working space in Nevada City, for its shaded outdoor patios, front and back. So nice to be able to work outside all day, and ironically the smoke had pretty much cleared up by the time we got to California.
Just missing a few bunches of grapes dangling from the eaves.
The drive south from Nevada City took us past Lake Tahoe, where Darren let his paddle board out to play again (it’s not seen the light of day in so long, it must think it’s been in the naughty corner. Oh no, that’s my bike!)
And then just like that, we were in our final week. 11 weeks down, 1 to go, how did that happen? What better way to close out in style than a week in Mammoth Lakes on the eastern side of the Sierras. Mammoth is our normal California backyard go-to hangout when we need to exchange the heat of Santa Clarita for the refreshing mountain air. Likewise, it was the perfect last destination stop-off for hiking, biking, and drinking beer before going home.
Mammoth is to the outdoors what Vegas is to partygoers. It builds the sense of excitement as you approach. “The mountains are calling.” So says John Muir (the Scottish-American naturalist largely responsible for establishing nearby Yosemite National Park), the slogan almost as enticing as the recent Covid-induced “Your adventure has waited long enough”. I literally cannot think of this phrase in any other way than as a movie trailer voiceover: slow, deep and dramatic. “Your adventure has waited long enough”.
To be fair, this was less adrenaline-fueled type adventure, more of the get out of bed at sunrise to fit a walk in before work type of adventure. Yes, the six mile hikes before work on Mountain Time were long gone, we’d be lucky to fit in two miles on Pacific Time here. Still, we did what we could.
Given the Covid challenges in California, the co-working space in Mammoth had opted to not open for the entire summer season, boo. Leaving us with no other realistic option than an AirBnB. I was super impressed with Darren’s choice, a cute ‘Tree House’ cabin centrally located and just minutes from Mammoth Brewing.
Which brings me on to the very important topic of Mammoth Brewing. It’s come a long way from its early days, when we remember it as a small backyard operation focused on solid quality beers with some interesting seasonals. I’d go as far as saying it was our original inspiration for seeking out new and interesting breweries.
Fast forward nearly ten years and now it’s a big operation with canning and bottling exports stretching throughout California and since 2014, they’ve had a very prominent tasting room smack bang in the middle of Mammoth. If you ask me they’re no longer pushing the boundaries, although the beers are still excellent. With California Covid restrictions and our intolerance to queueing, it took us three days to get in. But when we finally did, it felt like coming home! Welcome to Altitude!!! 🙂
But it’s not all about the beer. Sometimes you just need a bit of purple in your life.
Turned out to be purple, who knew.
He looks so much happier with a beer 🙂
With Labor Day and a long weekend approaching, a day off on Friday gave us both an opportunity to experience that little bit more of Mammoth.
(up on the gondola, down on the bike)
Come the weekend, we’d moved on from the AirBnB and we were taking it easy. There we were, chilling out by the river, skulking in the shade of the trees having forgotten to bring the sunscreen, and oblivious to any advancing clouds. And then this happened.
We were in no immediate danger from the Creek Fire but it was close enough to not want to hang around. And so a day early, we hitched up, braved the fog from the fire and turned our attention to home. Our thoughts go out to the brave firefighters that can’t just get the hell out like us.
And there’s no getting the hell away from the smoke. We barely managed to beat it back home, giving us a day of clear air (pool party, woohoo!) before being engulfed once again. Over a week on and the view on our home turf sunrise walk was still a dense red fireball sun obscured, almost eclipsed by smoke particles. Couple that with the heat (118F/ 48C on our first day back!! Calmed down since then but there’s no sign of autumn here just yet) and we’re about ready to head off again.
The only question is where…