Here is a trip where I vividly remember Steve catching a Rockfish, deep red-and-black scales and pale turquoise flesh that turned white when cooked, delicious.  Sorry, Fish!  Thank you!

I stayed in camp and drew some mushrooms growing under the trees in color pencil, adding India ink later.  They looked tasty, too, but I am not a Mycologist.

Boletus at Gerstle Cove

July 5,  Portland shopping mall nightmare!  Since being laid off from the Body Shop I have a greater aversion to the indoor shopping experience than ever before.  I miss the little neighborhood shops and cafes of inner Portland.  On the trip up we stopped in at a stinky, stale, tiny motel room with the tv blasting, a short walk from the beach in the last slanting rays of sunset.  For some reason I lost it, panicky, pacing the room like a caged animal.  I am so hungry for nature–but I didn’t want to go alone.  July 4 we had wonderful brunch at Edgefield with my  mom, brother, and sister -in-law.

The next day we went fishing with Jo and the kids

7/6  at Elk Lake,

Steve in his element

7/8 Santiam River, Whispering Falls Campground.  Steve drove his sister’s 4Runner, Big Red, on a bumpety, muddy road to get to the campground.  All the time they’ve had it, Jo said they never used the 4×4.

7/13, Portland, and Powell’s books, a store I can get lost in.

7/14 heading home-Rt 126 out of Florence in the horizontal forest of lumber country. Site 13, almost no one here.

In August we took another trip up to Ukiah, Cloverdale, Stewart’s Point, checking out  more cool abandoned old farm houses.  The next week I began Illustration class at Laney College.  One piece I did there was this Prismacolor and Rapidograph drawing of a Western, or two-tailed Swallowtail (based on the vivid striping pattern–tails were damaged) from a photograph I took at Santiam River.  Caterpillars added later, they are wrong–I think they are Tiger Swallowtail ‘pillars.  Can’t find my Caterpillar guide book.

In Spring of 1992, just before I lost my job. we took two weeks vacation to Chaco Canyon and the Four Corners region.  We got a camper shell for the Datsun pickup (christened “Desert Master”), and headed out over the Sierras in search of Saline Valley to get our desert high together.  We camped the first night near the Owens River, the second at Burro Springs,

Steve checking the map at burro springs

a desolate salt-and-sand wasteland at the edge of the Owens Valley.

Steel Pass Road

To our extreme luck, although we drove around Eureka Valley Dune we did not recognize the route into Saline.  (A few seasons later we took this route, Steel Pass, and it was treacherous even with the 4×4. )

We headed down through Hoover Dam to Flagstaff where we bought sleeping bags, then went south to find the remnants of an old hot spring resort on the Verde River.   After the shock of seeing the sacrilege that was Sedona, we headed west following old Route 66 through Two Guns, Winslow, and Meteor Crater to  .  .  Anasazi Ruins and National park tour of Utah

Chaco Canyon was difficult to photograph well, so many of the photographs were taken in the bright daylight, washed out and hardly worth posting.

Mesa Verde, Aztec Ruins and Museum and Hovenweep! Incredible.  We camped the night of April 13 there, alone but for the lightening storm and critters, and unknown wraiths in the night.

Steve at Hovenweep

Beautiful Escalante, with beautiful modern ruins, and modest farms against spectacular cliff faces.

Cedar Breaks, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Natural Bridges, we had the Golden Access Pass and drove through each of the National Parks along the southern route through Utah.

So many trips we took!  It’s daunting to track them all down.  Through late 2005 we took film snapshots, and I still have three shoe box size files of them, after severe culling.  .   Many are sorted and labeled, but quite a few are not.   Many cameras, film and digital–photos in boxes and books and files on my hard drive.  Notebooks are pretty random, too.  Sometimes I had a special book for traveling, sometimes I took a journal I was in the middle of.  Much of what you read here is directly copied from journals and sketchbook notes written at the time, or scribbled on file cards in the photo boxes.

Little Hot Creek, last trip, Summer 2012.  Photo by Steve

Here is one list:

Santa Cruz  1/12/92

East Bay Hills Fire Zone 1/21/92

Pt Reyes Mushroom picking  3/8/92

Sailing 4/4/92

Angel Island 4/16/92

Sailing with Patricie, Rich, Steve5/23/92

Miwoks, Pt Reyes w Lynn 6/7/92

Camping w Jo, 7/6 Idanha, Whispering Falls, Santiam River

Long Beach, Washington 7/14

Florence, Clay Creek, Suislaw 7/15

Ferndale 7/16

China Camp 8/2

Illustration Class 8/27

Murpheys, car show 9/12

Big Trees 9/13

Letts Lake 9/20

Mendocino National Forest 9/2–Acorns and Oaks drawing

Gerstle Cove 11/13  Mushroom drawing

Portland, Christmas 12/19/92

I have three no-longer available ITOYA portfolios that each hold 120 photographs–two I dedicate to actual film photographs, which dwindle out after I got my first digital Nikon in late 2005.  Not sure about the later images, where and how to sort and store them.  So many are now on my computer, but a few representative prints would be good to fill these out.

We would take Sunday drives up the coast, or to eat Italian Dinners in Occidental, or to Lake Berryessa for burgers, just driving the back roads in the old Datsun.  Gas was so cheap then.   I remember a sign in Forest Knolls that said $1.75 a gallon for several years–that was too high, by 25-50 cents.  We’d get stuck somewhere and have to use our wits to get home.

Too far for AAA, sometimes.  No credit card to speak of except for emergencies.  So, we’d figure it out.  Dumb Luck, sometimes.

January 92 dead battery at Jenner

March 1992 sun spots at Limantour Beach

We would check out old houses, beautiful properties left derelict, later to find they had burned to the ground, like this beauty,  or mowed over for vineyards.

February 92 abandoned house near Berryessa

April 1992  abandoned house

Abandoned church near Ferndale