July 1  Steve and I drove back to Palmdale, and also visited my brother’s family in LA.  Steve’s parents live in an unincorporated area, and the fireworks were amazing- professional quality, and all from the same supplier, it seems.  I stood in the dark, and rotating 360 degrees, I counted 30 separate independent displays.   On the return trip, we crossed over into the White Mountains to camp in the Bristlecone Pines at 11,000 feet-  I got a terrible headache from the extreme altitude.  We drove the orange 2×4 Datsun truck down the mountain, thinking if it got too extreme we could turn back–but of course, there was no way to turn around.  The road got scarier and hairier as we came down through the stream that got ever deeper as it crossed the switchbacks.  The last crossing almost came in the door of the truck, but we made it, coming out at the Laws railroad museum.  From there we went up the Eastern Sierras via 395 and explored the then-abandoned Tioga Lodge above Mono Lake, then took Rt 108 up through the Dardanelles, camping at Brightman Flat.

July 22 we headed north from Berkeley past Island Mountain, a patch on the map that Steve had circled many times in fascination, never finding a way in.  We had no more luck this time, it being fenced and private from any angle.   There were several abandoned cabins back in the woody wilds, and we stopped to photograph and dream  and check a couple of them out.  We headed up to Six Rivers and camped on the Van Duzen River, Road 2517 and Kettenpom.  In the creek, I collected a dozen black river rocks, drawing landscapes on them with colored pencils.  This was my first time shooting the 22, and Steve named me Dead Eye.  I just had a talent for it.  We came across Ft. Seward, where there was an abandoned auto repair and service station, and we easily entered the building where we found an office frozen in dust, and a storeroom full of auto parts from 1963.  I was sorely tempted to take the calender showing that year’s new models of Rambler and Studebakers  .  .  .   but we left it, encased in time.  There was also an old school building with giant abandoned professional kitchen appliances and coolers, and a defunct railway station.

And then, again, Labor Day in Rollerville, after which I began a course in Landscape Design at Merritt College in Oakland.  In October we took day trips to Mt. Diablo and Black Diamond Mine (much covered with housing sprawl now) where I took the photographs that became my Mt. Diablo painting–oh! I don’t have a photo of that painting!

In December we took the Mazda for one night in Saline Valley (via Red Rock Canyon site #12) waking up to Rain! and Snow! where we barely made it through the pass at 7000 feet–and then to Palmdale for Christmas and exploring El Mirage Dry Lake and the Buttes–I saw 10 acres for $8,000– or, could have been 1993–and again, I left my heart in the desert.