Isn’t that a nice feeling? You go along in life, wondering why you are the way you are, wondering if anyone else has ever done the same things, wondering if you will ever meet anyone else who gets you. . . not that I care about other people’s opinions, but sometimes it does get lonely being so highly individualized. So, there I was in North Carolina, just finding my way along, and learning about family when my Mom told me that my great-grandmother, Martha Bob, KNIT AND READ AT THE SAME TIME!!! This was a huge revelation, an AHA moment, a light going off in my head. I realized at that very moment, if I am weird, it is an inherited trait. If I am special, it is in my genes. All this, and Cousin Hazel has a knitting shop too! 
A Quest
My maternal grandmother, AKA Grandma, was one of 12 children born to Martha Bob and Edward Elisha in the hills of North Carolina. Of the 7 girls, she was the only one to attend and graduate from high school, leave North Carolina, and eventually get her driver’s license! (Such a maverick, that G’ma of mine!) Last week I had the privilege and joy of spending time in the town of Blowing Rock, North Carolina, where she went to high school. The natives call them mountains because it is high and cool for NC, but as a Californian who spends much time in Mineral King, I think of them as beautiful green hills covered in deciduous trees. The town was just wonderful – a Carmel/Mendocino type place whose population swells from 1500 to 20,000 in the summer. Every yard has flowers, every porch has chairs (usually rockers), and every person is as nice as can be. I loved the architecture, the lakes, the trails, the history, the learning of where G’ma grew up, and meeting my Mom’s first cousins.
The school that G’ma attended was only there from 1918 – 1927, so I had to be content with photos o the present structure.
The rock gymnasium was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.
Gaposis
Back in the day when I used a real camera, a complicated drawing might take 2 rolls of film. Now that the restraint of “wasting film” has been obliterated, I take as many photos as I want! It is such a nice thing to never stop to change rolls. Despite the abundance of images, there are always more needed. That is why there is a large gap in the middle of this drawing.
Here is the right side so you can see a bit more detail. The stone steps are so beautiful that I forget to admire the (unfinished) river!
Mineral King Wildflowers, continued
Mineral King Wildflowers
I own 4 wildflower books. It isn’t enough. There are so many flowers whose names I can’t find. Why does this matter? Given that man’s first job was to name the animals, perhaps I am just following in the foots of my oldest ancestor! Today, let’s look at white flowers whose names I do know.
rein orchis (I know it is weird!)
knot weed (lacy and gorgeous – shouldn’t be called “weed”!)
mariposa lily (with an ant on it)
pennyroyal (just as fragrant as its domestic cousin by the same name)
wild geranium (not like the pelargonium we mistakenly call geraniums)
ranger button
Sharing Mineral King, part 2
On day 2 in Mineral King, S’s younger daughter woke up very excited to go fishing with Michael. She is highly competitive and it is reported that the first words from her mouth that a.m. were “I’m going to smoke that old man!”
“That old man” had to get his fly rod ready for the challenge. (He wasn’t worried.)
The girls used live crickets (gross!) and worms (also gross!)
“That old man” smoked the girls!
Sharing Mineral King
If you have been a follower of this blog for 2 years, you may have read of my good friend S. (Did some painting in her dining room, and called her when I had a huge rattler that I was too weenie to deal with). We made arrangements for S and her 2 daughters to spend a few days with us in Mineral King. (Don’t worry about Mr. S – he was fishing in Alaska!) Wow, I sometimes forget how fun it is to see a newcomer’s excitement! S has been up before, but her daughters were in a state of high enthusiasm for the place. We first visited a waterfall that has a mining tunnel at the base:
The maps call it “Black Wolf” – we call it “Monarch”. Unless you have followed the somewhat sketchy trail to its base, you probably won’t recognize it from this angle.
It was creepy, slimy, dark, wet and cold in the tunnel. Doesn’t that sound inviting? 😎
Saw a wild rose, which isn’t all that common in Mineral King!
We barbecued pizza for dinner and enjoyed it around a warming fire. It is so shocking to want a fire when it is 100+ degrees down the hill!
That Yellow Flower in Mineral King
There is a flower that blooms in profusion in Mineral King. It has been incorrectly called “mule ears”, “arnica” and “sneezeweed”. I know all those, and this isn’t them. It appears to be in the sunflower family and always looks scraggly, even when first in bloom.
I tend to think of it as “oh, that yellow thing”. But look at That Yellow Thing in a group:
Day Fourteen On The Mural
Day Thirteen on the Mural
This is the before and after of today’s painting session:
Doesn’t look as if there is a great deal of real estate to be covered here. Looks can fool you! Because each photo was taken from a different vantage point, I keep getting confused as to which level of rocks, individual rocks, trees and shrubs are coming from which photo!
My back sort of hurts from shoving that boulder over. It is a weird shape now, but my photo has it cut off. I’ll work on a more believable redesign tomorrow, along with finishing all that white space and getting the trail to turn to the left.