Yeah, we had clean, clear air all day on the Fourth of July! Ahh! So, we went on a picnic to Condon Park in Grass Valley. Hadn't been there, yet. It's a large, wooded area with a meeting house, pond, bocce courts, skate park, disc golf, ball fields, picnic areas, etc. The picnic tables are near the frisbee golf course. The only frisbee golf I've ever played is on backpacking trips where we choose a tree or rock as the "hole" as we go.
I like to team up with Dave Kaiser because he's so nice and such a great frisbee tosser that he can well make up for my substantial deficits and not be crabby about it. Oh, the picnic. I'd made sandwiches and stuff, then we picked up "It's Its" at Safeway for dessert. Love them. And I hadn't realized that if you play disc golf, there are proper discs which fit into a proper bag (usually green) to carry around. Of course, there are. I saw no random-vintage day-glo orange Frisbees (sigh).From there, we'd hoped the Grass Valley Museum (also a place we've never been) down the road would be open for a few hours. Isn't the Fourth all about history? We'll try another time.
Then, we drove to one of the trail heads at Empire Mine SHP to hike in the woods, for awhile. It's quite beautiful, plus there's the bonus of old rusty mining equipment scattered about and fenced-off toxic tailings to lend that certain rustic quality to a trek.
I wore my Maui shirt. Hey! Have you seen these color-changing ones? Indoors, they're black and white, and in the sun they turn colors! I love that. Check it out.
And what would the Fourth of July be without seeing an uber-violent sci-fi action flick? So, it was off to Sierra Cinema to see "Wanted". Hint: not for kids. It delivered as promised, and the special effects are very, well, special. Soon, there'll be a "Morgan Freeman" game, along the same lines as the "Kevin Bacon" one. Does he make 25 movies a year? And who looks like Angelina Jolie? She's got to be a cyborg of some kind.
We skipped the local fireworks show. The firefighters are camped at the fairgrounds, so there wasn't any parking. Somehow, I don't know, waiting for the shuttle with thousands of other (very nice, I'm sure) folks at 10:30pm sounded unappealing. So we watched 'em on TV. I know it sounds pathetic. But the Boston Pops show has the best fireworks program in the universe. The one at Washington DC doesn't hold a candle. We've taped them for these last many years and, whether we see local displays, or not, we can always count on being wowed by Boston. Seriously. They're amazing! Don't scoff 'til you've seen them. And I love Keith Lockhart, the Pops' conductor. So cute.
That was it. It was a fine day. Today, the smoke came back.
