Sanchius and Tuna ride again...

[E1]

[sanchius]

One of the nice surprises of Reno is the massive amount of accessible open land so close by.

After putting in some beach time at Lake Tahoe yesterday, I spent the morning exploring some trails on BLM (Ed Abby: Beef, Lumber & Mines) land one ridge over, just 10 minutes from the house.

After giving Tuna her morning run with the bike at a nearby park, I kept driving down the road until it turned into gravel, then dirt, then double-track trails leading up the canyon in the center of the pic below.

This feels like my kind of place, I may have found one of my new goto spots.

The nice compliant Vanagon suspension soaked up the bumps and dips and, even with the bike on the back, it was fun roll down the trail at a pretty good clip.

The dirt trail in these pics is much smoother than some the other "2-ruts & a rock in the middle" or eroded spiky dragon tooth rock trails that are also present .

It may be time to fit the Syncro engine guard I have hanging on the wall and start researching some armor for the bottom of the 2wd fuel tank.

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[Abscate]

Had my 40 th reunion a couple weeks ago and totally forgot to reach out to our mutual connection

Woof woof said the Glitter Monster
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[sanchius]

Next stop on our tour of local MicroBreweries is The Brewer's Cabinet, just south of downtown Reno.
Their new taproom (shown) has better light/ambience than their original site next door.
Pluses were great tasting beer (Dirty Wookie) & nachos and Huskies allowed on the porches and patios.
The service.... well, not so great.

And look what I found just 10 minutes from my front door:

I wonder if this will fit under the engine cover with no mods...

And, speaking of horsepower, I just pulled the trigger on my next time/$ sink^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hproject.
My trusty old Audi Cabriolet is running great, but is yawningly underpowered. So time to sell it before something major breaks.

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[Abscate]

That’s not a ,....British car....is it?
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[jimf909]

[Cobra88]

[Abscate]

I’ve got a leaper you can put on that hood, Sanchius. It will complement the Husky nicely.
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[sanchius]

I left Tunes in NV for the weekend and bounced back to Colorado to hit the Arise music festival with the kids.
(not mine, but one of my favorites there)

But I had a free day before the festival, so I helped my old race buddy Bob shuttle his E-type across Denver to his daughter's sports car shop for an engine swap.

There one of her wrenches had parked his very nice subie-powered Vanagon. Double-decker bus engine for scale.

Inside the shop, there were many pretties

Then we motored back to New Terrain Brewery by the race shop in Golden for something tasty

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[sanchius]

Tuna made it into the Dogpatch duodeptych.

My brother in San Francisco writes...
"A few months ago my friend Sarah started an art project called the Dogs of Dogpatch (a neighborhood in SF just next to bay, just south of the ball park and downtown). Her plan was to paint a dozen canines in a classical portrait style. Sarah secured wall space at a local bar which displays art for a month-long show. About two months ago I was talking with her and she needed a few other dogs to round out the series so I suggested Luna and sent her a few pictures. She asked about what type of classical character would best suit Luna’s personality and the first thing which came to mind: Opera Singer.

Tonight is the formal reception for the Dogs of Dogpatch, but last night I went over to the bar to get a sneak peak."

I think the artist captured the crazed "You have absolutely no idea what I'm about to do next" look just right.

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[Abscate]

F-awesome.

I just spent 10 days away from my half Husk and missed her terribly.
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[sanchius]

This morning we took Tuna for a hike down Griffith Canyon, about 10 miles north of the house.

As we climbed into the foothills, the roads grew worse and worse (or better and better, depending on your perspective) until we found the trailhead at the top of the canyon, parked and started making our way down the dry creek bed path.

Right at the beginning of the hike, Tuna the mighty huntress completely missed the fat little Horned Toad waddling though the dry grass next to the trail...

But she loved chasing the wicked fast lizards, even though they totally had her number and faked her out again and again and again. Fortunately,we didn't come across any buzzworms on this trip.

Chasing lizards is thirsty work.

A bit further down the canyon, we started seeing solitary petroglyphs.

Then whole panels.

We took our time walking back up the canyon, stopping to rest and rehydrate in the cool shade of the tall ancient juniper trees growing in the creek bed.
After getting back to the van, we took the scenic route out and the Vanagon, with its 15" BFG All-Terrain T/A tires, did great on the rough trails, unlike this poor shot-up Suburban that clearly wasn't up to the task.

This, too, was thirsty work, so on the way back into town, we called ahead to the Carolina Barbecue place for some take-out pulled pork sandwiches

and took them over to Revision microbrewery (Huskies allowed!) to enjoy with some yummy craft beers

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[sanchius]

We went out on another Saturday morning adventure today, in search of more petroglyphs.
This time we were going for the Lagomarsino Petroglyphs, about 25 miles away by Virginia City, Nevada, where there are reportedly 1000's of petroglyphs.

Getting up there required climbing Geiger Grade, the wonderfully curvalicious climbing mountain road between Reno and Virginia City.

Up on the Virginia Highlands, we turned off on Long Canyon road where we stopped on the side of the road to have lunch.

Let's take a closer look at that welcome sign...

This is Nevada, so we go anyway.

The road transitioned into a 4WD trail that quickly got rougher and more technical as it descended off the plateau.
The descent was very slow in low gear on a rough rocky trail, part guiding the van, part letting the wheels find their own line so I wouldn't pop a steering ball joint.
We picked up lots of Oregon Pinstripes from the juniper trees growing on the side of the trail scratching along the side of the Van.

We saw lots of traces of wild horses and eventually came across this spring that had been turned into a wild horse watering trough.

Just below the trough, the trail became so technical that we decided to bail before we got stuck or seriously damaged something.
Traveling alone, a popped CV or really just about anything would turn this fun outing into an expensive disaster.
While we only made it about a third of the way to the petroglyphs, they've been there for 5000 years, they're not going anywhere

The nice part was that right by the little spring where we turned around was a stream and some massive cottonwood trees.
We parked in the shade to cool off and got out to hike a bit and stretch our legs.

There, we used the cover of an old stone wall to sneak up on a herd of about 35 wild horses.

Then it was back up the rocky 4WD trail onto the Virginia Highlands.
Other then getting a little warm when I really had to gun it bailing off the trail, the van did great the whole day.

Since we were so close to Virginia City, we cruised into town watch the steam train and chat with the folks working there.

On the way back in Reno, we decided to take the Old Virginia Toll road down.
It looked great on the map but turned out be rougher and even more technical than the trail we'd bailed on earlier, with steep walls on one side and 100ft drop offs on the other.

It was a good thing there were no complete washouts, because I doubt we could have climbed back up out of that road.

Once back in Reno, we had a cool-down celebration stout at Brewers Cabinet before heading home.

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[jimf909]

[sanchius]

[Abscate]

Woof woof woof says Tuna.


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[sanchius]

[sanchius]

The week before the Reno Air Races is the Great Reno Balloon Race.

So, we went over to check out the 7am mass ascension.

First, we watched them go up...

and then we watched them come down.

It was a very nice way to start the day.

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[Steve Arndt]

The elephant balloon was in Boise last week.
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Steve's 87 Syncro project

[Abscate]

Slight thread Husky jack

Ellie the Black Lab- SHep mix is still with us and doing well on 40 units NHP per day. A little grumpy some days but very attached - never more than a meter away when Im home. Enjoying the cats more too, who jump over her now.
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