Sunday we rented a houseboat with another couple and toodled up the Yuba River on Lake Englebright. The lake was created to help control the massive amounts of water flowing down from the mountains from hydraulic gold mining. Cities and towns downstream had been flooding. Eventually hydraulic mining was outlawed. You can still see the eroded hillsides to this day in old mining areas such as Malakoff Diggins.I was told about the dam by our designated Captain but being myself I wanted to verify my facts. I came across this from a GSA conference, which, had I known, I would have never dipped my precious body into the water.
"Possible management scenarios include lowering or removing Englebright Dam, which could cause the release of stored sediments and associated contaminants, such as mercury used in 19th-century hydraulic gold mining. Transport of released sediment to downstream areas could increase existing hazards including flooding and mercury availability for bioaccumulation." Well, ewww.
This might explain why the bottom of the lake was like stepping into pudding. Pudding that was pushed to the back of the fridge and not discovered for several weeks. Despite the pudding bottom it was a lovely day, and a very hot day. Even the breeze was hot. Sitting in the shade (or not) and pouring cold liquids into your body was the best option. I ate an amazing amount of food. I highly recommend the Triple Chocolate Fudge brownie recipe in this month's Sunset magazine.
Omar and Captain Kim had a good time. I think the Captain had a better time. Oh, the water was very cold.
Random Garden Photos
The Russian sage has reached the peak of its flowering and looking very pretty. If you step in a little closer you can see these guys working hard collecting pollen. As far as they are concerned winter isn't that far off.
posted by Earin Marybird @ 1:00 PM
1 Comments:
I'm cooling off just looking at the water pictures and the pretty flowers. Ahhh. We only have a single-room AC at home for a 2-story open-plan house; it keeps the living room, where it lives, at about 81-82 degrees, which is still better than 95 or worse, so I'm not really complaining... but I do like the idea of jumping in a freezing cold lake. Of course I'd yell about being too cold after that... ;-)
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