So here I sit, in a hotel in Lone Pine CA, in the heart of the Owens Valley (one of my favorite places to go just to get away.) Spent the day MTBing in the Alabama Hills all by my lonesome... with a camera.





The weather is perfect-by the time I got the gear on at the trailhead, it was about 70f, and it climbed to about 75f- with a light cool breeze from the west, off the high Sierras. I had to fight hoards of black gnats- great swirling balls of the little beasts- near all the rock formations. They forced me back from more than one spot that I wanted to stop and take a photo from. I cycled back to the truck and found the 'OFF' which only helped a little. Those little beasts don't care that they are supposed to be repelled by Deet, maybe they did not read the instructions? Oh well, they seemed to retreat as the day progressed and I got back to my tooling around. Great day.