Cans, stripes, luck (Carrara NV)

It was a lovely cloudy day on Sunday. I'm still delighted by stunning blue sky days here, but sometimes a brewing storm can be even more beautiful. It wasn't heavy enough to be raining down to ground level much, but the virga/walking clouds were trailing lightly over the hills, and the sunlight was dappling the land through huge crazy cloud patterns.

Raffle prize - a chunk of halite from California.
Approx 25 cm across. Yes, it's pink.

We started out by driving over the hill to Pahrump, where Simon had won two raffle prizes at last week's rock and gem show. (Our batting average lately is astounding, actually. Last time I entered a raffle was at the rock and gem club meeting a few weeks ago, where I also won two prizes, one of them the grand prize. Hey statistics, you just keep looking the other way, okay? Okay.) The prize pickup was handled in a particularly Nevadan way, by meeting up in a casino car park.

Drive to a Bristol tea party (down 93 in White Pine and Lincoln Counties)

After adventures in Ely and Great Basin National Park, we drove home via 93. This highway runs from the Mexican border nearly to Canada. So our route was only a scrap of it - but we've now done most of the Nevada section of it. Which is a start.

Any road around the middle to south of the state of Nevada takes you through Basin and Range country, where the valleys run roughly north/south between those thrilling stripy ranges. Millions of years ago, the crust was stretched thin (lots of vulcanism) and twisted sideways (lots of broken and up-tilted macro chunks of crust.) (Whenever I read about these huge geological processes I just imagine what would happen to piecrust or to sand at the beach, seems to help me visualise it. I expect I need professional help of some kind ...) Since then, erosion has shown us a thousand fascinating ways that stone can weather.

This section of 93 is in the true Great Basin desert. No Joshua trees, not much creosote, but rippling seas of grey-green sagebrush, hip-high or taller, and yellow blond grasses. 'Cedar' (juniper, actually), pine, and aspen cloak the lower slopes of the ranges. Our route starts at a higher elevation, and though crossing several ranges, overall trends downhill.

Summer storm

We had our 4th of July fireworks early last night when a huge thunderstorm came down the valley. It started to get close and spectacular around midnight. Simon went sensibly and seasonably to bed, but I stayed up to watch it for an hour or so.

Full disclosure: reading florid Victorian ethnography* atm. This may get rhapsodic.

At first it was lightning flashes and rare rumbles of thunder. The main part of the storm was east of us and our outlook to the east is not that great, so I was only seeing the sky reflections. The lightning strikes didn't come in ones but in half dozens, flickering like some crazy ball of celestial paparazzi. A few flashes bright enough to dazzle. Belated thunder tells me it's mostly a good ten miles away as the crow flies ( I hear small birds twittering sleepily. Perhaps the storm has kept them awake.)

We passed into some invisible zone around the storm and the wind bowled through, from a fresh, warm and steady breeze to a strong blast, thrashing the trees into constant applause. The sound now is layered from the wind in the trees, the irrigation systems out past the wall, the traffic on the already wet road, and a low rumble of thunder like some noisy midnight neighbours rearranging their furniture, still with the occasional flash and crack of close lightning.

Then the rain, a first few large deliberate drops - a steady incursion into the open doorway - battering the glass in ceaseless barrage. The garden path is quickly an inch deep in water. The street outside looks like a film noir set, streetlight on rain, white buildings and the black pavement with grey clouds above from the city's ambient light.

And the smell, of wet asphalt and concrete and creosote.

Abruptly, several ground strikes of lightning away to the south-east, followed by protracted and complicated thunder. As it rolls by, the rain renews its enthusiasm - but has already spent much of its substance.

The rapid flashes continue, further off now. Like a sleepy child (or middle-aged lady) out in Vegas where the glitter and twinkle keeps pounding on endlessly, my tiredness has overtaken me, I can't watch any more, my eyes won't stay open. Goodnight.

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*Zuni Breadstuff by Cushing. Can't find much about this online so I'll post a review when I'm finished reading it.