Snow Shoing in what is left of the pitiful snowpack

This past weekend, I joined a friend for a quick trip up North of SF to go Snow Shoeing. I had never done this before, but I figured it would be good for me both physically and mentally. A little time outside and some movement to keep my Weight Watchers work up (37.5 pounds down now!). So I pack up DP and Mr Monk and we head out at the CRACK of dawn...and I see this bright orange thing in the sky, real low to the ground. Frightened, I photograph it for posterity:

It only took us 2.5 hours to get from the Coast to Nevada City.
Nevada City was, well, pretty much closed up, although we did find a fantastic used book store and some great old buildings to photograph:

We met up with my friend's friends, who have this nice spread in Grass Valley on 7 acres. They were kind enough to feed us and we brought some Chaplin movies to pass the time - Nothing like "The Kid" and "The Great Dictator" as a double feature!

While up there, we decided to check out some old cemeteries and got some great photos:

Then it was off to snow shoe! First you had to actually put on the shoes:

DP and Mr Monk suited up as well

Here are just a few of the nice shots I took:

And some of the photos I took of Mr Monk and DP:

Two things I learned here:

First Thing: On the Internet, there are websites devoted to "Treasure Hunting". Apparently, people all over the world bury boxes of little treasure in spots, then put the GPS coordinates on the website. People go to the site, download the GPS info, and head out to find the treasure. This cemetery near Grass valley has such a site, and our intrepid guide Dick showed up where it was:

All those things in the box are trinkets that people leave when they have discovered the treasure site. Then they re-bury it, and someone else will find it another time. I had no idea shenanigans such as this were going on in the world!

Second thing I learned:

Mistletoe grows on bare trees on the limbs:

I was fascinated by these clumps on all these bare trees and finally asked our intrepid guides what the hell those clumps were. You learn something new every day, I guess.

There are a lot more photos, but I'll have to add a slide show in order to show them all! Here is a final image in the meantime: