Photoessay #1437 - Caples and Carson

My pictures are getting way ahead of my writing! Yesterday morning it snowed and sleeted. Snow was sticking. Dennis thought (erroneously it turned out) that our modest hike was out. As the snow melted (not all of it, there’s still snow up here), he suggested that this might be a good day to take a drive. He suspected that Caples Lake, the next lake up the road, might be the lake that we remembered.

Off we went. Later, I find out that there was an advisory to not drive on Hwy 88 before 11am. Oops. Pretty snowy, did not look like the end of June. Caples Lake is 7 miles up the road and 1000 feet higher in elevation (over 8000). Yes, I think that’s it, that lake we remembered from just after we married is Caples Lake (pictured) not Silver Lake. There was a small resort there but they weren’t open yet.

On to Carson Pass (8500 ft elevation). We try to find a letterbox near there but too bright, too much climbing and too much snow. There were a bunch of official vehicles, the avalanche folks, Dennis figures so maybe don’t stick around. We go back to Carson Pass, there’s a small information center. We enter the little cabin and are greeted warmly by two older volunteers who invite us to come in and sit by the stove and introduce us to Daisy (pictured). We chat and purchase a poster of wildflowers of the Sierra Nevada.

We return to Kit Carson and were astonished and the amount of snow that melted just in the hour or two we had been gone. And the temperature in our car only showed 37 degrees.

A little while later, a staff member knocks on our door and asks if we have a daughter named Naomi. She’s been calling trying to get in touch with us. Uh oh. Really scares me and Dennis and I go to the office and call. Turns out that Teddy had something in his eye big time. Naomi took him to vet, they told her it was serious and she needed to go to the specialist vet immediately. Which she did and they did something and said he had to be very quiet for 5 days, even gave him sedatives. If he messes up the blood vessel, he has to have more surgery. Naomi paid $328 for their services. Naomi and Matt are taking shifts caring for him. He’s only 2 years old! He’s just accident prone and a cost center. I know it sounds weird but it’s almost like we have to drag him to the vet every time he stops eating. He wouldn’t eat on Saturday. Last time he did that, turned out he had a foot infection.