A Three Hour Tour...

Burson Rd. 

La Contenta golf course

 

What happens in The Cave I wonder?

Headed towards West Point, outside of Volcano

Love the street name
Town of Volcano

This guy is credited with discovering Carrara marble in our area.

Street view, Volcano

I haven't really been anywhere in about a week or so and yesterday I decided to fix that. In the morning I drove west of my house to visit some of the back roads of Burson.  We are sort of situated at the end of Valley Springs in an area called Rancho Calaveras. To the north of us, roughly, is a large area called Burson. There is a small town there on highway 12 but otherwise it is a vast expanse of land. People have large homes and ranches, keep cattle and horses, and grow things like olives and other fruit type trees. I have taken that shot before and done a small study. I hope that today I will start on a larger painting of that scene.

The second pic shows the side of the golf course behind a small inn. A little creek runs along the edge of the course. I was drawn to the sunlight showing under the bridge and the tree kind of framing that man made structure. Lately, for some reason, I have been drawn to water. Creeks, rivers, ponds and lakes. You name it, if it is cool and green and wet I wanna know about it!

After lunch, I took off for the small village of Volcano. (I say village. It could be a town or a hamlet. I like the way village sounds though.)  We live across the Mokelumne river from the larger town of Jackson. If you head north-east-ish to Jackson, you can hop onto highway 88 and essentially head towards Lake Tahoe. Once I was on 88, I passed through the medium sized town of Pine Grove. On my way to Volcano, I happened across that sign (shown in the 3rd pic). I wonder what goes down in the Masonic cave? Sounds mysterious, no? Our area has a lot of these types of fraternal/pseudo religious organizations: Freemasons, Native Sons of The Golden West, Odd Fellows, etc. I included the picture of the Black Chasm sign to show how the landscape changes as you go higher and higher in elevation. Lots of tall pine type trees and mountains which is different from where we live with our rolling hills and oaks. Once in Volcano, which is just a turn in the road really, I saw those two street signs next to the fire bell, an historic marker of some sort. I liked the juxtaposition of those two sign names.  The sixth pic shows the guy who discovered the cache of carrara marble in our area in the mid 1800's. Buildings all over our state have used this marble in their construction. And lastly, the 5th and wildly overexposed shot shows the downtown area of Volcano. Very green and leafy and cool.  

I am so grateful that we live where we do and that my husband has a job and we have income to support this lifestyle. I saw people yesterday in Jackson picketing. In Jackson of all places where jobs are scarce. I can't imagine what might be wrong. In any event, we are lucky. I don't know that I would trade this landscape for another.

So that was my day. Thanks for coming on the tour and for reading and commenting. Hope everyone has a creative Wednesday.
Libby