Getaway

I took a weekend away. I intended on driving up I-80 looking for a used to be Port to take pictures. I had heard that Port Costa was a good place to start, but upon arrival I found an interesting however small, used to be , town.

I walked around and took some pictures of the area. I thought about having a beer in the very quaint, and definitely my style bar/restaurant. But it was only one in the afternoon and I still felt like I had a long day ahead of me. I decided I’d keep driving. I felt the pull of the mountains calling me. Having not spent much time in the Sierra’s, but the knowledge of them constantly teasing me to make my way out there. I had packed some light camping stuff just in case I found myself far away from home, and a part of me was really hoping I would.

I drove for about six hours, and ended up near the Bear Valley Ski Area. I saw a mountain pass on my atlas and decided that would be my destination. The towns I passed were occupied by less than a hundred people and as the elevation increased the populations only got smaller. This was definitely what I was looking for.

The plan was to buy some groceries and cook some food on my camp stove at where ever I found to crash for the night. I couldn’t find a grocery store with enough of a selection to eat from, and ended up stopping at a place called “Double Burger” which specializes in, go ahead guess.

That sloppy greasy six dollar stack of what once probably resembled meat filled me up, and I took off on down the road heading for yet higher elevations and camping.

I hadn’t taken very many pictures up to this point, except for a handful in Port Costa, but, and this is a big but here, I had been playing around with a new lightmeter for my RB67 and forgot to reset the ISO to the film I was using… which means I exposed the 50 ISO film I was shooting at 1000 ISO. Yup that’s fifty versus one thousand, not a typo. Way beyond what could have been salvaged through push processing. Laughing it off, after a brief bout with anger over the discovery, I changed the lightmeter to 50 and exposed the rest of the roll at various scenics, and lakes en route to my night stay.

I found a great camping site just off the main road. An inconspicious dirt road that passed through tight trees and rocks into a larger circular clearing. I took these pictures as I waited for nightfall.

I meditated in the sunrise the next morning. Perched on top of a large outcropping of rocks over looking the single lane highway (single lane as in no yellow line single), the valley, and far off mountains. It was a great weekend. I shot three rolls in the RB.