Black Chasm Cavern and Mokelumne

This cavern is one of a few caverns which have helictite crystals in US. It was originally my first choice of caverns I wanted to visit, but I visited California cavern and Moaning cavern first. 

This guy is the tour guide. He said his sinus infection was cured after started working for this cave. A type of mold inside of the cave cured it

 Blue lake underneath. 

You see a dragon? I was wondering why this cavern's gift shop sells dragon stuff. 

All three caves are different and we enjoyed each one. Natural air conditioning of 59 degrees was great! After the cave, we headed to Mokelumne Hill, which is another old cute town. I was hoping to stop by Mokelumne river and we found the access to the river! It was a nice treat! The water was rapid and cold. The sound was healing  

My collection of marble stones 

Blue one is a dead shrimp or a craw fish.

Ken didn't touch the water. I should've brought his sandals 

I have never taken a good selfie. This is the first one I like 

Ken was bored, so we headed to Mokelumne Hill. This is such a cute town and no traffic!

Hotel Leger is also a historical building and haunted. We accomplished visiting three haunted historical hotels! 

I was afraid of going inside for many reasons, but I was so thirsty.

Somewhat spooky. 

 Saloon where we drunk coke.

We ended up with eating dinner here.

This is the third ribeye steak Ken ordered in the row 

I was too full because I was constipated, but I went to the bathroom twice there. I am pretty bold that I go to the bathrooms of haunted hotels alone 

We did similar things as our last trip to Cavern city. I didn't enjoy as much as last time due to my back pain and hot weather, but still refreshing. We did all I planned for in two days instead of three days originally planed 

Walking in Gold Miner Towns

Day started from the historic district around Imperial hotel. Beautiful and charming place, but it was already 97 degrees. My sweat was dripping 

 This is Imperial Hotel where we didn't stay 

Then we went to another town called Jackson, which is also mostly antique stores. 

The buildings in Jackson are beautiful western style, but modern cars parked on the street ruin the atmosphea.

Ken was already hungry, so we ate at the restaurant in National Hotel. This hotel is also haunted. 

He ate another ribeye  I ate only soup because I was so full from Days Inn's continental breakfast. 

Amador City

My back is somewhat better. We cancelled our hotel reservation due to the back problem once,  but we decided to come to Amador City a day later making one night stay instead of two nights. I am addicted to these small rustic towns since last Murphy trip. Today we came to Sutter Creek. We left our house in the afternoon, so it was little too late for a cave tour.

Here is the Free Masons' gathering place 

We had a nice afternoon meal at Hotel Sutter. 

Ken is happy drinking 

We don't like crowded places. We love fewer people and great food in small towns. This is one of the best fish and chips I've ever had 

These gold miner towns have many haunted hotels. I misunderstood that this hotel was haunted. Actually Sutter Creek Inn is the one, which is haunted. It is pretty nice place. I would've stayed here if it wasn't haunted. 

 

Then we looked for a hotel since we cancelled our reservation at Imperial Hotel. We drove to Jackson Casino hotel, but it was sold out. We came back to Imperial Hotel for a down graded room (original reserved room was sold out). This hotel is also haunted, but our original reservation was in the cottage, which is located away from the haunted main building. Good thing I asked if we could see the room first. The cottage is located on unpaved road on the hill. It smelt mildewy and was humid! We turned it down, but I still wanted to eat at the restaurant later. We decided to stay in Days Inn,  which is a half price of the Imperial hotel  Days Inn's room is ordinary, but it is clean and cool! We like it! After chilling a little bit, we went back to the Imperial Hotel for dinner. I think we don't have much luck with this hotel. The last order was just finished, but I took a picture of their ghost certificate! The lady at the front desk said the ghost story is not true, but I see it here! 

In 1904, the reward for a wanted murderer was 100 bucks! 

We will come back to this part of the town tomorrow morning. It's a very cute antique town.

The town is so small. Only two restaurants were open after 8pm. Hotel Sutter and the pub across the street. Too bad the pub had a karaoke night, so we came back to the same restaurant at the same table 

The day time chef was better. The food was salty at night. 

should I write only good things?

I feel crappy recently. My back has been hurting and I can't stand up straight for almost one month. Carrying heavy equipment and pushing 500 lb stuff at work aggravated it. I had to go through a gig with this condition. 

 Using a lighter equipment didn't sound right but people post videos no matter what. I haven't been able to practice guitar for a long time because sitting is the worst position and delays my back healing. Just going to work and multiple chiropractors and at home laying down frustrate me so much. All I had been doing is checking my phone or watching YouTube while laying down. By doing so I found my favorite female guitar players' age. They could be my daughters. Being young has so many  opportunities in front of you. Me, old fart lol. I shouldn't be complaining about this because I think I am lucky to be able to get this much attention as a female guitar player now and it is not even my real occupation. And my band mates are all around my age. 

I am just so tired of fixing my guitars' intonation though. None of good technicians could fix them (custom made short scale with D tuning). I was kinda giving up, but my music ears hate the sound of some chords on my guitars. While my back hurt so much, I went shopping for a temporary replacement. I don't even know if I keep this guitar or not, but it is so light weight and has a good warmly bar and 24 frets at only $499! It is a replica of Steve Vai's model. The real one is made in Japan and triple expensive. I have 45 days to rerun this guitar, so I just try and see. You know you just want to get over with shopping while in pain. 

Some problems though... it is in standard tuning. I am still debating if I should drop it or use it as is. Plus this guitar model was used by the previous guitar player of my current band. She will probably freak out if I use the same model. My tiger guitar is more famous than my face lol. Checking out this guitar with my back problem.....  Oh and yesterday I got food poisoning! We went to eat ramen and cashew ice cream, both my favorite and went grocery shopping afterwords. At the grocery store, my stomach started feeling weird and I had to go to the bathroom. Either ramen or cashew ice cream was bad  I kept going back to this bathroom, which is located outside in the different building on the second floor! I went back and forth on 4 flight stairs between the store and the bathroom at least three times  Imagine this with backache! And the store closed and the grocery shopping was never done! My left arm hurts, too. It is trying to get out of the socket again because I supported my back with my arm on the car ride too long yesterday. Just tuning a brand new guitar is painful with this arm. Also slight headache from yesterday is still here. I wonder when I start feeling better. I have a gig this weekend.... Only good things should come to me because I experienced the worst already! Just finished watching a Japanese show, Kanna san. Good show. She gives me power. Time to practice! 

Last couple of weeks

A lot of things happened in last couple of weeks.

Starting on Father's Day, which was the hottest day of the year so far (over 100 Fahrenheit) we had to go shopping for cars  Ken's car broke down and I had to pick him up in the middle of a night losing sleep. It wasn't the first time. I was so tired of worrying about safety and unreliablility of a main transportation. It was time to do it. Always buying an expensive thing should be a great experience, but not in America. Very stressful experience reading and signing contracts. Originally we were just gonna replace Ken's car, but ended up with buying two  I didn't want to worry about breaking down, so I wanted a new car. The cheapest car that our equipment fits in was $17000. I really didn't want to spend that much money and not even my car! The salesman thought we were trading in my car, which was only two year old Scion. I was surprised they discontinued Scion brand and I worried about the future resale value. Then I had an idea to buy a new car for me, too, trading up. The numbers they suggested was beyond our budget, so we were gonna walk away, then the salesman lowered the price somewhere in the middle. It was an acceptable offer. Two brand new cars for $22222! Only draw back was they are not fully made in Japan, but we couldn't afford better one. So now we have two identical cars  I chose black for Ken and white for me, just like a wedding dress! I hope these cars last long because probably we won't be able to afford buying two cars at once in the future lol. I just got an unexpected bonus at work for selling very expensive items (I am a salesman at my day job). 

Then my band played at Club Fox headlining as you saw my last blog. It is a big deal to me! 

Then we played at the motorcycle festival. We played there before, but 4 hours of stage was always tough! Plus this year, the load in was pain in the ass! They don't think about musicians! I was pushing heavy Marshall cabinet and heads for more than three blocks! 

Recovering from muscleache takes more than a couple of days nowadays because I am a year older than that day! Yes the following day was my birthday. I got over 500 birthday messages on my Facebook timeline  I am so thankful to friends, family and fans. Ken took me to my favorite restaurant. We are used to go out weekdays, which is not crowded. But my birthday was Saturday this year. Very crowded! 

I was unhappy with our table, which had no privacy and decided to go to another restaurant afterwards. Thay gave me a free chocolate parfait without checking my ID. 

These crapes were so good!

Then after a glass of wine, it didn't matter anymore  I just wanted to go sleep lol. I look so red. 

We just watched sunset at the natural bridge and went home.

Today we are celebrating 4th of July just sitting in our backyard 

Storage for my gig pictures

We were notified to play this legendary place two weeks ago. For last minute notice, the turn out wasn't bad. These are the work of one of three great photographers who showed up to the gig. This blog's purpose is to store my pictures. 

 Fat arms

 

Oh this one just came in. I have to include this. This was taken by a different photographer, but this guy makes me look like a Japanese pop star girl. I look 20 years younger lol

Moaning Cavern

Everybody in this town says Moaning Cavern is good, so we decided to go there. It was only 10 minutes away from Murphy. We ate breakfast in Murphy. This town's food is everything delicious! 

I like a rustic and charming  town like this because I am into antique furniture. Stopping by the antique store.

Here we are starting a tour. They built 235 steps down in Moaning Cavern but it is deeper than that. There is a tour that goes through the hole with ropes, but of course we just did a walking tour  

The human skull on the display is 1200 years old. Some people got stuck there and couldn't get out at that time. 

We were allowed to tough and pad the walls at the beginning part. They are hollow and make a nice percussion like sound. 

From here we went down the spiral stairs. Chocolate draperies 

Since this cavern is so deep, the draperies are very long and impressive. It is different from California cavern, which is almost flat. I am glad that we did both.

They are said 400000 years old. Did the earth exist that long ago? 

The camera can take only partial view at one time so it can't show how big and deep it is.

The tour guide lady turned off all the lights and we experienced total darkness! 

Without flash 

With flash

Water was dripping. This is the process of the formation. 

On the way back, another traffic! It was a mountain fire! The fire was right next to the road!

Coming back to our area. We ate at the restaurant which Ken sometimes plays. 

Murphy

I am enjoying this trip so much! I didn't know there are many more nice places that I still haven't been in California. We found the cutest fairytale like shop on the road.This flower shop has cute play houses on display. If I were local, I would've purchased one! 

Then we stopped by a little town called Murphy. The tour guide lady told us that she likes this town.  

When I was looking for a hotel online, I saw this hotel is haunted. 

So we didn't want to stay here. We drove about 15 minutes north and took a king bed room at Meadowmont Lodge. This room is located on the corner and the biggest room at this hotel. We like here! Nice wooden furniture and a big bathroom.

A nice sitting area is in front of our room. 

Mostly made with wood including the bed and hard wood floor. I guess this area has many red woods available. 

Then we went back to Murphy's hotel for dinner. I took this picture with the timer on, so my legs are not in the place 

I don't like alcohol, but this Tanner Vermentino, Calaveras was very good that I almost finished the whole glass. 

California cavern

I had been covering coworkers and continueing working last few weeks. If I don't have enough day offs, my brain never stops thinking about work plus my sassy workers talked back to me and coworkers were complaining, I was so exhausted and needed a break. So today, we visited California cavern. I always wanted to go there, but I kept missing the opportunities because it is three hour drive and it is in the middle of nowhere. We spent too much money on the aurora & tulip trip, so I needed a mini trip. When we just got on the freeway, cars were bumper to bumper! It was so rare to have a traffic around 11am. Ah! This is the cause of the traffic! Horses are on the freeway LOL. 

After a couple of hours of driving,  we are at the California cavern. Right on the schedule!

Short legs 

Luckily there were no school trips scheduled. We were the only two people at the tour. Private tour! The poor tour guide lady became our camera man 

This cave was found in 1849. They keep the people's writings from that time on the rock.

Pretty amazing! Formation takes 150 plus years. 0.005 inches every year. They look scary like satanic features. 

Here the tour guide lady took nice pictures of us!

Without flash

With flash

People get married here! 

Some parts of the cave were still under the water and we couldn't go there. Another month or two, the water will be cleared and the parts will be accessible. Too bad that they said this room is the most beautiful room 

Without flash

With flash

Arch

Original enterance

Miners used to eat these. 

Since some parts were under water, we had to exit and go to the different enterance. Here are the pictures of the other side.

Beautiful limestones

From this hole, people go inside. There is a special tour for this. 

This area is full of animals! We saw a wild turkey, sheep, goats, limas, and the cow with horns (bull)!

Ams - Fin Trip Day 9

We came back home yesterday. I didn't have a chance to update my blog until now.

The final day for sightseeing in Amsterdam. Always a day before flying, I want to be easy. Our plan was to walk to blue boat station to catch the self paddling boat. The hotel concierge suggested a nice route. 

On the way we were supposed to see the flea market and flower market. At the flea market, I found a nice belt porch and clothing! I was very happy because I didn't expect to have time to do shopping for clothes. 

I think this is called Dam square???

We had a lot of clothes to carry, so we went back to the hotel to drop them. Let's go again lol. Our hotel exterior walls have a lot of faces.

We took a slightly different route. Passing the flea market again.

Then we got lost! More extra walk We turned around and never made it to the flower market. It's ok! I think we saw enough flowers already lol. We bought water on the way. This water is interesting. It has mint and fruit in the bottle. 

We passed Heineken exhibition. Ken's favorite beer! 

Then museum.

We went to see Van Gogh museum.

I think photos are prohibited, but a few people were taking them, so I took one quickly  His self- portrait.

I studied art history when I was in college, but I forgot it. I heared his sad life story, but I didn't know he was so into Japanese art until I visited this museum. He was influenced by Japanese wood curving stamp art and he got rid of shadows on his painting. 

This is the place that you must come when you visit Amsterdam. It says I amsterdam   

Too many people on the letters. 

Then we went back to do Heineken experience. 

It wasn't interesting for me, but Ken liked free beer  There were self entertaining things. On this ride, water spilled all over Ken's pants! We thought it was the part of the ride, but it was the water we bought in his pocket. The cap wasn't tightened enough  

After the experience, the paddling boat was already closed. Ken is not a good swimmer, so he didn't want to do it. We are at this middle of the road restaurant.

Nice sunset.

Haha!