Another night at Sues to sleep off a wonderful Italian Dinner that Diana & Aaron took us out for the night before, we headed out one more time to photograph the animals at Animal Ark.

The one animal which I did not have good photographs of is their Snow Leopard. She is now living in a very nice naturalistic enclosure and I was hoping to get some good photos of her, but she continued to be uncooperative hanging out mostly at the back of the enclosure where she was more comfortable. So, I went over and took photographs of their new raccoon. She is also shy, but very sweet and came out for banana slices so I was able to take a few 'real' photos of her, but no digital.

Saving the best for last, back to the wolves :-) This time we let both Arctics, Reyna & Loki, out into the yard to play and have their photos taken. It was hard to take 'good' photos of them with the digital camera, but I'm hoping I have a few pretty pix from my F5. Meanwhile,I got some really fun and cute photos of them with Paul and Sue.

Of course we can't forget Nischa. She is Chetan's sister and half sister to Marion the Barbarian. Nisha is very high strung and quite rowdy, but certainly no Marion. On the contrary, Nisha is quite sweet. Hyper but sweet. She was shaking and trembling while she greeted. She could not get enough for about 20 minutes -- then she was done and I was able to take a couple pictures before we left. Having taken great photos of their most photogenic wolf in the past, I was content to just take a few fun pictures, like this one other scent rolling on some grapefruit essence that Sue put on a log.

It was then time to leave. Paul and I headed south, following the eastern Sierra's and looking west could see the ominous clouds of the approaching storm. The only pass open outside 80 & 50 was Hwy, 88. I think we just barely made it. The snow started at about 6000 feet. A heavy wet snow full of large flakes. The road was quite slippery. Fortunately we had chains (cables) and that really saved the day. What was just snow at 6000 feet became a near blizzard at 7500 feet and by the time we got to the pass at 8500 feet, it was quite nasty. However, it was all quite beautiful. I shot many, many digital photos, much just out the window as we drove by...

The clouds over the Sierra's were ominous.

Just shooting out the car window as we drove by heading south on 395 I was able to capture some spectacular scenery. The desert being snowed upon.

It didn't take long before we had to pull over and put on the chains. I took the opportunity to walk around a little bit and take some photos. The nearby campground sign said "Closed for the winter" -- I wonder why ;-)

In the distance we could hear a loud rumbling noise, it got closer and closer... Round the bend - a snow plow. YEA! We hopped in our chained vehicle and followed closely behind the plow. Unfortunately, the plow decided to go one way, the way we did not want to go, and we were hence forth plowless... Up, up, and up, ever higher into the Sierras. Fortunately this was the first storm of the season, first real storm of significant, so there was not too much snow on the ground, but what there was falling, was all over the road. Once we lost the plow, things got a bit hairy -- there was virtually no traffic up here (everybody else was smart and stayed home) We, on the other hand, were heading 'home'. All these photos above were shot through the windshield as we progressed onward and upward to 8500 feet -- and then down. Down was no relief for there the snow was only heavier. And, it continued until we dropped down to about 5000 feet and then it was torrential rain. In all, it took us over 7 hours to drive just 150 miles to get over the Sierra's.

Of course, along the way I took a lot of photographs outside the passenger window as we sped by at 30 mph or so. I just kept snapping away with the coolpix until it just got too dark to continue.