Went for a drive in Sierra Nevada this afternoon in an effort to stave off cabin fever. I've lost count of the run on rainy days, but did get half a day's "sun" yesterday. Was enough to do a couple of loads of laundry and hang them till they were damp. Finished them off by the woodstove last night. The drive through the mountains was gut-wrenching in places, but was quite interesting. I drove through towns that aren't even on my map, and had my wonderations about finding my way back. Fortunately, I'd bought compass number 8(at least) in Guadiz a couple of weeks ago. You kids will each inherit an engineer's compass now. Plenty of others as well.

Anyway, I saw a lot of cave-dwellings-in-stopped-progress. This area boasts some ancient troglodyte habitations and a lot of modern ones, as well. Caves draw lots of inhabitants as they stay cool all summer and acceptable (about 62F) without heat in the winter. Many are dug in with southern exposures and feature concrete facades, to keep the hill in place, I suppose. I will send some pictures once I re-size them. Anyway, a lot of new digs were halted due to the economy, so there are a lot of stalled properties mining hills that look like ant hills. I don't think I would like them-it would be like living in a cave.