zissou

Since Ab Lehman was living at the caves in those days, he decided to plant some apricot trees.

~120 years later, they were still producing fruit! Em said that she didn't want to eat a hundred year old apricot

I'll take one, though!

Time to head back to camp for some cards and more s'mores.

After a few days in the park, we decided to head into town. Ely, Nevada, was the closest at 65 miles away. Here's the historic Hotel Nevada.

I have a thing for old mural adverts.

All in all, the town sucked, but there were some cool rat rods kicking around town.

On the way back, we stopped to check out the site of an ancient Fremont settlement.

Heck of a place to live, but word on the streets is that there was a vast marsh here at the time.

One was turquoise blue, thanks to all the minerals in the water.

Good thing we remembered the most crucial ingredients! The trip would have been a disaster without them.

Time for bed!

We spent some time exploring the visitor's center, which included a tour of Lehman Caves. Absalom Lehman discovered the caves one day in 1885 while riding his horse across his ranch. As a former miner in the CA Gold Rush, he immediately knew that when his horse's hoof broke through the ground surface and cold air rushed out, that he had found a cave.

Ol' Ab Lehman promptly started charging $1 admission, which was equivalent to about $100 in today's $, taking into account that everything was so expensive in mining towns. Unfortunately, he had a policy of 'If you can break it, you can take it', so a lot of the stalactites and stalagmites were broken. Here's the iconic Parachute Shield. Doesn't even seem real, eh?

The Lake Room was full of water, thanks to the record snowfall this past winter.

Roys in a cave!

The Rhodes Cabin was built outside the entrance to the cave in the 1920's so visitors had a place to stay.

Howdy!

Buon giorno, amici miei! I'm finally taking an evening off from everything that has been making my life too busy lately. So, I thought I'd drink some wine and post up the forever-delayed update from the adventure that my daughter and I took last month.

It's a bit of a tradition that Em and I escape town for a week as a bit of a last hurrah for summer vacation before the school year starts. Usually, it's a week of camping at a National Park, but we've been to most of the parks within a six hour radius, except for Great Basin National Park, which is just over the border in Nevada. As we discovered, it's really in the middle of nowhere! Good thing we brought all the food we needed, and planned well for fuel.

The drive out through the West Desert brought us through the town of Eureka, Utah, which is described as a 'modern day ghost town'. It hit its peak between about 1890-1930, but has been in a steady decline ever since the Great Depression. As it was the commercial hub of the Tintic Mining District in Utah, vast wealth passed through the town, but now it was mostly boarded up shops. The Eureka Gold Church was a reminder of better days.

Here's a head frame from the old Bullion and Beck Mine. This is what they used to lower men and ore up and down the mine shaft.

Walking through downtown, I noticed and interesting advertisement in an alley...

Seems like it predates 1920, when 'waist overalls' was given up for 'jeans'? This would correspond well with the peak of the town.

"A new pair free if the rip"- not a bad guarantee!

Onward! Man, there is a good reason they call US50 'America's Loneliest Highway'.

Finally there. Who can argue with a spot like this to live at for a week?

"Let's get hikin'!" she says. Little did we realize that camping and hiking at 10K ft in elevation would take such a toll in the first couple of days. We live at 4,500 ft.

Decomposers, hard at work.

Crotchity old aspen.

Our second day's hike led us up to a couple of high alpine lakes. pretty view!

Brilliant, Simon! Is that broken twill?

Geez, Mike, at first glance, I couldn't see any post-wash photos! Maybe you could use some of my 'miner's detergent'?

Speaking of which- here are mine drying on the fence after their fourth hand wash. I'll have a sizable update later today...

Nice work spaces, guys! I just moved into a tiny house, and I don't seem to have a good place to work. Right now, I'm at a little desk in the laundry room, where there isn't much light. Once I can find a decent set of cabinets, I'll probably go back to working at my old drafting table in front of a window in the living room.

I was just going to say that that cinch back looks familiar

Mike- I'd be happy to send you the high res versions. Just PM me your email address.

I thought you might like to see this, Mike. It's from an alley in the old mining town of Eureka, Utah.

Close up:

J Crew

Mister Freedom

Nigel Cabourn

Alden

Are those black and creme buckleback trousers made or junglecloth or of cordoroy? If they are black junglecloth I'm sold!

Looks like a heavy twill of some sort. Definitely not jungle cloth. Kiya's coming out with SEXT11 in black this fall, if I remember correctly.

That black chambray shirt is a must. They look like the same pattern as the utility shirts, but with different pockets.

I've been waiting patiently for MF to do a pair of grey trousers. Maybe someday...

What vintage sports wore that?

I'd liken 'sportswear' more to 'casual wear' than 'uniforms'.

The Miner's Pants are now $219 at Orvis, but no 32-36.

Beautiful photos, riff. Didn't you do a hot machine wash or two at the start?

Here are my Roys driving a nice check to the bank. That's right- I closed on the house sale two days ago! It's been such a relief that I've been exhausted and barely able to function the past couple of days. It's like when you've been working a long week, Friday hits, and you crash, except that my long week was a long few years. Good thing it's almost the weekend! I know what I'll be doing tonight...

Welcome back, markus! The jeans look fantastic.

I'm just getting into zucchini up north here. It is sad that tomatoes are just now starting to ripen, but I'm excited for it. I think I'll have to can some, since summer won't last too much longer.

Hey all,

I've been back from my adventure out west, but I've been swamped with moving my office, moving the last of my stuff out of my old house, and doing some last repairs. I'll post up some photos from the trip once I have a moment to go through them.

In the meantime, here's a seven month update on my Roys. I washed them for the third time on 8/7, but after a couple weeks of camping, hiking, moving office, mowing, etc. they are filthy and nasty again. I think I'm just going to wash them whenever I damn well want from here on out.

Shit yeah, I was just wishing I could find Stevenson stuff more easily.

Those sure look great. Duck bags are the way to go. Way too slim for my taste, though.

Finally, Roy's making more duck trousers! Maybe there will still be a pair in my size in ten days when my house sells

^So cool!

Well, I have no photographic evidence, but I enjoyed today, my birthday, in my Roys! It turned out to mostly be a crazy day because I am packing for a fun adventure with my daughter over the next week, but it ended with a great dinner with friends. I won't have cell reception for the next week, so I'll catch up with you all (with photos!) when I get back...

Roofing the other day in a bunch of old shit and my Roy x Cones.

Beautiful photos, Sansome! I hope you frame some of those and hang them on your walls.

TG- I found the photo of you wearing the unstitched Roys strangely exciting, but also a bit horrifying (for the jeans' sake, of course!).

I spent a day up on my good friend Bob's roof. He's also trying to put his older house on the market, but he has some smaller projects to finish up. Seeing as how I'm done with my house, I thought I'd lend him a hand.

He has this patch of roof that is 10ft x 24ft that was roofed in cedar shakes. They had really deteriorated with time, and he figured that they needed replacing. So, my Roys and I pulled out my old spading fork and had that roof ripped off in 35 minutes flat.

Once it was ripped off, we had to replace the tar paper and get started with the new cedar shingles. I'm not sure if you can tell, but the roof transitions into a glass roof of a hot tub room, so it was a bit of a challenge to get started on that first double course of shingles.

In the end, we completed the first six courses of shingles, on which we could stand while working our way up the roof. it was a lot nicer than facing down slope on the roof. All in a day's work!

Needless to say, after that job (and a month of teaching my class up in the mountains), I had to hang my Roys out to dry, and they smelled awfully ripe! So, they got their third hand wash today. I tried to photograph it, but you'll just have to believe me when I tell you that the water was NASTY by the end.

Don't know, Mike. KMW does it, and I think Double Volante does as well. But, they both make one of the two stitches with an indigo thread to make it look from the outside like it is not felled.

Great find a vid!

I wish more jeans makers did felled inseams these days...

Hobby's an understatement. More like an obsession.! Haha.!

I'm not quite ready to admit that yet If I obsess, it's about making a small amount of things very well. I feel like I am slowly getting there with some things.

For those of you curious about oil tanned cowhide, Tandy has brown sides on sale for $4/sqft. Not a bad price for trying it out.