Well... Here it is... Several of my flickr friends have been bugging me that I HAVE to get photos of the Crystal Mill. I had never even heard of the place before. So... This is for you guys. There is quite a story that goes with this one. Sorry to have to write such a longwinded Chaybert story, but I think it is worth reading. It was quite a day! Seriously! So... Sit back, relax, put your feet up on something, grab a beer and read about this most interesting day. The Crystal Mill is right next to the old ghost town of Crystal. It took some searching around on the internet to even figure out where it is. It's six miles east of the tiny little town of Marble. Sooooooo... I drove to Marble. Got there around nine in the morning. I stopped in this little convenience store which had a framed picture of the mill hanging on their wall, so I asked the woman behind the counter if she knew how to get there. She did. She told me EXACTLY how to get there. "Stay on this road, as you leave Marble, the road turns to dirt. In two miles, you will come to a fork in the road. Go left, and proceed another four miles to the mill. It's a four wheel drive road" Simple enough. I do have four wheel drive. So, sure enough in exactly two miles, the road did fork. There was a sign for Crystal and some other mountain road. I went left like she said, and the road started getting nasty! Two miles later there was another fork. This one was unlabeled. GREAT! I always love that! Right looked REALLY nasty, so I went left. Well. after a couple of minutes, the road started doing switchbacks and going straight up the side of a mountain. I knew it couldn't be the right road. The mill is on a river. Rivers aren't on the tops of mountains. They are in valleys. But, the road was too narrow to turn around. As I got near the top, it got scarier and scarier. Then it started to snow. there were a couple of washed out spots near the top where my tires couldn't have been more than six inches from the edge of a thousand foot cliff, driving in snow several inches deep. It was fun! By the time I got to a spot wide enough to turn around, I had gone three miles. I had to drive all the way back down which was even scarier! So... Back down at the bottom. Now I take the right fork. The road looked HORRIBLE, but I figured it must not be as bad as it looks. Lot's of people make it to the mill. I was wrong. It was WORSE than it looked, and just kept getting worse and narrower. I just kept thinking the road would get better. Lots of people have photos of this mill. About a half mile in, I decided to bail. No photo was worth destroying my truck, or being stranded for who knows how long out in the middle of nowhere. But, it was too late to bail. The road had gotten SO narrow that I had branches scraping against both sides of my truck. It was either... Back up for a half a mile. Or... Continue until I found a spot wide enough to turn around. I honestly didn't think it was possible for a stock Toyota truck to do the things I did that day. It had just rained. The ground was pure mud, and covered with huge rocks and sticks. A lot of the rocks were pointy, jagged shale which was just begging to blow out a tire. I actually got out and let some air out of my tires for better traction, and less chance of a blowout. I've been on LOTS of nasty roads where I was worried that I might have a problem. This was the first time that I ever REALLY didn't think I was going to make it out. I had no cell phone signal. As I was letting air out of my tires, I remember thinking, "What emergency supplies do I have? And, which should I bring with me for the LONG hike out of here to find help?" So, I had to push on for another half a mile before I found a spot to turn around. I was in 4-Low the entire time. First gear, going less than one MPH. I got stuck about 50 times, where I had to back up and pull forward again with more momentum to try and make it over a big rock. Sometimes I even had to get out and move rocks around to get over them. So... I made it back to the fork, somehow with the truck still intact, having given up on the DAMN MILL! I made it back to that first fork in the road. The one with the sign. The one where the woman said to turn left. There were little arrows on the sign that I hadn't noticed before. Crystal ----> RIGHT!!!!!!!! Crystal is RIGHT!!!!!!! SON OF A BITCH!!!!!!! I had just wasted four hours, almost killed myself, and practically destroyed my truck going LEFT! Well, I had come this far, I'm not missing it now. I went right. It was a pretty nasty dirt road with lots of rocks, but no worse than a hundred other roads I've driven. I made it there in about 40 minutes. There were a few other photographers there at the mill. As I was setting up my tripod on the edge of an embankment, there were these two assholes down on a ledge in front of me, destroying my shot. I figured, if you can't beat em, join them, so I climbed down to the ledge and set

Me in front of Bella's truck. I stopped on the way into town to snap these photos and my husband was pissed cause he just wanted to get t othe hotel. Whateva! I'm so tired I look drunk.