Having a blast (May 26)

Breakfast...the most important meal of the day (or some would have you believe). And where do you find the best breakfasts? At truck stops. And the Truck 'n' Travel is the real thing complete with phones at the tables, a game room, short term hotel, and a parking lot full of big rigs. The plates are loaded with home style cooking with specials on the menu that are only served in the wee hours of the morning (we were either too early or too late for those).

We headed north and managed to make it through Portland with only a short delay for the drawbridge over the Columbia River. Jerry has bad memories of Portland from our last trip to California five years ago, so were happy to escape unscathed.

Since we had some extra time, we decided to take a side trip to Mount St Helen's. We drove 50 miles up to the Johnson Ridge visitor center, taking note of the tree planting blocks which are all marked with the dates (Noble Fir, planted 1983, future harvest 2028).

The higher up we drove, the colder and wetter the air. I was happy to have my hat and gloves. There is still a considerable amount of snow, and the mountain itself was covered in clouds, so our view was limited. We had a quick look around the displays, then headed back down, stopping along the way for a few photos. As we left the “gateway” town of Castle Rock, a sign said, “Thanks for coming...hope you had a blast.”

When we reached Olympia, the traffic slowed to a crawl. We were not looking forward to hitting Olympia, Tacoma, and Seattle during rush hour, but in this case, the delay was caused by an accident, and once we passed it, the traffic flowed smoothly. Consulting the map, I redirected our route to bypass Tacoma and Seattle, and we had no difficulty at all zipping to Kirkland where we enjoyed dinner and visiting with Alan, Susan, and Heather.

Note: All photos are from Mt St Helen's. Apologies for the raindrops on the lens!

Detours (May 24, 25)

Google Maps provides excellent directions, but it doesn't necessarily know about construction, delays, detours, traffic, or road closures. Heading north from San Luis Obispo, we intended to drive up Highway 1 along the coast. We got as far as Cambria (about 30 miles?) only to see a flashing sign that the road was closed ahead. We didn't know where or why, but after verifying at a gas station, we backtracked a few miles and headed west to Highway 101. The interesting part of that route is the acres and acres and acres of grape vines. Wine is definitely big business in California!! We also saw vegetables growing and being shipped on the trucks we passed along the way.

We stopped in Gilroy which claims to be the Garlic Capital of the World, but we all know that Hills holds that title. Jerry's Hills Garlic Festival hat sparked some interest; I think he was hoping to trade it for one from Gilroy's Festival that takes place at the end of July, but no one offered. We did get to sample a variety of products, and brought home some barbecue sauce and jelly as well as some hot Mexican garlic that we will give to our neighbors to grow. Our immediate gratification purchase was a bag of garlic pistachios. They are in the back of the car, and we have a handful each time we stop at a rest area.

Our Google Maps directions competently led us to Frank's (Jerry's brother's) house in San Anselmo via Oakland/Berkley/Richmond. This route avoids the city of San Francisco, but also skips the opportunity for photos of the Golden Gate Bridge.

I had never been to Frank's before, but Jerry stayed there on one of his solo trips to California a few years ago. Frank is a musician as well as a buyer, seller, collector of stuff. His passion is native American art and artifacts, and his house is filled with Navajo, Hopi, Pueblo, and other tribes' pottery, rugs, baskets, silver work, and carvings.

After a great Indian (east not American) dinner with Frank, we continued our journey north. We only made it as far as Ukiah for our overnight stop, then another long day of driving through wine country and the redwoods on our way to Oregon.



Sequoias are older and bigger around than redwoods, but the redwoods are taller and far more abundant. We followed the Avenue of Giants, a scenic alternative to 101, for 30 miles that took us through some beautiful groves with a variety of wildflowers, ferns, and trees.

We did finally get some views of the Pacific Ocean, but no stops for photos before we headed inland. The weather had been rainy in the morning, then showers off and on late in the day. The ocean and sky were almost the same color grey rather than blue, so not really as beautiful as they can be.

Alongside the winding roads were many different plants, flowers, and shrubs. We passed through many small towns that had all manner of weird things to attract tourists, but we easily skipped those, and finally at Grants Pass, OR, we joined Interstate 5. I had wanted to drive along the Oregon coast, but we are starting to feel pressed for time to get to Seattle by Thursday night, so opted for the zoom, zoom, zoom of the Interstate. We stopped for the night in Springfield, OR, which is part of Eugene in the same way Burnaby is part of Vancouver.



Detours make life interesting. They can take you off the beaten path, to the road not taken, somewhere unexpected. We have detoured, revamped our itinerary, found interesting byways, and eaten up a lot of miles in the last two days. Now it's straight on 'til we reach Seattle (well, Kirkland).

What Happens in SLO Stays in SLO (May 23)

After breakfast, I used the computer in the library to show Jeanne some of the photos Hannah posted of Stari Grad. It so happened she was online when I checked my email, so we arranged a to chat by phone which was fun.

We drove downtown and poked around in a couple of stores. Jeanne was looking for a handle to attach to a cushion so it would be easy to carry it down to the dining room for meals. I saw a fabric/craft store and offered to make a handle, so we bought needle, thread, and cotton webbing.

When we got back to The Villages at 12:30, it was time to pick up cards for bingo that starts at 1:30. You don't want to get there one minute after 12:30 if you want to be sure you get your special numbered cards from the stack. Each card costs $1, and Jeanne treated us to 2 cards each while she managed her usual 3 (being a more experienced bingo player plus playing the same cards all the time has enabled her to memorize what numbers are where).

I sewed and watched my cards at the same time. Jerry won $8 with “9 around the corner”, then I won 50 cents when someone picked my ticket for an additional door prize. Then I won $8 by putting together a block of 6 and a block of 4 on the same card. I am sure there were some unhappy residents as they watched us take ¼ of the prize money, but someone else won the pot for the final blackout game which was a whopping $21. I finished my sewing project before the game was over, so it was a productive hour and a half.

Immediately following bingo, we attended a slide show and talk on the elephant seal rookery at Piedras Blancas near San Simeon, not too far north of here. The residents are going on a field trip there on Wednesday, and we had stopped there five years ago on our way here.

We walked across the street to a shopping center and had dinner at Nucci's Pizza. It was Monday night...Jeanne plays Rummikub on Saturday and Monday nights, but this is not for money (darn, was hoping to offset more of the cost of this trip). Risking the wrath of the women waiting to play, we took one of the games upstairs and played at the kitchen table. Jerry and I hadn't played in years, but each of the three of us won a couple of games. Maybe we'll have to dig out our game from the closet when we get home.

My plan was to do some Internet work before going to bed, but the library was locked up tight as was the place where we needed to return the game. We brought it upstairs, hoping to sneak it back without anyone realizing we had kept it overnight (the Christian Motorcyclists Association might be under contract to these residents to take care of ex-patriot hooligans who take bingo money AND keep games from the cupboard).

Update: After an unsuccessful second attempt to return the game (this time we were too early and the door wasn't yet unlocked for the day), we returned the game to its rightful place without getting caught in the act.

Riding for the Son (May 22)

Leaving Yosemite behind, we headed west on Highway 140. Not far from El Portal, we encountered a detour that included two one lane, temporary bridges across the Merced River. Between them, we could see the reason: a huge rockslide covering part of the highway. The detour is likely to be there awhile.

We stopped for breakfast at Happy Burger in Mariposa. They boast the largest breakfast menu anywhere, and it was indeed lengthy and varied. Jerry had huevos rancheros, and overdid it on the habanero hot sauce and had to scrape some off. There is a first time for everything. The ceiling is covered with old record album covers, and some of the women working behind the counter could have danced at the prom to Pat Boone and Elvis Presley tunes. The motorcycles outside belonged to the Christian Motorcyclists Association whose emblem read, “Riding for the Son.” The best part: free wi fi (access code is “greatfood”)! While we waited for our meal, I caught up on email. The cell phone worked too.

The Sierras gave way to flat valley farmland. We saw a lot of olive trees and vineyards as we headed toward San Luis Obispo. When we stopped at a rest area, the orange California poppies were abundant.

Jerry's mother/Jeanne/Buddy was excited to see us. The complex in which she lives is lovely with lots of flowers and tall palm trees. We took her out for dinner in downtown SLO, then enjoyed more visiting time before heading to bed early as we were really tired.

Everyone Else is Here So it's Time to Leave (May 21)

What a difference a day/week makes. We have noticed a steady increase in the number of vehicles parked along the roadsides as the week progressed, but not until today did we feel overwhelmed with people.

The day started with some down time...laundry! I took advantage of the time it took to wash and dry to write some postcards and the blog entries for the two previous days. Sensing that another long hike as our morning activity would probably not be Jerry's first choice, I suggested a drive on Incline Road. It follows the Merced River from El Portal, the town where our hotel is. Do a gas station with $5/gallon gas and a market (didn't dare check the prices) qualify as a town? The sign says the population is just over 600, but I am skeptical.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, spring is very late here due to the heavy snowpack that is just now melting. Over the past three days, more and more flowers are visible as the sun and warmth encourage them to bloom. I had read that Incline Road was a good spot for wildflowers, so we took a leisurely drive for a few miles until we reached a locked gate and turned around.

Some groups of rafts negotiated the rapids right in front of us. We thought of Susan and Alan and our raft trip in Denali. Not sure I want to do that again.


We headed to Foresta Falls, an out of the way hike that seemed suited to our current energy level. It turned out to be all downhill on the way there, and, consequently, all uphill on the way back. A bridge crosses the falls and the heavy spray was quite refreshing. We chatted with the few people we met along the way. There were more wildflowers, and I think we saw at least 4 different types of butterflies, including one with delicate light blue wings.

After passing the falls, we continued briefly, but decided not to go down to see the lower cascades. On one of our brief rest stops on the way back up the trail, a deer came down the hill and trotted off right behind us. The upper cascades are visible on the way up (hard to believe you can miss them on the way down, but you do).


We stopped at the Cathedral picnic area where we had been in the snow on Wednesday and almost had the place to ourselves. Today, it was hard to find a place to park or an empty picnic table. We could see kids playing in the water as



After lunch our destination was the hike to Vernal Falls, but we got discouraged by the lack of parking anywhere. Maybe we were just looking for an excuse. By this time, we were both feeling very tired. By 4:00 on the first nice Saturday in May, the park was mobbed, and the thought of hiking with a cast of thousands was far from appealing. We liked it better when we had the place almost to ourselves. We found a parking space and used the shuttle bus to get to a spot where all three levels of Yosemite Falls are visible.the Merced is quite shallow and calm in this location.


We walked back to the Visitor Center to buy a book, but we missed the 5:00 closing by a minute. We stopped at the grocery store, but walked in, saw the huge lineup for the single cashier, and walked right back out again. Obviously, it was time to head for the hotel. Everyone else had the same idea. It was like an announcement had been made that once the Visitor Center closed, the park was closed. Maybe everyone wanted to be somewhere else for the end of the world an hour later. It took over 30 minutes just to exit the parking lot. I reminded Jerry that it could have been worse: we could have had tired, hungry kids in the back seat whining, “But you promised that we could go swimming.” We managed to maintain our sense of humor, but would never, ever want to be here in the summer.

Back at the hotel, we were walking to the lobby when we spied a coyote on the side of the road. We watched him until he spied us and sort of casually turned around to cross the highway. He didn't seem too concerned about the traffic; obviously he is more used to it than we are.

We have had a wonderful week here. Some of the people we talked to at Foresta Falls are locals. They said, “Come sometime in late September. The crowds are gone by then.” Sounds like a great idea!

Power and Light (May 20)

Today we drove to Hetch Hetchy in bright sunshine. As the road climbed over 5000 feet, there was snow in the trees alongside, but the temperature was still warm.

John Muir described Hetch Hetchy as a valley equal in beauty and grandeur to Yosemite Valley, and he fought hard to keep it in its natural state. Unfortunately, politics intervened and the O'Shaughnessy Dam flooded the valley in 1923 to provide water and power to the city of San Francisco. The reservoir is 8 miles long and 300 feet deep at maximum. Two of the spillways were open, and the force of the water was tremendous as well as beautiful with rainbows in the heavy mist they created.

We walked across the dam and through a tunnel to start the 5 mile hike to Tueeulala and Wapama Falls. Taking photographs along the way, we made our way along the trail that hugs the reservoir. The flowers are just starting to bloom (very late spring here this year), and again the huge boulders provide a lot of amazement at the forces of nature. There are several smaller falls and water crossings. My tripod made a handy balancing tool. The last part of the trail approaching Wapama Falls consists of stone steps. As we descended, I said, “Remember we have to go up on the way back.” It was getting hot by this time, and the cool spray from the powerful falls felt great as we crossed the foot bridges.

After a Snickers snack, I put the camera away and we headed back across the bridges, up the steps, and along the trail back toward the dam. When we reached Tueeulala Falls, there was a mass of people enjoying picnics and lazing about in the sunshine. There was a group of families with small children; I even saw a stroller (even though it looked like the stroller equivalent of a mountain bike, I still can't imagine taking that along this trail). We passed many overnight hikers who were either on their way to or back from destinations farther than Wapama Falls. One guy was using the slippery rocks as a waterslide...looked refreshing!





There is a movement to restore Hetch Hetchy, but I am not hopeful for its success. Even if they were to somehow magically remove the dam and allow the Tuolomne River to return to its natural state, it would take hundreds if not thousands of years for the plants and animals to re-establish themselves. And the native Miwoks...would they return to the place they first inhabited 6000 years ago?

We stopped along the side of the road for a late picnic lunch on the way back to our hotel. We also stopped at a viewpoint with a spectacular view of El Capitan and Half Dome, but we would see more of Half Dome later (not more in the sense of two Half Domes make a whole because there is no other half). El Capitan, at 3000 feet, is the tallest unbroken cliff in the world. It is an unbelievable hunk of granite.

After a quick refresh and reconnoiter, the late afternoon light was beckoning, and we made our way to Bridalveil Falls. At this time of day, the sun creates a rainbow that moves up from the base of the falls as the sun gets lower in the sky. It was quite thrilling to actually experience what was promised in Michael Frye's The Photographer's Guide to Yosemite. I studied his recommendations before we left home, and it has been a very handy resource along the way, not only for the photography information, but also for the details on locations.

The final destination for the day was Sentinel Bridge. This location provides a great view of Half Dome at sunset, and, if conditions are right, its reflection in the Merced River. We were the first people on the bridge, but 10 minutes later the hoards arrived. The man to my left struck up a conversation by asking about the filter I was using, and we chatted away for the hour and a half we were there. He showed me some of his photos from earlier in the day, including one of a bear shaking the water from its fur after climbing out of one of the standing pools of water in the meadows right in Yosemite Valley. The guy on my right fretted the entire time over his camera settings. He had someone there helping him, but I don't think he was ever satisfied. You know things aren't going well when the manual comes out along with every piece of equipment in the bag.

While there was one little persistent cloud that came and went, Half Dome was visible in all its glory. So where is the other half? It didn't break off in some cataclysmic event, but rather slowly took its current shape through exfoliation, a process that removes irregularities so that only smooth surfaces remain.

The orange evening light was beautiful, and my worthy assistant provided lots of commentary and suggestions. Jerry was quite taken by the bubble level Mr. Equipment had attached to his flash shoe, and he wants me to get one because he is forever telling me my camera isn't straight (which it isn't; he is right).

Stand in Front of More Interesting Things (May 19)

One of my favorite photography quotations is, “If you want to take better photographs, stand in front of more interesting things.” We are definitely doing that, but it doesn't automatically result in better photographs. I struggled today.

We started the day at a sweet spot called Fern Spring. It is right beside the road, but easy to miss. We were the only ones there are first, but as seems to be the case throughout the park, people pull over to see what other people are looking at. A couple thanked us for drawing them to the location. Turns out they know people in Rossland.

Because it happened to be on the way to Wawona, our destination for the day, we stopped at Tunnel View to see what might be happening vista-wise. It was mid-morning by this time, so not great light. There was definitely a different group of photographers were there than we had seen when we were there in the early mornings or sunset times...more the point-and-shoot crowd than forest of tripods. It was the first time, though, that we saw Half Dome without its usual shroud of clouds.

Our plan was to hike to the cascades below Chilnualna Falls (the hike to the falls is 8.4 mi round trip with a 2300 foot elevation gain...not sure we want to tackle that!). To get to the trailhead, we drove through the little community of Wawona complete with a small elementary school, a large library, and a variety of houses ranging from rustic rental cabins to impressive houses that could be in any suburban area.

We started up the trail, but turned around soon after as it starts with a steep section. A bridge crosses the creek just past the parking lot, so we wandered around and the views of the creek were quite dramatic without having to hike anywhere. Photography Challenge #1: water. Exposing for a turbulent, white water in a forest is challenging.

The sunshine had encouraged some flowers to bloom, and we particularly liked the lupine which is like a miniature version of what we have at home.

We parked at the Wawona Hotel, another venerable establishment that has been serving Yosemite tourists since 1917. This was posh digs in its day (and may still be, but we didn't go in). It includes a 9-hole golf course, an outdoor swimming pool, and tennis courts.

Across the road from the hotel, with the groundskeeper mowing the fairways, we found the Wawona Meadow Loop. This is actually an old road, so the trail is wide and fairly flat. The information I have rates the crowd factor as “light.” During our entire 3.5 miles walk, we saw 4 other people (or 6 if you count the fact that we saw the same couple twice, or 9 if you count the 3 deer nibbling at the edge of the meadow). This was quite a change from everything we have experienced so far in Yosemite Valley.

There were some interesting flowers and plants, and the man of the aforementioned couple was able to identify many of them. Pictured here are a snow plant and trillium. We had seen the red plant before and thought it was some sort of mushroom, but when we saw it “opened,” it was quite lovely. Photography Challenge #2: Blue flowers. For some reason, cameras (or maybe just it's just me, but I'm sure I have read this somewhere) have a hard time with blue. It's either washed out or too dark, but either way, not what we see with our eyes.

Those of you who have hiked with me know that nimble is not an adjective ever used to describe me. In some places, the trail was very wet, but we managed to find a way around most of the worst of it. At one point, though, we came to a small stream that gave me pause...maybe taking off my shoes and socks was a better option than balancing on rocks and taking a chance of getting the camera wet when I fell in. But, you will be proud, we were able to go from rock to rock while bending over and grasping branches of a fallen log, and our shoes hardly even got wet. Yay for us!

When we completed the loop, we boarded the shuttle bus for the 20 minute ride up to the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. Traffic here was anything but “light” even though there is still snow on the ground and the paths are wet, muddy, and slippery. Many of the big trees have labels like “Fallen Monarch,” “Grizzly Giant” (Jerry calls this “fat bastard”), “Bachelor and 3 Graces.” The “California Tunnel Tree” is the only living tree in Yosemite with a tunnel drilled through it. for the benefit of tourist stage coaches around 1895. We found a few beautiful unnamed trees that we liked best. These trees are old. The Grizzly Giant, for example, is estimated to be 2700 years old. One source says that 50 billion people have been born and died during its lifetime!

In spite of their incredible height, sequoias have shallow but far reaching root systems in order to get the water they need to survive. Something we found very interesting is the symbiotic relationship that exists between the trees and horsetail, a plant that grows in great abundance around our house too, but seems miniature in relation to the size of the horsetail we saw here.

Those of you who have been following these notes know that we have been to Tunnel View several times. Well, might as well stop there again on the way home from Wawona. Half Dome was still not going to give us a good sunset panorama, but the light was nice, and we spent a lovely hour chatting with a young couple from Brooklyn. We ended up having dinner with them at the pizza place in our hotel complex. Colin is a professional photographer and also does professional lighting (he is on his way to San Francisco to, as his girlfriend described it, “light boring conference speakers at the Fairmont.” Having just spent a good part of the last month at conferences, I found it amusing that conference organizers would find it necessary to bring a lighting specialist clear across the country. Nikki is a professional singer, but I think she is a younger me: grew up in Wisconsin and attended the University of Michigan.

I wonder what all the thousands of people in Yosemite this week will do with the thousands of photos they are taking. I ended the day with some shots I liked, so in spite of what I thought was a very frustrating day, maybe standing in front of all those interesting, beautiful, unusual places did help after all.