Yosemite Falls

You will get wet.

The proclamation from the man in black polyester, wet from head to toe, fades from our heads as rapidly as his damp footprints dry behind him. It is in the 90’s but the trail along the Hetch Hetchy shore is fairly level, easy to walk, and his wetness is more than just perspiration.

We have just left the more shaded part of the trail and are now in the sunshine on a slight downward path along large exposed granite faces amidst small boulders bigger than ourselves. We continue along the trail and soon find a intermittent waterfall normally dry by this time of year. We join a few families splashing in the pools at the bottom of falls. The water is cool but not cold like we expect from snow melt. Cyndi waggles her toes in the water for a bit and then we continue along. You could get wet here but we don’t.

Falls are everywhere, springing out of the sides of mountains, rushing over the edges of cliffs, cascading down boulder filled valleys. The snow pack is very heavy this year, spring very late. The snow melt from the sudden heat is filling normally dry falls and streams. The Merced river, just starting to rise and already near flood stage, jumps and rooster tails downstream, the river white and roaring for fifteen miles out of Yosemite Valley.

In contrast, the Hetch Hetchy reservoir looks tranquil. Blue mountain lupines bloom along the trail in the company of yellows and purples. Smiling hikers pass us returning to their cars. You will get wet comes from a mother happy because her kids are happy, the kids just recently splashed and cooled in some water ahead of us, but the mother wishing she had brought harnesses as she watches her kids tumbling and scrambling everywhere. Somehow, I don’t know how, maybe magic, she herself is also everywhere, gathering the kids and returning them to momentary order only to see them quickly darting towards other distractions. We are getting hot and are tiring, glad we had stopped for a hearty and tasty lunch at the Cocina Michoacana.

Soon we are at Tueelala Falls and watch it fall 800’ before it cascades another several hundred feet to our level. Tueelala is also normally dry by this time of year but now the water is falling onto the stone footbridge and rushing down the trail on both sides. Hiking in wet shoes seems a bad idea, so I remove my shoes, roll up my pants and walk over the bridge through fast moving water nearly a foot deep and spray everywhere. The downhill cool breeze created by the waterfall feels great and we gasp and smile. We manage to stay reasonably dry.

We rest a bit and dry our feet. High above us the booms and cracks from the falls crashing along the cliff sound like rock slides. Two attractive young women approach and naturally I engage them in conversation. They tell us Wapama falls is about another half mile along the trail and it is beautiful. As they leave they toss over their shoulders You will get wet. I am disappointed they aren’t wet.

A bit further down the trail a recent rock slide half covering the trail is attended by several NPS staff. One woman -- sweating, tired, panting -- slowly lifts and drops a ten pound mall on a rock while standing in the sun. Two more sensible, older workers stand in the shade strategizing. Two younger men are hand rolling knee high granite blocks downhill. The rocks roll only a couple feet, then come to rest and the men push and grunt again. Downhill Sisyphus. Like Sisyphus, an amazingly beautiful place to toil and like Sisyphus, this work will never end.

Hetch Hetchy is part of Yosemite National Park and is every bit as beautiful as Yosemite Valley but unlike the Valley, lightly touristed. The Valley had NPS staff directing jammed traffic at several intersections; thirty minute waits for a space to open at parking lots; lines 20 deep at restrooms; uncontrolled tumbling children knocking down caned ancients. Yet everyone was happy, content to wait for their chance to stand in the spray of the falls. Old, young, even the blind were enjoying the cool, ionized air, roaring water, chirping birds and mixed pine and floral scents.

Moving again along the Hetch Hetchy trail, we can hear Wapama Falls but cannot see it. We head down switchbacks and pass a couple sets of hikers coming up. You will get wet is followed by Cover your camera. At the bottom of the switchbacks we see the spray. A rainbow is in the spray. We photograph the rainbow. I tuck my camera under my shirt. We go around the last corner.

And we get wet. Drenched. Instantly, completely, head to toe. The four bridges normally over Wapama falls are now inside of Wapama falls. Here the water is cold, the waterfall's breeze is now a wind, a cold wind. It is loud. It is beautiful, a bit scary and a lot exhilarating. We are shivering and laughing.

Photographing a waterfall from inside is difficult to do. Actually, it isn’t a good idea. The camera didn’t like it and refused to work for the rest of the day. But standing in the waterfall is fun, even though it can be enjoyed only for a few minutes at a time. I recommend it.

I ring out my shirt and we head back. Our water soaked clothes now keep us cool and because we are refreshed and it is getting late, we quickly and lightly walk the 2.5 miles back to the car cheerfully telling other hikers You will get wet.


See more waterfalls pics here

Quick trip to Sacramento

I learned one thing on our short trip to Sacramento: Sacramenteros do not make eye contact.

No, that is not a fair description … let me be more precise: Sacramenteros avidly avoid eye contact as if they would crumble into a small pile of dust should they see themselves reflected in your eyes.

Red Light District

The downtown Sac employed are generally government workers ... beleaguered, furloughed, scapegoated in the endless budget battles ... and wear facial expressions that would be sobering at funerals. Sacramento’s many unemployed¹ are far beyond despair and hopelessness, sitting looking at the pavement between their feet, seemginly with minds as blank as possible, tomorrow as empty as yesterday, not panhandling, never laying down, only inactive. Slightly frightened and already wearied teenagers move slowly through the Westfield mall neither talking nor texting. The tidy streets seem withdrawn. Only entry level service staff show anything resembling enjoyment, albeit a joy distant and self-conscious.

It was hot. The streets had little traffic, few pedestrians and what stores were open closed by 4pm. Silent vaguely clumped commuters stood motionless waiting for their buses, looking like long time residents in a minor level of hell. Small knots of suits nattered down the walks and dismissed with minimal courtesy and maximum efficiency the hearty and insincere hallooos from solitary supplicating suits. Worn tourists with tired children stood bewildered at stop lights on the lightly trafficked streets waiting for something to happen. It just got hotter.

When we arrived we found all the hotel rooms between the capital and the Naked Lounge² had been assumed by a flock of congregating Methodists, so we ended up in an inexpensive “adequate value for the money” motel near Old Sacramento and on the edge of Sacramento’s small Chinatown. The motel was fine: it was quiet (except for the whistling trains that kept Cyndi awake all night); it was clean (except for the dirty corners in the tub and the bathroom and frankly every corner was dirty); it was safe (except for the bathroom wall heater that will set fire to the the room). Impressively, the tv had lots of Spanish channels, very little Fox and what I think was a community access geology channel.

Old Sac ... and New

Old Sacramento hugs the eastern bank of the Sacramento River and was basically where the city got started. Floods and fashion moved economic activity away from the river, turning Old Sacramento into a slum. About forty years ago the buildings were restored to look like they did during the Gold Rush and the area rehabilitated to be a historic tourist attraction. From my personal inspection of the historic area I determined that prospectors returning from the hills with their sacks of gold dust preferred to purchase infant t-shirts extolling the virtues of Nana (8 shops) or indulge their remaining sweet tooth with salt water taffy (7 stores and 18 flavors) or get a tattoo (5 shops). The stereotype that prospectors returned to drink and whore is completely wrong, as the alcohol prices in Old Sacramento make it impossible to get drunk even with a sackful of gold dust and the lobbyists have priced whores totally out of the reach of the individually rich.

Female Rail Wheel

The railroad museum in Old Sacramento was filled with well restored train engines, passenger cars and docents dressed as engineers and conductors. Some trains appeared feminine with brightly lipsticked wheels while others had strongly masculine steel coupling rods³. The trains were too large to photograph as a whole and as the wheels were at eye level, I decided to document the wheel variations. We enjoyed the museum.

We walked from the motel to the Capitol and passed block after block of empty store fronts to the north of the Capitol Mall and blocks and blocks of government buildings to the south. The CalPers building looked like a cross between a re-education center and a VA hospital, with disquieting greens and frosted glass walls so loved by HR departments⁴. The DOT building claimed architecture was one of their missions and while many California bridges and roads are beautifully designed, the DOT headquarters itself looks like post-Stanlist functionalism and somehow manages to make even the windows look like pre-cast concrete. The Stanford Mansion is California’s official welcoming center and it is a cute deteriorating little mansion. The nicest building housing a state office houses the state Controllers office, which seems wrong.

The capitol building itself is white, very white, with only a bit of gold leaf on the small dome atop the large dome. The Golden State has sold all its gold. The Capitol is in a very urban area surrounded by ample trees and sits next to a small, quiet, uninspired park. Even though it was built to look like the US capitol, no one would confuse the two.

While we were watching the capitol, the legislature passed a budget bill on the last day before the legislators would lose pay for not passing a timely budget bill. It was not a good bill, just one they passed to keep their paychecks and a bill the Governor vetoed⁵. Aroused news vans with their erected booms waited outside the capitol for the budget news that wasn’t really news. It was hot. The experienced reporters stayed inside their air conditioned vans and sent the junior reporters to do man-in-the-street interviews. The rare man in the street wasn’t very interested.

The next day, while the Governor’s veto caused fingers to point in all directions, we took a pleasant drive through gold country where we found a couple great used bookstores (the form of gold we prefer), an excellent Mexican inspired restaurant in Placerville and a fruit stand with wonderful cherries and lousy smoothies. Sacramento was, all in all, a little interesting and a little disappointing and could be a nice place to live if you didn’t have to work there. But it was the cherries and books that made the trip.

Want more photos?

¹ Economists say Sacramento has structural unemployment and is unlikely to experience a normal recovery. It does have the 4th highest foreclosure rate in the country and those who lost their homes regularly form tent cities in the city parks and vacant lots. The tent cites are then shut down by the government, which confiscates the homeless’ meager belongings and stored food and leaves the belongings and food to rot and mold in the lots, causing health problems for the neighbors of the lots. Meanwhile charities feed these homeless day old, nutrition free sugar based bakery products. Christian groups attempting to help are vigorously attacked by Christian groups of other denominations. Benefit concerts are given that raise enough money to promote more benefit concerts.

God Bless America.

² Disappointing me and the more life affirming Methodists, the Naked Lounge was simply an upscale coffee shop with a salacious sign.

³ The museum had wonderful exhibits but little explanation. While I wrote this, I was trying to determine the correct name for train wheels (which is in fact as correct a name as any, though “rail wheels” would be better), I came across this train technology site, which had clear, simple information. This information would have made the museum more interesting to me and probably to at least some of the kids.

⁴ It is very difficult to make green an upsetting color and hats off to the HR genius that managed it. I’m not sure but I think this shade is to dissuade people from actually visiting the Personnel Department. Frosted glass walls are a favorite because they give the illusion of openness with none of the benefits of privacy and allow for HR people to spy undetected on each other.

⁵ Bless his heart.

May Visitors

Two sets of visitors in May brought an unexpected benefit: our preparations finally got the house clean. Unfortunately, after those visitors departed entropy re-visited us with a vengeance and chaos is again ruling the household.

Bixby Bridge on Coast Highway

Like a clean house, the visits were very refreshing and too short lived. My sister Jane and her husband Ralph arrived from London in early May and Cyndi’s sister, aunt and their husbands (Betty & Trent, Peggy & Jeff) arrived late May from the Louisville area. One of the highlights of both trips (at least for Cyndi and myself) was a ride down the coast highway along Big Sur. Winter brought a number of road wash outs and slides and the timing was perfect: the northern most closures were cleared a week before Jane and Ralph arrived and the southern most slide at Gordo closed Hwy 1 just before the first visit and re-opened just after the second visit.

If you think the Gordo slide timing was bad, then you haven’t driven the Furgeson-Naciemento Road across the Santa Lucia mountains to Fort Hunter Ligget. This is one of my most favorite drives but it is nearly impossible to convince a visitor to take that bypass unless Hwy 1 is closed. So the Gordo timing was great for me, if not the visitors: we got to see the prettiest part of the coast and the gut churning ride up and through the coast ranges.

Ralph and Jane at the Winery

Jane and Ralph got the Napa and City tours, with wineries and bakeries figuring heavily in the fun. Ralph seemed impressed that we seemingly knew every road and intersection and every barrista within a 150 mile radius, but I think the illusion was broken when we got lost in tiny little downtown San Luis Obispo. We always seem to get lost in downtowns. But after spending 10 hours a day for 3 days in a car listening to Cyndi and my stories about geology and history and culture and our kitties, I think Ralph and Jane were very happy to get on Amtrak and continue their trip down to San Diego sans the free tour guides.

Betty, Cyndi and Peggy

The Louisville gang visited Sequoia National Park on a quite snowy and sloppy Memorial Day. Along the way they got to experience Central Valley, the flattest place in the US and another place visitors typically shun. And I think they now understand why that particular shunning. We had to take two cars for this trip and each day a different “volunteer” got to ride with me in the Mini while Cyndi rode with the rest of the gang in a rental. Poor Betty had to ride with me across the Central Valley, where she learned more about geology and irrigation that she ever wanted. And Trent and Jeff learned how to change a tire on the rental while the rest of us watched them. We finally parted ways at Mission San Antonio at Hunter LIgget and while Cyndi and I returned home to re-enable chaos mode, the gang continued to Santa Barbara and LAX for some peace and quiet.

Thanks for visiting, folks. But next time come earlier so you can help us clean house.

More Pictures of

  Jane and Ralph's visit

  Betty, Trent, Peggy and Jeff's visit

Trip to Louisville

 Our trip to see Cyndi’s family in southern Indiana took us thru Houston and IAH’s third world terminal servicing Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky and the rest of the western southeast. You know, the kind of terminal with eight “gates” sharing one gate number, poorly shaved transvestites scaring children and where you walk across the tarmac in the rain to climb up a staircase with only one handrail to enter a plane built in an actual third world country. The plane was quite nice, the terminal not so much.


Upon arrival in Louisville we first headed to see Cyndi’s mother Jeannie, who I immediately soaked with a bottle of seltzer water. I hadn’t realized the grocery stores pre-shook the bottles and I wasn’t intentionally pointing it at Jeannie, I was just pointing it away from me. Jeannie is a much better person than me and had no hard feelings, especially since we brought food and I brought her daughter.



The next day before we headed towards Lexington to tour the Woodford bourbon distillery, we stopped for lunch at a sports bar in New Albany. The lunch was tasty and the 40+ year old short-skirted waitresses attentive but I was disconcerted to read the sign on the back of the bathroom’s door suggesting cleanliness to the employees1.  


The ride to Woodford’s was comfortable and there was a useful sign on the freeway telling us which exit to use, but after that we were on our own. We relied on Google maps to wander 45 minutes thru horse country with white wooden fences everywhere which seemed to fence trees in and people out. Google got us to Versailles, KY but then basically said “you’re on your own from here on”. After a couple aborted searches I stopped to ask directions of a local and he laughed and introduced me to an albino tire installation engineer with robin’s egg blue eyes without pupils and he giggled as well. They finally decided that if I went “that way” and turned right at the right time, we would find Woodford’s. Hoping for more of a clue, I asked “roughly how far” and the tire mechanic shrugged and guessed 5 miles. Maybe 12.


It turned out to be around 7 miles and hidden, but in spite of this the distillery was well visited and they had to add a second 3pm tour for us and the other stragglers. The tour was fun, especially the sampling at the end. I learned their water came from a “deep well” about 45 feet down thru the limestone that filtered out iron and heavy ions but added calcium which contributes to the unique flavor of Woodford’s and the calciated water helps horses grow strong bones, which contributes to the Kentucky horse’s superior racing abilities.

When Cyndi and I passed thru this area on our move to California 15 years ago, we saw the Heaven Hill distillery burn to the ground and the rolling, flaming casks of bourbon were beautiful to watch, but the waste of liquor was horrible to see. We asked if they would burn a barrel for us and I guess they would have but we would have to buy the barrel first and that would cost like $15k and so we stuck with our Heaven Hill memories.

Jeff, Cyndi, Peggy, Betty, Trent

The next day Cyndi’s sister, brother-in-law, aunt and uncle-in-law showed us around Louisville then took us to the Bernheim Arboretun. Unfortunately it was just about two weeks too early in the spring and only a few flowers were out and the trees were still bare, but beekeepers let us pet their queens and stick shapers lets us stroke their sticks (really, I’m serious). Jeff (the uncle-in-law) and I climbed to the top of the fire tower at the highest point in the park and the docent showed us downtown Louisville thru a gap in the Kentucky hills, Fort Knox in the near distance and explained how differential erosion in the limestone formations created the knobs in front of us. I tried my best to see the hills.


In a really dirty trick, Betty (Cyndi’s sister) and six other relatives scheduled their birthdays within a week of our arrival and they had a huge family birthday party at Betty’s. They claimed 47 people attended but I’m pretty sure it was a lot closer to 100. And while I was in a daze trying to keep track of names and relationships (and gave up on this quite quickly), I felt bad for the one young boy attempting to play with his 17 girl cousins. I guess all the fertile females in this clan sleep on their right side.


On the last day of my visit, Cyndi and I drove across the flat limestone deposits2 to see the Indiana ski runs3 and the Spa at Paoli, which was lovely and much larger than expected, seemingly larger than the hill that provided a backdrop. We went on a few feet further to French Lick and drove past their high school on Larry Bird Drive. Larry Bird is not only one of the all time great basketball players but a very good human as well and it is nice to see him honored, but I wonder how the it feels as a student to arrive at school each day to be reminded that the one truly great person to graduate from this high school has already graduated.


At lunchtime we returned to Cordyn, Indiana’s first Capital and home of Butt Drugs. 40% of Cordyn’s surface area is cemetery and something like 35% of the residents are in nursing homes. Cyndi wants to move here and while they do have a WalMart and a Culvers and Cracker Barrel and all the usual fast food places, they lack a Sonic Burger and that is a deal breaker for me.


We ate at Magdalena’s Restaurant on Cordyn’s main square and as we entered a woman about 68 years old eating by herself and who later proved to be demented threw down her salad fork, rushed over, embraced Cyndi and said “Honey, you look just like my older sister”. This is a story I shall repeat often. Ms Dementia then went to all the patrons in the restaurant and told them to move away from the windows because a tornado was coming (it wasn’t, at least not that day) and warning those finished with lunch not to leave or they would get washed away in the flood or blown away by the wind (it was just raining) and sat muttering to herself as people tried to ignore her. Perhaps I look that demented to Cyndi and she feels Cordyn is the right place for me?



1 These signs in California are much more assertive, typically saying “Employees must wash hands before returning to work” and often include a picture showing hands washing, but even this can be misconstrued. I recently observed a restaurant employee enter the washroom, wash his hands, then use the facilities which does technically comply with the stated sanitary regulation, if not its intention. As we had just finished lunch, I thought it best not to immediately relate this story to Cyndi.


2 Of course, limestone is deposited at the bottom of seas and since today this part of Indiana is roughly 700 feet above sea level, there must have been considerable uplift to get the limestone to this height, yet it is perfectly level with no folding and no tilting. I found this interesting and subsequent research revealed that in fact the limestone dips ½ degree from Cincinnati in the east to the Mississippi valley in the west and was uplifted when North America smashed into Europe 220 million years ago. Apparently Indiana was far enough away from the carnage to avoid folding. Since then there has been additional local 200’ vertical displacements of bits of limestone and Geologists love to argue about whether some bits were further uplifted or other bits subsided. It must be exciting to be a Geologist.


2 Skiing is listed by the state as their number one tourist attraction, with watching the Amish second. I need not comment further.

Bypass

It takes 9 hours and 20 minutes to drive from our home to Las Vegas. We stopped after 9 hours and 10 minutes to visit the scenic Hoover Dam Bypass bridge, which was opened last fall and is an alternate for the road across the Hoover Dam connecting Arizona and Nevada. We had visited the dam almost exactly ten years ago. Much is the same but the water levels are significantly lower and the number of tourists and tour prices much higher. If you walk across the bridge you get great views of the dam and the Black Canyon but you can’t enter Arizona by foot in what apparently is another attempt by Arizona to keep illegals out of their fine state.  

I prefer to call the dam by its rightful name: the Boulder Dam. A Republican congress renamed it after their hero Hoover who had nothing to do with the building of the dam but did attempt to destroy the country, which is the core Republican strength. Hoover is an appropriate iconic name for Republicans as Republicans suck.

Boulder City, Nevada sits near the dam and avoided the re-naming horror. Boulder City is a tidy, lovely city that has made both gambling and large hotels illegal and has controlled growth and sprawl by incorporating land for 20 miles around and issuing very few building permits each year. Boulder City has nice parks and lots of realistic, intimate public art. But Fox dominates the city and so nothing is perfect.

Boulder Dam of course provides 2GW of power to the region and I have comprehensively documented the power distribution mechanisms in my photos. Within the Boulder City limits is the new El Dorado Thin Film Solar Array, which generates a peak of 10 MW and is actually rather attractive from some angles.

On our way to the dam we took the Kelso Bypass and visited the Mohave National Preserve. We saw no other cars as we traveled about 45 minutes along an eroding red road to reach Kelso, a “ghost town” where we found a modest visitor center, a grumpy Ranger and the happiest owner-operator of a NPS food concession I’ve met.  We saw the Kelso Dunes, the tallest sand dunes in the US, and saw the largest forest of Joshua Trees in the world, many of which were apparently starting to bloom. We saw two cars in the next hour as we continued along the red road back to a US highway near Searchlight.

It is easy to forget how large and generally un-populated California is but when you drive across Kern and San Bernadino Counties you are reminded of this. Fun facts: Kern County is larger than 4 US states and is nearly the size of New Jersey; San Bernadino Country is larger that 9 US states and 23 European countries, coming in larger than Switzerland and just smaller than Ireland. Arid jagged peaks, huge bajadas and low rain fall make for great meditative driving … just remember to bring water … or at least venti ice coffees.

The Pacheco and Tehachapi passes, the Boron Borax mine and Mohave used aircraft yard were pretty much the only other interesting things along the trip. Near Santa Nella hundreds of tumbleweeds were tumbling in all directions. Some tumbleweeds were huge; one as large as the Mini attacked us but I skilfully avoided it and the other panic-ed drivers who were skilfully avoiding it and me. There was the usual I-5 mirage about 10 miles from Buttonwillow, where shimmering double-height cars and trucks are seen moving vaguely near the horizon. Cherry trees started to blossom and egrets and lambs enjoyed each other’s company in cotton fields. Otherwise I-5 is a study in serial boredom.

And yes, we did travel 550 of the 570 miles to Las Vegas and passed by without stopping. After all, there isn’t much to do in Las Vegas.

You will want to see all my photos from this trip. Won’t you?