home again, home again

Jiggety-jog, as my mother used to say.

Our last day on the road mostly consisted of beautiful fog-swept beaches and one disappointment before we cut back over to I-5 and booked the rest of the way.

The disappointment was the fact that Heceta Head lighthouse's entire park was closed.  We did get a picture of it from the pullout on 101, but I was really hoping to take the hike up to the keeper's cottage and the actual lighthouse in order to get some good digital photos of it.  The last time I'd been through here I was still shooting film.

The lighthouse is that white dot on the cliff, and if you look just below the second hump, down in the fog, you can barely see the keeper's cottage.

But the rest of the morning, when we stopped at the Cape Perpetua visitor center and also at several pullouts along the highway to admire the beaches and seastacks, was wonderful.

I think that's Cape Perpetua in the background, but I wouldn't swear to it.

Somewhere between Yachats and Newport.

Ditto.

With added pelicans.

At Newport we cut east to Corvallis and I-5, where we ate lunch, then headed up the highway, just beating the rush hour traffic in Portland, and on home.

It was a good trip, all in all, but I think we were both glad to be back.

more redwoods and plenty of ocean

Our second-to-last day on the road began with a view of the ocean, because Eureka is where U.S. 101 first reaches the Pacific.

Beach just north of Arcata

After a few miles of this sort of gorgeousness, we ducked back into the wooded sort.

Things have changed north of Eureka since the last time I was there ten years ago.  They've built another new section of U.S. 101, and done another Avenue of the Giants thing with the old section, only the entire old section is within Redwood National Park, so there aren't any little towns along the way.  There is, however, a very nice visitor center.  And an elk refuge (we didn't see any, but after Yellowstone I'm kind of blasé about elk, anyway), and several nice walking trails. 

The elk refuge with redwoods in the background

Due to Mary's leg, we only walked one short trail, but we both enjoyed the drive very much. And the visitor center, which had a very nice bookstore where I bought a history of the redwood region, both natural and cultural.


The "Big Tree," from a distance because that's the only way to get anywhere near most of it into a photo.



And the sign on the fence that surrounds it.  Yeah, that's a pretty big tree, even if it isn't very creatively named.

After we got back up on 101, we drove past the Trees of Mystery, a tourist trap which basically consists of a bunch of warped trees and a very large gift shop (my ex insisted on visiting it when we'd been here on our honeymoon), and over the Klamath River bridge, decorated with two California golden bears on each end:

I love those bears, and I had completely forgotten about them.

Then it was on to Crescent City.

That's the Crescent City harbor.

Mary said that she kept doubletaking at the name of the town, because to her New Orleans is the crescent city.  We stopped at a park in town to take a photo or two of the town's lighthouse:

I don't know the real name of the lighthouse.  I know it isn't St. George Reef, which is near here but on a rock out in the ocean.

Then it was across the border into Oregon and up one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world, which is not just my humble opinion.  We stopped in Brookings for a quilt shop and lunch, and then enjoyed our way north.

Somewhere between the Oregon/California border and Coos Bay.

Ditto.

We finally stopped for the night in Coos Bay, Oregon, about halfway up the coast, first at a Fred Meyer for a few various and sundry things, then at two motels, the second of which met our criteria of a ventilation system that did not involve leaving our windows open onto a busy highway all night.

And that was our second-to-last day on the road.

into the redwoods

This is a month ago yesterday's post, which didn't get made on time.

We left Williams fairly early in the morning, although it was already almost 80dF outside.  About 10 miles west of town we spied another fruit stand, where we stopped and stocked up again, then headed west around Clear Lake to U.S. 101, which is the coastal counterpart to I-5.  We stopped for gas in the town of Willits (home of the Skunk -- a short railroad built back in the days when they were still lumbering old growth redwoods, but now a tourist trip), then headed up into the redwoods.

This is where we picnicked, after purchasing delicious sandwiches in a hippy dippy general store along 101 

This is the Eel River, where my ex-husband almost drowned on our wedding night, but that's another story.

We drove up past the Benbow Inn (where I spent part of my first honeymoon 30+ years ago) and Garberville, and turned off onto the Avenue of the Giants.

Just one of lots and lots of enormous trees.

I love everything about the Avenue of the Giants.  I love the quaint little towns draped along it at intervals, and the way it forces drivers to be leisurely and enjoy the drive (it really should be a National Parkway like the Blue Ridge and the Natchez Trace, in my humble opinion), and then, of course, there are the trees.  I'm not going to get all clichéd on you and talk about how small and young they can make you feel, because to me that's not the point.  The point is that they've watched everything happen in their long lifetimes, and they're still there.  There's something comforting about that.

It is difficult to get decent pictures of them, though.  I did try...

I like the light in this one.

This is how shallow-rooted those enormous trees really are.

Both of these photos were taken in the Founder's Grove, at the north end of the Avenue of the Giants, which is also the home of one of the tallest living things on the earth, the Founder's Tree:

346 feet tall, actually

A great many of the groves are named after people or events, since the remaining old-growth redwoods were originally saved by charitable donations back in the middle of the 20th century. 

This one was named after a military veteran.

There are stones with metal plaques like this scattered all through the groves.

We also stopped at a visitor center along the Avenue, where, of all things, we overheard a young man talking to the woman behind the counter about how he was thinking about going to Yellowstone. He seemed to be under the impression that it would be just a short jaunt. I couldn't help but jump in and try to explain things -- like how Yellowstone is about 1000 miles from the redwoods. I was glad to see the distance didn't daunt him, but I do wonder if he ever made it.

We eventually got back on 101 again and drove through Eureka to the college (Humboldt State University) town of Arcata, where we found a motel.  We'd gone from 80 degrees at 8 am to 60 degrees at 5 pm.  After over a week of 90s and single digit humidity, 60s and fog were absolutely a balm to our parched souls.

WorldCon 2011, Day 1

And now to the geeky part of our travels.  Renovation, the 2011 WorldCon, was held in Reno, Nevada, in August.  I suspect it's partly because Reno in August is a very cheap place.  The hotel certainly was cheap and luxurious, a combination I can seriously get behind.  But then given the weather I could understand why they might have trouble getting folks to come visit in August. I could literally feel the moisture being sucked out of my body every time I set foot out of doors, and the smoke from the range fire burning down near Carson City while we were there enhanced the effect nicely.

All that aside, WorldCon was very enjoyable.  This was Mary's and my second WorldCon -- our first was in Denver in 2008.  I think what I love best about science fiction conventions is the sense of humor of the organizers and attendees.  It's delightfully off-kilter.  For example, take a look at this grass-skirted Dalek:



For those who are not Doctor Who fans (and why aren't you?), Daleks are the good Doctor's most traditional villain.  However, I've never seen one in a grass skirt before.

 Then there is the Discworld golf cart:



Discworld, according to Terry Pratchett, who authors the books set there, is a flat world that sits on the back of four elephants perched on the back of a turtle which swims through the universe.



Here's a better view of Discworld itself.  The fringe is the water perpetually falling off of the edge of the planet.

 My first full day at WorldCon was partly spent wandering through the art show and the dealers' room, but it was mostly spent at panels where the topics ranged from writing in shared universes to the geek as hero.  I also enjoyed the opening ceremonies.

All in all, a very good opening day.

Mono Lake and on to Reno

The next morning, much refreshed after a clean shower and a good night's sleep, we stopped at Mono Lake before heading north to Reno. 

Mono Lake has a very impressive visitor center,


No, I don't know who those people are [g].

We not only learned about the geology of the lake, but also about its natural history and human history.  I must say that I'm very glad I wasn't an Indian in this area.  They apparently lived on larvae harvested from the lake.

The lake itself is beautiful, in an extremely austere way.


From the patio behind the visitor center. The beige things in the water are tufa formations, which are a kind of rock that forms in water this full of chemicals.

And another view.  The lake is many times as chemically saturated as the Great Salt Lake.

 We stopped at the Mono Basin Historical Museum, too, but unfortunately it was closed.

The building is an old schoolhouse.

 There was a rather odd-looking building in the yard, though,


I've never seen an upside-down building before.

 After that we headed north from Lee Vining through the desert along the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevadas, through several tiny towns with gas prices that made me really glad I'd paid that $4.20-something in Yosemite.  These prices were almost up to $5.  As soon as we crossed the state line into Nevada, though, they dropped back to around $3.65.  Politics does strange things to gas prices...

We arrived in Reno in time for a late lunch (just fast food), and then visited our first quilt shop of the trip.  Both of us walked out with fabric, and I found a couple of patterns, too.  Then we went to the strip and found the con hotel.  It took a bit of maneuvering and figuring out how things worked, but we finally did, and found ourselves in the lap of luxury, for about $20 more a night than we'd paid for that tent cabin in Yosemite.  We went to register for the World Science Fiction convention, held in Reno's convention center, which looked very retro-sixties but was air-conditioned, which was all that mattered at that point.

It was in the 90s and single-digit humidity the whole time we were in Reno.  I've never felt so much like a potato chip in my life.

over the pass and down to the desert

The day we left Yosemite National Park, we drove north out of the valley towards the Tioga Pass Road.  This was the part of our visit to the park that I was looking forward to the most.  Because most of my visits to Yosemite have been in the off-season, and the road over Tioga Pass is closed eight or nine months out of the year because of snow, I hadn't been over Tioga Pass since about age five.  I don't remember anything at all from that trip.  So this was, to all intents and purposes, one of my alltime favorite things -- a stretch of road I'd never seen before. 

We stopped for gas at the junction.  It was over $4 a gallon, but not by much, and was not by any stretch the most expensive gas I saw on the trip.  Then we headed east.  The first twenty miles or so reminded me greatly of the endless lodgepole pine forests of Yellowstone, although the pines (I don't know the variety, much to my chagrin) of Yosemite are much larger. 

The first view we reached was at Olmstead Point, named after the guy who designed Central Park, and also worked in Yosemite for a while.  The views there are amazing:



That's the back of Half Dome in the distance

 We also saw lots of lovely wildflowers:



Yet another variety of penstemons -- we saw at least half a dozen different kinds on this trip



A mariposa lily, which I'd never seen growing in the wild before

 I love adding flowers to my life list (not that I keep one, except in my head).

I love these, too:



A bronze relief of the landscape at Olmstead Point

 A number of these reliefs are scattered strategically through Yosemite.  There was one at Yosemite Falls, and one at Glacier Point, too, and probably several others that I missed along the way.  They're tangible, touchable, graphic demonstrations of exactly how rugged this landscape is.

The next landmark along the way was Tenaya Lake, named after one of the last of the Indians who lived in the park.  It is a picture perfect alpine lake.



Tenaya Lake in the distance




And much closer up.  Note the young woman sitting on the rock.



If you look just below the big green spot in the middle of the photo, and just above it as well, you'll see who she was looking at.  Climbers, who are everywhere in Yosemite.

 Our next stop was completely unplanned.  A buck mule deer came charging across the road from between some rocks, far too quickly for me to react to it, and he whammed into the side of the car, bounced onto the hood, slid across, and bounced back down to the pavement, where he ran off down into the woods.  Fortunately there was a pullout nearby, because I was absolutely shaking and gibbering. 

There is a new slight dent in Kestrel's left front fender.  It was lined with stray deer hair.  But it is barely noticeable unless you know what you're looking for, and that was the extent of the damage, to us and the car.  I really hope that the only thing the deer got out of it was a big bruise on his back end. 

I'm so glad his antlers didn't go through the windshield.  It certainly could have, because he and I stared at each other for a split second that lasted for several hours as he slid over the hood.

After that, Tuolumne Meadows, while lovely, was something of an anticlimax.



I don't know the name of that mountain, alas.



Or that one.  But the river is the Tuolumne. The stick is a guide for the snowplows.  The snow gets measured in the yards up here.



This is actually on the east side of Tioga Pass, outside of the park entrance.

 Once we left the park, the road dropped like a stone in switchback after switchback.  Tioga Pass is 9943 feet high.  Lee Vining, the town where we spent that night, is 6781 feet, in the high desert next to Mono Lake (more on Mono Lake tomorrow).  The distance by road between the two is slightly under 13 miles.

And between the two is the difference between mountain meadow and arid desert.  Midway between we saw prickly poppies:



Beautiful to my eye, but common as sand to my west-Texas-bred friend Mary

 We arrived in Lee Vining in time for a late lunch, which we ate at a place called Whoa Nellie Deli, that I'd read about in one guide book or another.  It was good, but nothing to write home about.  We spent the rest of our afternoon dealing with the practicalities of travel -- laundry and groceries and getting everything cleaned up and reorganized.

It was nice to be back in a real motel room...

in which I climb a lot of stairs -- and I mean a *lot*

One month ago today I climbed the Mist Trail, which is the most popular hiking trail in Yosemite National Park.  I got up at 6:30 in the morning to do it, because a) it was supposed to get to close to 90dF that day, and b) it's the most popular trail in Yosemite National Park.

Hiking it that early in the morning was definitely the best thing I did in Yosemite Valley.  I caught the first valley shuttle bus at seven and rode it the two stops to Happy Isles, which is the trailhead for the Mist Trail (and the trail to the summit of Half Dome, but I'm not that crazy).  The trail was practically deserted (relatively speaking), and it was about 60 degrees out.  Perfect.



The beginning of the trail.  It looks pretty innocuous, doesn't it?



A lot of even the early part of the trail is carved out of the side of a cliff.  Getting gradually steeper, too.



It's about a mile to the first landmark, a bridge over the Merced River.  After that, the pavement ends and the hike begins.



The view upstream from the bridge.  Vernal Falls is, unfortunately, overexposed in the top center of the photo.

 After that, things start to get a bit steeper.  Over 600 stairs steeper, as a matter of fact.



Only 3/10 of a mile.  Right.

 The sign says it's less than a third of a mile to the top of the falls. What they don't tell you is that it's straight up. I've done this hike several times before, but I hadn't done it in ten years, and there's a lot of difference between 42 and 52.  Trust me.



The first really good glimpse of Vernal Falls.



The drier part of the stairs.  Closer to the waterfall it gets pretty darned slippery.



Edging ever closer.  At least the mist from the falls keeps a person nice and cool.



The really interesting part.  The space between the railing and the cliff is about eighteen inches wide in places.  And wet.  And the opposite of smooth.



The top of Vernal Falls, with glacially-smoothed granite.  Fortunately, it's dry.




Emerald Pool, above Vernal Falls.  The day I hiked this trail, there were signs posted all over the place about three people who'd gone swimming there a couple of weeks before and gone over the falls.  They still hadn't found two of the bodies.


After I reached the top, I went looking for the John Muir/horse trail back down, because I didn't think it was a good idea to try to go back down all those stairs.  I wound up hiking up another half mile, not finding the trail, and hiking back that half mile plus down all those stairs anyway.  I did get a good view of Nevada Falls, but by the time I took that photo, I was tired and frustrated enough that I didn't appreciate it all that much.



Here it is, anyway.  Nevada Fall on the right, Liberty Cap on the left.

 That's much bigger than the Liberty Cap at Mammoth in Yellowstone.

I got back a bit after noon, and collapsed in a heap for a while before Mary, who'd spent a much more sensible morning looking up at the cliffs instead of trying to climb them, and I went to find lunch, taco salads at Curry Village, which were actually pretty good.  After that, she and I rode the shuttle bus over to Yosemite Village and went to the visitor center there, which impressed me very much.  It's a lot shinier and newer than the last time I'd been there, the history exhibits in particular were really nice, and they had a nice bookstore.

Then we came back and discovered just how disgustingly filthy and unkempt the shower facilities at Curry Village were.  If I hadn't needed a shower that badly...

And that was our second and last full day in Yosemite.