It is nice to hear from you and about your vacation. I have to agree with Chris that the stream of consciousness writing
style is had to read and the gallery is likely daunting for most. You might take a cue from Mike's Scotland gallery, and
break it into sub pieces by place.
On 12/21/2014 6:03 PM, Willie Wonka via olympus wrote:
I have been lurking lately, but found a little time andmaterial to post.The pictures can be found
here:http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=13775 My son finished high school and as a reward we took him on his
biggest vacation up to date – trip to California. Yes, we have taken him abroad, but this was much bigger. His
favorite movie of all times is “BigTrouble in Little China” (rolling my eyes…), so San Francisco it
was. San Francisco is one amazing city. More amazing are itsinhabitants…they are so laid back and relaxed
and…pretty sure none of themrealize that the car they drive actually has a horn.
Not that most of them realize it, but it's illegal to use your horn in Calif.
except to avoid an accident.
Really, what’s wrong withthese people? And who wears winter coat at the end of
June, we felt so out ofplace in shorts and t-shirts.
Absent anything else to do, some locals go out to watch tourists freezing in the fog. :-) That's about as good a time to
wear a winter coat as we get here. We don't have your kind of winters. A foggy, windy day is about as cold feeling as
the coldest winter day. Look up SF temps by month.
There was another reason we felt so out ofplace-we drove the biggest car in the city, but more on that
later…The first day we “rented” a tour guide whom we found on theNet. We choose him,
because we didn’t want to participate in a cheesy tour,going to all the tourist places. Our effort
paid off and we actually learned something.First stop, China Town. It was very unlike China towns onthe
East Coast.
Wow, that's weird. Chinatown on a weekday morning is nothing like evening and
weekends. Like a ghost town.
To get there we took one of the old trolleys. Funny, they have wooden brakes
that smell like burning pine downhill.
Trolleys are self propelled. SF cable cars have no motors, They grab a moving
cable under the street to be propelled.
There was one funnyincident, where the tour guide who happened to be a jokester, pointed to a
very narrow side alley and told the group that it’s an unique photographic opportunity
and upon hearing this, each one of them started clicking away. He just laughed and told them
that he was joking. I think they gave him dirty looks, because he didn’t joke like
that until the tour ended.
Unlike most who may view your pics, I enjoyed recognizing, or trying to
recognize, the places you photographed.
San Franciscans seems to love their coffee. Everywhere yougo, you are greeted by this
big, beautiful coffee machines. No idea how good it is, since I don’t drink
coffee, but I can attest, that the local beer is superb.
Yup, don't drink coffee, great beer from many microbreweries. If you had any from Faction or Celebrator, you will have
seen my son's artwork on the label.
We were renting houses anddespite having all the amenities, we ate out. The food was edible, unlike
thefood found in the tourist destinations. Speaking of San Franciscans, did youknow that one can
smoke pot in public transportation…:)I really wanted to have a picture of the iconic
SanFrancisco bridge, but it wasn’t meant to be. There was entirely too much fog.Well, you see
my best effort…On the way to Mount Carmel, starting picture 452.
Confusion. 439 is a classic view of the GG Bridge, the best on a foggy day for many tourists. BUT, it's heading North,
and a day earlier. The nearest Mount Carmel is South, inland from the town of Carmel. Is that where you mean?
Alexchased the birds on the beach. We were so happy, as we hadn’t seen a real
oceansince July of 2013, the time we left Rhode Island. Mount Carmel was touristy, the
beach was cold and aftercompleting the famous 17 mile drive
Didn't I write you a too lengthy email including warning you off 17 Mile Drive? It's WAY overrated. I hadn't been there
in many years 'til recently visiting a relative of a friend who lives just off the drive, and entrance was free. Point
Lobos is almost infinitely better.
we headed to Santa Cruz, where we spent therest of the day. Having lived in RI for ten
years, we weren’t impressed by the17 mile drive.Next day we headed towards the
Yosemite where we spent twodays. It was too hot in the valley (yes, that deer passed
right by me) and in the afternoon of the first day we headed for the high country,
which we liked better. The second day we spend hiking at high elevation, where one
could really feel the lack of air in the air sans the unrelenting heat.
Well, highish country. :-) Those mountains tilt up, N. to S. and elevations are greater hiking further south. Nice to
see you made it to the Mariposa grove if Sequoias. That's a place I always end up short of breath. We always seem to go
before the shuttle is running, by one day last time, and have to hike up to the upper part, which is my favorite.
Pictures 894, 941, 944 and 945 are from a place called “SodaSprings”. I love
seltzer and it was amazing to see it bubbling right out of theground. Of course I drank it
and am still alive.
Well, we passed through there a couple of weeks before, headed the other way, but I'd never heard of those springs, and
we drove right by. We did have lunch on the shore of Lake Tenaya.
The following pictures were taken either on the way or atMono Lake, some of
them through the car window. I hate the sunset/sunrise lookwhere everything is
orange, so the pictures of the tuffas were taken right aftersunset.
This was the first year I was there after the lake started getting big again. We had early afternoon light at the tufa,
which worked well for some shots.
Now we start with the part of the trip which was mostinteresting to Alex. He likes old
stuff and he is fascinated by the abandonedtowns in the West. First stop-Bode, an old
mining town that was deserted in the early part of the twentieth century. I
didn’t see any generators, but if you look closely the lamp on picture 1152 is
still glowing.
A couple of your pictures show utility poles obviously newer than the town. A quick look on the web shows more. I'm sure
they have power.
It was hot, really hot,but as you can see the person on picture 1161 was not deterred
to dress inlayers…:)After that, we explored via back roads a few more abandoned
towns.We had rented an SUV in order to accomplish this task since they were far
awayfrom pavement.Alex was upset when we reached the first town. As mentionedabove, he
really likes old stuff and the fact that people used everything,especially the cars
for target practice, did not go well with him.
That's the back country West for you. Bodie isn't so bad because it's been
protected.
On the way back (at the end of our vacation) we stopped by a train museum, Alex has atrain fetish.
We were informed that the train on picture 1371 is a movie starthat starred in more than 100 movies,
including the famous scene from “Back tothe Future”, but you movie buffs already knew
that.Unlike now, California was really dry. One can see from thepictures taken in-between how
scorched everything was. I have never seen fields and hills made of pure gold…
When Carol first drove out here from Maine, she thought there had been some sort of terrible ecological disaster. Then
the rains came in winter and all turned green again. Things were especially, unusually dry this summer, after a couple
of dry winters. It's always 'golden' in summer, but more burned looking than usual this year. All turning rapidly green
again with the rain we've had - finally. All sorts of greens, some bright enough to take my breath away.
Now, keep in mind, that I was forewarned-this wasn’t goingto be a photography trip, all pictures
with the exception of one were made prettymuch while walking/driving. Only one time during this trip, I
(put my footdown, much to Alex’s annoyance and…) took 20 minutes in order to take one ofthe
pictures, so here it is: Whoeverfigures out which one it is first, gets an award, I will think of
something.Hint…it took me nineteen minutes and a half to find it and half a minute to take it.
My candidate is 1118. Beautiful light, excellent subject and framing. Seems to me the most carefully chosen and composed
shot.
Mostly the other ghost town shots aren't of much interest to me. I started wandering around hot, dry abandoned mining
stuff when I was a kid and the family went to Tahoe each summer, including a trip to Virginia City. Guess I've had
enough. I do like 1235. Did you notice that 1286 and 1317 are almost identical shots?
If Alex gets out here again, he might like Old Town Sacramento. Some decently preserved old buildings and a good train
museum. Less dusty and hands on old stuff, but a much larger, broader collection of trains in better condition.
Paying Attention Moose
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What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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