It’s hard to say who treated the Native Californians worse, the Spanish missionaries who enslaved them in the name of converting them to christianity or the later American settlers who embarked on a program of systematic genocide without the cover of religion. This weekend we stopped at Fremont Peak State Park, where in 1846 Fremont first raised an American flag in an attempt to claim California for America before being chased off by the Mexicans who owned it at the…
Our friend Susie lives in a log cabin (with a private hanger for her plane) on the road to Yosemite. She shares the property with a herd of mule deer. If you are wondering how she got so rich, this cost less than the perfectly ordinary little house she used to own in San Jose. Anyhow, she invited us to park the RV in her driveway and loaned us her convertible to explore Yosemite. Vroom! Vroom! So off we went…
In a fit of cabin fever, we bought an RV, so we can travel and still remain socially isolated. The first excursion was to Fallen Leaf Lake, just south of Lake Tahoe. The aspen groves are just starting to get their autumn colors, and were shining golden in the sunshine. Oh, look, a white headed woodpecker. Little bastard kept creeping around the tree so he was hard to photograph. There was a log cabin in the woods… … and the…
Today we visited Lava Beds National Monument and Lassen Volcanic National Park. Here’s some highs and lows. Best wildlife: the butterfly that landed on Paula’s hand at lunchtime. Honorable mentions for the butterfly that landed on my chair, a random dragonfly, and mister lizard, and mister swallow. Worst signage: a description of the “The End of the Modoc War” which neglected to mention that it wasn’t actually a war it was part of the systematic genocide of the Native Americans…
Up, up, up, this morning along windy highway 242, though pine forests. At 4,000 feet suddenly the woods were full of white flowers that looked like snowballs on a stick. Higher still, and suddenly the trees were gone, and we were at the edge of a lava flow, a large field of aa only a few hundred years old. Aa is the cindery, sharp lava beloved of Scrabble players. Still after a few hundred years, plants start to take root….
Yesterday we headed up into the mountains to Belknap Hot Springs. This little resort by the side of the MeKenzie River… … features traditional chainsaw art (possibly fiberglass, I didn’t check)… … a machine for moving dead trees… … a strange fountain featuring a leaking jazz band… … a hot spring fed swimming pool at 103 F, and deep in the woods, a secret water garden. Splashing around in the fast flowing ponds was this little guy, an American Dipper….
Boon: Jesus. What’s going on?Hoover: They confiscated everything, even the stuff we didn’t steal.Bluto: They took the bar! The whole ****ing bar![Otter grabs a bottle of whiskey and throws it to Bluto, who chugs it all]Bluto: Thanks. I needed that.Hoover: Christ. This is ridiculous. What are we going to do?Otter & Boon: Road trip. Perhaps after all the world is going to end with a bang rather than a whimper. Sometimes when things are falling apart it seems like there…
We were planning on snorkeling today up at the north end of the island, but the waves looked a bit rough and it was raining, so it turned into a two museum day. First stop was the Gauguin Center, devoted to the four months Gauguin spent in Martinique. It may not seem like a long time, especially as he was sick with malaria he had contracted while working as a navvy on the Panama Canal, but it was a critical…
I already mentioned that Napoleon Bonaparte’s first wife Josephine grew up around here. Today we went to visit what remains of her old family home. Not much as it turns out. That’s the foundations of the big house. The plantation sugar refinery still has some walls and a chimney, and the old kitchen building has been restored as a small museum. They have a collection of portraits of Josephine… … including the tragic, “Josephine signing the divorce papers after she…