Santa Baby

Looking back at 2017, I'm pretty sure my nice has outweighed my naughty (I've had a little of both). Apparently, Santa Claus agrees.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Shop Till You Drop

On Friday we did lots of Christmas shopping. Not at a big mall, mind you. Nor online for that matter (sorry, Jeff Bezos). We prefer patronizing small local shops which is important because otherwise they will go away and that would be tragic.

Think global and shop local.

Thank You

I had a nice Thanksgiving Day this year. This is me with my loving family.

Impossible Acres

Pumpkin hunting around this time of year is a lot of fun.

Birthday

Another year has passed and now I'm 24 years old. I had two really great birthday celebrations this past weekend. The first was at the annual Team Davis Banquet (where I was serenaded). The second was with my family in Berkeley, featuring another fantastic cake from Pam Cohen. It shows me busy with one of my favorite activities- camping!

Thanks everybody.

Fire On The Mountain

Lassen Volcanic National Park!

Over Labor Day weekend it wasn't the underground fire we were concerned with. It was all the wildfires throughout Northern California. All the smoke in the air made hiking difficult. It was a fun camping trip, though.

Thunder On The Mountain

Today Dad and I had an Excellent Adventure up in the Sierra Nevada. We hiked to the top of Thunder Mountain (9,408 ft.), south of Lake Tahoe near the Kirkwood Ski Area. The view from the summit was terrific. You could see all the way from the Desolation Wilderness to the peaks of Northern Yosemite. We even got to hear some thunder off in the distance.

Now, I don't read the written word (at least as far as anybody knows, although I'll allow that Dr. Seuss is my favorite author), but I could tell that this sign means business. According to what I've heard, this part of the Sierra has the greatest avalanche danger out of the entire range. Fortunately, a wall of snow coming down on our heads is not very likely in August.

We made sure to stay on the trail, though...

Yosemite!

It's probably pretty obvious that Dad and I love the great national parks of the United States. It's hard to pick a favorite, but maybe... just maybe, it might be Yosemite.

We took a hike to Gaylor Lakes, just over 10,000 feet above sea level. They were still partially snowbound even in mid-July. Not surprising considering the winter we just had.

The ranger at Tioga Pass took some time out from directing traffic and answering visitors' questions to chat with us about our hike. He was a really cool dude, probably not much older than me. I want that job!

Mono Lake

I love Mono Lake. It's one of the most unusual places to visit in California. It has two islands (Negit and Paoha) that are important stops for migrating birds. We visited Panum Crater from which we had a great view of the lake and the Mono Craters (the youngest mountain range in North America). Oh, and did I mention that you also get the spectacular eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada to the west.

Special thanks to David Gaines (1947-1988) for all his efforts to preserve and restore the lake. We need more people like him to fight for the environment.

Golden Spike

On May 10, 1869 this place was hoppin'...

Have you guessed yet? It's the place where the transcontinental railroad was finally completed at Promontory Summit, Utah. Back in the day all kinds of dignitaries and important people showed up for the ceremony. Governor Leland Stanford of California was given the honor of driving the last railroad tie into the ground. He swung... but he missed. The National Park Service runs the site now.

There's not a whole lot of people out here in northwestern Utah, but one other thing I noticed was a super duper top secret NASA rocket development facility out in the middle of nowhere. It was surrounded by a six foot barbed wire fence with scary no trespassing signs everywhere. I wonder what's going on in there.

Private Idaho

Despite the name of the B-52s song, much of the land in Idaho is managed by federal agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management. Lots of reservations for Native American nations, too. Five years ago we stayed overnight with a friend whose land is on the Nez Perce reservation.

Speaking of the Nez Perce, we have been also partly following the Nez Perce National Historic Trail on this trip. The route documents the flight of Chief Joseph and his followers from the U.S. Army in 1877. Apparently, everyone had forgotten how nice the tribe was to Lewis and Clark seventy-two years earlier. We were about 50 miles away from the Bear Paw Battlefield in Montana near the Canadian border where Chief Joseph was forced to surrender. This was where he uttered his famous words: "I will fight no more forever."

Rocky Mountain Way

If you're traveling in the area, I highly recommend that you check out the Museum of the Rockies: http://www.museumoftherockies.org/ It's located on the campus of Montana State University in Bozeman.

Since Montana is a place rich in dinosaur fossils, you'll find a lot of those inside (see T-Rex behind me). There was also a crocodile exhibit (those jaws can bring down 4,000 pounds of pressure, so watch out!), plus a planetarium show about stars, quasars, black holes and the like.

Nice way to spend a rainy afternoon.

Decisions, Decisions

The historic waterfront of Fort Benton, Montana was one of the largest inland ports in the world during the height of the steamboat era of the 19th century. It was as far up the Missouri River as you could take a large boat, more than 3,000 river miles from the mouth of the Mississippi. From all accounts it was a wild, wild west kind of place with gunslingers roaming the streets. Apparently, the madam of the local brothel once held off a whole posse that was looking for one of her customers with just an evil eye... and a Colt 45. Later on, the town declined as railroads replaced the steamboat.

Just downstream from here at the confluence of the Missouri and Marias Rivers, the Lewis and Clark Expedition spent several days in June 1805 deciding which river to go up (a very important decision because they wanted to cross the Rocky Mountains before winter). In the statue Sacagawea looks like she's thinking: "get on with it already!"

The River

Dad and I both agree that this was our favorite camping spot. It's right on the Missouri River at Judith Landing in Montana. There was a warm afternoon summer storm (typical for this time of year) that created a spectacular cloud display at sundown.

Lewis and Clark passed through this area. In fact, the Judith River was named for William Clark's future wife. There was another honoree when the expedition was here. Meriwether Lewis writes in his May 29, 1805 journal entry that his dog, Seaman, was responsible for scaring off an aggressive bison. Consequently, Lewis named a tributary "Dog Creek."

Good boy!

Custer's Last Stand

...or if you prefer, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull's glorious victory. We visited the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in southeast Montana. It's a pretty place with rolling grassy hills, a verdant valley floor and distant snowy mountains. It's also a solemn place. People there walked slowly and talked quietly out of respect for the dead on both sides and maybe some sadness that the Indian tribes eventually lost their traditional way of life.

As it turns out, the battle took place exactly 141 years ago on June 25-26, 1876. I'm glad I got to see it.

Smack Dab In The Middle

The geographic center of the United States is near the town of Belle Fourche, South Dakota. It used to be in Kansas but with the admission of Alaska and Hawaii in 1959 it got pulled to the northwest.

Kinda makes sense.

No Quarter

The line of cars just to get to the parking lot of Mt. Rushmore was half a mile long. We had places to go and things to do so we skipped it.

What's really cool is that there's a turnout on the main road where you can see just George Washington's profile. At first I thought it was a giant quarter stuck on the side of the mountain.

Now I have a little bit of a beef with Alfred Hitchcock's classic movie North By Northwest (1959). In the final scene where Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint are climbing down the presidents' faces, they start from a forested plateau. In real life the back side of Mt. Rushmore is another rock face. They must have filmed on a Hollywood sound stage. Who knew?

Black Hills Of Dakota

We spent two days exploring the Black Hills in South Dakota, a favorite area of mine. We saw deer, elk, bison and even one or two prairie dogs. We also hiked to the top of Harney Peak (7,242 ft.) which you can see in the picture. It's the highest point in the state.

On the way back down we passed several search and rescue people carrying a stretcher up the mountain. Someone must have been hurt. I am a very empathetic person so, even though I didn't see the injury or know the person, I got a little bit upset by all the commotion.

Nebraska

If you head out to the North Platte Valley in western Nebraska, you'll find several natural landmarks used by westward travellers in the 19th century. Two of them are right next to each other, Courthouse and Jail Rocks near the town of Bridgeport.

It's a little scary that people back then thought of courthouses and jails going together, as if one invariably led to the other. Frontier justice I suppose.

Prairie Wind

You know what's really smart? Harnessing wind power to make energy. The plains of eastern Colorado is a great place for it since there's plenty of wind and open land out here. These high tech wind turbines are an increasingly common sight in areas like this. They provide zero carbon energy and I've heard that there have been some innovations to protect birds from getting smacked by the turning blades. Good for everyone.

Our late afternoon drive through the Pawnee National Grassland and into western Nebraska was scenic and special.

Rocky Mountain High

Behind me you can see three of Colorado's fourteeners, part of a group called the Collegiate Peaks in the Sawatch Range. Left to right we have Mt. Princeton (14,204 ft), Mt. Yale (14,200 ft) and Mt. Harvard (14,421 ft). I think that if I was a philanthropist I would say that anyone who climbs to top of any one of those mountains gets a full scholarship to that college.

I want apologize for all the haze in the photo. No, it's not caused by an activity that recently became legal in Colorado, it's from a forest fire in the area. Kinda disappointing for photography.

Dad says that the John Denver song after which this blog post is named has more than one meaning.

Across The Great Divide

Independence Pass in Colorado (12,095 ft.) is the highest point I've ever been to. The reason I look excited in the picture was due to the wind, which was really strong. The view along that winding road up here was pretty thrilling too.

Colorado National Monument

These red rock canyons near Grand Junction, Colorado are spectacular, as is the road up here, built in the 1930s with pickaxes and dynamite by workers from the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Every bit of infrastructure here is delightfully old school. And get this: the campground restroom is on the National Register of Historic Places. I have the photo to prove it.

Green River

I love seeing the transition from the browns and tans of the Great Basin to the red rocks of the Colorado Plateau. It happens rather suddenly as you travel through Utah.

Our lunch stop took us to a shady riverside spot in the town of Green River. Nice on a hot day. It would be cool to float down this river all the way to Lake Powell. I've tried rafting before, though. It's not really for me.

FYI: This is not the same place Creedence Clearwater Revival sang about.

The Loneliest Road

U.S. 50 across Nevada has the reputation of being the "loneliest road in America." Actually, it wasn't so lonely because there were lots of bicyclists. It must have been an organized event because there were special signs and support vehicles along the way.

According to Dad, back in the day you would see about one car every half hour. I think he's exaggerating.

100

A milestone: this is the 100th blog post of my blogging career. Just sayin...

For extra credit, can you guess how many of my blog post titles are also song titles?

Answer: 19 (do you know which ones they are?)

Elks Lodge

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park in northwestern California is not only home to many tall old growth trees, it also has a resident herd of Roosevelt Elk. Here, I'm keeping a safe distance watching them chill in a beautiful green meadow. After all, they look gentle, but they're wild... and big.

On The Beach

Memorial Day weekend. We drove out to the coast and caught some rays... No, really it was foggy which I liked because it's been hot in Davis. The power of the ocean is something I never get tired of.

High Water (For Charley Patton)

Going for a walk at the Cosumnes River Preserve near Elk Grove, California has become something of a Super Bowl Sunday tradition for us. (Dad refers to it as the "Stupid Bowl.") This year the skies were grey but the temperature was nice so we went.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we've had a lot of rain this winter. You sure could see the result: the water was lapping at the edges of the boardwalk through the wetlands and in some areas it was completely submerged. The birds must love it, though.

Rain

We have certainly been getting lots of precipitation lately here in Northern California. It makes me think that our historic five year drought might be ending, but we still need to conserve water.

I kinda miss the sunshine, but as the Beatles sang: "Raaaaaiinn... I don't mind."

Happy New Year, Charlie Brown

Over the New Year I visited the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, California. I didn't know that the Peanuts gang has been around since the 1950s, way before my time. I think my favorite character is Linus because I don't like to go trick-or-treating and I believe in the Great Pumpkin.