A Splendid Day

Dad and I had a great hike for my birthday at Point Reyes National Seashore, hiking out to Tomales Point. This is the perfect time of year to go. We saw lots of elk and even a coyote, not to mention lots of humans.

Executive Order 9066

In February 1942, two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered Americans of Japanese ancestry removed from their homes and sent to "relocation centers" including one near Tule Lake in California. Today this site is a National Historic Landmark, still surrounded by barbed wire.

According to the museum display, people were subjected to a questionnaire designed to test their loyalty to the United States. It contained lots of confusing and "trick" questions. I don't think I would have "passed." And my ancestors came over here on the Mayflower.

Captain Jack's Stronghold

California's native tribes sometimes have the reputation of being easy to subdue. I suspect that that in fact they were quickly overwhelmed by the Spanish conquest and later the Gold Rush. They were really the victims of a swift and certain genocide. (Read up on your early California history, folks.)

Not so in every case. In the Modoc War of 1872-1873, Kintpuash (aka Captain Jack) led 52 warriors in a months long defense of their "stronghold" in the lava beds against several thousand U.S. Army troops, although they were eventually defeated. The Modoc leaders were imprisoned or executed and the survivors dispersed to reservations in Oklahoma.

Roaming through the area, it's easy to see how defensible this place was. If I had been on the other side I would not have underestimated the Modoc. I would have left them alone.

Lava

Lava Beds National Monument. This is a landscape truly forged by Vulcan. Dad and I spent Labor Day weekend exploring this desolate and beautiful part of northeastern California. We even did a backcountry drive through the region of the Medicine Lake Volcano (the largest in the Cascades even though it has no cone). I'm always amazed to think about the fact that we spend our entire lives floating on top of a bunch of magma.

That's Schonchin Butte in the background of the photo.