Skip to main content

Yosemite (Sierra ) Reflections 2018 - Part 1

Close your eyes and picture this; it's early evening, a cool crisp breeze in the Western Sierras, relaxing in the parlor of Wawona Hotel, masquerading as the Big Trees Hotel, which opened in 1879, a baby grand in the corner, at the keyboard, piano man, Tom Bopp asks,

"Any requests?"

"Do you know any Cole Porter?"

He winked and smiled, "I could play Cole Porter all night." Then he launched into:

"When the little bluebird
Who has never said a word
Starts to sing "Spring, spring"
When the little bluebell
At the bottom of the dell
Starts to ring, ding ding
When the little blue clerk
In the middle of his work
Starts a tune to the moon up above
It is nature; that's all
Simply telling us to fall in love."

"Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let's do it; let's fall in love."


That melody stayed with me for the rest of the week. As it will be with you throughout this blog post.

As you will see, this year's annual Sierra adventure completely contrasts our previous trips. This year, Lori and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary; we've been married for 30 years. But we've heard that the 50th is such a lovely celebration, so we decided to celebrate early!

We fell in love all over again - with Yosemite National Park, the luxury and splendor of camping in a Victorian Lodge, not a tent . . . 

"In Spain, the best upper sets do it
Lithuanians and Letts do it
Let's do it; let's fall in love."

Our first day was love at first sight, or should I say early light. We strolled among living giants. Capturing photos of those grand old trees like millions before us had done. During a previous Yosemite trip, we had only visited the trees at lower elevations; Bachelor and Three Graces and the famous Grizzly Giant. But, by climbing to a higher peak, we finally discovered the Mariposa Grove. A grove of mammoth trees scattered abundantly along the mountainside.

Relax, don't drive the winding mountain roads; the Big Trees Lodge has a shuttle from the Grove entrance directly back to the hotel. Our shuttle driver informed us, "the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoia trees had been closed for two years, undergoing a $45 million renovation. The park service just reopened it earlier this year."

The ride from the hotel took about 30 minutes. "No longer can tourists drive up to the grove's entrance, elevation 5,600 feet? A parking lot with a lovely gift shop, information center, and restrooms now guard the entrance. Shuttles transport guests from the parking lot to a beautifully built entrance with railed wooden walkways to provide access for the handicapped and keep people from walking up to the trees and disturbing their delicate, shallow root structure. Looking to the driver's side, you will see a Sequoia we call "Bigfoot." It's as if Disney himself had set up the attraction. 

We enjoyed a leisurely hike, the seven-mile loop, to Wawona Point, elevation 6,810 feet. The weather was cool, the air fresh and crisp. Shiny new signposts with complete maps and directional markers provided easy directions. And Lo-and-behold, when nature called dramatically, there were restrooms, at the Galen Clark Cabin, with flush toilets to relieve the pressure. No hole digging or squatting is required! A complete renovation.

"The Dutch in old Amsterdam do it
Not to mention the Finns
Folks in Siam do it; think of Siamese twins
Some Argentines without means do it
People say in Boston, even beans do it
Let's do it; let's fall in love."


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular of All Time

Back to School (Without the Triple Lindy)

I hadn’t set foot inside a public library in over thirty years. Last Saturday, when I walked through the sliding doors of the modern County of San Diego branch on Eucalyptus Avenue in Vista, my eyes instinctively scanned the floor for the familiar, comforting sight of varnished oak cabinets and brass pull-handles. Nothing . No card catalog. No little wooden drawers. No rows of index cards typed by someone who presumably had beautiful penmanship and a pension. I walked up to the front desk, looked the librarian dead in the eye, and asked with complete earnestness: "Where’s the card catalog?" She didn’t laugh, though she had every right to. Instead, she offered a warm, dry smile: "We magically had the computer digest it." And just like that, I was enrolled. Not the Rodney Dangerfield kind of back-to-school. No diving board, no loud blazer, no campus party, and thankfully, no need to convince anyone I belonged there. Just an overdue reminder that while I was busy with ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Beyond Facts-The Deep Dive

✨ In this episode, Beyond Facts: Reimagining School–in the Age of AI . . .   This week's podcast is a bit different; it's another example of how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can offer tools to creatively enhance your analytical presentation of information. We took this week's blog and copied it into Gemini with the question, “If a story is to work, it must, on some level, create an illusion of escape and also achieve a goal simultaneously. Does this apply to my blog post that follows?” What's created is not just an analysis of the writing, but an AI-generated discussion produced “On the Fly” - Enjoy! Did you know that the word "school" comes from the ancient Greek word scholē , which originally meant "leisure"? Not a rigid schedule or droning lectures filled with "facts," but free time for thinking and conversation. To the Greeks, learning happened best when life slowed down—when you had room to reflect, to ask questions, and to wrestle ...
4 comments
Read more

Doc Welch - The Country Doctor

In this episode, Doc Welch . . . Many authors have characterized life in rural Illinois over the years. Among the more notables are Edgar Lee Masters, who wrote Spoon River Anthology, Carl Sandburg for his poetry and biography of Abraham Lincoln, and little known to me until recently, my first doctor, whom everyone in town always called Doc Welch - James K. Welch, M.D.  (Feb. 7, 1915, to May 5, 1998) While exploring the microfilm of the Cuba Journal (published from 1884 to 1992), I consistently kept running across articles entitled The Country Doctor. This intrigued me. Doc Welch was a third-generation practicing Country Doctor in Cuba for over 40 years. His father, James William Welch, M.D., practiced medicine in Cuba for more than five decades. His grandfather, James Knox Welch, M.D., settled in Cuba after the Civil War. Cuba, Illinois, is a small, rural farming community in west-central Illinois, where I grew up. Like many small towns, it boasts a central square with a ban...
4 comments
Read more

The Rhythm of the Woodpecker

The morning in Vista often begins under a heavy, gray marine layer that rolls in from the coast, pressing a damp, muffled stillness over the neighborhood. At 4:30 a.m., the driveways are still full. The local commuters are either blissfully unconscious or stumbling blindly toward their showers, clinging desperately to their last shred of peace before the nine-to-five grind claims them for the day. I, on the other hand, am voluntarily wide awake in the dark. When your agenda consists of absolutely nothing, it is critical to get an early start. Inside the house, the quiet is profound, broken only by the sharp, mechanical click of the kettle as it reaches a rolling boil. I stand at the counter, watching the dark ground coffee bloom as hot water hits the French press's stainless steel. The smell is sudden and heavy—a deep, roasted-earth aroma that cuts through the morning fog. I push against the plunger’s gritty resistance, pouring a cup that radiates dark, stinging heat against my pal...
Post a Comment
Read more