Los Angeles

On Sunday 5/18/2014 we arrived at our abode for the week. Balboa RV Park. The biggest RV park in LA area. Home to traveling nurses, lesser lights in the film industry and divorced firemen.  It's not a bad place but the noise from helicopters hovering over the freeways that surround us are deafening at times.  Multiple artists painted murals around the place. The Yellow Brick road is nice.

Monday we head to Pasadena to visit Shelley and the children. Lily loves all her presents. Board books from Valerie that I cleaned. The Melanie doll from Valerie that I repaired. A lovely red velveteen dress that was Jasmine's. Lots of Tupperware for her play kitchen and a cute purse we found in Cancun. Handmade by the Mayans. 

Presents are so much fun. Nothing for Max. But he is too little to care. He is just happy when you pay attention to him.

David's twin Daniel is working at the nearby Huntington Gardens. He gets us free entry tickets. Lily is quite familiar with the garden. Daniel's girlfriend often brings her here.

We first head to the children's garden, a favorite of Lily. Water features to play in and new friends to dance with.

Lets head over to the lily pond to look for Daniel.  It's time to feed the fish and Lily can help throw the food. Then Lily and another new friend watch the turtles try to get the food that Lily did not quite get in the pond.

Even Shelley is tired as she has to hike out carrying both children.

On Tuesday we head off to the Page Museum, La Brea Tar Pits and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).  Lily is going out with Daniel's girl friend today. So we tourist on our own.  Learned a lot about the tar pits. Lots of bones of ancient mammals such as mammoths, saber-tooth cats, giant sloths and others were found here trapped by the tar. But no dinosaurs. LA was deep under water during the time of the dinosaurs. 

Discoveries continue to be made here as the tar is sifted through for large and small bones, seeds and plant fragments.

We eat lunch at LACMA and plan what we want to see. This is a really big museum and it would take more than one afternoon to see it all. So we plan to see the paintings in a couple of buildings and the art of South and Southeast Asia.

 William with an image of Shiva dancing.

The museum had one of the many paintings of water lilies by Monet.

Wednesday is our day to visit the Getty. These freeways are tiresome. It takes so long to get anywhere and they are full of traffic most of the time.

The Getty is very worthwhile and we visit most all of it though we spend less time viewing the decorative arts.  

Getty has the original Irises. I was thrilled to see it since I had painted a bit of it in painting class, Community Canvas.  

We saw another of these at Peggy Guggenheim's museum in Venice.

Gardens were pretty, but small. There is a special exhibit of Ansel Adams photographs that we enjoy very much. The special exhibit of Jackson Pollock's Mural 

is interesting, but not quite so enjoyable. It does look like something Peggy Guggenheim would have liked as it was done for her.

Thursday we meet Shelley and the children again at the Natural History Museum

Yipes, we did not realize that the first thing that happens in the morning here is that hoards of school children thunder in.

We cannot hear ourselves think as their high pitched screechy voices resound in the exhibit halls.  We try to find areas where they are not and soon enough it is time for us to visit the butterflies.

 Lily is somewhat disappointed since the butterflies are not doing much fluttering. It is a cloudy day.  We spot quite a few butterflies anyway.  After lurking in a few places where not too many children are visiting we take an early lunch. Lily is hungry anyway and we are assured that the schoolkids begin to leave after lunch.  Much better after lunch and Lily enjoys the dinosaur exhibits.  She is very good at matching up the dinosaur heads.

Max does very good today switching back and forth between the sling and the stroller.  At the end of the day he is back in the sling and Lily is in the stroller.
Friday William and I head to the Norton Simon Museum. It is in Pasadena very close to Shelley's house.  This is a model for how rich people who are into collecting art can get themselves a museum.  The Pasadena Art museum was in financial trouble and Norton Simon helped them out and helped himself to a museum.  We enjoyed the museum. It was nicely laid out and had a lot of art from my favorite time period, 19th century and early 20th century.  They did have a self portrait by Rembrandt, 1636, that was very classy.

 The sculpture garden was nicely laid out around a lily pond.

William was disappointed that part of the South and Southeast Asian art downstairs was closed because they were packing up an item to ship off for loan to another museum.
We head over to Shelley's with another gift for Lily from the Norton Simon. A palette of colors in tiny board books.

Dinner will be with everyone including David.

 He had some last minute work to do at the office, but we are going by Metro and the restaurant is close.  Such a lovely visit with niece and her family.

Heading South

5/12/14

Setting out on Monday, we notice a few medium sized black ants. They've set up a home somewhere above the side door in the RV. Guess they climbed up the wheels in the winter. Looking for a home. Ants are persistent.

In the San Joaquin valley we see a few olive orchards in with the peaches and almonds. I wonder why not so many olives and think there will eventually be more. More US olive oil and maybe more specialty olives, Greek and Italian styles may be the result. Olive trees live long and take less water, supremely adapted to Mediterranean climate.

Our first night is at Pinnacles. We drove this way once with the children when we had borrowed Mom and Dad's pop up trailer. We are in the campground that is just at the edge of the park.  

 Lots of animals. Ground squirrels that I had to yell and stomp at as they came up to the RV and eyed jumping in the wheel well to eat the wires. Missed the giant king snake that the host says crosses our site every evening on its way from the meadow to the creek. Saw acorn woodpeckers, a deer, a rabbit and hawks. On a hike up Condor Gulch we are sticking to the story that we saw a pair of condors.

On Tuesday we search out Mission San Antonio de Padua, the third mission Father Junipero Serra established in California.

 It is off the beaten path in an Army base, Fort Hunter Liggett. The heart of the base is for training combat units.

There is a very old fancy hotel also behind the Fort's high wire fences. This land all belonged to William Randolph Hearst and the building was built in the 20's as a get away for friends. I guess when they wanted an inland getaway as apposed to the coastal get away of Hearst Castle. The building was designed by Julia Morgan to look similar to the Mission. You can't get near the hotel unless you have reservations, but the price for a room is not bad at all for a historic place. Hacienda Hotel

The mission itself is very large and quite lovely. They are in the midst of fund raising to pay for earthquake safety renovations. Since it is unreinforced masonry construction, it has to meet standards by 2017. Lots of luck. They are very short of money. I bought some items in their nice gift shop and they have started a 501c3 for charitable donations.

There is a large chapel and enclosed garden plus other buildings that can be rented for retreats.

 We met the cat, Spirit, in the garden. She is the “wife” of Rosario who performed a miracle as a kitten. He found a rosary in the church sacristy, where there was no rosary, and gave it to a woman who was grieving the death of her father. I bought a copy of the full story, but found no link on the internet.

Near the mission is a green metal bridge that leads to the coast road. We wind through the hills on a 1 ½ lane road and come out near Lime Kiln State Park on Highway one. 

We stop to view the happy elephant seals.

Our campsite for the night is at Plaskett Creek. Lovely grassy place and only one ground squirrel near us. The camper next to us is a “neighbor” from Truckee in a Jucy pop up van. He said it was very cheap to rent. Although we saw Jucy vehicles all over Australia, I thought they were a bit risque for the US market. Wrong I guess, as the Truckee guy says they have been around for a couple of years.

Wednesday, William's birthday. We are celebrating his birthday the way he wanted. We have a vista parking place along highway one in a great place to watch the Tour of California bike race come by. 

At the same time as a car full of Germans stop, we saw a gray whale rolling over.

Lots of CHP to maintain order. A vehicle pulls out of the vista point just below us and is pulled over and made to wait in our small pull out. Those people look totally dazed and confused. They don't understand about the race and just sit there in their car.

Six riders are in the break. 

Three minutes out. Then the rest of the racers come by.

We will head back to our spot at Plaskett Creek in a bit.

There is a bit of confusion as the host has removed our reservation tag for the 13th-15^th and another group was preparing to move in under the impression that the site was open. Confusion for a bit, but settled out okay. Plaskett Creek is a pretty campground.

Off to Jalama Beach on the 15^th. William disagrees with the Garmin and my phone, so we take some very twisty roads.

Jalama Beach has changed in 8 years. More RV sites, more hardening of surfaces, new cabins. No more wild nasturtiums. They were removed for more parking near the store. It's not as attractive as when we came here before. Lots more people.

Maybe we will buy and share a famous Jalama Burger at the store in honor of our last visit here.

I think I killed the last ant. It was staggering along the curtain rail above the door. And no we did not spray them. I think it just was lonesome.

The breezes are gusty here and William is testing the limits of how long our awning will hang on. He needs the shade.

Giant Sequioas By RV

9/24/2013

Off to the Sequoias for a week and a half.

As we pass through Turlock on our way south, I express a wish to look at the old orchard. So off the highway we go. I tend to worry about the place as in just over a year the current owners have a balloon payment due. Their plan as far as we knew was to take out the elderly orchard and replant. The last time sister Sharon drove past, the orchard had been removed and some type of vegetable was growing.

Now the area is plowed clean. The corner house orchard was replanted about the time this orchard was to have been replanted. They have nice 3+ year old trees.

The Garmin certainly has a mind of its own. It likes to take us on back roads. We ignored its directions until we get closer to the park. We think programming it for the shortest way leads to lots of “short cuts” that probably take longer.

We stop at the visitor center where I look at books and gifts for 2 year olds, wondering if Lily would like a book about a bear's house or an owl's house, but in my indecision buy nothing.

We decide to stop in the first campground, Potwisha. It has been a long drive. Then the quandary. The parking spots look flat, but are just enough off that it is hard to level the RV. We try about 3 different spots before settling on one that we can get nearly level, if we drive in backwards so our heads don't slope down in bed.

Rodents: This place is packed with bold, fat ground squirrels. Where are the hawks? Where are the rattlesnakes? William says hawks prefer flatter hunting territory and snakes prefer not to be around people. So rodents thrive. Some people must be feeding them, although they have plenty of acorns for natural food. William scares them off by pelting them with small rocks. But William is soon off on a hike. I am just sitting outside reading the newspaper when I glance up and see two sitting on the boulder next to me, so close I could have reached out and touched them. I scream like someone is murdering me and they scatter, but I am very unnerved. Now it is hard to read, so I just watch squirrels. One is trying to get something off of the underside of the bench of the picnic table.

Food: We started off with a full load of vegetables. I picked up our huge box of vegetables from Mountain Bounty Farm on Monday evening and I had William pick all the tomatoes that were even slightly ripe. We will have a vegie rich holiday.

William found a suspension bridge and pools for taking a dip, while I fought off the rodents.

9/25/2013

Another day at Potwisha

We are still tired from our long drive yesterday, so we sleep in. The air is nice and fresh. It will be cool and cloudy today, so we will stay at this low elevation, 2080 feet. William decides that there is a slightly flatter parking spot that someone has just vacated, so we move. The spot is not flat, but better. There are no rodents to be seen as we set up, but they soon move in. Before William heads off to hike and visit with everyone, he sets up our chairs overlooking the Marble River, a fork of the Kaweah. Nice.

I am engrossed in my Kindle when I see a furry head poke out from between my feet. Another rodent is soon eying my foot from the side.

I throw stones, but am not taken seriously, so I retreat to the RV.

I have spotted the Oak Titmouse, the Acorn Woodpecker, Western Scrub Jay and the Steller's Jay. All birds you might commonly find in this oak woodland.

9/26/2013

Off to the Giant Trees

As we get ready to pull out, we look around and our wood is missing. We had 4 nice oak chunks we had found at the side of the road where some trees had been trimmed. William had put them next to our bear box and they are gone. I wonder if the people who had the smokey fire last night were the culprits. We still have some more wood, but this was dense stuff.

Along the winding road we see more healthy oaks. Many different varieties and no oak death like Lena battles on the coast. Then there are the big trees. Big, orange barked giants. We stop at the Giant Forest museum and take the Round Meadow hike. Towering sequoias around a fragile meadow. Huge trees with furry brown red-orange bark. The bases of the trees are lobed like giant bear paws.

In the 50's this area was the site of a restaurant, gas station, lodge and cabins. The park has since lessened its footprint and decreased the stress on the trees. Now there is just the museum, parking and foot trails here. We spot a Dark-eyed Junco.

We drive on to the General Sherman tree, the biggest tree in the world. The hike down to the tree is fairly steep. On the way we and many other visitors spot a small black bear digging in a log for bugs.

He has been tagged with a green numbered ear tag.

The General Sherman tree is big. Its top is dead so it grows no taller than its 275 feet, although it continues to grow in diameter.

There is a cypress that has a larger girth, but when you consider its diameter and height the General Sherman is the biggest. Since the trail back is a steep up hill and William wants to find our campsite for the night, he huffs up hill and sends me down to a lower pick up spot. We have noticed lots of German tourists. Germans are great travelers.

We are at Lodgepole campground for the night. We are at a higher elevation, 6720 feet and it is spitting tiny snowballs as William lets me off to hold a spot. This is a huge campground, so he drives back to the entrance station to pay. I find that the rodents du jour of this campground are chipmunks.

The parking spaces are also flatter. We choose a nice edge of a loop spot. William is not sure about spending more than one night in the cold, but I know that the Hungarian goose down comforter spread over the sleeping bag will keep us warm.

A spit of snow after dark.

9/27/2013

Snow

We waken to a winter wonderland. A bit of snow and a hard frost. I wish I had worn my hat on the way to the bathroom as the trees are shedding a light rain of melting snow and frost.

After breakfast we head back on the Generals Highway to the Moro Rock/Crescent Meadow Road. After taking the bypass around the Tunnel Log (carved out by the CCC in the 30's, but only 8 feet high, we are 9feet+) we park at Crescent Meadow parking lot. Many cars have been here overnight. Backpackers who are hiking the High Sierra Trail from here to Mt. Whitney. This trail was built from 1928-32.

We are just going on a short loop hike from the bottom of Crescent Meadow to Tharp's Log,

Chimney Tree and back down Crescent Meadow. The trail to Tharp's Log is handicapped access with a paved surface. I am careful on the small snow covered bridges.

Hale Tharp came here from Three Rivers in 1858 and established a summer camp for cattle grazing. The tiny cabin was made out of a fallen burned out sequoia. He grazed his cows here every summer until the park was established in 1890.

The paved trail ends at the cabin. We continue around the cabin to the Chimney Tree. The inside of this giant is burnt out. We continue around Crescent Meadow finding a huge goose pen (burnt out place) on a live tree and a burnt through arch on another.

Even though there has been plenty of fire, necessary for the reproduction of the giants, the trees are scattered with many red fir, white fir, sugar pine and jeffery pine forming the dominant species. Unlike the coast redwoods Sequoia Sempervirens (always living) which reproduce from root and trunk sprouts as well as seeds, the Gigantea reproduces only from seed. A fire is necessary to prepare the seedbed and heat the cones to release the seeds. Then a tree may grow.

From Crescent Meadow we drive to Moro Rock. There are stairs all the way to the top. 400 steps.

I feel dizzy about ½ way up and stop and wait at a bench for the intrepid climber to reach the top. He said there were places without railings and just low walls that made him a bit nervous. But he made it all the way to the top.

Moro Rock is a huge lump of granite that looks a lot like Half Dome.

Back to Lodgepole Campground. We have neighbors. The spots are close together and their tents are right in back of the RV. We plan music and a campfire tonight.

William hikes to the top of a sloping granite outcrop for some sun and finds a couple of large bear scat. No one screams in the night so people must put their scattered food items away in the bear boxes at dark.

William builds us a nice campfire. Lovely with the music of Dr. John and a glass of wine. We decide to eat later and enjoy the fire. William asked about marshmallows, but I only remember those when grandchildren are about.

We probably bothered the tenters more than they bothered us as we needed to run the generator until off time at 8PM to recharge the batteries.

9/28/2013

A Narrow Twisting Drive

We head north on the Generals Highway into Sequoia National Forest/Monument. Lots of hunters as we enter the National Forest. It is hunting season. Successful hunters stop here. No animals to be seen. Maybe they know.

Our impression is that there are way too many small trees growing too close to the road, especially incense cedar. Too bad the forests hardly have the budget these days for clearing fuel breaks. Lots of dusky blue elderberries bent over in ripe bunches. Lots of nice animal food.

The land gets drier and drier. Creeks are dry. But Hume Lake has water and lots of development. Summer cabins along the edge and a huge super fancy Christian Camp. Nothing like the barracks, tables and camping spots under the trees that I remember from church camp. Huge soaring wooden structures. A multistory glass fronted building. A fancy stone block structure with a cross inlaid that has a sign that it is a deli. The neon sign says OPEN. A Christian church with a lot of money supports this place.

More up and down mountain roads, dry scrub and oak until we get to the Kings River. William says the road was built in '39. There is a lot of fancy 30's style stonework marking the road edge. Now you have to hire a specialized stone mason to get work like this. Places where the road has had to be repaired have the road edge work replaced with steel and cement guard rails.

Tonight we are here at Sheep Creek Campground in Kings Canyon National Park near Cedar Grove Village. We are at a lower elevation here and the campground has few visitors even though it is the only one open. We are in the host spot. The host left right after Labor Day.

9/29/2013

A Couple Short Hikes

After breakfast we drive along to the parking lot for the Roaring River Falls. The hike is quite short and paved. The river has cut far down the side of the canyon wall, so the falls, while impressive, is not the height of the falls in Yosemite.

Even though this is a U shaped glacial canyon, the walls are not as high as Yosemite. Maybe since it is further south and oriented differently the glacier melted sooner than that in Yosemite.

Our next hike is a loop around Zumwalt Meadow. The nature guides are sold out, so we have to think of what the numbered posts might be illustrating. We see many logs torn up by bears searching for bugs. I wonder if black bears occasionally dig for ground squirrels, like grizzlies do in Alaska.

The suspension bridge is large and sturdy, not the swaying kind I don't like.

After another wide forest path part we head along a board walk over part of the meadow. This really is an easy path. But then we head up and over a talus slope at the end of the meadow. Huge granite boulders that have tumbled in a giant jumble. Up and down over the boulders.

Sometimes with stone steps, sometimes with just dirt or gravel between the boulders. This stretches the boundary of easy for me. The view of the meadow is nice though.

After this hike we head to the showers at Cedar Grove Village. Buy a token. Three dollars for a ten minute token. The showers are clean, but no hook or bench for your clothes. We bring our toiletries in a bag that fits over the token box and provides a place for towel and clothes. A shower feels nice after a few days of camping.

Back to Sheep Creek campground for another night.

9/30/2013

General Grant Park

We head out on highway 180 retracing part of our track toward the Kings Canyon Visitor Center. Pretty red bushes by the highway signal the change of seasons. Poison Oak!

We check in at Azalea campground and only purchase one night. Just in case the park has to shut down on October first.

Our hike today is the short hike around the General Grant tree. This tree is now the second largest after the General Sherman tree, since the top broke out of the former number two, the Washington tree.

This area is now part of Kings Canyon National Park, but you go through Sequoia National Forest to get to this bit. The Grant Grove was settled by the Gamlin brothers in 1872. They lived in the fallen Monarch, a fire hollowed tree, prior to building the cabin that has been restored along the trail.

They ran stock on their 160 acre place. In 1891 General Grant Park was established and the cabin was used for the storage of hay and grain for the horses of the cavalry who were the first park protectors. It was also the home of the first civilian park ranger.

A large battered stump is most of the remains of the Centennial tree.

It was cut down and a 16 foot segment was cut into manageable sections and shipped east for the 1876 centennial exposition in Philadelphia. It was laughed out of the exposition as the “California Hoax”.

In a nearby grove the Mark Twain tree was cut down for the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. This time people did take the trees seriously.

We stayed for a ranger talk at the General Grant tree with a few other tourists; We talked about the trees and how groves were cut down for little use. Although the wood is long lasting, it was not good building wood and was mostly used for fence posts, grape stakes and shakes.

Back to Azalea Campground. We are higher here than at Sheep Camp, so it will be a bit colder.

About 10 eleven year olds came racing through our camp accompanied by a couple of adults. They were attracted by the rocks where William is probably climbing. I should have thought to tell them that there were rattlesnakes there, which there probably are.

William saw them scampering over the rocks. He was up on top.

10/1/2013

Government/Park Shutdown

Because we have had no cell coverage in the park, we didn't know if the park would have to shut down. But a ranger comes by to give us the news. We pack up and head for home. The park workers have 48 hours to get everyone out, including out of the back country. Roads into parking lots and campgrounds are blocked. I am sorry about the workers who are working without pay. None of them are rich and they are going without pay now, though many have to work to close the park. I doubt that Congress will allow them the back pay.

Of course Republicans would argue that National Parks and Forests are an unnecessary expense. Remember Glasnost in the Former Soviet Union, when wealthy friends of the government were allowed to buy up the resources of the country at fire sale prices. That is what the Republicans would like. “Privatize” all federal lands. And when some hedge fund billionaire buys Yosemite and makes it into a private playground for his friends. Oh well. Free market rules.

Heading Home

Our last day in New Zealand was the 29th of April. Since our plane did not take off until just before midnight, we had the whole day in Auckland.
We spent our time in the Auckland Museum.  Since it did not begin life as a museum, but rather as a war memorial, it feels a little chopped up and confusing to get around in.  We paid for the Maori performance, but thought it was not as good as the village performance we had seen before in Rotorua.  If we had not seen so many museums before, maybe we would have been more impressed.
One part that we had not seen covered in prior museums was a room devoted to the New Zealand Wars. We knew the Maori had fought the whites, but the extent of the disagreements aka wars had been a bit glossed over in other museums.  The other museums had glorified the Treaty of Waitangi , but had not mentioned the wars that came after from 1845 to 1872.  The war cry was Ka whawhai tonu matou, ake, ake, ake (We will fight you forever and ever and ever).  The Maori were valiant warriors  but they were overwhelmed by the shear numbers of the English army and settlers.

Outside the museum 

Maori Carvings

Maori kite

Giant Rimu cut down in 1920

Then on to the plane. I was a bit ill for the flight to Singapore. Still ill for the flight to Seoul. Recovering on the flight to San Francisco. We were able to sleep some on the last leg of the flight as we had center bulkhead seats.  Much more room to stretch out and no one reclining into your lap. Singapore Airlines has fairly comfortable economy seats and the service is good.  Emirates has bad seats but good service. I heard from a fellow traveler that Lufthansa treats economy passengers very badly.  Air New Zealand on a short flight had moved the economy seats about an inch closer throughout the section and disabled the reclining function so they could fit an extra row of seats in. Economy passengers are the modern day equivalent of steerage on the Titanic.