Stress (Day 12) - 20 Days of Chill

Stress.  We all have it and it affects our lives, mostly adversely.  So I guess the point of this post, is to not so much talk about stress, or what kinds of stress there are, but how I deal with it.  And you will probably deal with it in a variety of ways, most of which are probably different than mine.  And if it works for you, that's great.

I've always used this blog as a way to advertise my photos. I'm not into making money, but I do like to show off my work.  As I was looking through some photos today for one that I thought would work with what I thought I was going to write about, it hit me.  Most of the shots that I had in that particular album are stress relievers for me, because they pretty much capture what it is that I do to relieve my stress.

These are the things that I love to do, in no particular order.  Geocaching. Travel.  Photography.  They get me to start thinking about other things, they get me to reorder my priorities and they pretty much de-stress me.  

This particular photo is pretty much emblematic of all three of those things.  This was taken while finding either a virtual geocache or an earth cache in Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. I've been geocaching for almost 16 years.  If I didn't like it, I would have stopped a long time ago.  I enjoy the hunt for those hidden treasures and I especially like the hunt when I'm in different areas than my own.  I get to experience hides by different people.  It gives me a new perspective on the hobby.  

Travel is something that I've always done, starting at age 4 when my parents took us on a week long camping trip to Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks.  We tent camped then, but sometime shortly after that, my parents bought a 14 foot trailer to haul all of our gear and family around the country.  Whenever I can get on a road trip, I'll take it.  It's a great stress reliever for me.

I've been a photographer for as long as I can remember.  I used to beg my parents to let me take the Kodak Instamatic when we'd go camping.  Many of the photos that were taken on those trips were taken by me.  My parents bought me my first camera when I was in third grade.  I don't know whatever happened to that camera and it would be nice to have it again, just for old time's sake, but I took many photos with that cheap little thing.

When you're doing something you really love to do, it's pretty much impossible to be stressed.  I think stress just melts away.  As one of my friends said to me one time, "You're not going to be bored when you retire.  You have too many things that you're going to want to do."  Yep.  The less stress, the better it will be.

For more stories on Stress, click here.

Some perspective from the parental side

I read something on line recently regarding the death of Harambe the gorilla in Cincinnati this past weekend.  I've seen all sorts of outrage directed at the zoo, directed at the parents, but I really haven't seen much of this, so here goes.

This photo was taken in the summer of 2000 while we were on a camping trip to Yosemite National Park.  My children were 8, 4 and 11 respectively in the photo.  On this particular day, we had decided to hike the Mist Trail, a popular trail that takes you to the edge of Vernal Fall, which is what you see in the background.  It's over 300 feet straight down at this point.  If any of you have ever been on this trail, you know it's very strenuous, and not to be taken lightly.  The last part is pretty much stair steps going up the rock face with a handrail similar to what you see in the photo.

At the crest of the staircase, my youngest, who had been diligently holding my hand as we climbed up, broke free and made a mad dash to this spot, which I couldn't see at the time.  Needless to say, my life flashed before me several times in what was probably 2 seconds worth of time at the most.  There were other people there who stopped him immediately.  Did I mention it's a popular trail?

The fence/guardrail you see is all the way around like that.  It would have been difficult for him to have made the dash and gotten outside of the fence.  But please remember, he did break free and was headed that way.  AND I WASN'T DISTRACTED BY ANY OTHER CHILDREN AT THE MOMENT!

If you have more than two children, you're outnumbered and you no longer have enough hands to hold onto all of them at the same time.  Think about that next time you start berating the parent of the young boy who ended up in the moat with Harambe.  All it took was a second or two.  

My favorite place.

When I saw this prompt for the 20 days of Chill Challenge, I knew my answer would be Yosemite.  There's something about this place that just speaks to me.  My first visit was when I was four years old.  I don't remember much of that trip, but I do know that I've been back numerous times in the course of the last 50 years.  I know I will go again in the near future.  I don't think I could ever get enough of this grand spectacle.

I've been to Yosemite in all sorts of weather and all the seasons.  Most of the time I've gone in the summertime, as that's when I have the most time off in which to travel to this scenic spot, but I've done a one day weekend trip to the park in the fall with my daughter.  I've also visited in the spring time with my dad when we were scouting out colleges for me.  I walked on the valley floor during one of the heaviest snowfalls on record on a late December day back in 1988.  

Each season changes this park, but you just can't beat the scenery at this place.  And there's the constant that attracts me, the scenery.  I know there will be detractors out there who will say that it's too crowded.  And they would be right.  But that's not going to stop me from going.  Each time I visit, I go to my favorite spots, take in the view, compose photo shots and just enjoy myself. Many of my favorite shots are along trails, which don't have as many people.  The people that venture out on a trail away from the valley have a different sense of purpose and a different respect for the park.  We know the masses are there for a day or two, to take in the sights and to move on.  We have a different feel for the park.

Every time I camp there, it's for at least a week and there's still so many things to see there that I never get it all done.  Just another reason to get me to come back later on I guess.

I took this shot from the valley viewpoint as you exit the Wawona tunnel on a June day in 2014.  I have to say I've been fairly fortunate in that most of the times I've been to Yosemite, there's been weather.  The clouds just help the shot, no matter where your taking a photo, but here, it just makes the spectacular shot even better.

PB Challenge (April 2015): Friends and Family

When I saw the prompt for this month's Photo Blogging challenge, I thought it might be difficult, but then I remembered that Easter was right at the beginning of the month and I knew we'd be with family, plus I also hosted a geocaching event at the beginning of the month, so then it actually became even tougher as I ended up with quite an assortment of photos for the theme.

That being stated, I decided to go a little bit different route with this month's theme.  And so without further ado, I give you my five photos for the theme Friends and Family.

1.  Handprints in cement

I think these handprints are from when I was about eight or nine years old.  Mine is the one on the right.  Sometime during that period, my dad poured some concrete at our house in Santa Ana, CA where we grew up and had all three of us put our hands in the wet cement.  When they finally moved out of that house about 15 years ago or so, my dad pried up that piece of cement and brought it with them to their new house where it now sits on an island in the front yard.  It's definitely a reminder of when we were a lot younger and smaller and it's fun to look at.  You can see I really relished squishing my hands into the cement, whereas my sisters were much more dainty in their approach to the gooey stuff.  Boys will be boys I guess.

2.  The Calendar

I'd say close to 20 years ago, my two sisters and I decided to start a family tradition by giving my parents a photo calendar.  The past 6 years or so, I've coordinated the effort, collected the photos from various people and put the entire thing together on my computer.  It's worked out rather well and my parents cherish this gift each year and it proudly hangs on their refrigerator in the kitchen.  The first year, my dad wanted to actually use it to write calendar reminders in it, but my mom put the kibosh on that very quickly.  They also don't throw them away and my mom says she goes out in the garage where they are stored and looks through them from time to time.  She gets to see her grandkids grow up every time she does that.

When we started this endeavor, it was a lot easier because there was only three sources that the photos came from since the kids were small and the adults, my sisters and me were the ones who took the photos.  Now, with four of the grandchildren on their own, we have to really on photos from seven different sources.  That just means we have to start the process earlier each year.  Before, I used to send the "all call" for photos sometime just before Thanksgiving and I'd have the photos soon afterwards and it would be a done deal.  This year, we were slightly late getting the calendar to my parents, but they did get it before New Year's Day, so it's all good.  April of this year was my niece's and her husband's month, so they're featured on that page.

3.  University of Notre Dame

Some of you might not be aware of this, but I was born in South Bend, Indiana, home of Notre Dame.  This all came about, because my grandfather taught at Notre Dame back in the early 1930s.  Because of this, my dad and two of his brothers also went to Notre Dame.  Some of my cousins went to Notre Dame and I also had a cousin who was a priest who taught at Notre Dame.  This cousin also married my parents and married my sister and her husband.  Notre Dame is a family affair with us and although I didn't attend there, mainly because it was out of my price range when it came my turn to attend college, I follow the college quite closely, especially for football.

Growing up in Southern California, that was sometimes very tough to do, mainly because many of my friends in junior high and high school were USC fans.  My best friend attended USC and during the 70s and early 80s, it was tough being a Notre Dame fan when they played each other because usually USC came out on top.  Yes, I was there in 1974 when Notre Dame was ahead 24-7 at halftime and I watched Anthony Davis run back the second half kick off directly toward the Notre Dame section at the closed end of the Colosseum in Los Angeles, which started an avalanche of points, eventually leading to a 55-24 loss to USC.  That was just ugly.

I was also there in 1988 with our entire family to watch #1 Notre Dame battle #2 USC.  Both teams were exceptionally good that year and my dad and I surmised that the winner of this game would become the national champion that year.  My dad took no chances that year as he was decked out in full Irish regalia, including his blue and gold Notre Dame tam-o-shanter.  That's when I finally realized that my dad was one of "those" people.  Those crazy alumni you always see.  I'd never seen him like that before, but he really wanted a win that day.  I don't believe he'd seen Notre Dame win in Los Angeles since 1966 when the Irish shellacked the Trojans 51-0 enroute to a national championship that year as well.  Anyway, to make a long story short, Notre Dame came out on top that year and our family went home very happy.  I haven't been back to see a Notre Dame/USC game in Los Angeles since that game.  I want that memory to last forever.  It was very satisfying.

4.  Father of the Bride

About a year and a half ago, I was up visiting my daughter.  I'm an early riser and my daughter isn't so I'd usually get up early, find some local geocaches and then hang out with her later in the day.  This particular day, my daughter's boyfriend asked me if he could tag along and go geocaching with me.  Sure, why not?  But I had a suspicion that he had ulterior motives, after all he'd been dating my daughter for four years at the time and we were pretty sure they were serious about settling down.

Eventually that day he asked for our blessing to marry my daughter.  I don't think my daughter could have picked a finer young man to spend the rest of her life and my wife and I were both thrilled that he was going to be joining the family.  As you can see, all of this will be coming to fruition in the middle of July up in the Bay Area. I will fully admit that I will probably be very emotional about this and will probably be the one crying as we walk down the aisle.  But I know if I start to cry, so will she and it will just be a mess, so I will restrain myself and think of happy things.  Maybe I'll even crack a joke as we walk down the aisle.  I think part of me is sad, after all, I loved her first, but most of me is very happy.  He makes her happy and I like that.  I'm looking forward to when I can call him my son-in-law.

5.  Geocaching friends

Most of these photos have been about family, so I knew this last one had to be about friends.  Another part of geocaching that I don't always talk about is the number of friendships that have developed for me over the years since I started this crazy game.  Outside of my wife, I can say most assuredly, that most of my best friends are fellow geocachers.

This is Craig who I've known for three years, possibly more.  I don't think I can pinpoint the exact time I met Craig, as it's more of a gradual thing as opposed to a specific day.  Either way, Craig is a very good friend of mine and although this isn't the best photo of him, the only other one I had was of his backside carrying a tire while we were cleaning up a trailhead last weekend during a Geocaching earth day weekend event.  I'm sure he's probably glad that I didn't post that one.

Craig is the friend that I helped last summer hike the John Muir Trail.  He needed a ride to get up to the starting point in Yosemite Valley and I readily jumped at that opportunity.  In fact, I credit Craig with helping me get into better shape.  When he decided to do this hike, I was invited to come along.  I knew I wasn't in any kind of physical shape to do that kind of hike, but over the past year, I've lost weight, gotten into biking more and am just more physically fit.  If he'd been doing this trek this year, I probably would have gone on the hike.  As it is, there was a time in the last couple of years when I thought my hiking and backpacking days were behind me, but I don't think that anymore and I thank Craig for being that inspiration.  This year, he and I have another road trip planned for June just because we like to geocache and it's fun to go out on the road and explore new territory.  

And that about does it for this month's photo blogging challenge. I hope you have enjoyed this month's selection.  It's not my usual type of shots, but I wanted to do something a little bit different this time around.  To see other people's interpretation of this month's theme, stop by P.J.'s blog and click on the links at the bottom of that page.

Bears, Beans and Beer - Day 14 of the Chill

This is part 4 of the Yosemite story.  After finishing up at Bodie, grabbing some caches on the way south, we took a road north of Mono Lake and drove into Nevada, mainly to say that we did and grab a cache in another county in Nevada.  By the time we were done, it was getting late enough that we knew that we needed to find a campsite to spend the night, so we drove to Lee Vining to find a place to eat.

Ate dinner, might have had a beer with dinner, but I doubt it at that point, it was probably closer to Dr. Pepper or Tea, just to give us a caffeine rush to make it to the campsite, but I do know we both had chili, so we did get some beans that evening.  I think we tried three campsites along the Tioga road leading into Yosemite from the east side before we found a place that had open sites.  Interestingly, all three places we camped at on this trip had just opened the day we go there, so we got incredibly lucky.

The following morning, we broke camp and headed into Yosemite National Park, hoping to get there earlier enough to get Craig his hike through on the first day of his trip.  Caching along the road netted us half a dozen or so caches just outside the park and then we hit the Tioga Pass entrance station and then drove down to the ranger station at Tuolumne Meadows.  As we were passing the Tuolumne Meadows campground, I mentioned to Craig that it appeared as if the campground had sites, so we pulled in and inquired about camping.  The campground had just opened up and we were about the 6th group to grab a site.

For the most part, everything seemed to go really well for us that day.   Craig got his exemption and his permit for his hike and then we spent most of the rest of the day grabbing virtual geocaches along the road into Yosemite Valley.  We also documented some benchmarks.  Benchmarks are basically survey disks that you can also log at Geocaching.com. We found one at the entrance to the Wawona tunnel and another one in the back patio area of the Ahwahnee Hotel.  Yosemite has some interesting benchmarks and I was eager to find one that I knew about up on Sentinel Dome, but that would have to wait until the next day.

Driving back to the campground, we spotted a bear, but didn't get very close to it and it had taken off by the time we could find a place to park and get closer to it.  That was kind of disappointing, as Craig had seen it, but I had been driving and hadn't.  At camp, we met a woman camping next to us from Fresno and we shared a campfire.  Company was good and we slept well that night, which really worked out nicely for Craig as he had a big day the next day. Camping in Tuolumne Meadows was a bonus because we were camping at altitude, so he wouldn't have to adjust as much the next night.

The following day, we drove down to the valley and caught the shuttle bus back to Happy Isles where Craig would begin his 211 mile hike to the top of Mt. Whitney.  I hiked with him up to the Vernal Fall bridge, then bid him farewell and watched him walk away.  Part of me would have liked to have gone, but most of me knew that I was in no kind of shape to make that kind of hike.  Perhaps in a couple of years down the road.  I know I in much better shape already.

After that, I enjoyed the view of the waterfall, then started my hike down the trail and back into the valley.  I came around a bend of a trail and there was a crowd of people standing at the side of the trail looking down to the Merced River.  Figuring it was probably a deer down by the water, I started to make my way by, but something stopped me and told me to look.  Yep.  A mother and cub just hanging out down by the water side.  Interestingly, Craig was required to carry all of his food in a "bear proof" canister and never saw a bear on his entire trek.  Five minutes after I'd left him, I saw not one, but two bears.  This was also the first time I'd seen a bear in Yosemite since 1969.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

To be continued...

What is “chill” and how do I do it? - Day 6 of the Chill

For those of you following along, the 20 days of Chill Writing challenge only happens Monday through Friday, which is why there weren't any posts this weekend. The second reason why I haven't posted this weekend was because I was busy.  7 of us took a road trip to Escondido on Saturday for some geocaching, hiking and other frivolity.  A good day was had by all and I believe I ended up with 31 cache finds.

Moving on with the prompt of the day.  What is "chill" and how do I do it?  Maybe more important, do I care whether I do it or not?  I'm under the impression that "chill" means different things to different people, so does it really matter what I think chill means?

People in most parts of the world probably associate chill with cold.  I've always associated chill with being relaxed.  Chill out dude.  I could always use more of that chill as I've always been pretty high strung about a lot of different things?  NO???  REALLY?  

I believe I'm less high strung than I used to be.  That still hasn't helped my blood pressure much, but I'm working on that.  Then again, maybe it has helped my blood pressure.  So, I'll address what relaxes me, mainly because that's my chill.  Hmmm.  Things that relax me.

Good music.  Pachelbell's Canon in D.  Mozart.  Beethoven.  Vivaldi.   

Roadtripping.  I like to drive and it relaxes me.  Getting in the car and just driving somewhere, preferably with a view of some kind is what I find very relaxing.  I live within two hours of three national parks, Death Valley, Joshua Tree and Channel Islands, and within 6 hours of three other national parks, Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Yosemite.  Put me in any of those places, in a tent and enough food to last me for a couple of days and I'll probably come out of it at the other end pretty chill.

And I will be the first to admit that this challenge is not chilling me at all.  I look at some of the prompts and thing to myself, "Self, now what the hell am I going to write about in response to that one?"  And this is just that.  Ordinarily, I wouldn't write about something like this at all.  Not my style.  But I guess that's part of the game.  And so it goes.

The photo is from Bryce Canyon National Park.  I've been there 3 times.  I could go again and again.  It is my second favorite national park next to Yosemite.  There's not nearly as much to do there as there is in Yosemite, but I just can't get enough of those hoodoo formations.  Plus the hiking down amongst them is something that I just love to do.

And now I need to think about how I'm going to formulate something about 10 hotdogs.  That's not getting me to chill at all.

Travel - Day 4 of the Chill

When I looked over the list of topics for the 20 Days of Chill Writing Challenge, I noticed that this one would be the easiest.  It probably will be the longest as well.   I love traveling and try to get at least one travel/camping trip in every year.  Most years, I'm successful.

This past summer I went on a short week (5 days) camping trip with my friend Craig to help him get to Yosemite National Park and hike the John Muir Trail.  I've already written two posts about it, Part 1 and Part 2.  This is Part 3 and a continuation of the trip to Bodie which I started in Part 2.  If you've just stumbled upon this blog because of the 20 days of Chill challenge, I suggest that you might want to go back and read the first two parts before reading this one.

As I noted last time, we got extremely lucky at Bodie as the photographic elements all came in alignment to give me some great conditions in which to take photos.  We had light sprinkles from some thunderstorms that were passing through the area, but we weren't getting wet and the puffy clouds were just excellent.

After we explored the cemetery in Bodie and found a geocache over there, we then walked over to the main part of town.  Several of the buildings are open and we could walk through parts of them to see some of the insides, but it was mostly exteriors of the buildings.  I think I posted in Part 2 that I went shutter clicking happy, and why not?

There have been so many times in the past when I've traveled when I've had totally cloudless skies.  Now, cloudless skies are nice, but from a photographer's point of view, they don't lend much interest into your shot if a third of it is one color or monotone in nature.  Clouds give your photographs some depth, and I had it that day, so I went nuts.

And it wasn't even difficult to go through the images and decide which ones weren't going to see the light of day anywhere outside of my computer screen as I just love most of the images that I had taken.  I experimented with Black and White with almost all of them, but settled on color for quite a few of the images.  But as you can see, I did process at least on in Black and White.

Historical areas like that have always intrigued me.  As we walked around the town, reading the plaques about the various buildings, we just had to marvel at the intestinal fortitude of people who lived in this area in the 1800s.  People were tough back then.  It was hard work from sunup to sundown with not much relief at all.  Creature comforts like forced air heating were non-existent.  Can you imagine living in a place, covered in snow for most of the winter months without some kind of gas heating system?  I would suspect that most of us if we were instantly transplanted back to the 1870s would be dead within a week.  

But since we were born when we were, I think we should feel very fortunate.  Because of the hard work of people before us, we have been afforded all sorts of luxuries, many of which we probably take for granted.  We have that forced air heating, almost instant access to information, a good educational system and the ability to travel and learn about places such as Bodie.

After walking around the town for several hours, taking in much of the site, but not getting to the mine area of the town, we had to leave to get to our next camping stop, which was a good hour and a half down the road.  Because we didn't see it all, I'm sure I will be back to explore more parts of Bodie, including the mine section.  I just hope it doesn't take as long to get back for a second visit than it did for me to get here in the first place.

The top photo is a photo I submitted for the Sharpshooters International Photography Club.  Each week, members of the club submit photos and the club publishes a photo stream every Wednesday.  Please stop by on Facebook (link above), like our page and view some of the fantastic photos that members have to offer each week.

Thanks for coming by for Day 4 of the Chill Challenge.  I'm actually amazed at myself that I've been able to keep this up for the entire time so far.  Of course, I still have 16 more days to go, but I'm getting into a rhythm right now.

John Muir camping trip - Part 1

So the hope was that I'd be able to write more than once every other week, but that doesn't seem to be happening, so bear with me as I continue to take you through last summer.  Kind of funny actually that we're almost in winter and I'm still writing about summer, but that's how it goes sometimes.

Anyway, the first weekend in June I had volunteered to help my friend Craig in his quest to hike the John Muir Trail, from Yosemite Valley to the top of Mt. Whitney and then down to Whitney Portal. Craig had everything planned out, so it was just a matter of me going along for the ride and enjoying everything.  We took his truck and my van up to Lone Pine, California, where we were going to leave his truck at Whitney Portal.  Whitney Portal is the major trailhead leading up to the summit of Mt. Whitney and where Craig would be coming down from after his 211 mile hike over two weeks.

So the first day was mostly driving in caravan style as we worked out way up to Lone Pine.  Since Craig is also a geocacher, we caches along the way, mainly because we didn't have any set itinerary outside of making sure we ended up in Yosemite on Sunday, June 8th so he could get his permit to hike the trail, which would begin on the 9th.

We couldn't have asked for better weather, for camping and photography.  There were just enough clouds that I was able to get some pretty spectacular shots.  The shot of Mt. Whitney was taken from the road leading up to Whitney Portal.  No threat of thunderstorms, just puffy clouds that helps enhance the shots I took that day and on subsequent days.  The second shot was taken from an overlook just west of the Mammoth ski area looking over the Ansel Adams Wilderness.  The jagged peaks in the middle of the shot are called the Minarets, which was the original name for the Wilderness back before Ansel Adams, the famous photographer passed away.   

After dropping off his truck at Whitney Portal, we headed up to Mammoth.  Sometime during the day, we'd made the decision to camp at Devils Postpone National Monument.  By the time we got to Mammoth, it was close to 8 o'clock in the evening and starting to get dark.  We got down to the Postpone and the campground was closed.  I think it actually opened a couple of days later.  We found out that many of the campgrounds were closed, or were opening up the weekend that we were there.  Fortunately, Reds Meadow campground, just a couple more miles down the road, had just opened up the day we got there, so we had a place to stay that night.  We pulled into the campground, pretty much in complete darkness, pitched the tent, ate dinner and then hit the sack.  We had a big day planned for the next day.

To be continued.....

Some things change

When I first started this blog, I called it A Photo a day.  I even knew that I wouldn't be posting a photo a day, but I had high aspirations.  I started out well, then slacked off.  Then called myself on it, and wrote some more.  Then I slacked off again.

As I wrote in a comment on another blog I read, I thought I'd write more when I had more free time, like on my vacations.  That's definitely not the case as I seem to have realized that I'm doing so much on my vacations that I don't have time to sit in front of the computer for a long stretch and write about what I've done.  

So I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm going to write about stuff after the fact.  I don't do "Stream of Consciousness" very well, as I tend to ramble on and on as my thoughts move her to there.  But I think this might work better.  

Two or three times per week, I'll sit down and write about something.  Tonight I'll write a little bit about the start of summer vacation.  It's so hot here that it still feels like summer, although we know that it's summer's last gasp before our fall rolls in sometime next week.

As I posted back in July at the last photo contest on P.J.'s blog that I participated in, I ended up camping with a friend of mine along the east side of the Sierra Nevada and in Yosemite National Park at the beginning of June.  He hiked the John Muir trail this summer and I helped get him to his starting spot.  We ended up camping near Devils Postpile, on the east edge of Yosemite and then in Tuolumne Meadows for two nights.

He'd originally asked me to go with him, but I knew I wasn't in shape for a trek like that, but I volunteered to take him to his starting destination.  We left his truck at Whitney Portal where he would be hiking out and then drove north through Owens Valley.  After I dropped him off, I ended up spending a very lovely day walking around in Yosemite Valley, something I've never done before, at least by myself.  

I ended up taking some very nice photos, some of which haven't seen the light of day yet, but the intention is to post some of them over the course of the next couple of weeks.  On the trip, I also decided that I would grow my beard back.  I had a beard in my early forties, but haven't had one for about 15 years or so.  I just decided to see what it would look like.  I've received some nice compliments and I'm probably going to keep it for awhile, mainly because I hate to shave.  Trimming a beard, I don't mind, but I just hate shaving in general.

The top photo was taken on the top of Sentinel Dome in Yosemite.  The beard was about four days worth of growth, so it's basically a before shot and the bottom shot was taken about a month ago, with the beard fully in.  One of my students asked me whether I was going to go all "Duck Dynasty" with my beard and I definitely don't want to do that.  But I like this change, so trimming it occasionally won't bother me.

Flashback Friday

Look Ma!  I don't have grey hair!  This photo was taken in July 2000, the last time we camped as a family in Yosemite National Park.  We'd taken a day to drive along the Glacier Point road, stopping at the parking for Sentinel Dome and made the hike up to the top of the dome.

After hiking back, we drove over to Glacier Point, took in the scenery, looked down on the Merced River as it crashed over Nevada and Vernal Falls.  We looked across the valley to Yosemite Falls, booming with early season runoff.  Obviously, we took photos and enlisted the help of another tourist to get a shot of all four of us.

I thought this shot would be appropriate for Flashback Friday, especially since very few if anyone can enjoy this vista right now.

The Jeffrey Pine tree

I can remember growing up and reading all about the Jeffrey Pine tree on the top of Sentinel Dome in Yosemite National Park.  The tree survived many lightning strikes during its lifetime.  In the early days, there used to be a parking lot near the base of the dome and all people had to do was to get out of their car, hike up the side of the gently sloping dome to get to the pine tree.

Sometime in the 60s, the National Park Service wised up and removed the  parking lot.  The formed a small pullout parking lot alongside the road, turning a 200 yard hike into about a mile and a half hike.  It reduced the number of visitors to the dome and probably added some years to the lifespan of the tree, but nothing could really save it from the ravages of the drought in 1978-79.  Sometime during that time period, it died.

I think I hiked to the top of the dome three times in the 60s and 70s before it died.  For whatever reason, I just fell in love with that tree and its surroundings.  I think one of the reasons I did, was because every time I went up there, the lighting was perfect.  Lots of clouds, yet blue sky poking out, the sun behind the clouds lent itself perfectly to the flat light needed to take good photos up there.  As you can see from the shot I took in the summer of 2000, the lighting wasn't the best, although the clouds were still in place.

Another reason the tree was special, was because of its tenacity for survival.  Jeffrey pine trees in a forest environment, usually will tower over 100 feet tall, but this one was about 15 feet at the most, stunted because of high winds and its exposure on the top of an 8000 foot dome.  I don't believe the park service even knows how many times it was hit by lightning over the course of its lifetime.  It had a very hard life, yet it endured.  That made the tree special, in my opinion.

In the summer of 1975 I took one of the best shots I've ever taken of that tree.  Later in the year, I processed the photo into a black and white image and used it as part of my final project for my photography class that I took in high school.  I got an A on the assignment and the instructor really loved what I had done with that one shot. I've framed the tree in a vintage frame and it hangs on the wall in my bedroom.  I love to wake up in the morning and look at the shot.  It's like looking at photo of an old friend when they were in their prime of live.

After I found out the tree had died, I avoided going up there.  In my heart, I knew it was dead, but I didn't want to see it, but in the summer of 2000, with my three kids in tow, we hiked out to Sentinel Dome and said goodbye to an old friend.  I've since read that a couple of years ago, the tree finally fell.  It was not much of a fall, being only 15 feet tall or so, but it was the final thing it did so many years after its death.  Once I get back to Yosemite again, I will make another pilgrimage up to the dome to pay my respects to a friend long since gone.  The view will be different, because the tree will be gone, but I will still take in the view and revel in the day.  It doesn't get much better that standing on the top of a dome in Yosemite National Park.