Sind Wir Dort Noch


Not that the issue was ever in doubt, but just to prove I'm no Ansel Adams I thought I'd post a Half-Dome picture from my recent trip up to the mountains. As you can see, my shot isn't quite as dramatic as others you've seen, but after all it's only a picture of a rock. What did you expect?

Anyways, nice to be back here in the valley. Back from the quiet of trees and wind and clear mountain streams, back to the belching and screaming and shoving of the wretched masses, back to the crime and the grime and the traffic, back to the...

Oh, fuggedaboutit!

Yosemite was nice, though. Yeah, you got your wretched masses up there too, but there are still a few places you can go to get away from it all, relatively speaking that is. If you decide to go anywhere where there's food or bathrooms or just a nearby roadside attraction then don't expect to find any peace and solitude.

And they're all Germans too. Everywhere I went it was "dis" this and "der" that. Guess they don't have enough moutains in Germany so they gotta come over here and gawk at ours. It was kinda funny though because it seemed like German families on vacation are just the same as American families on vacation. I mean first you got Dad walking up the trail with 500 pounds of photographic equipment strapped around his neck and over his shoulders, then you've got Mom walking behind with this "my isn't this wonderful - let's buy something at the gift shop" look on her face, and then of course you've got the kids running around and poking their noses into everything and stopping every 15 seconds to pose for another one of Dad's pictures. If they never talked to one another then you'd never know they were German, but they were speaking lots of German.

Anyways, even with all the crowds and commotions Yosemite is still one of the wonders of the natural world. I guess that's why people get on jets and fly halfway around the world just to see it. I only live a couple hundred miles away and have seen it dozens of times and it still amazes me sometimes. What's funny is for someone local to the area to go back and read John Muir's book on Yosemite and just think about how much California has changed in the past 100 years or so. Muir talked about leaving the lush Santa Clara Valley and standing atop the Pacheco Pass to behold the marvelous spectacle of the Sierra Nevada Mountains towering up in the distance, and nowdays the Santa Clara Valley is just a sprawling suburb and the interior of California is so choked with smog that you'd be lucky to even make out the Central Valley from Pacheco Pass, let alone the Sierras in the distance.

Oh, to have lived a hundred years ago.

Of course, back in John Muir's day if you wanted to see Yosemite Falls you couldn't just pull up in your SUV and find a parking spot out front either. Back then you had to walk, and it was a hell of a long walk too. And you couldn't just get a burger and fries at the snack bar, or a T-Shirt with with a picture on the front or batteries for your camera. None of the necessities that today's intrepid wilderness traveller would dream of being without were available back then. So I guess you have your tradeoffs, don't you.

I decided to go the John Muir route and rough it on this vacation, which for me meant unplugging myself and actually leaving my computer at home for a change. I've always thought about doing it on past vacations but somehow the thought of being without the internet for a week or even a couple of days always gave me the shakes. But this time I finally did it - I cut the cord, so to speak, and went out into the wilderness totally unarmed. Well, almost. I still brought my PDA, of course, and my MP3 player, and my digital camera, and my cellphone. But other than that I was totally unwired!

I also picked up this little FM Transmitter thingy for my MP3 player that let's you listen over your car radio. They're pretty useless in the city where the airwaves are thick with traffic, but out in the mountains they're pretty handy things to take along. I just loaded up with Podcasts and audiobooks before I left, and as soon as I started to lose the normal radio signals I just fired up the transmitter and got crystal clear reception from my MP3 player. I was really suprised how well it worked, and after a spending hours and hours crawling behind lines of motorhomes climbing their way up twisty mountain roads I was glad I brought it along. And it sure beats spending hundreds of dollars and $13.o0/mo for satellite radio.

But now my vacation is over and here I am back in front of the old computer again. Geez, it was nice while it lasted but unfortunately it's time to move on. I've got blogs to write, podcasts to record, and miles to go before I sleep.

Miles to go before I sleep.

However I can't leave yet without one last little commercial. I found a great podcast while I was away and I want to plug it (because I know just how influential this blog can be). It's called Podopera and it's and a podcast about (duh) the Opera. Actually, it's done by a outfit called HatstandOpera out of the UK and it features interviews, and arias, and commentary and all kinds of good stuff courtesy of a very enthusiastic lady named Kirsty Young. I was listening to it while I was making my way through the High Sierra and I just loved it. In fact listening to it made me uncomfortably aware of just how badly my own podcast sucks. Oh well, that's my problem I guess. Anyways, if you're a music lover then check out Podopera. I'm sure you'll get a kick out of it.