Travels and Images
WEEK 21 2007
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Saturday 26 May
2007
Saturday
- my brother, Peg and I went for a nice hike in the Martinez hills. It
was a nice day, just a little hazy, but the temperature was nice. We
walked up the ravine under in the speckled oak filtered light and then
out onto the early summer golden grass. I brought my Rebel XT, and my
brother his Nikon D40, so we have a few pictures to compare.
Peg had a ball of course, like most dogs she traveled two or three
times as far as the slow plodding humans nominally in charge of her.
As the day wore on she wore down. I had water in the backpack, and that
helped, but eventually we took pity and started back. Coming downhill
we could see her legs actually trembling with weariness -
something I've never seen before, in any dog. We let her lay down and
rest in the shade several times - the last time just fifty feet from
the car.
The down side of resting in the shade was the ticks. We found a couple
later in the day, but that's just the way it is sometimes. They hadn't
time to dig in, and I'll spritz her with some medicine tomorrow.
Mike and I listened to Book
#36, Rocket
Boys*
by Hiram Hickam on the trip north. Excellent book! When we arrived at
Dads we
sat for several minutes out in the car, listening to the end of the
tapes (while the dog, who recognized the car, went berserk indoors).
Friday 25 May
2007
Friday
- on the road, with my brother, heading north.
Bird Shadow.
Thursday
24
May 2007
Thursday
- I sent my father a picture of the poor capsized Normandie in New York
Harbor. Here is a mere thumbnail, but there is a full sized copy (and
others) at this
page. He replied that he'd actually seen her that
way, but stripped down, in 1942.
First there was Snakes
on a Plane. There there was 300. Now there is United300!
[via my brother, who has a sick sense of humor as well.]
Wednesday 23 May 2007
Wednesday
- walking along the trail my I heard a crashing in the forest, down
slope. My brother stopped, fifty or sixty feet ahead, and I caught up
to him.
"Was it a deer?"
"No, a bear."
How cool is that?
He said it was running away from us, plowing through the underbrush. If
you have to see a bear in the wild, it's backside is probably the side
to see.
I don't have much else to say tonight. I thought I had tivoed the
entire Hero's marathon, but I only see six or seven actually saved, and
I've seen two of them. So that just leaves a couple of new episodes.
I caught the very end of a Stargate SG-1 episode, wherein Maj. Carter
is floating in space watching a huge space battle going on. The series
is wrapping up I think, but I stopped Tivoing because there are so many
repeats and reruns on at the same time as the regular series that my
TIVO was filling up with 7 year old episodes. Oh well.
Tuesday 22 May 2007
Tuesday
- lots of meetings, a little work.
Most people don't walk the PCT in one long trip. Many take their time
and do just a little bit each year. My brother and I have hiked a
number of sections - down in the Angeles, in the Tehachapi's, and in
the Sierra Nevada's. Still, if one worked at it, he would probably do
better than the couple of hundred miles we have accidentally done in
the last 25 years or so.
We were probably talking about this hike before Brent was born. I'd
read Eric Ryback's High
Adventure
story of doing the PCT solo and thought it'd be amazing to do something
like that. I should have gone then, right out of high school or junior
college, but I didn't. Ah well.
Maybe I'll do some chunks this year. The Angeles, and maybe over in the
San Gregornio's.
In the news: the horrible fire that devastated the Cutty Sark,
in England. But it looks as though she is salvageable. I recall
writing, last year, about whether a ship that has undergone massive
repairs is still the same ship and quoting from Joshua Slocum on the
subject. It turns out that this is actually a much older question,
dating back to Plutarch! From the Cutty
Sark Wiki entry:
I
t has also been officially
stated that, once restored, the ship will still predominantly be the
original Cutty
Sark
although it is obvious that material lost in the blaze will have to be
re-created. The bow was predominantly undamaged, the stern appears
fairly intact, and the rest, whilst damaged, should at least be in part
repairable. As such the ship will still have a majority of the original
parts; whether it will still be considered "the Cutty Sark" is an example of the
ancient Ship of Theseus question.
The Wikipedia entry for Ship of Theseus starts thus:
The Ship
of Theseus
is a paradox also known as Theseus'
paradox.
It raises the question of whether an object, which has had all its
component parts replaced, remains fundamentally the same.
I searched for my page on Google, to check on the date of the Slocum
quote above, and this
popped up. Weird.
But, not to worry, the quote is already en-wikied, in the article on
the Spray.
Monday 21 May 2007
Monday
- on Saturday my brother and I hiked from Vincent Gap to the Jackson
Flats campground. We had originally planned to hike
Mt. Baden Powell, but the crowds going up (it was a gorgeous
day) tempted us into going the other direction, along the ridge to the
east. It was a good choice - not as high or strenuous but a lot of fun
to walk along. We met a number of Pacific Crest Trail hikers
coming the other way - up from the Mexican border already.
As the link puts it:
The Pacific Crest Trail
(PCT) is the jewel in the crown of America’s
scenic trails, spanning 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada through three
western states. It reveals the beauty of the desert, unfolds the
glaciated expanses of the Sierra Nevada, and provides commanding vistas
of volcanic peaks and glaciers in the Cascade Range.
And the link to the Southern California part says:
The PCT begins on a low hill near
Campo (elev. 2,600’), a small town near the Mexican border.
Anyway, we spent a fair amount of time talking to 'Brent', who is
hiking the trail on his own. But it's not too solitary - he says that
there are a number of people that walk at about the same speed, so that
he passes them and is passed by them as people stop, rest, shop for
food and gear in small towns, and so on. After a while you get to know
your fellows he says.
About 500 hikers start each year, attempting the full hike, and about
half of them finish. This is a dry year, so it means that the high
Sierra's should be more easily traversable in June and July.
Brent, PCT hiker, near Vincent Gap
Sunday 20 May 2007
Sunday
- working around the house. It's a mess
- I haven't done any spring cleaning inside; outside there are bad
sprinklers, and the swamp cooler needed to be cleaned, the pads
changed, the water hooked up, the pump changed out.
Actually I still
am not completely done with the cooler, it needs new...uh...little
water dispenser troughs at the top. They must have a name, but I don't
know what. The two side troughs are very rusted, with quarter and dime
sized holes in them. The main, side, trough is fine. Go figure. Anyway,
simple sheet metal, galvanized steel that was bent to shape - I can
make new ones, but I
have to clean my garage and find the tools first.
I left my battery powered drill on the boat, in Oxnard. Arrgghh.
