Channel Islands National Park

(Spring 2009)

This may be one of the lesser of the National Parks but I was really looking forward to this trip. Ventura county is between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties along the coast and a lot of people think that it represents the true Southern California.

We took the boat to Anacapa Island and it does appear out of the fog like a mirage just as the Chumash Indian name describes it. Our boat didn't actually dock--they worked hard to eradicate the infestation of rats and don't want them back--so they backed the boat against the rusting iron ladder and we stepped from the bobbing boat and climbed up and onto the base area where we had to climb another 153 wood and iron steps to reach the island level.

Then we saw the gulls.

The wildflower season had just ended and although there still some to see, what we saw on the ground were thousands of nesting gulls. The path to the Visitor's Center was lined with nests and most of the gulls, sitting on their eggs, were screeching non-stop as we walked by. It started out being amusing, then became annoying and finally simply part of the background noise. Unfortunately, the same wasn't true of the pungent guano smell: it started out annoying and stayed that way. Dinner time must be a trying time for the resident rangers.

But to be fair, these are fascinating volcanic islands. The views of the smaller outcroppings to the north and south are quite dramatic and on the west side of the island you can look down on black sand beaches with hundreds of sea lions. And seeing the brown pelicans close-up is fascinating. Once highly endangered, they have their only western breeding colonies here and it is an amazing site to see these ungainly-looking creatures take to the air and glide over the water with such effortless elegance.

The island is the site of several Spanish style buildings including the ranger housing and a light house built as a result of the 1853 wreck of the steamer Winfield Scott but you would never guess there was a coast to the east. You really feel like you are in a different world.

The ride back was a real highlight. They maneuvered the boat so that we could get good pictures of the island, its famous arch and even the starfish clinging to the base of the volcanic rock. As we motored away, everyone was on the lookout for whales even though the blue whale season was over and humpback season hadn't begun. And we got lucky.

We sighted a whale breaching but it looked to be a good distance away so we circled around to get a little closer. But the whale didn't get any larger. Then, just ahead of us, a humpback whale the size of a submarine breached and we realized that the smaller one was its calf. The little one breached again sailing over and then returning under its mother and the two continued this way as we watched them moving off on their journey north.

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I wanted to visit the Reagan Library mainly to see the replica of the Oval Office because when you tour the White House they won't let you anywhere near the West Wing.

Apparently each of the Presidential Libraries have re-created the Oval Office to some extent, but this is the only one to replicate it exactly. Even the Resolute desk was recreated to the last detail including the riser that was added to the bottom for Reagan's height. It was quite impressive and the rest of the exhibits were extremely well done even if some of the history wasn't quite the way I remember it.

But by far the best part of the library is the last display. There are two modified Boeing 707's with the blue and white design by Raymond Lowey, that are now retired. One is at the Air Force Museum in Ohio and the other, tail number 27000, used by every President from 1972 until it was retired in 2001, is on display at the Reagan Library. This aircraft displays the configuration from the 1984 upgrade and even now, you can feel the aura of this great American symbol. Even the 25 year-old state-of-the-art technology still impresses. The tour of the inside of this historic airplane alone is a good enough reason to visit the library no matter what your politics.

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We wanted to explore more of the area so we drove through old town Ventura past the Mission, the old Ventura Theater and the magnificent City Hall, but the highlight came as we drove down East Santa Clara Street and saw nothing but classic cars and custom 'rods parked on both sides of the street and then what appeared to be the female cast of Grease crossing in front of us in full costume. It turns out we had simply come upon Jalopy Joe's Monthly Auto Show and Annual Pinup Contest. Great fun.

Then we headed for Ojai for lunch. We drove 15 miles into the mountains above the coastal fog to get to Ojai (another Chumash Indian word, this time meaning Valley of the Moon). The first time I heard of Ojai was when I learned that it was the filming location for Shangri-La in the movie Lost Horizons and it was exactly what I expected. It sits in a very broad and flat valley with a fairly compact layout. We visited Bart's, the famous open-air bookstore and ate lunch across from the Art Center Theater where we watched parents taking their children to a live stage performance of Peter Pan. In addition, there are Ojai's well-known spas and spiritual centers as well as the Film, Music and Poetry festivals that are international in scope. It really comes across as a beautiful university town without the drawback of hordes of students.

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I'm still not sure if Ventura County is the real Southern California or not, but I have to give it props for making its best case. As we sat in our hotel room the night before we left, the ground began to shake in that all too familiar way and nothing says "Welcome to California" like a little 4.5 earthquake.

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This is the last of the original emails.
All future reports will be published here.
Next up: Denali and Glacier Bay National Parks.

Everglades NP, Biscayne NP, Dry Tortugas NP

(Winter 2009)

I still haven't learned my lesson from Death Valley because there I was, waiting for a flight to south Florida, wondering who in their right mind would vacation at a malarial swamp?

Well, of course I had it all wrong. Everglades National Park, far from being a swamp, is a one-of-a-kind body of very shallow fresh water flowing slowly through a huge expanse of grass -- the forever glades. And while they do have 40 varieties of mosquitoes, late January isn't mosquito season but breeding season for just about everything else. In fact, this was the first National Park dedicated not for its vistas but for its wildlife.

Royal Palm was the original state park. When we started down the trail we almost immediately saw our first alligator and stopped to take a dozen pictures. By the time we finished the walk we had seen three dozen more--sleeping, swimming, feeding and fighting. This is a major feeding spot not just for alligators, but also turtles and birds and it's a nesting ground for the Anhinga, one of the cormorants. We saw five of their huge nests with hungry chicks and four of the nests were in the same tree. It's probably a very old joke to observe that this may well have been Florida's first condominium.

Shark Valley, named after the river whose mouth is a major shark breeding area, isn't much of a valley and the river at this spot actually just seems part of the wetlands. The appeal is a tram ride that goes deep into the Everglades to a viewing tower that is the heart of the park. If there were a few dozen alligators on the Anhinga trail, there were twice as many here and we saw five different sets of baby alligators on the two-hour trip. The birds were literally countless. At one point the guide pointed out an endangered white stork and we all dutifully snapped our pictures but, like the alligators, we then couldn't get away from them, including one stop where six were all feeding together. The guide did say she had never seen so many.

After exploring the area a little more, we then drove south into the Everglades as far as we could to see what was left of the community of Flamingo after hurricane Andrew. We didn't see any flamingos there, despite a six mile hike based on a reported sighting, but we did see a nesting osprey and her chick as well as three American crocodiles.

If you ask a naturalist how to tell the difference between an alligator and a crocodile, she will start telling you about snout shape, jaw hinges and fresh-water versus salt-water, but after you have actually seen them, it's really a lot simpler than that. They're a different color. In the Everglades, alligators are greenish black and crocodiles are ghostly white like dried mud.

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Biscayne National Park is a strange one. When you arrive at the Visitor Center and look out, you see a nuclear power plant to the southwest, a modern day midden, Mount Trashmore as it's called, to the northwest and the Miami skyline to the northeast. But the park is 99% water and it isn't until you get out on the water that you begin to appreciate the place. The channel leading out is a slow zone because of the feeding manatees, although they apparently prefer the warmer water by the power plant. Once out on the bay I noticed unusual activity beside a nearby boat and I only had to look for a moment before I saw the dolphins leaping out of the water as they raced the boat through the clear water.

At Elliott Key we talked to a couple who had been camping and kayaking out over the coral reef. They said that it was really quite beautiful but they also admitted the temperatures in January were actually too cool for this kind of activity.

Boca Chita Key is a favorite camping spot for local boaters and has what remains of a rich man's fantasy, including stone fences, concrete foundations and a decorative, non-working lighthouse on the wrong side of the island. The Ranger told us to watch our step as we explored because the original owner abandoned the place after his wife died from injuries she received from stepping into a crab hole. . . . like they say, you can't make this stuff up.

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We drove down U.S. 1 through the coral islands from Key Largo to Key West where we took the ferry boat to Fort Jefferson at Dry Tortugas National Park. The seaplane wasn't in operation so a boat was all that was available that day but on any future trip I would definitely opt for the seaplane even if does have only one engine. The catamaran ride was a very long two hour trip over some very rough waters and at the two-thirds point the crew was passing out vomit bags to those who needed them.

But the rough trip was put into perspective for us as we approached the landing and the captain pointed out an object sitting on the beach. After we landed, we examined it up close and were amazed that 15 Cuban refugees had fit into such a small, hand-made vessel and crossed even rougher waters just the previous week to seek asylum and freedom in the United States. GBA.

The roiling waters did have one major benefit for our visit. The shoreline was covered with coral reef specimens and we saw several queen conch, jellyfish with still-inflated sacs, lots of coral and shells and coral reef plants still living in the open air. It looked like the sea had just pulled out.

From the sea-wall which creates a moat around the fort, you could look directly down through the clear water to the coral reef itself. The fort is a massive brick structure that was never completed before being abandoned after the Civil War. Its major claim to fame is that it held Dr. Samuel Mudd of Lincoln assassination notoriety.

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I can't end this without just one quick note about Key West. It may not be a National Park but it certainly is a national treasure. Where else can you see the places where Hemingway wrote his stories, Audubon painted his pictures and Jimmy Buffet sang his songs? On this two mile by four mile island you can see part of the fabulous Spanish treasure recovered from the Atocha shipwreck or visit Truman's elegantly simple Little White House with its Navy-issued furnishings. You can join the raucous crowd at Sloppy Joe's and then do the pub crawl up Duval Street to Margaritaville. And even if you do none of these things, you can still wait your turn to pose with the famous marker for the southern-most point in the continental United States and stroll down to Mallory Square and join the crowd saluting the sunset. It all makes a fine welcome to the Conch Republic and we are already planning a return visit.

To see photos from this trip, go to
Florida 2009

Washington, D.C.

(Fall 2008)

*The White House
Washington, D.C. is home to about 35 National Park sites but the most famous is the White House. So at 7:30AM we arrived at the East Wing where about a hundred of us were met by a National Park Ranger whose only job was to turn us over to the Secret Service.

As they began checking our ID's just after eight, a ninja-clad Agent appeared from the south lawn area carrying his assault rifle apparently coming off duty. This was just the first of many indications we saw that the business of Washington D.C. is now security. This was firmly confirmed when we later observed three black Chevy Suburbans, with their discreet red/blue police light bars flashing and tinted glass all around, exiting the West Wing gate. The final vehicle had its rear window open and there was nothing discreet about the Secret Service Agent who had his assault rifle half out the window pointing only slightly upwards. We didn't see the Presidential limo, so I'm guessing this was Vice President Cheney's group.

Back at the White House, after going through the security screening, we began our tour. The public rooms of the White House seemed unchanged since my last visit 45 years ago but that wasn't surprising since the goal is to keep the various rooms true to the period they represent. What was missing from the tour was the white-gloved tour guide. It's a self-guided tour these days.

*The Capital Building
Tickets to the White House are available only from your Representative and so we also scheduled a tour of the Capital Building with a Congressional aide. As a result, our tour actually began in the Longworth Building in our Congressman's office, which was actually quite nice for a freshman. Then we walked through the underground passage to the Capitol itself where we bypassed all of the tour groups to see the two chambers as well as the historic spaces including the Rotunda, the Old Senate Chamber, and the Old Supreme Court Chamber.

One thing that had changed here was the Statuary Hall where a number of the statues were missing. The new Capital Visitor's Center opened a few weeks after our visit and they were in the process of moving a selection of the statues there.

*National Archives
There has been a major change to the exhibits at the National Archives. The famous vertical marble case displaying the Declaration of Independence is gone. Now you walk up to, and look down on, a series of table display cases. They call this the Charters of Freedom and the display includes the Declaration of Independence, the four pages of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

This is not a good change.

First, we celebrate the 4th of July, not the 17th of September or the 15th of December. And while the Bill of Rights is one of our great documents, a lot of people might think the 14th Amendment is just as important. Actually, each of the 27 Amendments has a special story that deserves to be told.

Second, the three documents that actually created the United States of America are the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris (1783), and the United States Constitution (all of which were signed, not coincidentally, by Benjamin Franklin).

Finally, and most disturbing, now that the Declaration of Independence is down from its honored display, it is very apparent just how bad of shape it is in. Some of the letters have faded away entirely and the unidentified hand print is garishly obvious.

Presentation is important and this needs to be reconsidered.

*Library of Congress
This was my first visit to the Library of Congress and it deserves its reputation as the most beautifully decorated building in America. We joined the tour group and were very glad we did. There is so much to see, we would certainly have missed most of it on our own.

There is a formal, glassed-in viewing area of the reading room but, of course, anyone can make an appointment to actually use the reading room. And there is a work-in-progress re-creation of the original Jefferson library that was used to rebuild the Library of Congress after it was burned by the British.

There are also a number of other permanent exhibits, including a Gutenberg Bible, but the highlight for me was a temporary exhibit that really deserves to be made permanent. After my disappointment with the National Archives, it was a great surprise and pleasure to see Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence.

I really couldn't believe my eyes. I thought it was a photograph or some other reproduction or re-creation of this document like you would see in a book, but it was the actual, original item: Thomas Jefferson's paper, ink, and handwriting along with Benjamin Franklin's written changes to create this seminal document in American history. -- It was like being given a glimpse of Creation.

*Old Post Office Tower, U.S. Supreme Court, National Portrait Gallery
The Old Post Office Tower building is Romanesque and fits with the rest of Washington as oddly as the Smithsonian Castle. It certainly has to be the strangest assignment for any National Park Ranger. The first floor is a food court and the National Park consists of the tower, the elevator that takes you up, and the viewing area at the top. Great views though.

The U.S. Supreme Court Building was a disappointment. And lunch in the coffee shop there was a mistake. I hope the Justices brown-bag it.

The National Portrait Gallery was actually a lot of fun. As I walked around looking at the strangely familiar paintings, it took me a while to realize that what I was seeing were the originals portraits used by the engravers for our currency.

*National Mall and Memorials
We waited until Sunday to make our tour of the National Memorials and were surprised to find the Metro subway jammed with people carrying signs and exiting with us at the Smithsonian stop at the National Mall. We thought we were in the middle of some sort of political rally but it turned out to be supporters of the annual Marine Corps Marathon.

We got out of their way and started down the Mall toward the Washington Monument. From there we walked a loop to include the new World War II memorial, the Vietnam Wall, and the Korean War, Lincoln, FDR and Jefferson memorials. We took our time to appreciate each of them and I could say a lot about each of them, but I'll keep this to just a few comments.

We actually contributed money toward the WWII memorial and I was a little disappointed. It's not the blight that critics claimed it would be, but . . . pillars with the names of the states?

The Vietnam Memorial's popularity continues to be right up there with Washington's and Lincoln's and two volunteers were there helping to find names on the Wall. The American Legion-style statues of the three soldiers and the nurses are behind you as you look at the Wall and these are ignored by everyone.

I was greatly impressed with the Korean War Memorial. The South Korean embassy keeps fresh flowers there and the use of realistic but over-sized statues in full combat gear is very well thought out. According to the official description, the juniper bushes that surround the statues "represent the rugged terrain of Korea." If you have seen photos of the site, you might wonder about this.

Well, when we visited, the bushes had grown considerably and even in Washington's mild winters, if there is any snow at all, these bushes will catch the snow in such a way that snow-covered military men will be seen slogging knee-deep through a snow field just as they had to do in life. I'd go back to see that.

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Overall, we had a good visit and actually did a lot more than I've mentioned here, but we could see the changes that were taking place. As I mentioned, The Capital Visitors Center opened soon after we left and the Newseum, a News Museum, was also scheduled to open. You can no longer tour the FBI Building but apparently the famous G-Men exhibits have been moved to the Newseum.

The White House Visitor's Center is already in operation and is probably an indication of what's to come. This is where everyone goes who can't get tickets to the White House. While it was interesting, it could easily be a traveling exhibit because there was nothing about it that required it to be in Washington. I know security is an issue, but I think we are seeing the end of an era of openness and that is a little sad.

Manzanar National Historic Site

(Summer 2008)
Lone Pine, California is on the central portion of U.S. Route 395 and is a northern gateway to Death Valley. It's also the gateway to Mt. Whitney, the host of the "world-famous" Lone Pine Film Festival, and the closest town to the Manzanar National Historic Site.

Lone Pine is actually at the base of Mt Whitney and since we had been to Death Valley's Badwater, the "Official Lowest Point in the Western Hemisphere", we also wanted to check out the highest mountain in the lower 48. But, again we were stymied. It turns out you now need a permit to actually climb the mountain so we just settled for exploring around the Portal area where we saw hikers waiting for their tee times. While we were there, the Fish and Wildlife people arrived with their truck and we watched in fascination as they dumped 15 minutes worth of trout into the small lake.

As we drove back down to the valley, we had some spectacular views of the Alabama Hills (oddly named by Southern sympathizers after the Confederate ship) and the Movie Road. The movie museum in town sponsors the film festival and has some great displays about all of the movies filmed there.

The Alabama Hills have been the setting for hundreds of B-Westerns as well as more famous ones like Nevada Smith and Joe Kidd. This has also been the setting for western scenes from numerous other westerns like How the West Was Won. Even some science fiction films were shot there including Star Trek V and the entire Tremors series.

It's fame, however, is apparently how much it looks like Afghanistan. From 1939 with the entirely on-location filming of the classic Gunga Din to the recent hit movie Iron Man, this apparently is the place Hollywood goes when they want that authentic look.

But the highlight of our visit to Lone Pine was the Manzanar National Historic Site. I thought I knew the story of the internment camps fairly well, so I really wasn't expecting to learn much new, but the Manzanar exhibits presented a far more complete and complex story than I was aware of.

There is increasing interest in this site and major efforts are being made to rebuild a sampling of the structures for a demonstration block. They were working on the mess hall while we were there. We did see them digging at the primary garden site but it wasn't clear if they intended to restore it or not. It would be a true oasis in the desert if they did.

The recently completed rebuilding of one of the guard towers captures the essence of the place. At the time, one of the justifications for the relocations was for the protection of the Japanese-Americans and you can still find people saying that today. So the purpose of the guard tower was to protect those inside, much like a fort on the frontier. But they didn't tell this to the soldiers who manned the towers and they focused their lights and aimed their weapons at the "inmates".

Inside the auditorium, there is a very professional multimedia exhibit that leads you chronologically through the entire, very sad affair and presents the attempted justifications, the actions, and the results and raises questions that still need to be answered today. Our visit was very sobering and quite moving. This was easily the best presentation I have ever seen at any National Park.

But this isn't quite the end of the story. As we were preparing to leave, I stopped to speak to one of the park Rangers and commented how much dignity and restraint these innocent victims displayed and she said that I didn't notice this by chance. Manzanar was originally selected for reconstruction from among the ten camps precisely because it was the one with least amount of problems. There were mostly women and children here, including an orphanage. She said that the Tule Lake center was where "troublemakers" were sent. These were mostly angry young men, the No-No's who refused to answer the loyalty questionnaire "correctly". Today there is a movement to have that site rebuilt and I hope to see that happen. How exactly should a victim of paranoia react? It would be interesting to hear that side of the story.

Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park

(Spring 2008)

The Big Island was my introduction to Hawai'i and it wasn't quite what I expected. The weather was actually much nicer than I thought it would be and everything seemed to be outdoors. Both the airport terminal and the Hilton resort check-in were open air. There were gentle breezes and moderate temperatures and we didn't see four walls until we closed the door to our room. And Kona was a beautiful little place that held its own against Wal-Mart, CostCo and the Iron Man Triathlon.

But the landscape was a real surprise. I was expecting a tropical island but the Kona shore of Hawai'i is a vast area of barren lava rock. Even stranger was the unique Hawai'ian graffiti. Along the road virtually all of the white lava rocks are arranged into letter shapes spelling out typical "John loves Mary" messages. Very odd.

Looking toward the ocean, we could easily spot the different resorts since they did look like tropical islands rising out of the volcanic rocks. The Hilton resort was built around a natural lagoon and our room had a great view of the ocean, the dolphin center and the lagoon itself. Beneath our balcony we could actually see the dolphins jumping and the sea turtles swimming and at dusk we watched the runner lighting the tiki lamps. Unfortunately, the inner court was a nighttime roost for hundreds of mynah birds. The noise they make at dusk and dawn is unbelievable.

As a result, we began our tour early the next morning by driving to the lookout above Pololu Valley at the northwest corner of the island and then hiking down to the black sand beach. There are several tiny islands off the coast and this small valley is one of the most picturesque places I have ever seen. We hiked back up and continued our tour over to the Waipio Valley lookout which is more famous with a popular 4-wheeler road to the ocean. We then went to see the original statue of King Kamehameha at his birthplace in Kapaau. The better known bronze statue is in Honolulu but this, the original, was lost at sea, replaced, and then recovered. Unlike the replacement, this one is painted in life-like colors.

Up to this point, the weather was still pleasant, but when we drove along the coast we entered the tropical portion of the island. By the time we reached Akaka Falls and the Botanical Gardens we were in a heavy, continual mist. The gardens kept a rack of umbrellas ready and they were needed. We were told that the previous December had been practically Biblical with more than a month of daily rain and this here was just normal weather.

The drive to the National Park then took us up in elevation and it got cold as well as wet. The rain stopped just as we reached the parking lot but the temperatures remained in the low fifties and quite a number of people were totally unprepared. One guy in his swimsuit stood shivering with a thin beach blanket wrapped around him.

A Ranger was talking as we approached and I smiled hearing him quote Mark Twain. Roughing It is one of my favorite books and for the most part it's written about where I live, but any place honored with the Mark Twain touch is lucky indeed and in the book he also tells the story of his trip to Hawai'i. So I wasn't surprised that his descriptions were being quoted aloud as well as prominently displayed in the Visitor's Center. We visited Volcano House but I wouldn't want to stay there. One famous Mark Twain quote captures the experience perfectly, "The smell of sulphur is strong, but not unpleasant to a sinner."

One thing that has changed from Mark Twain's time is the caldera, the bowl remaining where the mountain peak used to be. When Mark Twain visited, the caldera was filled with lava and it is now empty but still "a colossal column of cloud towers to a great height in the air" as the gas vents upward. We made our way down to the tropical beach where we walked over cooled lava flows that had destroyed the area and 180 homes and saw where the lava had finally cooled and died out as it flowed down the road. Looking up the hillside, we could see the new lava flow making its way down to the ocean where there was another "colossal column", this time of steam, where the lava flow was violently cooled by the sea.

We returned to Hilo and stopped to eat at Ken's House of Pancakes. We had been told that this was the place to go to get the local flavor and while it was a fun place, quite honestly the parking lot was full of rental cars. I think only tourists go there. We went over to the Hilo Farmer's Market and that was what we were looking for. Fresh local fruits, Hawai'ian shirts and sarongs, palm frond hats and baskets being made as we watched and the true locals, both native and mainland refugees. It was a fun place.

We ended our trip around the island at Kealakekua Bay which is one of the most historic places in the Hawai'ian islands. In ancient times the sheer "forbidden cliffs" were the secret burial place for Hawai'ian royalty. A servant was suspended by rope from the top of the cliffs and he carefully placed the lowered body into an indentation in the rock wall. Then, according to the story, the rope was dropped, sending the honored servant to his own death, thus keeping the secret.

In more recent times, the bay became famous as the site of Captain Cook's death. The peaceful accomplishments of the Lewis & Clark Expedition are quite admirable, but Captain James Cook's peaceful voyages throughout the Pacific are by far the greatest feats of exploration in modern history. So it is doubly sad that it ended the way it did.

There is a white pillar marking the approximate spot where the Captain died at the hands of the Hawai'ians. And again, Mark Twain gets the final word on this subject too: "Plain unvarnished history takes the romance out of Captain Cook's assassination, and renders a deliberate verdict of justifiable homicide. . . . Small blame should attach to the natives for the killing of Cook. They treated him well. In return, he abused them."

Today, of course, Kealakekua Bay is mostly famous as a great scuba and snorkeling area. We spent the day frolicking, picnicking and swimming among the tropical fish and the sea turtles of the coral reef, all the while surrounded by these ancient and modern ghosts. It was a rather appropriate ending to our trip. Quite a place, this Hawai'i.

To see photos from this trip, go to:
Hawaii 2008

Death Valley

(Winter 2008)

The trip started poorly. We didn't arrive in the valley until sunset because we took the "scenic" route, US-95, through central Nevada. As we we drove through the valley, I was surprised to see the number of people taking photos of the orange, setting sun because it looked like one of those pathetic Los Angeles smoggy sunsets. We checked in at the Furnace Creek Ranch, got some dinner and went to bed.

In the morning we headed off for Badwater, the "official lowest point in the Western Hemisphere," and it was exactly what I expected: a flat, stark, alkali bed. I was ready to check this place off my list of National Parks and get out of there. But then we went off to explore the rest of Death Valley.

From the mineral colors of Artist's Palette to the strangely eroded rocks of Zabriskie Point overlooking the valley, to the massive sand dunes of Indian Wells, it was one extraordinary sight after another. Even the walking trails led to amazing sights. Golden Canyon is noted for its natural bridges but after a little while you realize you are walking on an overturned and destroyed road bed - all that is left of the asphalt road that used to go up there before a particularly violent storm. Mosaic Canyon is the result of similar storms and as you look at the small rocks and pebbles left embedded in dried mud higher than your head you realize where the canyon name came from. And then as we drove up the road, we saw one of the giant dust devils form out in the middle of the valley and travel at its stately pace to the south.

When we returned to Furnace Creek Ranch, we realized we were staying in a true oasis in this dry desert with giant palm trees and wildlife to match. The ravens were as big as eagles and the coyotes were right out of central casting. One crossed the road in front of us turning his head to glare but never breaking stride as he continued his way out into the desert.

The man-made parts of Death Valley may have there attraction for some. Furnace Creek Inn is certainly quite elegant and the twenty-mule teams and Scotty's Castle are known world-wide, but they end up being almost intrusive. Death Valley is it's own place and really doesn't need them.

When we left, we headed west over the Panamint range and the amazing sights continued as we drove through a forest of Joshua Pines and then finally on to US 395 and on to Lone Pine. We thought about ending our trip by going from the lowest point to one of the highest, Mt Whitney, but fortunately the portal road was still closed so we headed home.

To see photos from this trip, go to:
Death Valley 2008

Grand Canyon Railway

(Fall 2007)

We booked the deluxe rail tour to the Grand Canyon from Williams, Arizona. and from the start it was a typical National Park experience. The Railway Hotel's public rooms were quite nice and the accommodations and food were nondescript.

In the morning we all assembled at the station for the western show where we met the cowboys who were destined to rob us on the return trip. On the train itself, the deluxe package included "lounge-style comforts including a private bar and access to the open-air rear platform. Exclusive service provides fresh fruit, pastries, coffee and juice during the morning, while snacks are available on the return trip with a champagne toast."

The actual train ride to the Grand Canyon is a trip through the semi-arid Colorado Plateau. We took turns stepping out on the rear platform and our package included access to the dome car but there really wasn't much to see. The problem is that the Grand Canyon is a surprise. From Spanish explorers looking for cities of gold to lost tourists asking Rangers where exactly the Grand Canyon is, everyone has the same problem. You don't see the Grand Canyon until you walk right up to the rim.

The Grand Canyon Railway actually plays on this fact. The train depot is behind and below the El Tovar Hotel and it is only when you enter the hotel from the rear, climb the stairs and walk out the front door that you are presented with one of the most magnificent vistas in all the world.

The last time we visited we were camping in an area away from the rim but this time we were staying so close that we went out at night to the rim walk. We really just wanted to see the stars but we were surprised to see all the activity on the Bright Angel Trail that leads down to the floor of the canyon.

All that we could see, obviously, were the hikers' lamps and flashlights but there were a surprising number of them. There were stragglers who were only finally completing there hike out of the canyon after what must have been a very long day. Then there were quite a number of lights moving around at the Indian Gardens rest area. These people would probably finish their climb out in the morning. Then there were the lights of people who seemed intent on continuing their descent in the dark which seemed strange to me but I was assured that this is not uncommon although most night hikers do wait for a full moon.

We toured the area some more the next morning and afternoon and stopped at the mule enclosure to make sure they were being treated well before heading back to the train depot for our late afternoon departure. This was when the train ride started to become enjoyable.

When we got to the depot we headed to our car which was the last one on the train and noticed all the people taking pictures behind it. Across the tracks a deer and its fawn were grazing quite peacefully despite all the cameras and people. The conductor told us that they had been coming down each afternoon for the past several weeks and he wasn't sure if the doe simply liked the grass there or was a mother who wanted to show off her baby to an adoring audience . . . which we were.

When the train left the station, the sun was close to setting and we were barely out of the National Park when we saw the first of two herds of elk. This first herd was quite large and had two magnificent bulls with huge sets of antlers who were guarding the flanks of the group of females and their calves but they paid no attention to the train.

A little later we saw a smaller group of elk moving alongside the train tracks and then we saw a line of pronghorns grazing on the hillside. Finally as the sun set and dusk was approaching dark, out of nowhere a group of outlaws appeared, chasing down the train and forcing it to halt. These masked desperadoes then came through each car putting on a great show and earning their tips. It was a fun trip.

To see photos from this trip, go to:
Grand Canyon 2007