Upper Antelope Canyon

A slot canyon is a canyon that is deeper - much deeper - than it is wide.  They start out as a hairline crack in the rock formation, rushing water forces its way in, begins to erode particles away, winter comes along and freezes water in the crack, expanding the volume of moisture as it becomes ice, which acts like a jack and spreads the crack ever larger.  The rushing water does the most damage and is persistent. 

Arizona doesn't have too many rivers; Arizona has "washes."  These are dry riverbeds that are terribly dangerous because they carry the runoff of thunderstorms miles away - thunderstorms so far "upstream" that you don't even know that they are happening.  People like to use these washes as pathways because there are no cactus, etc. that they have to step over or walk around.  (Hello.  There is no vegetation because something has scrubbed it away!) Many, many people and their animals have lost their lives in these washes because of flash flooding.

The Upper and the Lower Antelope Canyons are on the Navajo Reservation in northern Arizona, and the Navajo's require you to join a tour as a way of controlling the number of people inside these slot canyons at any given time.  So, we have reservations with a company in Page.  They were a bit tricky to find, but once found they were super helpful.  We are assigned to a slight, perky young woman who immediately takes charge and clearly gives instructions that she expects to be followed - promptly and to the letter.  (She's my kinda lady, and I have no problems with it because she's clear in her instructions.)  There are eight of us, and we pile into a well-used 4-wheel drive Suburban.

This lil' slip of a woman roars off down the highway as if there's not a second to waste.  The canyons aren't too far out of town and the instant she pulls into the staging area she slows to a crawl, checks in at the guard shack, eases away, comes to a full stop, engages the 4-wheel drive, and heads down the embankment into the wash.  There have been recent heavy rains, but there is no standing water in the wash.  What evidence remains is deep green vegetation and beautiful flowers up on the banks.

Our guide isn't driving as fast as she did on the highway, but she is still wasting no time.  The wash is maybe 50 or 75 yards wide and maybe 10 feet deep.  The bottom is sandy, hence the need for the 4-wheel drive.  The farther we go the deeper the wash gets.  In a very few minutes we come to a dead end, she pulls a u-turn, parks in line with other tour guide vehicles, and throws it into park.

We're all full-sized adults and those of us squeezed into the back seats are pleased to be set free.  She directs us to the "dead-end," and we're wondering what's going on.  As we get a bit closer we see that there's an opening in the wall - the slot canyon!

You can judge from the size of the person how tall that opening is - 50 feet?  maybe 60?  That's equivalent to a five or six story building!  And notice how sandy and flat and cactus-free the wash is.  It's easy to see why folks would prefer to hike that instead of the landscape up top.  Problem is, if a flash-flood of thunderstorm runoff were to come gushing out of this slot canyon, HOW would one get out of the wash? 

Slot canyons are rare - found worldwide - but rare.  It takes a specific combination of geology and water features to create these canyons.  They are most often found in soft rock formations like sandstone and limestone, but can sometimes be formed in granite and basalt rock as well.

These canyons on the Navajo Reservation in the American Southwest may be the most well known worldwide, but the largest collection is in a not-so-very-accessible region of Australia.

If you think Biblically, there are slot canyons in Petra, Jordan.  (They are the ones that were used in filming "Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade.")  Settlement of that area began as early as 1500 years before Christ, but Petra (or the Rose City because of the color of its rock) was carved out of the rock somewhere around 312 B.C.  The world didn't know about this city until 1812.  Pretty well-kept secret, I'd say!!  Smithsonian Magazine names it as one of the "28 Places to See Before You Die."  If you approached Petra from the south you would pass the Tomb of Aaron, Moses brother.

Utah has the largest concentration of slot canyons anywhere in the world.  These include canyons in Bryce, Zion and Death Valley National Parks, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and a place called Buckskin Gulch which is the longest slot canyon in the world.  These are just north across the state line from Page, Arizona.

As we get closer, the opening doesn't seem as tall.  It's kinda spooky lookin' and I think of Granny Beth and her claustrophobia...  But this is a canyon, not a cave.  One can see sunlight peeking in from the top all the way through.  Still, it's pretty close inside.







Now comes the REALLY, REALLY hard part:  choosing which photos to share with you!  Granpa took over TWO HUNDRED photos!!

The swirling action of the water - likened to the inside of a washing machine - forced through this canyon at rocket speeds created these whirling patterns.

 

 The sand particles trapped in the water smoothed and polished the softer portions of the rocks.

I don't know exactly how Granpa did it, but he musta changed his camera settings somehow.  The first picture is true colors and pretty, but the second I think is beautiful!!

These floor to ceiling shots give you a pretty good idea what walking through it looked like.

Obviously I could go on and on showing you the exquisite phenomenon of nature...  just look at the texture in these formations.  Our guide had names for a lot of the features, she knew what camera settings were best for which areas, knew what angles to take pictures from, even grabbed my iPhone several times in order to get it just right!





One could book a "photo tour," but all that allowed was more time to spend in the canyon because folks were setting up tripods with mega lens and using light meters - and basically being rude to the rest of us po' folk.

One of the pictures our guide took with my phone is really cool:  she called it "The Heart."

Page, Arizona

I've wanted to visit Antelope Canyon on the Navajo Reservation for years.  I've seen photos in magazines and they truly are not to be believed.  It's a gotta-see-for-yourself kinda place.

It's about 30 miles east of the eastern end of the Grand Canyon within spittin' distance (as we say in Texas) of the Utah border.  Just the drive there is amazing!

Page, Arizona came into being because of the Glen Canyon Dam project, and it became a major tourist attraction because of these amazing slot canyons and it's proximity to the Grand Canyon.  This view of Horseshoe Bend on the Colorado River as it begins its descent into the Grand Canyon is a scene you might be familiar with from movies:

Glen Canyon Dam is off to the right and as you follow the Colorado River to the left it begins it's begins to carve its way deep into the Grand Canyon.  (Yes, that's me.  Granpa has taken to calling me "Chunky Monkey."  Could be worse - but I don't know how!)

These rock formations on the cliff above Horseshoe Bend portend beautiful things to come in the Antelope Canyons!

Relocating

No, not changing hospitals, but changing housing.  The only thing in Kingman we could find that was completely furnished including knives and forks, had utilities in place and included in the payment, and would allow a 13-week contract was a gorgeous place, on a golf course, with a community swimming pool and fifteen miles from the hospital.  When the hospital extended Granpa's contract, we went back to the homeowner, but they had already lined up a vacationer to move in as soon as we moved out.  So I'm back to square one.

We asked for prayers at Sunday School, and we asked if they knew anyone who had a "roof" we could use until mid-December.  There were a couple of leads, but nothing panned out.  I began searching the local newspaper classifieds on-line and found a few locations - but no one wanted to work with a medical travelers unique needs. 


Perseverance pays off, and I finally find a really nice guy who owns several duplexes and has one available.  It's completely UN-furnished though and utilities aren't included.  I explain our parameters and why they are what they are.  I ask if we pay two months expected utilities up front will he leave them in his name. Mitch cogitates on that for a few minutes and decides, yes, he could work with that.  As far as furnishings I tell him we can get a couple of lawn chairs, have an air mattress we use when tent camping, and have most of the kitchen things we need.  Washer and dryer?  Might have to go to a rental place and check out pricing there.  This duplex is also half the price and only two miles from the hospital!

It's an almost brand new structure, a one-car garage with a garage door opener, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and the best feature of all is a sky-light in the kitchen.  It took me about three days to stop getting up from the computer to turn out the light!!

So we moved to the new location - only to find that Mitch had magically acquired two recliners, a love seat, a TV, two twin beds that they pushed together and covered with a king-size mattress pad and set of sheets, AND a washer and dryer!  What a loverly kinda guy!!

And so we've relocated - but we still have two more months here in Kingman.  Again, so many things to go see and, even with the extension, not enough time!

Makin' Movies

This is the main street of old Kernville in the early 1900's when they started making movies there.

Here's John Wayne hanging onto the back of the stage coach and the most famous stuntman of all, Yakima Canutt, driving the coach.

Phil Silvers wasn't quite as successful in a car as Wayne was in the stagecoach.  Silvers was one of a gazillion stars in the 1963 movie, "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."

I'm thinkin' John Wayne wasn't too happy about the government flooding his favorite old West movie town/set.

But the museum in new Kernville honored Wayne's memory by preserving the actual stagecoach used in the 1938 movie "Stagecoach."  It was originally what they called a mud coach carrying folks between Caliente and the Kern River Valley from the 1850's to 1914.  How many of YOUR automobiles are workhorse enough to operate for 64 years - and still be sturdy enough to be used in the movies - and look like this at 163-years-old???

Granpa is about the same size as John Wayne.  Can you imagine him hangin' off the back of this baby as some stuntman drives a team of horses hell-bent-for-leather across the Kern River??

"I'll Be There With Bells On!"

"I'll be there with bells on!"  That's an expression I've heard all my life.  Now I know where it came from and what it means!

Immigrants coming west needed large, sturdy wagons.  The Conestoga. originating in the Pennsylvania area, was a great favorite.  In the early part of the 1700's, these wagons were made with a broad wheel base to carry lots of stuff and to be more stable in transport.  Because of it's size, six horses were required to pull the load.  The collars of these horses were often fitted with bells, and those bells were sometimes customized by their owners to a particular sound.  They were a source of pride amongst the teamsters

By the 1800's when folks began moving west in huge numbers, the bed of the wagon was built high in the front and back so that when a wagon was going up or down a hillside, goods wouldn't tumble out.  The white hood on these "inland ships" was raised at either end to make it easier to climb in and out, and the hoops leaned out at each end to provide a bit of shade.  For all of their size, they appeared to be pretty graceful.

However, because they carried such enormous loads, they tended to get stuck.  The teamster that came to the rescue might ask for a set of those headdress bells as a reward.  That meant that the guy that got stuck reached the end of the line with no bells on - a serious blow to a teamster's pride!  Getting to the destination with the bells ON was a matter of great satisfaction - hence the saying, "I'll be there with bells on," meaning, I'd be delighted to be there!

It's a revelation to me to discover where some of these old sayings come from.  There's another one that comes from the time of President Andrew Jackson.  He fought in the Creek Indian War of 1813 as a young man.  The Creeks under a leader by the name of Red Stick, killed about 250 white settlers in Alabama in a pretty brutal fashion. (I keep tellin' ya, all Native Americans were not kum-ba-ya kinda guys and gals...)  Jackson and some others put together about 2500 men and went after the Creeks so as to prevent them from getting any ideas about starting something like the French and Indian Wars of the 1700.  If they had, it would have been the Spanish and Indian Wars of the 1800's!

When folks invited you over for a hoe-down, they'd answer, "I'll be there if the Creeks don't rise!"  Well, I always thought they were talking about creeks and rivers, etc.  Nope, that saying came from the time of Jackson and the Creek Indian wars.  I guess you could combine the two and say, "I'll be there with bells on, if the Creeks don't rise!"  That'd work!

Movies, etc. Made in Whiskey Flat Beginning in 1924

New Kernville

Things did rock along pretty nicely for decades.  But up jumps the government again, trying to "help."  They decide that they needed to build a dam and create a lake in order to guarantee water to the farmlands below.  With the power only a federal government can have, they condemned Kernville and the town of Isabella to a watery grave.

Folks that had made this area home for generations weren't really happy about leaving.  Being resourceful folks, they decided to pick up some of the buildings, move them up-slope, and just continue business as usual.  All very peaceful and dignified, I'd say.

Just like with any move, it's a good time to do some housecleaning - and the Kernville Museum was the beneficiary of a lot of cool stuff:

 I like the composition of this presentation:  Dignified ladies apparel, children's toys - and a rifle!

There's a whole plethora of things in this picture!!

This is way cool:  A replica of an 1858 Remington Bison .44 cal.
12 in. octagonal barrel with brass frame, adjustable target sights with shoulder stock.  Now that's a GUN!

Anyone know what this contraption is?

Some of the buildings that couldn't be moved were dynamited, and in 1953 the dam was completed and the old townsite flooded.  With the lake as low as it is today, some of the foundations of the old buildings just might emerge any minute!!

From Whiskey Flat to Kernville

You can just imagine how the newspapers of the day were filled with stories of all that went on in and around Whiskey Flat - and throughout the West for that matter.  But Whiskey Flat ended up with a pretty bruised and battered reputation.  Who wants to move to a town with that much trouble going on?

The stories associated with the name seemed to be the problem, so the ladies of Whiskey Flat got together and decided that a name change was in order, because  - the town wasn't really all that bad.

Colonel John C. Fremont was a pretty heroic and influential name around the country as he was known far and wide as the pathfinder of an 1846 mapping expedition of the southwest.  The area around Whiskey Flat had been named the Kern River valley in honor of Fremont's topographer, Lt. Edward Kern.  So the ladies decided "Kernville" would be the new name of their little town.

By the late 1870's, the Big Blue had more than 200 miners working her, and there were more miners working the other mines in the area.  Kernville could boast a church, three hotels, three saloons and numerous other businesses.  She had survived her birth, and the turmoil of "teenage" years, and was now a settled and prosperous community.  Folks could relax and enjoy life.  Thank you, ladies!

Massacre at Whiskey Flat

In 1862, at the request of settlers in and around Whiskey Flat, the U.S. cavalry set up outposts in Independence and Visalia, north and south of Whiskey Flat with the intention of settling down the Native America's conflict with the white folks that had moved into their beautiful area on the Sierra Nevada foothills.

In April of the next year, one Captain Moses A. McLaughlin and 70 troops found a large band of Indians camped about two miles from Whiskey Flat.  Unfortunately (local lore has it), McLaughlin was a bad tempered whiskey drinker who disliked Indians from the get-go.  He was hard on his troops, too, making them live in caves instead of directing them to construct proper housing - and winters in the Sierra Nevada's can be brutal - just ask the Donner Party! 
 

This is what their housing might have looked like.

McLaughlin later reported that he sent the old men and boys off to other villages, but there were 35 Indians that their compatriots wouldn't vouch for - so he shot or sabered them!  Within a few months McLaughlin and his troops had captured nearly 1,000 more Indians and marched them 200 miles over the next six months to Ft. Tejon and finally to the San Sebastian Indian Reservation in the southeastern corner of the San Joaquin Valley (now central California.)  This reservation had been set up for coastal and interior California Native American.  Only 850 Indians survived the trek to Ft. Tejon.

In no time at all over 600 of those Indians had slipped off that reservation and returned to the Kern River valley and Mt. Whitney.  Quietly, peacefully they returned.

McLaughlin's troops abandoned him - for a multitude of reasons.  They just walked off without food, clothing, or pay for months served.  McLaughlin was later court-martialed over the mean-spirited way (to put it mildly!) that he handled the whole Whiskey Flat episode, was discharged from the Army and later committed suicide. 

Today you will find three memorial crosses on the site where he slaughtered those 35 Indians.

Whiskey Flat, California

Replace the modern cars with horses and buggies and you have the town of Whiskey Flat, now known as the new Kernville.

The California Gold Rush of 1849 bypassed this area of the Sierra Nevada.  Nothing of civilization showed on the maps of the day until 1860 when Lovely Rogers discovered a 42-ounce gold nugget.  (How one can call something weighing 42 ounces a "nugget" is beyond me!)  The Big Blue mine was begun and would be the leading producer of gold of all the mines to follow.

Mines require men to work them, and before you knew it entrepreneurs began to filter in, too.  Adam Hamilton set up his tent, threw a board across two whiskey barrels and thus began a saloon known as Whiskey Flat.  That's how towns were born back then - and it still lives today despite its first inhabitants suffering harsh winters, spring muds, searing summer heat, gunfights, and swindlers.  These were men of the real old west:  miners, outlaws, secessionists, and temperamental ranchers; no romance here. 

In 1883, a mining strike caused by miners not being paid resulted in the Big Blue being torched, and in 1892 there was a shoot out between two sets of brothers over a mining claim.  But still the town survived. 

So many folks had moved into the area by then, though, that the Native Americans were getting pushed around pretty good.  They had been peaceful, but the 1,700 Tubatulabal and Kawaiisu were now also pressured by nature.  The abundance of people living off the wildlife in the area caused their food supply to dwindle, and the winters had been extremely harsh of late.  They were also an agriculture based community and the drought didn't help their situation.  Cattle were rummaging in what crops they did manage to grow because they were hungry, too.  The Indians began stealing horses and rustling cattle.  Over the next two years 60 whites and 200 Indians would die because of the pressures men put on nature and each other.

Finally, in 1862, the cavalry moved into the area to try and get a handle on the problem.  They did, but not without terrible consequences...

Back to the Kernville Campground

Well, looky here.  There are fellow campers in our campground tonight!  They're just beginning to arrive and set up.  Lots of Orientals and folks from Europe - I can tell by the language and their looks.  Small children, too.  Ah, well.  'Tis good news; bad news.  It was a little spooky being the only ones in the camp last night - but there's lots of noisy tonight.

We mind our own business, but it becomes obvious that one of the other campers is having a terrible time getting his tent up.  We've been tent-camping for years and have had just about every kind of tent there is from canvas cabin tents of by-gone days to the instant pop-up we have now.  Finally, Granpa can stand it no longer and mosey's over to see if he can be of help.  It's not a construction problem, it's a mechanical problem, and the guy had zero tools to fix it with.  Granpa is never without his tool box, so he comes back, chooses a couple of tools and, ta-ta!  the man's tent is up in no time.

We're pretty pooped from our day amongst the giants.  We take our showers and crawl into our tent.  Granpa is anxious to look through the photos he shot today, and I set up my laptop to check in with the world.  It's not long before I'm ready to lay down.  It's not long before I'm asleep.  But every so often, our neighbors wake me up.  Finally, about 1 a.m. I've lost patience.  There is a written rule in every campground we've ever been in that 10 o'clock is the time to get quiet.  Have a good time after that - quietly. 

Granpa is awake, too.  He's fussing.  I don't have enough patience left to fuss with!  I sit up, and shout, "THAT'S ENOUGH!  QUIET DOWN!! 

Instant silence.

Then we hear tiny whispers, and it's obvious everyone is tip-toeing off to their tents.  I feel only a tiny bit bad, because they were having a very happy time... but only a tiny bit. 

We sleep soundlessly the rest of the night.

A Walk Through the Giants

Literally, we can walk through some of the giant sequoia here on the Trail of 100 Giants:

But walking amongst them is humbling.

 

The Sierra chickaree squirrel is completely at home in the way high tops of these monsters, and Golden Mantled Ground Squirrels, Grey Squirrels and even the tiny chipmunks are at home here.  The seeds of the sequoia conifers are collected by the squirrels for winter meals. 

I suspect they gather the pine nuts from pine cones, too, but look at the size difference between the two:  one would make more than a meal and the other just hardly a snack!

We were so entranced by all that we saw that we never made it to the National Park!  We had been there before and seen General Sherman, the largest of all sequoia and the most massive living organism on earth, so that was okay.  There were very few people wandering this forest with us today, and that's the way we like it.  

When we left, we grabbed a bite to eat at a fast food joint, and THIS time we follow Lil' Miss's advice on the fastest way back to our campground.  The shortest is not always the fastest...

The Trail of 100 Giants

Just a bit farther down the road we find the Trail of 100 Giants.  In April, 2000 President Bill Clinton came here to announce the establishment of the Giant Sequoia National Monument.  (Remember, there are National Parks, and National Forests, and National Monuments...)  This particular grove of Giant Sequoia covers about 341 acres, is on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada's and has about 800 giant sequoia anywhere from 0 to 1,500 years old!

What was happening in 500 A.D. when some of these guys were beginning to root?  Well,  Christianity is an official religion now and the European civilization will forever after be known as "Christendom," the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia is established (many believe this is where God's Ark of the Covenant is even today), Attila the Hun has just died and the Turks were taking over his territory, King Arthur's legend is beginning, the Persian civilizations peaks, Buddhism is spreading across Asia and into Korea and Japan, and the Polynesians have settled the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and the Easter Islands.

This is when the people of India come up with concept of "0," and introduce the decimal point.  Modern math and science can now evolve.  Interestingly enough, the Mayans of South America come up with the same concept at about the same time and introduce it into their calendars.  Roman aqueducts were bringing water to their cities, the boat rudder and magnetic compass helped guide the sailors around the seas and oceans, paper had been invented by the Chinese, a seismometer of sorts was being used to detect earthquakes, even toothpaste was being used by then, and the magnificent game of Chess was being developed!  Just think of the history that these trees have lived through.  Astounding!

These trees are really unbelievably huge - and they are still alive and growing!!  From a much, much younger tree Granpa takes a picture of what it's foliage looks like up close.

There are also 300 year old pine trees, but they look pretty small next to the giant sequoia.

Just compare their cones:

The American Colonist's Declaration of Independence

What does "Independence Day" stand for? Re-read the Declaration of Independence - and not just the preamble. We were declaring our independence from unfair taxation amongst other things. Hello-o-o. I think we've done a pretty good job of giving up our "independence."

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

---

The Sierra Nevada Mountains of California (not Nevada)

We sleep soundly in our empty campground, in our new tent, on our new queen-size, double-high air mattress.  Sounds comfy, and it definitely was - but we discovered our new mattress was just about the same size as our new tent.  Well, at least it did fit!  Might have to do something about that later on - like buy a larger tent!

It's Friday morning, and no matter where we go in this world, Friday morning means time to pay some bills.  (Now if I just knew that Friday morning always meant payday, too, that would be wonderful!)  I set up our wifi hotspot and laptop on the picnic table and start to tap-tap-tap away.  Granpa always fixes me a cup of tea and a sausage-egg-biscuit while I slave away at bill paying.

Next thing we know there's a park ranger standing next to us.  She's a sweetheart, and stays to visit for what seemed like an eternity.  Turns out the restrooms next to us were locked because the plumbing was broken, and she assured us that more campers would be coming in by nightfall.  (Good news, bad news.)  She also told us the shortest route to Sequoia National Park, which would take us in the opposite direction from where our Lil' Miss GPS wanted us to go.  But it's always a fun idea to take a local's suggestion.

So I finish up the bills, and we hop in the car.  Going north we encounter the new town of Kernville which certainly doesn't look like the old town, but the ranger said we shouldn't miss the museum because it has something really special hidden in there.

Around the bend and up we go - and I don't just mean north, I mean up to about 7,500 feet in elevation.  This is known as the Western Divide Highway.  It's two narrow lanes and goes around and around and up and down and switches back on itself incessantly.

 I love it!  There are waterfalls beside the road:

and bald mountains similar to Half Dome in Yosemite National Park

as we transition from small, flowering scrub to the giant towering Sequoia...

These trees were not only enormously tall, (up to 275 feet - that's a 27-story-building-kinda tall !!) but they are also of huge diameter - up to 36 1/2 feet around!  (Finally I look small next to something!)

These guys may have been 36 feet around, but pretty often they were hollow inside.

If you look really, really, really close you can see Granpa standing IN the base of the tree.

Below is the same tree - and I'm standing INSIDE its hollowed out base.  Farmer's wives used to keep their chickens and geese in here at night.  It is absolutely massive!

But we haven't even gotten to the Giants yet!

John Wayne, Old Kernville and Lake Isabella

Our Lil' Miss GPS takes us directly to the campgrounds.  Hmmm.  This is weird.  There is not a single solitary soul in the campground.  No host.  No other campers. No National Forest Ranger (and this is before the government shut-down of all National Parks.)  John heads for the restroom only to find it locked up tight.  Sigh.

I get on the laptop, find the National Parks reservation number, call 'em up, confirm we're in the right place, confirm that there are still no openings in Sequoia National Park itself, and realize we've got the entire place to ourselves.  Good news, bad news.  Good news is, "to ourselves" means no crying children, barking dogs, or noisy party-ers; Bad news is, it's kinda weird feeling.

In the meantime, John, for a lack of anything else to do, had walked down to the next restroom and found it was open, flushing, and showers working.  We set up camp. 

Still plenty of time to check out the sights close by.  We go back toward the lake, take a couple of pictures:

Ah, it's pretty ... pretty low ... pretty barren ... pretty devoid of people!  Seems that pretty soon, if it doesn't do some serious snowing or raining upstream, the water is going to be so low that the original townsite of Kernville will re-emerge!  Yup, yet another town swallowed up by the damming of a river to provide water to L.A.  Tis a shame, too, because Kernville was a true old west town, established in 1858, first named Rogersville but soon to be known as Whiskey Flat when the saloon opened.  In 1864 it took the name Kernville in memory of  Edward Kern, the topographer and artist of the John C. Freemont expedition that came through and camped here in 1845.

When the Isabella Dam construction got underway, the whole town, brick, stone, and board, was moved upriver to higher ground, including the famous Mountain Inn (now renamed the River View Lodge.)  It had been built mainly to house movie stars and crew before the 1948 relocation.  Use of the town for movie sets all but disappeared after the move because it was just never the same.  But it was THE top remote film location for Hollywood.  Remember the John Wayne movies, "Stagecoach" and "In Old California"?  They were shot here.  

http://www.dukewayne.com/showthread.php?t=2528

 It is said that Hollywood, from right in this area, can make you believe that you are anywhere they need you to be - except for on a congested highway or in a metropolitan area:  arid desert, verdant mountain, stream, river, lake, canyons, meadows, giant forests, dusty hiking trails, winding mountain roads... even Lake Isabella can make you believe you're on the coast of the Pacific Ocean if the wind comes up just right!  And all of that just a couple of hours from their main studios in Hollywood. 


We hop back in the car and mosey down the road a piece, past the dam, and to the other side of the road.  See the contrast between the two pieces of scenery?  No wonder Hollywood likes this place!

Much prettier!  If I was still an agile, jock-kinda-teenager, I swear I'd jump in and go for a swim!  But, alas, I'm a too-fat-to-climb-out kinda old woman now, so all I can do is look.  And so I did, and it was wonderful!

We're Off to California!

We're off to California, but just for a weekend.  Our goal is Sequoia National Park.  I call ahead for camping reservations and discover that there are zero sites available inside the National Park, but that's okay, because there are plenty of places just outside the Park in Sequoia National Forest.  I find a place near the town of Kernville.  (Who's ever heard of Kernville?  Not me.  Not Granpa.  No matter.  If there's something to discover worth knowing, we'll find it!)

It's a grand start to the day with our retaining-wall lizard wishing us a safe trip.  (Does he look like he's wishing us a safe trip?  I'm not so sure...)

Unfortunately, to get to California we have to "cross the river," and you know what I think about that! (http://thetravelerstwo.blogspot.com/2013/09/dont-cross-river.html)  We submit to following Lil' Miss GPS instructions, but determine not to stop for anything until we clear the casinos.  Turns out, someone is paying her to direct us through casino row because the next thing we know we're back across the river on the same road in Arizona that she directed us off of.  Next time we're around casinos I'm gonna trust the old fashioned road atlas!

The next thing we come up on, once we are actually in California, is this historical landmarker for Freeman Junction.


It says:  In 1834, explorer Joseph R. Walker passed this junction of Indian trails after discovering nearby Walker Pass.  Death Valley 49er parties here diverged west and south after their escape from Death Valley en route to the California gold fields.  Later this became a junction point where the bandit Tiburcio Vasquez preyed on stages and freighters traveling between the Kern River mines and Los Angeles, and the mines of Bodie and the Panamints.


Oh, good.  We escape the casinos just to run a gauntlet of bandits!

I can just see them come tearin' around those boulders with guns a blazin' to stop freight wagons loaded with gold ore and stagecoaches loaded with passengers loaded with money and jewelry...

A bit further down the highway, Joshua Trees (also known as Yucca Brevifolia) begin to populate the landscape:

The only place on earth that the Joshua Tree grows naturally is in the Mohave Desert, and they are the largest of the yucca plants.  They grow to between 15 and 40 feet in height and can be as much as three feet around.  It might take them 60 years to do that, but they live up to 150 years!  There's a symbiotic relationship between the Joshua Tree and a particular kind of moth - the Pronuba Moth.  Neither will live without the other.  This yucca moth has a special organ that collects and distributes the pollen of the Joshua tree, and she lays her eggs in the Joshua flower so that when her larvae hatch they can feed on its seeds.  No moth, no pollination; no Joshua tree, no baby moths.  Who knew?  (Which came first? the chicken or the egg?)

Eventually we make it to Lake Kern ( Isabella ) which was created by a dam.  The water is way, way down because of a two-year drought - only 2 inches of rain in 2 years!

Our campsite is just up the road.

The FAA and East End of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon

The east end of the Grand Canyon gives the best views of the Colorado River from the rim.

It was at this location in 1956 that two passenger planes, attempting to dodge around storms created by giant cumulus clouds, collided in mid-air at 21,000 feet.  

All 128 passengers and crew perished in mid-air.  The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) was created as a result of that tragedy.  This spot in the Canyon is now hallowed ground and has National Historic Landmark status to protect what remains of those aircraft and the passenger's belongings.  Some of their bodies were able to be identified and returned to their families, some of the TWA passengers are buried in a mass grave in Flagstaff, and 29 unidentified passengers from the United Airlines flight found their final resting place in Grand Canyon's Pioneer Cemetery

Who knew?