Yay, new posts! I'm not providing the excuses, just the new posts... backdated - so you know even MORE new posts are on the way (and, at least in the case of this post and the two that follow, the dates are accurate, they really were written when I say they were, just not posted until now)

THE WILDERNESS

For some time now I have not been within reach of "the internet." Nor have I been within reach of "electricity" or even "mattresses." I have, however, been within reach of bears. Fortunately they were kind enough not to exercise that option. The mosquitoes were not so considerate.

To clarify, I spent last week in the Sierra Nevadas. More specifically I spent several days in the Ansel Adams Wilderness (no tourists) and several days in and around Yosemite Valley (tourists) with my Dad, brother, and uncle. My cousin was supposed to join us, but she ran out of vacation and has heartless bosses (marketing, if you must know) so she had to be left behind. There probably would have been fewer fart jokes if she had been along, but maybe not. In any case, we missed having her there, but she made up for it by giving us a tour of San Francisco at the end of the trip.

It was a busy week and any one activity would take more words (than you would care to read) for me to even begin to describe. So I'll do the half-assed version: provide you with a series of impressions and admit right out that anything I can say will be inadequate to capture the experience. As these impressions continue to process, I may find that one or more of them require their own entry (and indeed getting them all out is going to require two entries in and of themselves). Until I do decide such a thing, however, you're going to have to settle for just the impressions. Let us begin...

SAN FRANCISCO

As this was my point of arrival and as we almost immediately went for a walk to Haight-Ashbury, this is my first impression. It's combined somewhat with my final impression since my cousin took us on a driving tour as my final activity before I flew home.

San Francisco is a unique city. I do not think it could ever be mistaken for any other city. Consider a game (for really bored rich people) where you blindfold a person, spin them three times, drop them into a random city anywehere in the world and then make them guess where they are. They'll get San Francisco right on the first try every time. Admittedly, my perspective may be skewed considering the first place I saw in SF was Haight-Ashbury, but that impression was not contradicted by anything I saw in my later tour. It's partly the hills, partly the architecture, but it's mostly the people. They're fascinating - many of them very attractive, but attractive in the unconventional sense, by which I mean tattoos and piercings, also hair colors usually reserved for Kool-aid, and some astounding (to me) fashion decisions. Of course, some of them could have stood to shower more often...

THE SIERRA NEVADAS

We spent most of our trip above 7000 feet. So when it was 104 degrees in the valley, we were experiencing a comfortable 70 degrees. As we drove higher, we turned off the air conditioning and opened the windows. The Sierra Nevadas even SMELL amazing. It wasn't my first sign that these mountains are not the Appalachians, but it was one of the most compelling. (Just to be clear, I love the east coast mountains. Nothing I say here should lead you to believe otherwise). Before catching that scent I think I had been imagining these mountains as simply bigger versions of the Appalachians. Not so. It's a different world on the west coast. The trees, the views, the rocks, even the trail we walked upon, all had a different flavor than anything I had experienced before.

There's a good deal less undergrowth and a lot more "tree trash" on the ground - dead branches, fallen trees, loose bark, more dead branches. Nothing seems to rot there, it burns (this is a good thing, fire serves as a crucial component of the ecology).

There seems to be less top soil, or at least poorer top soil, no rich loam. The trails were either dusty (sandy in some places) or muddy with no middle ground. Also, it felt odd to me that most of the trails we covered were actually trails. In the White Mountains, by contrast, when you're not stepping on rocks you're stepping on roots. And when you're out of the trees entirely, you feel like you're standing on one big pile of rocks (which, at the age of the Appalachians, is basically the case). When you clear the trees in the Sierra Nevada, you're standing on ONE rock - otherwise known as the mountain.

YOSEMITE VALLEY

In a word: awesome - in the contemporary sense (wicked rad and totally cool) but even more so in the classic sense (inspiring awe, humility, and a sense of your own insignificance that can sometimes be confused with fear). Other words that could be applied include: beautiful, amazing, fascinating, gorgeous, breath-taking, stunning, inspiring, magnificent, majestic, and indescribable. Also: tourists.

- but more on that next week -