Feb 7 late afternoon

Drove out to the Whirinaki Forest to see Te Whaiti Nui-a-toi Canyon. Several miles on dirt road. A disappointment. Just like the arch at Lone Pine. It's the calendar photograph that sparks my imagination, gets me going on vacation, but (in this case) I can't get a good photo of my own. At Lone Pine, it was a high creek blocking me. Here the bridge was high above the river, with trees blocking the view down. There's probably a way along the cliffs and down to a good lookout, but I didn't want to go tromping through strange bush today.

(Chunlin's photo above)


(Chunlin's photos above)

We're now down in Rotorua. Finally a hotel has messed up my reservation. I was waiting for it. New owner lost my booking. We have a twin instead of a double. He took $5 off the twin price, but it's still separate beds and bathroom down the way. Fun cowboy theme, though. My hat fits right in.

Walked down to the Pig & Whistle for a free beer. Bldg used to be the police station. Quote on the wall said it had been mistaken for a bank, a tourist office, a library, and even a church, but never a pub yet. That was in 1940. A nice bit of irony there.

Over to the city park for flowers and bubbling lakes, nicely mown lawn. Now we're awaiting the bus to our hangi dinner.

Yet More Photos

I know, I know. I've been back for a week. So why am I still posting vacation photos? Well, it's just taken me this long to sort through them all. We'll just have to live with it.

Okay, so where was I? Oh yes. Yosemite.


Yosemite Falls, Yosemite National Park

This is where I turned around. You can see a bit of the handrail lower down in the bottom right:

Yosemite Falls, Yosemite National Park


Vikingsholm, Emerald Bay


Truckee River, Tahoe City


Bidwell Inn, Chester


West Sulphur Creek, Lassen Volcanic National Park


Pilot Pinnacle, Lassen Volcanic National Park


Sulphur Works, Lassen Volcanic National Park


Manzanita Lake, Lassen Volcanic National Park


Sundial Bridge, Redding


Sundial Bridge, Redding


Sundial Bridge, Redding


Castle Crags, Castle Crags State Park


Hillsboro, Oregon

And the rest. . .

So Let's Carve up California

Driving around the Golden State, I found myself oft asking, "Am I really still in California?" From rugged coasts to soaring skyscrapers, from dead-flat farmlands to snow-covered mountains, California is certainly one of the most diverse states in terms of geography.

But it's also diverse in terms of the "feel" of a region. Crescent City seemed like part of the Northwest. Mendocino to Monterey seemed like an endless string of B&Bs pierced by the swanky Bay Area. South of Big Sur, I felt the pull of Los Angeles (and desparately fought it). Go over the mountains down into the Central Valley and it's a whole other world (with lots of country and Christian radio stations). The east side of the Sierra Nevada had a similar ethos to the Central Valley. Tahoe was its own creature, with the B&Bs of the San Francisco coast thrown in with the pulse of the Nevada casinos across the border, all on top of the rural culture. And then back into the giant valley. Redding felt more like Barstow than Crescent City or San Francisco, despite the disparate distances involved.

So I propose four states: the far north (southern Jefferson), the Bay Area and coast, the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada, and southern California. In the early 1990s, a state legislator tried to get the state divided into two, and then three. He was trying to separate the northern portion (Chico (his hometown) and northward), but then cut off SoCal, too, to get more support. But that still left San Francisco in the same state as Fresno, and I just don't see that as a winning solution. There's a definite dividing line somewhere between San Jose and Modesto.

To find the exact borders, I'd suggest a (non-binding) vote where the voters can rank the areas they most associate with. It would probably be simplist to separate along county lines, but maybe some (San Bernadino County, for instance) really want to be split.

I wonder where San Luis Obispo would end up.

Even More Photos

You didn't think I was done, did you?

Here are some more photos from my trip.


Cottonwood Lake 5


Horseshoe Meadow Road


Mammoth Mountain


Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park


Tioga Lake


Clouds Rest, Yosemite National Park


marmot, Clouds Rest, Yosemite National Park


Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park


that darn keyboard I tried to use, Yosemite Village, Yosemite National Park

And, of course, many more at Flickr.

Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?

Actually, being here in the office is all too familiar.

It's nothing like waking up the first couple nights back, looking around the room and out the window, and wondering what city I was in. . . . I'm a bit out of it upon waking, sometimes.

More Photos

I must be getting faster at this photo uploading. Since the previous photo post, I've only finished Ferris Bueller, Red vs Blue season 4, and almost all of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (Frown, Yoda, frown!).

Actually, I had sorted through Day 7 yesterday, so I'm probably not any faster.

Without further of that glorious ado, here are some photos from Days 5-8:


Bird Rock, Pebble Beach


Bush Monkeyflower, Big Sur


Pfieiffer Rock, Big Sur


my own grocery store, Cambria


Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, San Luis Obispo


Santa Barbara County Courthouse, Santa Barbara


quarry, Monolith


windmills, Tehachapi Pass


Calico ghost town


Artists Drive, Death Valley


Zabriskie Point, Death Valley


Lone Pine


Peak 12369 (no name), Cottonwood Lakes


Cottonwood Lakes 4 & 5


bugs, Cottonwood Lakes

Once again, I've posted many more photos on Flickr.

And now Attack of the Clones has finished. So I've started Red Dwarf series 1. I have quite a high proportion of scifi dvds, it seems.