". . . but I have MILES TO GO before I sleep, miles to go before I sleep." Robert Frost

and truth is I could drop without notice from a million other things *sheesh*.  BP medicine is as far as I care to go (other than keeping my wieght 'in check') to try and control my health.  As the years go by the more I see that our health, no matter what the doctors and snake oil salesmen tell us, is NOT in our hands.

 

This is a longer than usual post with photos and three 2-3 minute videos, sit down and take a load off! I am!

 

To dwell further if only for clarification, my injury appears to be to the heel, not the ankle and though it is fine one day, it is painful the next - today it is fine and my schedule to go explore Carlsbad is still on. A heel bruise, it is called.  The brown bruise is where the heel has mashed the fatty layer undeneath it causing it to

'mush out' (bonified medical term!) to the sides of the heel leaving the base unsupported and unprotected.

Cushey shoes is the prescription.  Too much in and out of the car and more hiking than I am used to is my guess.

 

One reason why I bring that back up, is that when I left Carson City Tuesday morning, my foot seemed to have gotten worse after a day of recovery.  I was limited in what I could do and basically if a photo couldn't be had from the car, or near to it, then I would be unable to get it.  This became painfully clear when I entered Yosemite.  Yosemite is a park for hiking.  Gorgeous scenery at every turn, more lakes, ponds, streams, mountain vistas, cliffs, and pines than you could ever get tired of photographing.  But most are postcard icons we are all familiar with which made this one incident even more difficult.  I passed a pond, crystal clear, reflecting surrounding pines, and the dozen or so perfectly rounded boulders sitting in it. Clear water with all the plants and rock under the surface perfectly visible.  No place to park. 

I used a turnout a 1/4 mile farther down the road and grabbed my camera - a short hike is often how I snag some of my photos though I rarely hike for long distances.  After not more than 100yards of trying to walk on the pine needle-soft / rock-littered shoulder of the narrow road, I could take it no more.  Every third step, even trying to keep off my heel, resulted in my ankle turning, my heel going down, and stabs of pain.  I gave up and hobbled slowly back to the car (fwiw, today I'm fine and having difficulty NOT walking on my tiptoes, I can put my heel down fine).  For the rest of the day I obsessed on how car-unfriendly Yosemite is.  There are few signs letting drivers know where good turnouts are located.  Often they come up at the exact moment some spectacular viewpoint also becomes apparent to the driver.  Traffic is heavy and I'm not about to stab my brakes and risk an accident just to pull over suddenly for a picture.  Some views which certainly should have been clearly identified, were ignored.  Where does one find an unobstructed view of El Capitan? 

Half  Dome?  Only to Bridal Veil Falls did I see a specific sign for a specific parking area.  Because of the size of the place and traffic, I chose to not go to the visitors center, maybe THAT is the only place for a good view?  Years ago I was here but I went to Glacier Point and saw the Dome and Upper and Lower Falls from a great high vantage point.  Tuesday my shots came from the sunroof as I passed a break in the trees - oh well.

So here goes this short week and a long post :

Entering Yosemite

 

Yosemite Valley :

 

 

The gap in the trees to the left of the photo is a road that winds through several tunnels leading down to Yosemite Village and that is where I was traveling as I shot this short video:

 

 

Bridal Veil Falls (seen in the distance above)

 

El Capitan

 

 

Half Dome :

 

So I left Yosemite and headed south to the Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Parks.  Kings canyon is the northern part of the region and the road goes into the canyon and deadends - having been there before, I looped north in Sequoia and took this photo looking farther north at the low road heading into Kings Canyon:

 

After some great driving through redwoods which I documented with an hour or so of 8mm video, I got to my campground at Lodgepole - by far the nicest camp I've been to, my reserved site was along the river, my name posted on the side of the ranger station confirming my reservation, and the other campers friendly and not the wild bunch of families that I had worried about, LOL!  Hell, the noisiest neighbor I had was the river!  That is the video under the photo :

2 minutes of park 'silence' :

 

The next morning was out of the park through the giant redwoods, again, pretty iconic images, so I didn't spend time photographing and with my heel, I didn't hike over to see the granddaddy of them all, the General Sherman Tree.  Again, I did catch another 40 minutes or so of road video making the hairpin curves leading down and out of the National Park.  The radio piped up with a catchy tune so I grabbed a ouple of minutes of the switchbacks heading south through the pines :

 

Then it was farther south and back east crossing the souther part of both the Sequoia National Forest and the Sierra Nevadas - a new drive for me!  The first half was a great meandering trail up past the Tule River and aquaduct - I passed one guy, the luckiest? trucker in the States - at least the one with the best scenery every day!  A Sysco driver bringing restaurants and lodges supplies.  I'd hate it in bad weather, and even in good, I guess the number of gear shifts and manuvering around tight u-turns must get old.

The second half of the trip was over Shermans Peak and down the eastern slopes toward Death Valley.  An apparent bad forest fire cleaned out a lot of pines and redwoods but regrowth was pretty stong.  The Kern River flows in this area and here a small falls that I think is one of its tributaries :

 

THE DEVIL'S FLOWERS !!!

Now, now.  You won't find that in your gardening books, Sal!  So named by MOI, cause it came up as picture 666 when uploaded to the computer this afternoon, LOL!

Still in the canyon lands south of the peak pwetty wittle fwowers gwow! (the DEVIL I TELL YOU!)

 

Once out of the Sierras it was north on US 395 a few mils before cutting past the China Lake Naval weapons center and going over to Death Valley.  I mention that because we know how young guys in the military are.  They drive like fools.  So I shouldn't been surprised as I cruised at the legal 65 mph when I was passed by someone doing at least, um, eh, well, lets say . . . FOUR HUNDRED SEVENTY MILES PER HOUR !

 

A foreign passerby asked me what the hell that was and gave some jet identification as a guess.  I'm clueless as I don't know military hardware - but a glimpse on-line makes me think my blurry little speedster was an F-22 Raptor.

 

He passed me low and from behind, went a mile or so ahead of me just beyond the mountain ridge to our left, and then his wings went verticle for a moment before he made the tightest right turn at the end of the mountain that I have ever seen and disappeared out of view!  By the time I made it around I was looking for a place to pull over to see if he looped around and did it again, or came back on the same course.  Before I could stop, he came screaming up out of a canyon from the desert floor (out of view to the right in the picture above and seen in the picture below).

 

I did park and busy myself with little chores hoping he would return so I could get a clear shot, but he was done.  There was a chopper that I had been hearing and it eventually came towards the same canyon the jet had come out of.  I used my video camera to capture it and it took me a minute to realize the helicopter has a guy dangling from a rescue rope as it slowly moved out of view!  Sorry I don't have a way to transfer that shot to my digital!  I eventually got to Death Valley, most of which I have seen before - but the number of different rock beds and their colors is always amazing.  Here is a shot of the sand dunes from what used to be the bottom of an inland sea :

 

I made my way out of the southern end of the park and past Pahrump, Nevada, the home to the infamous

"Chicken Ranch Brothel".  Why just today MSNBC did a report on those poor girls hurting in this economy!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/25159647#25140740

Shame on you George W Bush, if you had direct deposited my $600 economic recovery check like you promised, I could have helped a girl (or two, LOL!).

 

Finally it was over the last bit of mountains and into VEGAS, BABY!