California Touring Hywy 395 Alabama Hills 3 '09

 Continuing North on Highway 395 we reached the Alabama Hills.  Again this was a   vacation area for us when we lived in California. And one of CC's  top ten places to for photography.

 

  The Alabama Hills are a "range of hills" and rock formations  near the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains ,  west of  Lone Pine California.

 

Though geographically considered a range of hills, geologically they are a part of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Alabama Hills are a "range of hills" and rock formations  near the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains ,  west of  Lone Pine California.  Though geographically considered a range of hills, geologically they are a part of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

 Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States, towers several thousand feet above this low range, which itself is 1,500 feet (460 m) above the floor of Owens Valley.

 

 The Alabama Hills are a popular filming location for television and movie productions, especially  Westerns set in an archetypical "rugged" environment. 

Since the early 1920s, 150  movies and about a dozen television shows have been filmed here, including tom Mix, Hoppilong Cassidy fils, the Gene Autry Show,  and the Lone Ranger. Classics such as Gunga Din,   The Violent Men (1955 film),  and part of how the West was Won, were also made here.

 ,

 More recent productions such as Tremors and Joshua Tree, were filmed at "  movie ranch" sites known as Movie Flats and Movie Flat Road. I

 n  Galdiator, actor Russell Crowe rides a horse in front of the Alabamas, with Mount Whitney in the background, for a scene presumably set in Spain.  Star trek Generations was partially filmed here........as were many many more.

 Interestingly the area is inextricably tied to the history of the South.   You see, The Alabama Hills were named for CSS Alabama. When news of the  Confederate warship's exploits reached prospectors in California sympathetic to the  American Civil War Confederates, they named many mining claims after the ship, and the name came to be applied to the entire range. When the Alabama was finally sunk off the coast of  Normandy by the USS Kearsarge in 1864, prospectors sympathetic to the North named a mining district, a mountain district and a mountain pass, a mountain peak, and a town after the Kearsarge

   You can learn more about the Alabama Hills and its hitory by visiting Dow Villa Motel and Cafe in the town of Lone Pine

California: Touring Hywy 395 Fossil Falls 3 '09

Highway 395 runs along the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range in California. Some of our most memorable road trips  have been along this highway.  Bruce and I decided to spend an extra day to revisit some of these sights.  First stop: Fossil Falls:

 Bruce and I had been here several times with the Sierra Club's  Camera and the Desert Sections,  and yet,  it was still hard to find.  The formations  cannot be seen from the road, and only one small sign off of Highway 395  exists to even alert motorists that there is anything of interest nearby.  If you go to Fossil Falls, located just off U. S. Highway 395 on the east side of the southern end of California’s Sierra Nevada, don’t expect to find either fossils or falls.  What you will find, rather, is a spectacular lava flow sculpted by rushing water and wind late in the Ice Ages—a “fossil” of nature’s handiwork. 

  As you hike the rocky trail through the formation, you’ll wonder at first where the “falls” are because the land immediately before you is relatively flat, but abruptly, you’ll come to the chasm that reveals the spectacular lava falls. 

The black shiny lava has been worn smooth over the eons.  It was primarily water from the Owens River, which once flowed from an ancient lake, that polished the lava into a smooth structure.  The resulting formation is reminiscent of a Renoir sculpture.

   You can climb down into the chasm and explore the lava gorge, or you can take the high ground and enjoy the scenery that surrounds you. 
For more information on this unusual  place see:
http://www.desertusa.com/mag07/jul07/fossil.html

California: Visiting my Mom 3'09

When we departed Charlotte North Carolina on the morning of  March 2nd there was snow on the ground, and when we arrived in San Diego CA that afternoon.it was 70 degrees out and Spring was in the air.

The first stop on our trip was our rental house in Orange county (one of several visits we made to it during this trip). After  inspecting the property and arranging for  some landscaping issues to be taken care of,  we turned our attention toward visiting CC's  mom.

We had a nice visit with Ray and Jackie at their home in Riverside County.

The weather was so nice we all took a short ride  to see the new Diamond Valley Lake

 CC paid her respects to her father and grandmother while she was in the area.

and also went by to see her grandparents farm.

.Bruce was jealous of the view Ray and Jackie have of Mt San Jacinto from their front door.

 Seeing her mother and the mountains made CC very homesick for California

Linda Berryman's House Warming 2 '09

Linda Berryman moved into her new home this month

And decided to have a few friends over for a housewarming party

Her center island is a magnet for good food and conversation

But so is her dog who also functioned as the greeter

of course there were many quiet conversations

and a lot of laughter

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow 2'09

It snowed  enough tonight to cover the ground .  We've seen flurries in the past  couple of years, but this is our first true snowfall since we've been here.

Bruce couldn't resist the chance to build a snowman.

Kat seeing us out of doors thought she should be able to come out to play as well. I don't think she has ever seen snow before.  As soon as her paw touched the snow she retreated to the shelter of the eves with a bewildered look on her face. She kept looking up at me then back out at the yard as though she was asking, "What is all this white stuff?"

Visiting the Browns NJ Feb 7 -9 '09

We decided it was time to pay Laura and Keyatta  and our two grand daughters in New Jersey a three day visit. We left in the wee hours of the morning, but it's still a twelve hour drive from our home in South Carolina, so by the time we arrived,  it was late afternoon.

I Bruce's son in law, Kenyatta was preparing a feast to welcome us including venison steak and goose that he had hunted himself.   Oooooh ! So goooood!

After dinner  we watched Kenyatta and Delaney working off the big meal.

The next day Bruce and I and Laura took the kids to a local playground

Macie really likes swinging; we all took turns pushing her.

She's such a happy baby

Delaney likes riding Clifford the Big Red Dog

And building snowmen with Grandma and Grandpa

and playing in the snow with her sister.

The next day we all went to Dog Beach in the Jersey Shore

It was freezing cold, but no one seemed to mind, and Niela was downright overjoyed.

Delaney did some shelling

And Macie went along for the ride.

By the time we got home we were all chilled to the bone, so Bruce and Delaney volunteered to make dome nice warm animal cookies for everyone.

Delaney took her cooking responsibilities very seriously

At least until it came time to frost the cookies, then she was all giggles and grins.

The next day Grandma CC had a chance to visit Delaney's preschool class, while Bruce took a nap in preparation for the long drive home. We'll miss you guys.  Hope we can all get together again soon.

Good Reads:Mornings on Horseback 1 '09

I have just finished reading Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough.  It’s a remarkable book about the youth of Theodore Roosevelt and the family and friends who shaped his character.  It is about 400 pages long plus another 100 + pages of prologue and Footnotes It gives a fascinating insight into the lifestyle and mores of wealthy Victorians.

It begins in a time before telephones and radios or TV.  People of means would spend their evening reading, and socializing with one another.  They were prolific letter writers, and were constantly dashing off pages to their friends and relatives about almost every positive detail of their lives.  Even children as young as five or six regularly wrote letters.  The tone of these letters is one of constant love and optimism.  People openly wrote of their affection for one another in long flowery passages which would seem infantile and gushy by today’s standards.   Nor is there ever a hint of any strong negative feelings the writer might be having.  They might, for example, express concern that someone was ill, but would never express their prolonged grief or despair over a loved one one’s death, or a relatives decline into alcoholism.  Nor would they ever mention negative happening like the loss of a fortune.  Life it seems was to be appreciated for the goodness and joy it brought.  Any other aspect one was simply supposed to put up and shut up about. 

The amazing thing is how many of these letters have been preserved.   (Most of the text for this book was drawn from letters written by the family to one another).   When one considers that a letter might be handed off to a passing stranger who would volunteer to take it to a town 70 miles away, or that it might take two to three months to be delivered if the recipient was traveling, it is amazing some of the letters ever reached their destination, much less were kept and preserved intact for us to read.   If I have learned anything from this book it is the power of the positive influence that family members can have on future generation if they take the time to communicate with them.

About eighteen years old Theodore Roosevelt (top left) with brother Elliott, sister Corinne and family friend Edith (who would later become his second wife).

Why join a book club? 1 '09

 Last year I joined the Pawley’s Book Group.  About  30 women belong to the organization. We meet once a month in a members home to discuss a book that we have all read.  While I originally joined to help meet my 2008 resolution of becoming more socially established in South Carolina, it is definitely something I will continue to be involved in even once I am socially well established in my community.

For one thing a book club can be an excellent way to enjoy books more and challenge your mind,  They can also encourage you to read more, or to read books that you might not normally choose. In short, most people join a book club, or start their own, in order to have fun, make friends, stimulate the brain cells and meet like minded people! .  The books we read range from “who-done-it”s to biographies.  The group has a strong leaning towards books that open doors to other cultures and mores the enthusing discussions are always lively.  

So Far I’ve read:

·        Carol Smith’s Wild Swans which is a story of three generations of Chinese women whose lives span from the time of warlords, when women’s feet were still bound, through to the present. Their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution is particularly heart rending.

·        Ian Doig’s  The Whistling Season is a wistful tale of a time of  innocence and self reliance on the edge of the prairie. It generated a lively discussion about education as much of the novel revolved around a one room school house.

·        Harlan Coben’s Tell No One is a suspense thriller. With lots of twists and turns in the plot.  Not my favorite genre, but it was well written.

·        Kate Jacob’s The Friday night Knitting Club, is a tale of female friendship.  Think Steel Magnolias set in New York City, while the plot was predictable, the characters held up to scrutiny.

·        Greg Mortenson’s Three cups of Tea is a true story about a man on a mission to fund and build schools for girls in the remote regions of Pakistan. It gave us deep insights into the Muslim religion and a strong empathy for the daily hardship of life in Pakistan.  Of all of the books I have read this year, this one caused the most soul searching.

·        Debra Dean’s The Madonna’s of Leningrad is a historical novel set in the basement of Leningrad’s Art  Museum during Hitler’s siege the city in 1941.  The museum’s staff protects their National art treasure first by risking their lives in staying to ship the art to safety, then by building memory palaces in their minds to keep the art alive.  It was a haunting testimony to the human reverence of art.

·        I’ve just begun to read this months book , Morning’s on Horseback by David McCullough.  It is a biography of the youth of Teddy Roosevelt. 

·        Waiting to be read are Geraldine Brook’s March, Gail Tsukiyama’s Women of Silk, and Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.