I had also procured some beer. Visions of myself sitting out on our deck back at the condo with a ice cold beer in hand with my legs propped up on the railing in total relaxation ran rampant through my daydreams like sugar plums. Nobody in my family except for maybe my grandma, or, while we're on the subject, perhaps my brother too, know what its like to deal with the good and the bad of customers peddling through our lives in the way of a full-time job, so I NEEDED this vacation, I NEEDED relaxation. Sure, I could have done it without the beer, but if I wanted mediocre-relaxation than whatever, but the beer just further makes you appreciate the little things that make you happy. I was in a lawn chair with my feet propped up on the railing watching a beautiful desert sunset, cool, slick condensation from the beer more of a delight, eyes closed, melting in laziness.
Big Trees State Park was a huge waste of time. It's like Hutchinson's Sand Dunes. You drive around, you can stop at one or two places and really just walk the whole thing. That's awesome because you experience it outside the car. The only problem is at Big Trees, you might see 3-4 officially large-as-fuck red woods, and that's it. You crawl in them, snap a few pictures of you in a hollowed out red wood, then its back to the car. But you'd walk 6 miles in length because it was inevitably clear you were gonna get lost. One map at the beginning of the trails, and then nothing else to point you to your destination.
The smallest trail is like 3-miles in length, but if you get lost, which again is inevitable, it loops you around another 3-miles, to the end of the longest trail, which is 8 miles up, 8 miles back. Or you loop around and walk 6-miles in total up, then back 6-miles. Your choice: 16 miles all-around, or 12 miles all-around. Here's the beginning:
That path in the background goes uphill, in a circular motion and then leads you to a jagged, uphill path to the parking lot. You cross this bridge, look at a map for guidance, and then you're on your own.
Me walking behind my mom and PHIL!
Bees and lady bugs for some odd reason were always buzzing around your head.
This tree should have been knocked down out of mercy. It was dead. And now an immobile zombie of its formal, fruitful-self.
I walked 4 miles, got to a huge crossroads from the trail I was on, stood around catching my bearings, and all of a sudden, there's a swarm of mosquitoes around my head, and something larger than a mosquito conducting the madness, and I freaked out a bit, I'm not gonna lie, and tried to run from the bloodsuckers. What the hell was that big enormous thing? Was it a mosquito-God, summoned from above by the colony of mosquitoes and a mesmerizing flight-formation that opened a channel between our world and the mosquito-God's world? Now they sacrifice small animals to the mosquito-God in repentance, and have blood orgies in the blood collected by human trespassers, to further expand upon their society. One day they might attack, and the mosquito-God will most likely be the size of a house at this point, and wear battle-armor, with a cape, and who shall even dare to take out the mosquito-God, with his rapier-sized straw and his never satisfied hunger for blood!?
I fled the scene, heading back to the car. I didn't want to walk any further, 9 more miles to go before I reached the car, I thought, 6 miles is enough, I'm tired of nature-shit!
On my way back to the car, I heard voices and soon a family emerged on the trail. They were oriental. The daughter was perhaps 19-years-old, and I was diggin' that. She asked me how much further until they started seeing the redwoods. I guesstimated 4 more miles. They sighed, tired already. I told them it was well worth it, "That you could stand in them, and feel insignificant, imagining the lifespan of such a thing. As a seedling, these trees could have been in a area not yet discovered by civilization." There eyes grew large and mingled chatter commenced in a different language. She said, "Neat, that was very beautifully described." Then this backpacked guy in a brownish-grey shirt with a dew-rag tied around his head and one of those Eco-Friendly Klean Kanteens clipped to his satchel came up, and I just knew by his flowery, all-natural scent that he was a modern hippie; only using all-natural deodorant and soaps. He probably caught the infomercial about the Klean Kanteen and jizzed his pants. "That'll be the new fad: a canteen that stays colder, and uses the condensation from the bottle to save you 30% more drinking water. Too cool. I can never have enough things that saves our environment." I would have loved to litter right in front of him.
He caught the words, "beautifully described," and pounced into action. "I've got pictures on my phone of the trees. They were really cool." Then he shot me a look like, I didn't see you up there. I went the distance, you gave up. I'm on to you. You didn't see those trees. I was like, "Cool. They're big, right?" He continued to show pictures to the Asian family, but when I would try to get a glimpse of the pictures on his phone, as he showed them individually to every single member of that family, I was snubbed. And I didn't like it. He didn't show me even one of his pictures. And then, slowly, I was ignored from all forms of their conversation, so I just fucking left. Five minutes after leaving the Asian family and that faggot with his PRECIOUS Blackberry, I started to here a steady march behind me. He was catching up. The path is too narrow for both of us to walk together beside each other, basically to allow him passing room. So we both come up to a place in the path where I could linger, while he passes me because he's right behind me at this point. I stop and allow him passing room, and he stops with me, and we're standing together. I look at him, and finally, I say, "Go ahead. Pass me. I'm taking a breather." I wasn't winded, I was fed up with him. He doesn't go by. He stands there, and then, so it's not awkward, he unclips his gay thermos and takes a swig. Fuck this! I go ahead and start walking again. Sure enough, a minute or two later, he's back behind me, walking a step or two from my heel. Who does this shit!? At last, I stopped again, and told him to keep walking. He finally passes, I'm thinking, "Do I have reason to deck this mother fucker in the mouth!? I think this is good enough reason. He followed right behind me for a few paces and then obliged to pass, he persists to walk with me, further being annoying.
Back at the rented Kia Tucson, I stretched it out, did a cool-down like stretching-exercise I learned from Cody, a former co-worker of mine who did Yoga and drank hot tea. Then I relaxed on the ground with the rest of my water. My parents soon followed, and I got the vehicle unlocked by my dad. I grabbed another water from the cooler, as well as a beer. Opened the bottle on a log. It was fine indeed!
Owen, being Owen, took the longest trail humanly possible, one that he made up himself. He walked the short-trail with us up, 6 miles, then walked the 8 mile trail back, but not before snapping off like 20 pictures of 3 trees, some pictures with him standing in the trees smiling because again, they're hollowed out so you can stand within them, it was his time, and he got the most out of it. The fam and I sat in the SUV for 3 hrs while he explored, and we got in to the crackers and snacks again; I even mixed a powder packet of Hawaiian Punch into one of the water bottles and had that to drink.
We made a decision to just have hamburgers and hot dogs at the condo for supper. That, or was it sandwiches. Any ways, that was Wednesday.
Thursday rolled along, and we drove from Angel's Camp to Winsor which is in Sonoma County, Sonoma being wine country. But first, we went through San Francisco. Beautiful time to be down there. I think it was 63 that afternoon, so a light jacket was all I needed. Our destination was Pier 33 down on Fisherman's Warf, the offshoot to Alcatraz Island where we'd take a boat across the bay to land upon and explore the prison. Here's the pier:
"This be a fine day to sail, YARR!" screeched this bird who does, along with his friends, utter destruction upon the pier with their pooping.
Before coming out to California, we had heard Gov. Schwartzenegger wanted to close Alcatraz Island to the public to save money for the state. We only assumed he would do this because the prison was ran down and nobody was visiting the island as much as they used to. That's not the case at all. We got to the Pier and the ticket counter for Alcatraz and were told the seating on all the boats for that afternoon were sold out...until SUNDAY. This was Thursday. To close the prison off from tourism would be assenine! At $27 a pop, and being as busy as they were, the state is cleaning up on tourism. Why close it!? The gasoline for the boat is paid for plus the upkeep on the prison is more than covered by their numbers. But then again, they could spend that money some place else if they didn't have burden of the island, then again, no money coming from it. California is stuck in a rut due to this poor economy, and it shows in the infrastructure and their inner-city housing projects, some left to become dilapidated in the proceeding years.
We paid for our tickets for Sunday, and walked the sidewalk closest to the warf. Towards Pier 39, we spotted an Aquarium. But I snapped off a few pictures before we got there.
A dock, sort of an offshoot from Pier 39. It was shiner than what it appears in this picture. I set it for the Sunset preset because I wanted to show the cloud coverage ahead. Out in the ocean, it was foggy, a staple of San Francisco weather. Almost every day it was foggy, which made an interesting crossing over the Golden Gate bridge. The top of the bridge wasn't visible at all.
This statue represents squid's tentacles, as it is a reminder of the attack in 1906 that a giant squid made on the city, the real reason for the 1906 earthquake. I don't know why the built that thing. Probably a bunch of fucked-up art students designed and crafted it, high on crystal meth.
That tower-thingy in the background is dedicated to the firemen of the city. Or so it is thought, due to how much it resembles a fireman's hose nozzle, but actually a plaque rests at one of the viewpoints of this monument, which states:
This 210 foot monument was built in 1933 with monies bequeathed by Lillie Hitchcock Coit to beautify The City she loved. Frescoes were painted in the interior of the newly built structure by local artists funded through the United States Government's Public Works of Art Project.
So actually the structure was an art project perceived as something different. And who knows what the intent of the project was, whether they had a fireman's hose nozzle in mind.
We finally made it to Pier 39 where the Aquarium rested.
We'd see fish and coral and sea weed and sharks and sting rays and an octopus that could maneuver his way through thin glass tubes to get to his dinner in a bigger basin, and crabs and little lobster-like creatures, but from this view, I got a very nippy wind that chilled my bones, and it felt oh so good.
Back to the present day, July 14th, I sat in my car listening to the new Wilco on the iPod. On about tracks 4, 5, or 6, I thought if only I could be back in San Francisco with the 60-65 degree weather off the coast, or the Pacific Ocean water lapping at the beautiful sand beaches of Santa Cruz. I snapped back to reality, the 105 degree heat, and a guitar solo from Wilco, put the iPod on pause, stepped out of my car, and went back inside to work.
In my next installment, I'll start with pictures and video of the Aquarium, followed by pictures in and around the San Francisco-area. Then, a short drive south to Santa Rosa to the Charles M. Shulz museum, and if time and space allows it, maybe even pictures of ALCATRAZ. Most likely that won't happen...
