I took a hike through San Francisco's Presidio a couple of weeks ago and saw how artist Andy Goldsworthy managed to create something of beauty out of destruction. Cypress bark beetles had made a feast of some 150 Monterey Cypress trees and, in 2008, Goldsworthy built the "Spire" from those felled trees to celebrate the history and future of the forest. Young trees will grow up to meet the sculpture, which will eventually disappear into the forest.
Even the beetle damage had the look of some ancient cave painting.
The trust that runs the national park is replanting some 1,200 trees along the Bay Area Ridge Trail over the next few years.
A bit much, I think, meeting J. Edgar Hoover and Madeline Albright on the same day. OK, Hoover was quite dead, the late FBI boss a statue bending over assertively, as if ready to pounce, in the the main foyer of the Newseum in Washington DC, but the former Secretary of State/UN Ambassador looked quite pink and healthy as she showed off her collection of brooches in a TV studio upstairs.
The Newseum is a monument to journalism, the so-called "fourth-estate," which in its finest form has kept kings, presidents, politicians, scammers and mobs in check and at its worst pumped up wars, spread tyranny, "live shots" of car chases and celebity DUIs.
If the devil made a deal with me to choose one joyous, cathartic experience before he cast me onto the hazardous waste heap, I would (aside from participating in a Three Stooges pie fight) choose a romp through the first snow of the season: flapping my snow angel wings, pelting speed limit signs with icy snowballs, feeling cool fairydust on my reddened cheeks.
That happened last weekend as a rare October snow surprised California's Sierra Nevada.
Point Lobos, California State Park - All Photos (c) 2009 Russell Johnson
Don't know much about geology, but what I am learning defines me, in the nature of things, as the insignifcant biped that I am.
Paid a visit to the Pinnacles National Monument. Not recommended during the summer as the temperatures regularly hover around the 100F mark. The best time to go is in the cool spring when the wildflowers are blooming.
I did learn (in the air conditioned comfort of a interpretive center) that The Pinnacles are actually the weathered remnants of an ancient volcano, half of which hitched its way along the tectonic freeway and is now holed up in some rock motel north of Los Angeles.
But as movers and shakers go, Point Lobos is the clear winner.
Had the pleasure of a window seat on a flight from Seattle to Oakland last week and shot this HD video out the window. It shows Mt. Hood in Oregon and Mt. Shasta in California.
