Camping at Pinnacles 2

Last year on the same weekend we went camping at Pinnacles National Park. That had been our second tent camping trip with the kids, and this was our third. Our spot was different, but we did, again, have to set up the tent in the dark.

But it was fine.

Last year, because of the drive and the sleeping in, we missed the long-ish hike at Bear Gulch Caves. This year, we made it. Last year I thought the area was pretty, but, like, sure. Condors...it's nice. Fine. National Park level, though?

But after doing the Bear Gulch Cave hike? NOW I get it.

One issue is that you need to take a shuttle up to the parking area, since it fills by 8:10 am, and maybe earlier. The road is tight and has just a single loop at the end, of a quaint parking area.

But the environs, as we went along the hike, were beautiful:

You start out along a wooded canyon walk, with striking red-rock walls:

But the walk is so nice, and the temperature was so pleasant, and the breeze was easygoing, and the elevation was minimal...so wonderful...

Then we got to the caves proper (after a quick fakeout), and the kids demanded to be in front. 

Flashlights or headlamps were necessary to navigate this cave, so I, with only my phone, followed close behind the kids, who each were given flashlights.

Certain spots you had to get down an your haunches or hands and knees to pass through, and our kids were fine with it, because, you know, small and bendy are kids.

After a while there was a nifty stairwell to mark the start to the way out of the cave:

And if you ever have questions about which way to go...there are handy directions:

After the stairs in the murky darkness, and the spray painted directions, you get outside proper, and a new stairwell shows up and slinks on up beyond a nerve-racking suspended boulder:

Up top there was a no-swim reservoir with nice reflections, and we got a chance to snack.

But the walk out was also very pretty:

After the reservoir and hiking back down, we returned to the campgrounds and relaxed. It was a fast, lightning trip, as we left the next morning.

One issue is that Pinnacles, along CA 25, is annoying for us to get to. We discovered it one day as we drove with a baby Cass from the Bay Area back to LA, and traffic along US 101 sucked, we jumped off at Hollister and leisurely headed south along CA 25. 

Nested between 101 and I-5, the area is neither the desolate base of the coastal range coupled with the Great Valley (I-5), nor is it the outer edge of the coastal range and seaside proper in places (US 101). It's firmly in between. It's scenic, rolling hills and oak trees, and this past weekend it was very green.

When we first saw a National Park along the drive, and it had a cool name---Pinnacles---we thought about making a trip there, and when we finally made plans with other people to make the drive, the idea was that it was halfway between our people living in the East Bay and us living in LA metro.

Our East Bay people have since moved to SLO-environs, so this drive---north to King City and then northeast for forty minutes to the spot, isn't such a challenge. For us, it's a bit further. The trip either has us going up and down the Grapevine, then to Coalinga, and then up from there; or, heading to King City up the 101, and over and up. Both have advantages and disadvantages.

Anyway, it was worth it! Getting to see friends, getting to meet new people, and they had a kid so all the kids got to play together, and sleeping in a tent makes for an interesting weekend.

I'll just leave this, the shot of Spring springing, lush greenery with ferns and all:

Genetics and the Basque

I was always fascinated by the language and ethnic group isolates in Europe, the Basque.

Living in the Pyrenees straddling the borders of Spain and France, the Basque people boast an insular cultural identity, as well as a language that is neither Indo-European (like Germanic, Romance, Celtic, Slavic, or Baltic) nor Finno-Urgic (like Finn, Estonian, or Magyar). It has no known larger family or connection anywhere in the world.

Mysteries abounded about the people, and they had their own stories about where they came from, about how they were the original people in Europe, how they took over the caves from the Neanderthal. Maybe I made that last part up.

But a recent genomic study showed that a modern Basque person's genome, once sequenced, was indistinguishable from Iron Age remains from a nearby necropolis. Multiple thousands of years later, at least a hundred generations, and the genomes were the same. This was from before the Celtic, from before the Roman and Greek, and, apparently from before the Proto-Indo-Europeans arrived.

It looks like they were from the first Europeans...at least remnants from one of the earliest waves of human arrivals, which is pretty cool.

And then there's the language. So different than any Indo-European language, so different from Finno-Urgic...I'm not a linguist, but maybe I would have been if things broke differently (at least that's what I've been told), and how languages work in their own context I've always found interesting.

I snatched this visual for how the Euskara (the Basque language) works, and while it's different, it seems logical:

Now, like other languages that are tenseless (and I'm not sure Euskara is tenseless), they use verb aspect to delineate whether or not an action has completed (essentially past tense), as well as the regular use of the ergative case, one of the more confusing grammar-related concepts around (that a deep-dive doesn't clear up as much as show how many grammar rules one has forgotten in thirty years).

Nowadays, my interest in the mystery of where the Basque came from has fallen off in favor of a different mystery: how, over the course of five- to six-thousand years, were they able to keep to themselves so diligently?  Historically, mountains slow armies, not keep them out forever. The Celts, the Romans, the Germanic-tribes, the Moors, even Franco's bullying and murder only led to losing some of their language heritage, which they've since gained some of it back. It has to have been a conscious effort. 

Today, the people and language have given us names like the Bay of Biscay, as well as the city name of Bilbao.

Kinda makes me want to see what other languages trace back so far in specific places...I'm thinking the Amazon basin, Papua/New Guinea, or maybe even the aboriginal languages of the Americas or Australia...

Magic Kingdom First Timers

It has been a long week. It feels like months have gone by since last Saturday. But that's mostly because of taking the kids to the Happiest Place on Earth, and still recovering nearly a week later. And what a trip it was. It certainly spoiled them and will forever alter their perspective on the Disneyland theme park experience.

Where's Waldo at Big Thunder Mountain

When I say it will spoil my kids, what I mean is that this trip was NOT a representative experience of 'going to Disneyland.'

What's the main state of being on any trip to a Disney theme park? Why, waiting in line, of course. What happened on this trip?

Virtually no lines!

Have you ever gotten a terrible sunburn waiting out here on this sunny plateau in line for Space Mountain seen below?

Me too! Some of my worst (in memory) sunburns I got right there in the sunny switchbacking second floor waiting, but on this day with my own kids I had to slow down the speed-walking just to take the picture.

I joke, but Space Mountain was the only ride with more than a fifteen minute wait...at maybe 17 minutes. We finished eating around 1:30 pm and were done with the Space Mountain experience by 2. So surreal.

Besides the Matterhorn, this was the last ride we wanted to do, and we finished by 2 pm!

Let me start over. This trip had been in the works for a while, and cousins were coming in from far away, as well as elders coming from further afield.

We didn't tell our own kids until the night before, at dinner. Like, "So...do you wanna go to school tomorrow, or go to Disneyland?" The Boy didn't beloieve us while our daughter lost her mind.

When we arrived at the Park, we met up with everyone else in Fantasyland---through the big castle---and essentially walked onto the Mr. Toad ride. This ride is a cult classic, as it follows Mr. Toad as he steals a car, dies, goes to hell, and eventually escapes back to the land of the living.

Peter Pan had a bit of a wait, as it's one of the better rides in the area, behind Mr. Toad, so we walked right up to and on both Snow White and Pinocchio, with zero wait time. Next we did Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, one of the best rides in the park. We walked right up to it, waited for two trains, and got on. UNHEARD OF.

Camille, Lorenzo, and Luna liked it so much that we all rode it again, and Camille had her hands up the entire ride.

Then Pirate's of the Caribbean---again walked right onto a boat. WHAT? Then to the Haunted Mansion. Walked right into the big mustering room where the ride starts. WTF? We walked right onto the former Splash Mountain/current Tiana's Bayou ride. I remember waiting 150 minutes for that ride the year it debuted.

Like a fuzzy headed doofus I put Camille in the front and sat right behind her, and both of us were soaking wet for a few hours afterwards. Rookie move...she was in tears, but came out of a funk soon enough.

Seven minutes of walking the snaking path up to Indiana Jones. Walked right by and got onto the annoying It's a Small World ride. Came back by to do Peter Pan. Star Tours was a walk-on. The laser-gun Toy Story video game was a walk-on.

We did all of this BEFORE LUNCH. I can't stress this enough: that's easily an entire day's worth of time, and we were sitting down to eat around 1 pm.

After Space Mountain, my mom wanted Cass to drive her around in the Autopia ride, so Camille was my escort, while Corrie got a chance to ride the very exciting Bench ride.

Driving Mr. Daddy

Family was behind us, too, and we got some cool pics of them

Sometimes the fact that it was quiet meant we were going to ride the ride, like It's a Small World. Other times, like with the Matterhorn, or the Star Wars Land, we were determined to do it.

The Matterhorn, despite new bobsled cars that separate you from your partner, still acts like a kamikaze chiropractic visit.

Eventually we weaved our way to the Star Wars Land. This was after heading to Toon Town, riding the nifty track-less cartoon ride, then letting the kids play for nearly an hour at the playground and ride the kiddie Gadget's Roller Coaster.

After that, we split up with many of our party, as they moved onto California Adventure. We didn't opt for the park hopper passes, and instead went to Galaxy's Edge, a corner of Anaheim with a few billion dollars sunk into it:

It's super serious. There are nominally two rides here, but experiences is a better term. One has your group snaking through the inner bowels of a base, being assigned roles (pilots/gunners/engineers) and then have you act out those roles during a flying-the-Millenium-Falcon mission.

But that was noting compared to the las ride/experience, Rise of the Resistance. In this, er, ride, you're pushed into an escape bus/ship with everyone else in line for the ride (about 30 people deep). But the ship is intercepted by the Empire, riders are then captured by Stormtroopers and sent to interrogation rooms, where they eventually escape because the droids controlling their transports are repurposed by the resistance. It's a silly, rip-roaring sequence of a movie that you, as a rider, are in.

It was an exhausting end to a rich day. We went to dinner and then headed home. We told the kids, over and over, that the reason that the multi-day park hopper tickets are the best value for locals is because you never get to ride this many rides on a single day. I never understood it. The park was busy and full, but we barely waited for anything.

We might've walked ten miles. It felt like we walked ten miles.

Cass took the map he had been using to guide us around and marked with an "X" all the things we did.

I'm tired all over again just looking at it.

What a day!

Morning Light and Fog on the Coast

Sometimes the light in the mornings looks like its playing tricks on your eyes:

But then the picture turns out okay, and you tell yourself that here's another day where we can trust our eyes.

Alyssa Liu, Hell Yeah! Olympic Notes 3

1

I was trying to explain to my kids about Alyssa Liu.  I normally loathe the tiny featurettes that showcase the backgrounds of the (only) American athletes at Olympic games (summer or winter), but I happen to put eyes on the complete four minute feature for the figure skater out of Oakland.

She was the youngest national champion? At 13? I've since seen that 2019 routine in Detroit...a little girl kicks ass at some highly difficult and highly technical things. It's...cool. The tension gets to her as she comes off the ice, and then again once her score is announced (first place! national champion!) and the tears flow both times. But she was a kid.

In 2022 she was at the games in Beijing, and she came in 6th or 8th, but, at 16, at her first Olympics, she showed up and did well, but didn't medal.

And then she quit. Retired...whatever. She wanted her life back. She traveled to Everest base camp. She pierced her own frenulum. It was on a skiing trip where she felt a kind of exhilaration, the kind of exhilaration that she used to get from skating, and so she decided to go back to skating.

I only summarize the video and common knowledge to give the context for trying to explain to my kids how this girls is so free, how she cares so little for placement and medals and tension, who only wants to show off what she is capable of. Unafraid of the results is when you'll be truly relaxed, when your brain is finally convinced it's not life or death, you can be free. Peak performance has such a better chance to follow when this level of zen is achieved.

Just look at how relaxed and chillin' she is:

This is from an interview with Mike Tirico after the event, and I get that it's easier to be relaxed after winning. She's wearing the gold medal, because of course. Watching her skate---both the short program and the free-skate---was such an experience when you see them in the context of everyone else. Stress...life or death...tears...tears of relief versus tears of gut-wrench...a weary stoicism...the gamut of post-skate emotions runs the relief-to-heartbreak racetrack.

Except for Alyssa. And that was what I wanted my kids to get, to feel. The lightness and the smiles and the relaxation. It may not be the only way to reach peak performance, but it's surely the emotionally healthiest.

All that, and I tend to support and follow my Nor-Cal people...your Marshawn Lynches, Dame Lilliards...even Aaron Rodgers up to a certain point. Add Alyssa Liu to the list!

2

A few years back I felt like NBC's coverage was about shoving snowboarding events down our gullets. I think it was early in the X-Games-ification of the Winter Olympics. Now with being able to stream the events I want to watch (Alpine skiing, short-track, women's figure skating), it seems like having curling shoved down our gullets this year is easier to mitigate. 

I mean, curling's cool and all, but yeesh...

3

Random things to finish up thoughts on Winter Olympics: 

1. Did you know that when you cross-country ski your heart rate is up to about 90% capacity? About 90% of what it can do as a human? WTF?
2. If I can stream the events that have passed, how come I can't stream ice dancing? Not that I want to, but I know it's impossible to find anyone other than the one American team...

One last thought that get's it's own bullet point:

• I heard the Winter Olympics described as: the overlapping of two supremely weird groups: the mountain people and the rich people.

Can you imagine? To be a giant slalom skier takes...money for outfits and skis and passes for the mountain. To be a sprinter you need...feet? Space to run? Jamaica is the top per-capita sprint running nation in the world. Would it be surprising that "poorest" slalom olympian in Cortina this year would probably eclipse the most well-to-do Jamaican sprinter is terms of financial security?

Skates of the Season: Olympic Notes 2

I love the differences in the same basic things. It's a nerdy proclivity I have. Anyway, I think I have a new favorite spectator Winter Olympic sport. All in due time...

I've been ice skating before! I even got Corrie ice skates for Decemberween! In both instances---the skates I got for Corrie and the skates I rented when I went skating---were of the figure skating variety.

Marc, one of our New York people (and star of the first year of this blog), had hockey skates and while I checked them out, I never wore them. I did, though, mentally spaz out at the differences and similarities between their designs:

Hockey

Figure Skating

But there's another style of skating I remember usually most often every four years: speed skating. And their skates are wild:

Speed Skating

I even found this cool graphic, and it's the kind of thing I would have enjoyed putting together myself if I was 1) more knowledgable about ice skating, and 2) artistically inclined for infographics:

But then I saw the different comparison chart/infographic. And it has the different styles for the different kinds of speed skating: so-called "speed" and "short track":

And that brings me to short track speed skating.

This could be the best thing to watch. There is a stressful pace, a ramping up of speed, true danger, cramped spaces, and a muted physicality that belies the awesome punitive and draconian rules: if you make a mistake and knock someone out, you get penalized and they move on. The finals of one 13.5 lap races (the 1500m) had 9(!) racers, because 3 had been 'advanced' because of other people's mistakes in earlier races. I rewatched it with Cass, and it had both of us wobbling on the couch like we were watching that chase scene from OBAA.

Also, shout-out to the Korean 17 year old half-pipe snowboard gold medalist, Ga on Choi. She beat her mentor and the heavily favored American Chloe Kim (from Torrance! (local shout-out)) after taking a terrible spill in a practice run, nearly doing a header on the way down from a big move.

She came back and nailed some huge moves and took home the gold. Chloe, to her credit, was very excited and ran over to embrace the newly gold-crowned and sobbing teenager.

Downhill alpine skiing and short-track speed skating are two of my new favorite things...

Random Comic Notes

I came across something when I was looking at something else with Cass, and that led to this and then that, and at some point I was putting in a tiny bid on Ebay for the first 8 issues of a comic from 1990, DC's Shade, the Changing Man.

I'd heard about this comic over the years, and the time came for me to make a purchase.

The comics are, to say the least...strange. There was a comic that came out recently that made me think the same kind of thing: 'Well, this is weird.'

Look at these covers, about 35 years apart:

That Shade cover, from 1990, is one of the classic mainstream-WTF covers from any era:

I only bring it up now, and am comparing these two, completely unconnected comic storylines, because they shared a spot in my head. I tried explaining Shade to Cass, to Corrie, to my dad and brother...and I struggled.

If, in 1990, you picked up a Superman comic, or a Batman comic, or the X-Men or Spiderman...if you picked up a comic from one of those main companies, you'd have a pretty good idea of what to expect, and even what you're looking at.

My mother would occasionally buy me little lots of comics from Ebay or Amazon once she found out that I was giving my old, 90s-era comics out as prizes. These were full of era-specific dreck, surely, but the idea remained true: you could tell pretty much what was happening or what was going to happen.

And that's where this Shade title comes along and messes all that up. Just look at this collage of the first 8 issues. Does this look like anything from 1990, besides the digital backgrounds of television commercials?

It's not like you can randomly pick up issue 4 and have any idea what happened before and what will be happening later...or even just WTF you're looking at right then.

Even the description defies sanity: Rac Shade is from another planet, and has been sent to Earth, but needs his madness vest to help him cross the Madness Zone, and while his body seems to be stuck in the Madness Zone, he has been implanted into the body of someone about to die, but not just anyone: he's been put into the body of newly executed serial killer and needs the daughter of the killer's most recent victims to believe him and help him regain his memory and powers.

Anyway...JFK's assassination plays a prominent role in the first story arc...so, there's that...

Now, Bleeding Hearts exists not because of comics like Shade, but rather they are created in a world where comics like Shade effected the readers-who-become-creators...well, maybe those things are the same.

This comic shows the kinds of stories that comics can do. Action movies can do some of these same things, surely, and novels too, I guess but...sequential art is like the sandbox for these whacky stories.

The main character, Poke, seen there on the cover, is a zombie in a horde that has a name that I can't recall at the moment. 'Poke' is short for something like 'mouse-pokes-hole-in-head' and his buddy Mush is a zombie with mushrooms growing all over his neck and shoulder. The central conflict, as their portion of the horde corners a group of survivors and, er, makes a meal out of them, is that poke's heart has started beating again. And he's not sure what to do, besides certainly not telling his buddies.

That kind of story isn't about using madness as the magic with which to exact or extract results---like Rac Shade's adventures. But in what world could it exist? One that had madness used as a plot point?