Devil's Slide

About that hospitality ... or lack of it

When I'm on the road I literally live in my small pickup truck. I have a really nice ARB refrigerator that keeps all my perishables in good shape plus has room for a few bottles of iced tea to drink on those hot days. I'd be lost without it. I also have it arranged so I can move a few things into the cab and sleep in the back. Not the best accommodations but better than sleeping in the cab which I have to do sometimes. I have a nice air mattress and a good sleeping bag so I'm never cold or really uncomfortable. What I'm trying to say is my truck is my home when I'm on the road. And because I can't really afford a hotel room every night (rooms can be more than $100 in many places and sometimes much higher than that in Yellowstone or Grand Canyon) I have to stay in campgrounds if I'm in a national park and space is available or rest areas on major highways or even just find a place in a shopping center or mall lot if that's what's available. I've found SafeWay lots are very accommodating if the store is open 24/7 but some places are just not very friendly. For example, driving along rt. 1 in California it's not at all unusual to find "no camping" signs in every overlook or turnoff and "no overnight parking" is the rule almost everywhere. They try to make you very uncomfortable. I sort of understand ... they don't want homeless or drifters like me getting to cozy in those places. But for someone who is just doing his thing and taking pictures, it's really unfriendly and rude. I spent several weeks in California and almost every night I wasn't in a national park was an exercise in futility as I moved around trying to find any place to sleep.

I was really glad to be out of California when I crossed into Oregon. Always thought that state was laid back and accepting. WRONG! That state makes California look like a paradise. It was the only place where I actually got a citation from the local ... I don't even know what to call her ... constable who visited one of the rest areas every evening and took down license numbers, then returned the next morning and put a big orange tag on my window telling me I was abusing the "spirit" of the rest area by, of all things, sleeping there. It is called a rest area for a reason. One would think that they would not want me on the road at night, given how bad my vision has become and how hard it is for me to drive after dark. So I was really pissed the whole time I was in Oregon because of this one experience. Fortunately, the state police were more accommodating on the interstates and I was able to bed down for the night without hassles.

The overall impression one gets from driving around the country is people who are mobile, for whatever reason other than being a big rig driver, are really not welcome. Every state has rules about how long you can stay in a rest area every 24 hours. Cops don't usually enforce these rules very much but I've gotten shit from a cleaner on occasion because I haven't cleared out fast enough. All of this because I remember, as a kid, driving from California to St. Louis with my aunt and us just pulling over on the side of the road to get some sleep and no body gave a damn. This is another effect of the caustic culture in America now. It's really sad that we've become so intolerant.

Devil's Slide

Driving north on rt. 1 from Half Moon Bay toward San Francisco, you come to a big tunnel. Just before the tunnel is a stop light and parking lot for an area known as Devil's Slide. To the left as you enter you can see this large concrete structure perched precariously on a large rock overlooking the ocean. I'm not sure what this structure does ... it looks like maybe an old coastal defense bunker or something similar. It's abandoned so the taggers have been busy painting their "advertisements" all over it. The day I was there it was extremely windy so I had to get low to the ground just to keep from being blown over. It looked like a nice sunset was coming so I set up and waited. This is a standard process ... Photomatix and Lightroom. I'm a bit ambivalent about the image ... I think it's interesting but not something I would ever want to sell. Just a very interesting shot of an unusual structure and a nice sunset.

Devil's Slide - 20mm,f/20,1/13 sec,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Pacific Grove Lighthouse

The Spayed Female

My wife is a collector of strays. We have 4 cats and 2 dogs ... all but one a stray taken from outside. While I was in America last spring she found another one ... a calico female kitten that was alone and starving outside. She was introduced to the family and fit right in. Well, she's now old enough to be fixed as the 2 males have been very interested in her of late so yesterday we took her to the vet and the did the dirty deed. Let me say, in passing, that Russian veterinary science isn't as advanced as in the west and their methods are somewhat more crude. The anesthesia they use isn't as good and the effects are not nearly as predictable. The cat seems to have survived the surgery but we've seen some serious personality changes since she woke up. She was very friendly but now is trying to hide in the darkest and most inaccessible places. She spent most of this day hiding under the bathtub and I was only able to get her out by using a short broom handle to herd her to a place where I could grab her. She's exceedingly afraid of everyone including her cat friends and that's not like her. All I can figure is the anesthesia screwed up her head and now she's more than a bit paranoid. We're all hopeful she gets over this issue and returns to the friendly cat she was only a few days ago.

A Small Correction

A few entries ago I talked about Griffith Park in LA and how it was the place where Edwin Hubble did his groundbreaking work. That's not quite true. He worked at Mt. Wilson, another observatory in the hills above LA. My mistake.

Pacific Grove Lighthouse

I spent a wonderful afternoon in Pacific Grove, a small community near Monterey in California. The coastline is very rugged there so there's a small lighthouse to warn ships about the hazards. It's not as spectacular as, say, Point Arena but it's interesting in its own right. The day I visited it was closed to the public so I was forced to shoot this picture through the chain link fence. It's a museum now but I guess the light still works. This is a single exposure with minimal adjustments, all in Lightroom. I like the composition with the framing around the trees. Although not as spectacular as many of my images, it has a nice quality that I find appealing.

Pacific Grove Lighthouse - 70mm(1.6 crop),f/11,1/320 sec,ISO 100, license CC BY-NC 4.0