Tag: Traveling
Travelogue VI: Ghosts of 9066
Return trip leg 2
Today is election day and at this moment polls are beginning to close in the eastern time zone. But I'll leave it to others to blog about today's critical decision-making, at least for right now. Erik has a final note on the subject, Mary Trump had a few words on it. Even Andy Borowitz chimed in to lighten the mood.
Instead, this will be the penultimate travelogue post from my trip to SoCal.
Manzanar
In 1942, a few months after the United States' entry into World War II, a stretch of desolate land in eastern California where a long-abandoned township once stood was chosen as one of ten sites to be used as "relocation centers" for anyone of Japanese descent living on the West Coast. Executive Order 9066, issued by FDR of all people, gave in to the paranoia and racism of the day and forcibly removed Japanese and Japanese-Americans—U.S. citizens and non-citizens alike—from their homes and businesses. This unconstitutional violation of rights and ethics was based on the concern that these people would be loyal to the Empire of Japan simply due to their ancestry, that some of them would use their knowledge and existence in the westernmost continental United States to supply an enemy nation with intelligence or act as saboteurs. Because racism. (Notably, German- and Italian-Americans were not similarly treated on the East Coast even though the U.S was also at war with Germany and Italy.)
Manzanar was the first of the camps, though not the largest. At its peak, Manzanar housed over 11,000 people in wood and tar-paper barracks over one square mile of area. Located on the eastern slope of a valley in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains, the environment was harsh and isolation was fairly severe. Yet, for three years the internees made the best of it and turned their concentration camp into a more livable space, planting gardens, running a school, publishing a newspaper, forming a baseball league, and gradually improving their living space structures as materials, such as linoleum flooring, became available over time.
Remarkable, really. The spirit to keep on and make whatever lemonade could be made form the rotten lemons given them impresses me no end. The injustice perpetrated on them was ever-present, and even when the war ended and the camps closed the internees were mostly returned to very little left from their pre-camp lives. It was one of the most abominable episodes in American history, the sort of thing modern Republicans would just assume no one ever thought about or remembered (even though they're now planning on doing this exact sort of thing again if they gain power after today).
Fortunately, the U.S. National Parks Service has taken over the grounds of Manzanar and has preserved what little remains from 1942-1945. They've built a small museum there and are using the few remaining structures as restored museum exhibits, and are slowly working to restore areas of the grounds that camp residents built themselves, like gardens and koi ponds and a small park. The barracks and other buildings are long gone (though one structure near what used to be the staff quarters remains in dilapidated shape), though markers for each "block" show where things used to stand. (Anyone who's watched M*A*S*H would have a sense of how things probably looked in terms of structures and what kind of comforts were available or not; the structures were more stable than tents, less so than the metal structure of the M*A*S*H hospital building.)
I had stopped by Manzanar once before, several years ago, but only had about 40 minutes then and wasn't able to see the grounds at all. This time I made sure to have an hour or so for the museum bits and at least that long to see the grounds themselves. It's actually rather pretty landscape there at the foot of the Sierras. I'd hate to have to live there in mid-summer or winter with no insulation and little electricity, though.
The few things still standing—which no doubt have been restored to some degree by the Parks Service—include the cemetery and the baseball field, as well as the entry gates and an ominous guard tower. Also a few signs at the perimeter warning of "sentry on duty" should anyone try to venture past the fencing.
It's a sobering and yet inspiring place to visit. U.S. Hwy 395 goes right past it, it's easy to get to. I overheard one guy in the visitor's center say to one of the park rangers, "this is the most horrendous place I've ever been, and I work in a prison." And what that place was used for is horrendous, and the conditions and all that surrounded 9066 that is there in the museum in its unvarnished historical accuracy show us how terrible our society has been and can be. But I'm also inspired by it, by the fortitude of the internees, and gratified that the National Parks service is maintaining and preserving this piece of ugly history.
We need these things to be preserved. We need to remember the ugly parts of our past in order to improve in our future. History often repeats itself—in Battlestar Galactica terms, this has all happened before and will all happen again—but it doesn't have to. We can learn from our mistakes, but only if they are remembered and preserved for our edification. And to bring this back to the election just for a second—if Trump wins, he's promised to create more concentration camps, for immigrants legal and otherwise, as a place to "store" them while he institutes mass deportations. We can make a different choice.
Entry gate with original signage
Restored museum exhibit of a typical barracks unit
Restored museum exhibit of Manzanar schoolroom
Restored museum exhibit of Manzanar mess hall and kitchen
The baseball field has had restoration on the wooden bleachers and dugout benches as well as fencing. I also doubt the traffic cone is original.
A small park area has been restored by the National Parks Service. The dates signify the attempt in 2023 to recreate what existed in 1943.
Part of the restored park
Part of the restored park
The environment is both desolate and picturesque at the foot of the southern Sierra Nevadas
Tagged
Traveling,
History |
Posted on November 5, 2024 at 4:02pm | Permalink | 
| 
Wrapping it up
The calendar has turned to November, which historically has been my least favorite month of the year but lately hasn't been any worse than others; whether that will hold true this year depends a hell of a lot on next Tuesday's results.
Down do just a few days in Schrödinger's Ballot Box, soon we'll know if Americans chose a live Constitutional democratic republic or a dead rule of law and a new despotism. It's tough not to obsess about the latter possibility and worry about what to do then, but I nevertheless really do think we won't have to face that because I really do think the forces of good will triumph and President-elect Harris will emerge from the fallout of this ugly election campaign.
In just the latest outrage, Donald Trump has insinuated that Liz Cheney should face a firing squad. Add that to the ever-growing list of things that guy has done that should have destroyed his candidacy and yet somehow barely registers at all. Last weekend's version of the latest thing that should have destroyed his candidacy was the hateful screed and grievance rally at Madison Square Garden. It's hard to imagine any other presidential candidate in the history of presidential candidates that could walk out of that and not take a politically-fatal hit, but here we are.
Here's the great satirist Andy Borowitz on that:
PALM BEACH (The Borowitz Report)—With just four days until the election, Donald J. Trump is running out of time to alienate the few demographic groups he has not already offended, campaign sources revealed on Friday.
Though Trump has acknowledged that he did “an amazing job” of repelling Blacks, Latinos, Jews, and Arabs at his Madison Square Garden rally, he has groused that too many other cohorts remain unscathed.
In a heated meeting with aides on Friday morning, Trump banged on a table and shouted, “We need to go after the Inuit.”
“When did they become Inuit?” he demanded. “They were always Eskimos, and then, suddenly, they turned Inuit.”
Trump also expressed a desire to “do a number on the Amish” because “none of them watch me on TV.”
I also recommend spreading around Robert Reich's list of The 101 Worst Things About Trump's Shambolic Presidency. How people have memory-holed all of that heinous incompetence and treachery I will never understand. What makes it all the more remarkable is that one could probably argue an entirely different list of 101 things and still not reach the end of the list of Worst Things.
As the election campaign wraps up, so does my trip down to Southern California. I shall be heading home tomorrow, taking a different route that is more direct but still favoring non-Interstate roads (mostly). Meantime, Dad and Marty and I went to the weekly street fair thingy that happens in downtown Palm Springs last night, and as it was also Halloween there were lots of people in costume. Some of the outfits were pretty cool—in addition to the standard witches and ghosts and vampires, I also spotted a couple of Mandalorians, some stormtroopers, and a Princess Leia to represent the Star Wars crowd; several Dr. Seuss characters; two Velmas from Scooby Doo, but only one Daphne; plenty of Village People (it is Palm Springs); kids in store-bought Superman outfits; a giant Snoopy; one gender-bending Wonder Woman; and two guys in Next Generation-era Starfleet unis.
The stage lights were cool, the band wasn't bad, the volume was oppressive.
There was also an additional stage setup a block or so away that is part of a larger to-do being prepped for next weekend's Gay Pride Palm Springs event that Dad and Marty wanted to see, so we wandered over to that for a bit; it was basically a stage with a band, with the accompanying deafness-level speaker system blaring. I can't stand such things. I will never understand why it is standard practice for any rock show in a club or arena or even outdoor stage venue such as this one to amplify the volume to damaging degrees. If it is expected that one should bring ear plugs to an audio-focused event, then something is fucking wrong. I already have tinnitus, why in the world would I voluntarily exacerbate it for "enjoyment"? I once went to see one of my favorite bands, Fountains of Wayne (RIP, Adam Schlesinger), at a club on Capitol Hill somewhere and found it to be a real drag that I couldn't enjoy hearing them play because of the pounding being inflicted on my eardrums. I don't get it. Anyway, I finally dragged Dad away and we returned to the street fair proper and then made our way back to the house. Aside from the aural assault (and the band wasn't bad, by the way, just fucking loud), it was a nice enough time, though on prior visits when going to the street fair there were more interesting things being displayed and offered for sale. Off week, I guess.
It's been a decent week-plus down here, always good to visit, but I'm missing my cats and, frankly, I'm not used to such arid weather anymore and I look forward to being back among the raindrops.
Tagged
Politics,
Traveling |
Posted on November 1, 2024 at 3:13pm | Permalink | |
Travelogue IV: LA Living
Yesterday was my dad's 82nd birthday, so we drove from his place in the Coachella Valley to my sister's place in Los Angeles (well, Van Nuys; she lives in the Soup Nazi's neighborhood, I'm told, which is cool and all, but not nearly as cool as when my eight-year-old self learned that my grandpa lived a couple blocks away from Batman). So Dad got to hang out with everyone for his birthday—his hubby, his sister-in-law, his kids, his son-in-law, and his grandson. (And a friend of my sister's that was visiting, but I don't think he'd met her before.)
Pretty low-key, my brother-in-law made a kind of Mexican buffet and we had cake and I quizzed my nephew on what episodes might have been shot at Vazquez Rocks (he failed the quiz and agreed to study up). Dad had a good time, which was the most important part of the day. I hadn't seen my nephew in a while and as per usual he failed to match his prior physique by becoming something like two feet taller in the interim. Plus he's growing his hair out like Shaun Cassidy for some reason. I dig it, it's retro.
Around the corner from their house is a home that traditionally does a huge Halloween production with their front yard, so we went and had a look at this year's edition. Pretty impressive, though I think I would have preferred last year's, which my sister described as having a kind of "Area 51" theme. Still, a lot of work going into this one, which apparently is still being added to judging from the tools and materials seen on site here and there.
My brother-in-law does a smaller-scale Halloween yard every year, which is also in progress. Sadly, my photo is poor, but anyway:
Of course, we also had to get the marking-of-time family photo, and whenever we do these I am struck by the fact that I actually do look my age, which kinda bums me out. I mean, for the longest time I was the skinniest of skinny dudes, the beanpole, the stickman, and now I have a gut and my face is considerably pudgier. At 150 lbs, I don't think anyone would judge me overweight except me, and that only because I didn't crack 115 until my thirties and thus my baseline self-image norm is, well, less than 150 and without a belly and flabby pecs that can be discerned through my T-shirt.
I cropped the lower part of the pic a bit to eliminate the worst of it. Everyone else looks good, though. :)
On the return drive, which is considerably more than 100 miles, we encountered the only truly bad traffic of my trip thus far. Much as had happened that same day (or the day before? I read about it the same day, anyway) on I-5 back home, someone was on foot in the Interstate and was fatally struck by a car at freeway speed. We didn't know that in the moment, though, all we knew was that five lanes of traffic had come to a standstill, with sporadic movement of a few feet at a time. It took about an hour to cover six miles, then we arrived at the accident site, which by then had been largely cleared except for some late examinations to make sure nothing potentially important to investigators was left behind.
When in Los Angeles, do as the Angelinos do and spend an hour in your car to travel six miles.
Back here on Dad's street there aren't many kids for whom to decorate yards in Halloween regalia, but there is one house across the street that has some pretty frightening stuff displayed for the season:
That's a damn sight scarier that any goblin or ghost you could conjure.
Tagged
Traveling |
Posted on October 28, 2024 at 11:59pm | Permalink | |
Travelogue III: Lost on Capella IV
Day 3
(Or, "Which way to Raffi's camper?" Or, "There's never a Metron around when you need one.")
Thursday's leg of the trip involved boring scenery but high-speed traffic concentration on possibly the least pleasant stretch of Interstate 5 that there is, though there's competition for that. But I turned away from the Interstate to make a bit of a detour to a particular nerd attraction: Vazquez Rocks.
A favorite location for Hollywood studios to venture to, the state park has featured in roughly a bazillion TV and film productions—Westerns, mostly, but plenty of other things where a desert environment with some visual interest is called for—including, of course, Star Trek, where it has doubled for several alien planets as well as for itself in an episode of Picard. I can hardly believe I'd never been there before this.
I arrived at the little visitor's center a bit after noon and procured a map of the park, which noted the relatively small area containing the "famous rocks" and a short 3/4 mile trail leading to it. (You can drive to that spot, there's a large dirt parking area suitable for a big studio trailer and a production base to set up, but I preferred to hike it.) Soon I found myself wandering in the imagined steps of Bill Shatner as he tried to evade a Gorn and De Kelley as he tried to lead a pregnant wife of the Te'er to the safety of secluded caves.
It's impressive how little actual area can be manipulated by the camera to appear vast. The park itself is plenty big, but there's only so much of it one could get to with 1960s-era TV cameras and recording equipment. The same formations used in the "Arena" episode for the Metron planet appear in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, shot from slightly different angles, to form Vulcan cliffsides. The canyons of Capella IV from "Friday's Child" are a few yards from the ones in "Who Watches the Watchers."
And not for nothing, but props to young Bill Shatner—these things are not easy climbs. I went up to what I think is the spot he hurled the styrofoam boulder down on the poor guy in the Gorn suit from and it took some doing. Getting down was even more challenging. (Of course, if I were still 35, as I continue to be in my mind and am repeatedly frustrated to discover I am not, it probably would have been a breeze.)
[EDIT: In observing a still from "Arena," I now see that I was fooled by good camerawork and stagecraft; Shatner actually, it seems, pushed the boulder off from a relatively low point near the parking area, they merely made it look like it was up where I climbed to. Still, props to Shatner anyway, more to director Joseph Pevney and DP Jerry Finnerman.]
The real challenge, though, came a little later.
After satisfying my nerd pilgrimage, I headed back along the trail to the visitor's center. At least, I thought I had. At some point I inadvertently strayed from the trail proper, thinking I was on track but in fact was probably following the paths made by fellow wandering space tourists and soon realized I was not where I thought I should be. On the one hand, this was fine, I got to see more of the big park. On the other hand, I had only planned on a 3/4 mile hike back and I'd not brought any water with me.
This became a problem. I'd relied on my sense of direction to go at least toward the visitor's center, but my internal compass failed me and it was high one-p.m. PDT, with the sun directly overhead and offering no navigational help. Away from the "famous rocks" there weren't many opportunities for shade and I was getting dehydrated. At one point I neared some barbed-wire fencing, which I knew from the map was the border of the wildlife preserve and nowhere close to the visitor center. Shit.
Trail
Not a trail
Not from an episode. Probably built for some western film back in the day. It served well as a rest point while I tried to reorient myself.
I was completely turned around and had added a mile or more to my return hike if I could find my way. When I started to shiver a bit—bad news when it's approaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit—I had a brief fear of collapsing and becoming meat for a le-matya. But I pressed on and eventually came to a trail marker. Not the trail that would get me where I needed to go, but still a marker to refer to and a trail to follow. It led to a trail junction and I got to an auxiliary parking area, from which I just followed the dirt road back to the visitor's center, a little shaky but no longer in danger of being a meal for Vulcan predators. I downed half a dozen cups of water from the center's water cooler, used the facilities, and returned to my car only mildly worse for wear. Despite re-hydrating and eating half a sandwich from my cooler the dehydration headache persisted for the rest of the day and overnight, but a giant soda from AM/PM and a generous use of my car's A/C as I continued along my way served me well.
The remaining journey was through the high desert, near Mojave and Edwards Air Force Base and through some desolate blah California landscape between a few small towns. I chose to avoid Interstates again, adding maybe half an hour to the drive, but I wasn't in any hurry and arrived at my dad's place before dark, having survived the dangers of Capella and the hunting grounds of the ten tribes of the Te'er.
Tagged
Star Trek,
Traveling |
Posted on October 25, 2024 at 1:46pm | Permalink | |
Travelogue II: Rocks and Shoals and Redwoods
Day 2
I started my Wednesday in a Travelodge in Newport, OR, where they apparently rig the shower faucets to give juuuust enough hot water to make it tolerable. During the night a pickup truck parked directly outside my room had its car alarm go off repeatedly. Not a great night's sleep.
Anyway, first world problem.
The Oregon coast in the daytime is really something, and though I missed some of the best parts in the dark the night before, I made several stops off the 101 highway to Oregon state beaches and little towns. (A couple of fun notes from the road: An access street off the highway to a beach residential area was called "Lois Ln"; a coffee shop in Coos Bay is called "The Human Bean." Whatever, I was amused.)
Beaches in Oregon tend to be small but pretty, with giant boulder formations just offshore and varying scales of cliff formations not far up/down from whatever sandy area you may find yourself at:
The 101 highway here is a far cry more interesting than an Interstate, mostly a two-lane affair through little burghs all the way down to the California border, which gives way to a noticeable transition in scenery. From Crescent City, one enters the Redwoods State and National Park area.
Redwoods is beautiful, and to really experience it you'd need to stop and camp and spend a few days. I was just passing through in a matter of several hours, stopping a couple of times for short hikes on trails near the 101 that looped back around. The really good stuff would be away from the highway, but that'll have to keep for another time. I hiked, drove leisurely through scenic bypasses, hiked again, then it got dark and I made may way south to Eureka and beyond.
There will be a brief delay whilst we wait for a herd of deer to clear the roadway. Well, "brief"; maybe 20 minutes.
By the time I got to the Bay Area it was midnight or so, and I decided to just push on and make up some time by cutting over to Interstates. Boring stretches of road, but not a lot of traffic at that hour and it's dark, you can't see anything anyway beyond the semi trucks you whiz by at 75 miles an hour. I got too tired and stopped at Avenal for a few hours' nap.
Audio entertainment consisted of podcasts—Pod Save America, Poscast World Series preview edition (in which Mike Schur lays out the ideal life of Aaron Judge with blissful family fulfillment and old age and exactly zero World Series rings, plus plots how the Mets will wrest Juan Soto away from the Yankees over the offseason with several Brinks trucks worth of cash; and Jason Benetti waxes poetic about keeping an audience interested while calling games for the second-worst season of White Sox baseball in recent memory), Bob Cesca, Delta Flyers—and various mix CDs of 1970s pop/rock. Mileage report: Still frustrated by the whole gas-tank-not-really-full thing, but I think I'm doing about 50 MPG, slightly better than what the onboard computer readout says. (BTW, gasoline gets more expensive as you go south: $3.45 in Olympia, $3.69 outside Crescent City, $3.89 near Oakland, $4.09 in Victorville, CA (next day). Cheapest in Oregon, where one place had it under $3.00, but I didn't need to buy any there.)
OK, who names these things? How about "Giant coniferous wood-bearing plant, evergreen"? Or "Old Hoss Redwood?" But sure, fine, "Big Tree."
Tagged
Traveling |
Posted on October 25, 2024 at 2:46am | Permalink | |
Travelogue I
Day 1
Giving my new-to-me car "a proper shakedown," as Mr. Scott might say, I am driving my way down to southern California in my annual visit to see Dad and Marty over Dad's birthday. It can be done in a day and a half, and I have done, but I opted to take an extra day and take the coastal route, at least for the northern half of the trip.
Southwest Washington state is nice enough (though I could have done without the several TRUMP and REICHERT signs plastered near the roadways), but the Oregon coast is the reason for coming this way, along with the general appeal of passing through a bunch of small towns. Astoria was a nice stop, though I didn't see much of it. Driving along the north Oregon coast at night was nice, though a drawback that I hadn't thought of in advance made me question my decision: fog. Fog makes it pretty tough to appreciate the surroundings while passing through, plus it slows things down quite a bit.
Oh well, tomorrow will be Oregon in daylight, followed by a stop at Redwoods National Park for a hike, then a nighttime drive to the Bay Area and a start on the next leg of the drive.
The shakedown on the Prius is positive so far, having done some maintenance ahead of time including replacing the cabin fan, which wasn't hard and yet somehow still resulted in my bruising a rib. Not sure how that happened. But the car handles well, the cruise control got its first use since I've owned it (sweet!), the sound system is a big improvement over the old Subaru's.
I wanted to get a sense of the real mileage on the thing, but that's proving to be tricky. This generation of Prius has a kind of expandable bladder gas tank that when completely full is almost 12 gallons, but only fills to about 2/3 or 3/4 before a gas pump will stop because it's "full." So, based on info I gleaned form Prius folk on the Internet, I let the gauge get down to one pip, estimating that meant about 1 to 1.5 gallons remaining, then pumped past the "full" stop, forcing in 10 gallons plus a bit. It spit a little back out when I removed the pump thanks to the compression of the bladder, but I think I got it to actual full rather than nominally full so we'll see how far I get before the gauge goes down to one pip again.
Tagged
Traveling |
Posted on October 23, 2024 at 12:49am | Permalink | |