Bodega Bay

Why in the world didn’t we think to go to Bodega Bay before we did? I guess we never really considered it, most likely because it’s on narrow Highway 1 that has a gazillion curves. Driving a 30-foot, 19-ton motor  home on windy, narrow roads can get a bit dicey. Bottom line, it was white knuckle driving that kept us away. But then I discovered you could actually get there and avoid all that. It’s practically a straight shot from Santa Rosa.

Before going any farther, here’s a brief history of the area… In 1775, the Peruvian explorer, Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra sailed into a small harbor and immediately named it for himself. In the early 1800s, the Russians established Fort Ross fifteen miles up the coast. They began using the bay as a port, shipping out grain to their holdings in Alaska. Later, lumber was the big-ticket item until the North Pacific Coast Railroad bypassed Bodega, having chosen a route several miles inland. Next PG&E wanted to build a nuclear power plant on Bodega Head. They began digging a very large hole and lo and behold they uncovered a seismic fault, ooops. Now that should have been something they should have suspected. They immediately abandoned the idea and the hole remained and is now called... wait for it...“Hole in the Head.”  Today it's full of water and home to birds, which to a whole lot of people is a much better usage. Speaking of birds, Alfred Hitchcock discovered the area in 1963 and made a movie in which a bunch of seagulls attack Tippi Hedren, but that didn’t happen in Bodega Bay; it took place over in Bodega, which is a nearby town with a similar name that just happened to have a large Victorian house that Alfred Hitchock thought would go weil with all those birds.

Now back to our visits… Well, what we found when we finally got there was a very nice, not too fancy RV park with front row seats for watching fishing and pleasure boats sail in and out of the bay. And to top it all off, twenty steps out our front door a fishmonger sold fresh-caught crabs. In addition, there were nice restaurants, a wonderful view, and full hookups…what could be better than that?

I recall one special time when Linda walked next door and bought a live crab. She had a large boiling pot of water waiting for a rather large crustacean of the sea. When she lifted the lid on the pot, the crab got the message and Linda had to struggle to get it into the large pot, but she being an old hand at crab wrestling won out and the end result was delicious.

Maybe what actually kept us away is the fact that Bodega Head, which sits across the bay and in full view of our rig, is on the Pacific Plate, while the village is on the North American Plate. All of this comes to us through the courtesy of the San Andreas Fault, which divides the two. If you didn’t understand the ooops in paragraph two, now you should. To this Native Californian, who knows full well the “big one” is just around the corner, having the mighty San Andreas Fault a few hundred feet away is little unsettling, however, on our several visits we detected not the slightest movement in the plates. 

So with all of this information, it’s now up to you. Go there … or not.



Note: The photo is not one of mine. I borrowed it from the net. If you look carefully, you will see the spot where we usually parked out motorhome. Look right of center in the image.

Ahjumawi Lava Springs State Park

A golden eagle perched high in a poplar tree surveys his domain. He sees something far below. It’s a wary ground squirrel moving along the lava rocks. The squirrel stops under the protective cover of a red and green leafed California redbud. He looks all around; he seems to know he is being watched. The eagle’s attention is diverted by a noisy flock of Canadian geese flying across Big Lake to the fields beyond. When the eagle turns back, the squirrel has disappeared. And so, once again, nature’s drama is played out in Ahjumawi Lava Springs State Park.

Ahjumawi (Ah joo maw we) is a lonely place. It’s located in northeastern California and is one of that state’s most primitive state parks, and it may be the least visited, as well. Lassen Peak to the south and Mt. Shasta to the north are visible from many spots within the park. Think of it, a state park that has no cars, no RVs, no crowded campsites, and for much of the time no humans. In addition, there are no occupied buildings, only an abandoned farmhouse, a barn, and a 19th century trapper’s cabin.

There is a bit of a mystery as to the meaning of the Indian word, ahjumawi. Some say it means, “where the waters come together,” while others maintain it’s the name the Indians, a band of the Pit River group, gave themselves, “the river people.” Water was extremely important to the Ahjumawis. In this area they found a plentiful supply of it from several lakes, ponds and the largest system of fresh water springs in the US. All this water provided the Ahjumawis with an abundance of fish.      

Along the park’s shore one can find ancient prehistoric fish traps. There were comprised of a succession of increasingly smaller ponds, into which the Ahjumawis literally herded fish until all they had to do was reach down, grab and toss the fish ashore. They were especially fond of suckerfish, which they smoked and ate head and all.

As you might imagine, the park is accessible only by boat. Visitors must bring their own; there are no rental boats available. At a spot the locals call “The Rat Farm,” located a half-mile north of the town of McArthur, there is a launch site. The waterway into the park passes over ancient lava flows. In some places there are narrow channels between the barely submerged rocks. The water is clear, so obstacles are visible to the watchful boater. However, anyone not paying attention can easily scrape across a lava flow and do damage to a boat’s hull, or an engine’s prop.

Ahjumawi is a haven for nature lovers, photographers, canoeists, and people looking for contemplative solitude. Some day Ahjumawi may have the kind of facilities that all the other state parks have. But for now, anyone who enjoys the primitive will find this park ideal. So load a boat with your fishing gear, your camera equipment, your artist palette, your bird watching binoculars, or your favorite book and go to Ahjumawi. Just don’t be surprised if you find yourself there alone.

Q

The Great Equalizer

We humans have a tendency to put certain people up on a pedestal. Any celebrity goes up on that pedestal and depending on who it may be, the worshipers are either a small tightly knit group, or a throng of several million. Athletes and entertainers are prime candidate for an overwhelming amount of hero-worshipping. Some deserve it and some definitely do not, but that’s a matter of opinion. What is not a matter of opinion is the fact that they’re not a higher order of human at all. They are basically subject to the same constraints, have the same desires and failings and must conform to the same laws to which all of us mere mortals must adhere. So the next time you feel like hero-worshipping, just so the desire doesn’t get out of hand, think of this photograph. It’s truly the common denominator and goes far in bringing the hero into perspective.

Sheep Ranch

Many years ago I attended a photography workshop in Sheep Ranch located in the Sierra foothills, not far from the historic town of Murphys. I used to come to Murphys in the old days when it was just a tired out reminder of a time when people rushed in for gold. It always appeared to be barely alive, but in recent years it has had a new birth and is now called the “Queen of the Sierra, One of the Ten Coolest Small Towns in America.”

   I drove down the main street passed boutiques, gift shops, cafes and wineries searching for Sheep Ranch Road. The first time through, I passed right by it; I thought it was an alley. The road was narrow and wound its way up, over and around many mountains. The mountains showed the scars of a recent fire. The Mother Lode country has had a long tradition of burning out its inhabitants, but still they come.

   Sheep Ranch got its name because of the sheep corrals that surrounded it. In 1860, the place quickly changed to a mining town when gold was discovered in those corrals. In a quick gold rush minute it went from corrals to fifteen saloons and five flourishing gold mines.

    Today it’s a mixture of old dilapidated shacks and a few newer homes. When I arrived some children had placed a small bicycle ramp in the middle of “Main Street” and were noisily enjoying themselves. The heart of what’s left of downtown with its one building was just a mere twenty feet from where they played. Part of the old building was the post office, which appeared to be alive and well, the other part looked like it might have been at one time a grocery store. Outside an old Texaco pump with a glass top sat rusting. Everywhere paint was peeling, creating rich patterns of age and neglect.  

    The inn where I stayed was also a relic from a time when stagecoaches were the mode of transportation and passengers stopped for the night. The parlor was filled with overstuffed furniture and a large steel barrel stove. The green and red walls were a mosaic of pictures, deer heads, tools, a stuffed badger and a stuffed squirrel, the Mona Lisa and an assortment of treasures that one might find in an antique store. Downstairs also contained a bar complete with a barber chair and spittoon, a small poker room just big enough for one table, a kitchen confused with old and new, two bedrooms with marvelous period furniture, and a large dining room with a buckboard hanging from the ceiling. Upstairs there were more bedrooms, creaking floors and lumpy beds. Bathrooms came late in the life of this old relic. At some point a two story tower was added on the backside of the building. it housed two bathrooms down and two up.

    Next-door, George Hearst made his fortune. From the 3600-foot shaft George and his miners coaxed, sweated, and blasted millions of dollars worth of gold. While nosing around I discovered a small mountain of tailings. While I stood on the pile of rocks, I imagined the following scene. George Hearst and his son, perhaps on that very spot were deep in conversation. George wanted his son to continue the family business.       

    “No, Father I have other plans, besides I rather live in an enormous castle on a mountain top overlooking the Pacific.” 

    “Ok, my son here’s a couple million. Go peddle your papers.” 

    And so William Randolph Hearst did precisely that.

I haven’t returned to Sheep Ranch. I’ve often wondered if it’s still the same sleepy out-of-way place.

Ansel Adams’s Lone Pine Photograph

Ansel Adams made the photograph, Winter Sunrise, Sierra Nevada from Lone Pine in 1944. It should be obvious to anyone who knows Adams’s work that the picture here is not one of his; it’s a photograph I made near where he made Winter Sunrise. I offer it here, because I’ve been involved in discussions about the ethics of removing elements from photographs and Winter Sunrise has always been one that springs to mind during such discussions.  

    Adams awoke early on four successive mornings and tried to make the picture he had envisioned, but conditions weren’t what he wanted. On the fifth morning he struck pay dirt. It was still dark and very cold when Adams drove to the spot he had chosen, located just outside of Lone Pine, a small town 58 miles south of Bishop, California on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. He set up his camera on the new platform that had been bolted to the top of his car. When he finished, he climbed down and he and his wife, Virginia, sat in the car waiting and sipping coffee. Just before the first light of dawn, he climbed back onto the platform and at that time he has been quoted as saying, “I finally encountered the bright, glistening sunrise with light clouds streaming from the southeast and casting swift moving shadows on the meadow and dark rolling hills.” Just as Adams exposed the film the horse that had been standing in the meadow turn sideways and the sun sent beams of light that highlighted the horse and the trees in the foreground. That moment was not only the beginning of one of his most recognized photographs, but later it would give rise to one of his famous quotes, "Sometimes I think I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.”

    The one thing about the photograph that disturbed Adams was the white washed L-P that high school students had painted on the rocky slopes of the Alabama Hills. “It was a hideous and insulting scar on one of the great vistas of our land,” so stated Adams. He removed all of the L-P that he could from the negative and spotted out any remaining trace on the final print. He was criticized for doing that, because many people think it unethical to remove elements from photographs. In his defense he said, “I am not enough of a purist to perpetuate the scar and thereby destroy for me, at least, the extraordinary beauty and perfection of the scene.” 

    On one of my trips down U.S. Route 395, I stopped off in Lone Pine and made the photograph you see here from nearly the same spot as Winter Sunrise and there sits the L-P. For this to be a true comparison, I would have had to be at that spot at o-dark hundred, which is against my basic principles. That’s why I have no sunrise photographs in my portfolio. Copyright laws prohibit me from using Ansel’s print here, but if you Google it, you’ll see the difference that a master of technique can make in a photograph. And I have no quarrel with anyone who removes elements from photographs as long as they fess up to it and clearly state the fact, which is precisely what Ansel Adams did.

Note: You can find a discussion of Ansel Adams’s Winter Sunrise in his own words in his book, Examples, The Making of 40 Photographs.

Cherry Creek

If you wander the unpaved streets of Cherry Creek, a living ghost town, with a population of around 70 people, you'll find plenty of abandoned houses that are slowly withering away. They were built in the late 1800s by hard rock miners who came to Nevada in search of fortune. Today relics sit side by side with newer homes, occupied by people who still work a few of the mining claims. Some of them brought in mobile homes, while others beefed up old buildings and added new rooms. There are even a few mud houses remaining that were half-buried in the ground. They had wooden floors and doors and wooden beam roofs, on which sod was piled. All of this variety makes for a cacophony of architectural styles.

The house you see here was one of the first brick structures built in Cherry Creek and now it's the sole surviving brick building. That wood you see in front of the door might seem like a porch, but it isn't exactly. It was the porch's roof. A tremor, or maybe age weakened the supports and down it came.

Cherry Creek got its start in 1872 when two old sourdoughs located silver ore and named the strike, the Tea Cup Mine. One year later, there were nine other claims along with a town of around 400 people. Legend holds that the town’s name came from a small creek that got its name from either wild cherries or chokecherry bushes that grew near it. The area went from boom to bust, then fire, then more boom, more fire and more bust. All told there were three cycles of riches to rags over an eleven-year period.

At the top of the boom times, about 1880, Cherry Creek had a transient population of about 6,000 with about 1800 permanent residents. The bustling town at one point had all the services miners needed: a livery stable, blacksmith shop, hotel, boarding houses, restaurants, two stamp mills, a post office and most important to thirsty miners, an amazing twenty-eight saloons. It's reported that altogether a total of some where around $20 million in gold and silver came out of the mining district. Small leaseholders continue to be active, probably because gold is selling at a price that makes it worth the effort to go after the small pockets that are left. Residents own most of the claims.

All the activity that once was and the growth that was the result is certainly not apparent today. You have to use a great deal of imagination to see what it must have been like to be there during the boom years. I think of this brick house as a symbol of the rags to riches to rags history of Cherry Creek. If only that house could talk.


Cherry Creek is located about an hours drive north of Ely.

Zzyzx

Many years ago I was looking for photographic workshops to attend. I'd heard about the ones offered by UCSC Extension. I thought to myself, “ Ansel Adams started the program; they must be great.” Of the ones offered, one in particular stood out because it was in a place with an impossible name...Zzyzx (ZYE zix). My curiosity got the better of me and before I knew it, I was off to the lonesome East Mojave Desert and Baker, California. A right turn off I-5, several miles shy of Baker, took me onto a dirt road headed for Soda Springs, which sits on the edge of an enormous playa. This oasis has been used for hundreds, if not thousands, of years by people traveling through the high desert. Four and a half miles later I arrved at the Desert Studies Center, a field station of California State University. I was amazed at what I saw. Palm trees, a large pond with a rock fountain and cement buildings. 

    The Center use to be a resort, the Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Health Spa, founded by Curtis Howe Springer, a radio evangelist, self-proclaimed medical doctor, Methodist minister and maybe a bit of a con man. In 1944, Springer and his soon-to-be bride filed mining claims for a 12,000 acre parcel of federal land surrounding the Soda Springs. They made up the name, so it would be last in the telephone book, bottled the spring water and offered it to travelers. Always an enterprising soul, Springer planned and built a sixty-room hotel, a radio broadcasting station, a church, a cross-shaped health spa, a private airstrip, which he named “Zyport,” a pond with a fountain he called Lake Tunedae, and several other buildings on the property. Springer traveled numerous times into Los Angeles to gather up workers, usually derelicts. He’d offer them room and board in exchange for their labor. At the height of his enterprise, 221 stations in the U.S. and 102 overseas syndicated his radio program, a mixture of religious music and his own brand of evangelism. He solicited “donations” that would buy listeners his special cures for everything from hair loss to serious diseases. These concoctions were a blend of celery, carrot and parsley juice. At the resort, visitors could avail themselves of goat’s milk and an allegedly life-prolonging “Antedeluvian Tea.” They were also offered a $25 dollar self-administered hemorhoid cure. Each day, Springer gave two sermons over the loud speakers that were spread throughout the resort and ended with more solicitations for donations. All went well until the federal government caught up with Springer. He was charged with squatting on federal land. Springer offered to pay back rent, but the government refused the offer and in 1974, he and a 100 of his followers were evicted. He was also charged and convicted of making false claims about his products. 

    In 1976, the Bureau of Land Management allowed a consortium of California State Universities to take over the management of the property and its facilities. Today the facility is used not only by people who study and learn about desert fauna and flora, but those who attend special classes and workshops.

    All my stays at Zzyzx have been very comfortable. Electricity was provided by both solar and wind power, the water was pure, the food was wholesome and the dorm rooms were as good as can be expected. 

    So how do I feel about Zzyzx? I would go there again in a quick Mojave minute.