TULE LAKE #4

Lava Bed National Monument

This medicine pole, also called a medicine flag, was placed at what is called the Captain Jack Stronghold. This pole was placed by the local Klamath Indians to commemorate what the Modoc Indians did to fend off the US Cavalry many years ago.

This is the northernmost edge of what is known as the Captain Jack Stronghold. Named after the fearless Modoc leader of the same name, this site remains important to Native Americans. Tule Lake was once much bigger. The southern shore touched where the sign in the foreground is and water covered the landscape north and east as far as the distant dark hills. Most of the recovered land is now either part of Lava Bed National Monument, The Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge or privately farmed.

To give you some understanding of the difficulty that the cavalry had in attempting to oust Captain Jack, this natural trench line was one of many that crisscrossed this patch of hostile lava. This natural fort was good enough, that at first, just 51 Modocs repelled over 300 army & militia soldiers.

This is what is left of a small fort that was garrisoned by troops lead by Major General Edward Canby. Their job was to attempt to corral rebellious Modoc tribal members, including Captain Jack, and put them back on a nearby reservation. For his effort, the general was killed by Captain Jack. This came after an illustrious career established in part by Canby's actions during the Civil War.

Not in many public places can you find a cross without a lawyer attached. This monument is on the Lava Beds National Monument and the inscription is almost as notable as finding a cross on Federal land. It says, "Gen. Canby, USA, was murdered here by the Modocs April 11, 1873". A medicine pole and a cross give testimony to two people who served their respective nations without fear. War is like that, isn't it. Sometimes with great meaning, sometimes meaningless.

FALL RIVER MILLS AREA

Why Folks Live Here

The breathtaking silence of a Mt. Shasta sunset.

A heavenly Lassen sunrise.

Bountiful farmlands.

Appreciation of history.

Last but not least for visitors: classic guest lodging and good eats.

BOMBS AWAY

Hawthorne, Nevada

You are looking at dozens of the 2,427 ammunition and bomb bunkers spread out over 226 square miles of Northern Nevada desert at the Hawthorne Army Depot. Proclaimed as the "World's Largest Weapon Stockpile," the Depot also manufactures armaments. Rather scary but one of the missions of the base is to provide ammunition "to be used after the first 30 days of a major conflict."

If you got it, flaunt it. This is the Hawthorne Ordnance Museum located in town.

It doesn't hurt to have a little humor in dealing with such a serious subject. 

Someone has married up a conning tower to what was a torpedo and added a little paint.

This is such a vast place that a wide shot can't even give you a sense of the size of it all. The very first image at top is a small segment of this image and this wide shot is only part of what can be seen. My father spent some time here in training for his role as captain of a munitions company that deployed to in Europe during WW II. This base was the staging area for most all of the bombs, rockets and ammunition for the entire war effort.

Sadly the Depot was in the news recently. 7 Marines were killed during an explosion while in training this week.

ALL ABOARD 2

High Prairie

From Minneapolis west the skies begin to open as do the landscapes. We lose a sense of geography though when the sun goes down.

The next day is full of sweeping skies and unbroken landscapes. It seems like most of Montana rolls by like this.

There is also lots of rail traffic. We've seen many "pig haulers" which is the nickname for trains that pull freight that is piggybacked or stacked as these containers are.

Where there are towns and tracks, there is a terminal or two for farmers. Wolf Point, MT., is one of many small towns that pop up through the day then slowly shrink back into the horizon. Wolf Point is also the largest town (2,621 population) on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation.

Before rail and the passage of time there were many loose clusters of settlers. Most had their own one room schoolhouse. If you want to get a sense of what things were like back then, go find Ivan Doig's "Whistling Season", which is centered around such a schoolhouse as the one above. There few Western writers better than Doig.

We travel through the last of Montana, all of Idaho and much of Eastern Washington in the dark. Overnight in Spokane our train is broken up. All but three or four cars go on to Seattle. By mid morning our much smaller train is crossing the Columbia and headed for its last stop: Portland, Oregon. Against all expectation, we arrive a half hour earlier. Home again.

BRUNSWICK, GA #2

Back From The Water

Jekyll Island is a place of dowagers. That's the way these wonderful old turn-of-the-century buildings strike me - stately and very much in possession of their aging faculties. The Jekyll Island Club was once the winter playground of the very rich. The original clubhouse above was built in 1888 and is still in use as a hotel.

As part of the Jekyll Island Club Historical District there are a number of preserved "cottages." This is Moss Cottage built by a founder of The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea company, more commonly known as A & P. As the original founders died off, the cost of maintaining these palaces often became too much to bear for the heirs. 

Another "cottage" is Indian Mound, built by one of the Rockefellers. Many of the remaining original resident's heirs abandoned the area from the lingering effects of the Depression and suffered further when the US Government closed the area due to the threat of bombardment. The Historic District has just spent over a quarter million dollars restoring this 24 room mansion. Proceeds come from tours and donations.

As its name suggests Faith Chapel serves all faiths. For many years during WW II most of the mansions and cottages sat empty. Most homes lost furnishings and decor. This church has two stunning stained glass windows that were left, despite other parts of the church being ransacked. How high were the high fliers that formed the Club and built their own cottages? Many of the winter residents came together (in secret, natch) to create today's Federal Reserve System. 

Not all of the structures have been renovated. This Italianate tabby concrete house remains untouched. After the abandonment that the war years brought, the State of Georgia attempted to run the Club as a public resort but failed. Though the Radisson chain brought new life back into the Clubhouse in the mid 1980s, the Jekyll Island Club now is operated as a historical landmark.

Another bit of history from the heyday of the Jeckyll Island Club was the placement of the first Transcontinental Telephone call. It was actually a three legged call between Alexander Graham Bell in San Francisco, Thomas Watson in New York City and the head of A T & T, Theodore Vail, on Jekyll Island.

The grounds are a showplace for flora too. Though commonly misnamed as a palm tree, this is a Sago Cycad. The red seeds peeking out from the center denote that this is a female plant. They are extremely toxic.

BRUNSWICK, GA #1

In, On, Or Under The Water

Those of us over a certain age would recognize the term "Liberty Ship". Built during WW II as supply vessels, at least 99 of them were built here in Brunswick. Above is a large model of one such ship. Over the course of the war 2,700 of these identically designed ships were built all around the US. Today there are only 2 remaining Liberty ships still operational.

Never mind the large gypsum plant in the background and try to ignore the ungainly looking house at right. Instead look at the fingers of concrete between the water and grassy areas. These launch slips are all that remain of a huge shipyard that once occupied the land. Towards the end of the war a ship a week slid down those ramps. 16,000 workers toiled around the clock here to fabricate the Liberty ships.

From an even earlier era, this is an Oyster Buy Boat. Its function was to travel all the many remote channels where oystermen could be found. They served as a conduit to quickly get fresh oysters to the big city. Now many of these boats have been modernized and are used as private yachts.

Seemingly airborne, this mock up of a prehistoric dinosaur sea turtle skeleton greets visitors who arrive at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on nearby Jekyll Island. Most of the turtles under care here are normally found in the water.

Looking like an assembly line, the Center treats wounded, sick or orphaned turtles. The most common types treated are Green Sea and Loggerhead turtles.

Every turtle is given a name. This one is Gabriella. For some unknown reason, Gabriella has a problem swimming level. The dark object you see attached to the base of the shell is a weight that is supposed to keep her tail down. Looks like Gabriella needs more ballast for her bum.

 Lest you think turtle education ends at the restroom door, think again. Additional indoctrination was found also on the sidewalls to this stall. Perhaps more than you wanted to know about the Georgia Sea Turtle Center.

KITTY HAWK

Where Man Took Flight

Certainly Kitty Hawk lived up to expectations. It is a marvelous shrine to what was a uniquely American event (though other nations were trying). As interesting, the outdoor shots you see above and further on do not depict the conditions that existed in 1903. Kill Devil Hill in the background was once barren sand, as was all the grass areas. Kill Devil was 125' closer in. Over time the constant northern winds pushed the hill south. When it came to build the memorial in the 1930s, Bermuda grass was planted to hold everything in place. 

This fragile looking stick and canvas motorized craft was the first air machine to get off the ground. The Wright brothers were very thorough experimenters and they even built one of the earliest wind tunnels to test aerodynamic shapes. They spent several years leading up to the December 17, 1903 date using the hill for glider launches.

The first powered flight nearly 110 years ago actually started well down the hill where the sidewalk appears to end. Note the positions of the small gray markers in the background that begin at that vanishing point.

This is a close up of what you saw in the previous image. There is a large granite stone to the left of the Wright brothers shop and living quarters. This is where the first series of successful flights took off that day.  Three more smaller monuments are visible to the right of the the larger one and mark the distances of the first three flights. The last flight of the day was real proof that man could fly as it went on for 59 minutes and covered 852 feet. 

How do we know all these facts and figures? Simple, Orville and Wilbur were very aware of their potential place in history and had witnesses including someone there to squeeze the bulb trigger on their camera. Both the resulting photograph and the eye witnesses served them well later as they became involved in a dispute with the Smithsonian Institute. The Institute wrongly believed that their staff were the first to fly.

This is the Wright Brothers Memorial at the top of Kill Devil Hill. There is a revealing 360 view of the surrounding countryside from here.

Even kids can play on a sturdier replica of the Wright brother's plane. That is a new school complex behind the playground.

On our way out and back from Kill Devil Hill our driver/guide took us through some of the beach area housing that had been hit by Hurricane Sandy. Up until a day or so ago sand had covered this road, too. There was still much sand piled around many of the beachfront homes making them inaccessible.

Washington To Washington

There's A Difference?

When airborne it's always a toss up for me - do I read a book or look out the window. I try to do both. Though Ivan Doig's "Work Song" is one of the finest books I've read in a long time, I don't get the opportunity to gaze at the land that unspools below the window very often.

Mt. Ranier was visible until we climbed above the ceiling. Mt. Hood is the is just to the right of Ranier and that is Tapps Lake in the foreground. We are leaving Washington St. for Washington, DC

Fresh snow on the eastern front of the Rockies where they meet the High Plains at left.

Clouds on clouds on clouds, somewhere over the Midwest.

If we hadn't seen the Washington Monument as we landed, below, I would really have wondered just where we did land. 

Regretfully we are going to have to forego doing anything more touristy than just look out the window as we make a quick transition from the DC area to Baltimore.

Detour

Seattle

 Room With A View

Everything was in motion and all systems were go. Bags were packed and we were headed North then East. Then that storm with a friendly sounding name but a rabid reputation, Hurricane Sandy, made a mess of so many plans. Our plans were small potatoes compared to the lives that were disrupted, or worse, ended. But still, we were lucky to be just inconvenienced.

Instead of spending 4 days exploring Washington DC, we got reacquainted with a place that we hadn't seen in quite a while - Seattle. Further turning that sour lemony taste into lemonade was the room we got overlooking one of Seattle's most famous landmarks.

Seattle is a much more colorful city than its skies let on. At left a tree that could be mistaken as something from Vermont. Monorail tracks split a portion of the EMP (formerly known as Experience  Music Project) Museum Building. 

Guess what was 50 years old this year? 

Yup, the Space Needle. Still going strong and still as beautiful as ever. 

What is Robin doing? Well, given that it was Halloween when we met her, her appearance is only part of the story. Robin was at the Seattle Center to welcome us to a fantastic exhibit about legendary King Tut. Subtitled "The Pharaoh's Gold", it was certainly colorful and rich in history.

This gorgeous urn held the remains of King Tut's stomach. Seems there were funerary urns for many other parts of his viscera as well as his sarcophagus. These objects were over 3,000 years old. Some we saw were from 5 millennia ago. Not sure I've seen many objects that old.

This is what King Tut looks like today. This is the only model of his body. It was done with scanning equipment that then produced a 3 dimensional image that was made into what you see above. The king was estimated to have only been 19 when he died.

As observed we saw a bit of the city during Halloween. The lady on the left was actually a pretty young woman who assumed the costume of something out of Mary Poppins. The cute girl on the right was a little kid who was waiting for her porridge.

        

 

Good food is almost as common as the rain here, even in many delicatessens. Me? I was happy with a brown bag lunch with a soda whose label I hadn't seen for years.

As colorful as Seattle is, not all color is wanted. We did see more graffiti than before and there appear to be many more panhandlers. One guy tried to be clever with a sign that said: "Give me money or I'll vote for Romney." He'd starve in my home town.

One last note, every photo was taken with an iPhone.