11/21 Archeology Talk on Ancient "Kites"

I went to an archeology ranger talk this morning.  I was a bit upset at first to find out it was being given by an Israeli archeologist because I was expecting Native American history of the area.

As it turned out, it was very interesting.  This university professor was here in the U.S. to study buffalo jumps, which is are devices used by the ancient Native Americans to catch buffalo.  They consist of a line of stones with people standing along the line waving their arms to direct the buffalo to a cliff where they jump off in panic and die, making it very easy to kill animals with little danger to humans. 

I had visited the Vore Buffalo Jump along I 90 in Wyoming this past summer and found it very interesting.  If you drive along I 90 and see a huge teepee, don't miss it.  The teepee is wooden and contains a museum:  http://www.vorebuffalojump.org/content/

Anyway, RAF pilots took air photos of strange structures in the desert that looked like kites because they had a central circle of stones with long lines of rocks that looks a lot like kites from the air.  These were sometimes as long as a mile or two.  Archeologists have discovered that 4,000 - 5,000 years ago in many places in the Middle East, people also built animal traps made of stone lines and pits.  They used these to catch mostly gazelles and onagers, which were primitive donkeys.

Here are two articles I found about these: 

• http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/04/2011/desert-kites-reveal-evidence-of-mass-gazelle-slaughter  This one shows an ancient drawing made on a stone from Jordan that shows hunters using one of these traps. You can see the hunters waving their arms to direct the animals.
• http://news.discovery.com/history/ancient-egypt/desert-lines-hunting-tool-kites.htm  (Slide show does not work, but it does explain what "kites" are.)

So who would know that I would learn about ancient Middle Eastern "kites" in the California desert??

11/20 Anzo Borrego Desert State Park, CA

It's been a long drive getting here.  The first day I drove 310 miles to Bakersfield, then the second drove 180 to Riverside, staying at a really nice regional campground called Rancho Jurupa.  I liked it because the roads and sites were paved, and it had very nice landscaping.  Great cell service also!  It would be a terrific place for kids because it has a playground, mini-golf, splash pool, and fishing pond. 

So, I had only 110 miles to drive today.  A lot of it was the usual southern California dry-looking hills and chaparral, like this:

Then, as I got closer to my destination, the road went up over a mountain range, and it began to look more craggy.

Finally, as I came around a curve, I saw the Borrego valley spread out before me.  Now, I was really in desert!

 

Wow!  What a view.  I took these from one of the few pullovers coming down into the valley.

Here is the campground backed up against the mountain.

And my campsite--full hookups, no less.  It had been cloudy and cool on the other side of the mountains, but warm and sunny here.  The temperature was a very pleasant 72!

 

I will have to get my bike out tomorrow and go exploring.  I'll be here for a whole week, so have lots of time.

11/17 San Francisco Academy of Science

Today, my son and I drove to San Francisco with the kids to see the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. 

This poor guy would never survive in the Everglades because he would be highly visible to predators!

I liked this butterfly in the rainforest exhibit.  Took a while to get a good photo of his "eye."

Here I am with grandkids.

My grandson was hoping to get a butterfly to land on his arm.

And my granddaughter focused on the earthquake exhibit.  By touching buttons, she was able to display the major earthquake zones on the planet.

And finally, back home over one of my favorite bridges-- the Golden Gate.

11-14 A visit from an old friend!

It was really nice to have an old friend I used to work with visit.  I don't get a chance to show off my rig very often or cook for people.  Thanks for coming, Trish!

11/9 Napa EXPO

I haven't posted in a long time because I had some medical problems and also just got busy, so I am going to try to catch up.  I took some photos of the very nice fairgrounds RV park I have been staying in and posted  these on the 17th.  It may seem strange to be camping in a county fairgrounds, but this is obviously not the dusty place you might imagine.

Other than being well-kept up and clean with very large cement pads, a big advantage to this RV park is that it is within walking distance to downtown Napa, where there are tons of excellent restaurants and shops.  A few years ago, the area along the river was redeveloped and this has brought a lot of new businesses.  It is a very busy place, day or night.

I've really been enjoying riding my bike all around Napa.  There are many bike paths and a trail along the Wine Train railroad tracks. 

Staying in the RV park also means you get to observe all the events going on.  There is Friday night Bingo in one of the halls next to the campground.  Those seniors can be noisy, and the taco truck and pizza delivery guy both show up those evenings! 

One weekend, there was a dog show, so the RV park was filled with vehicles with lots of dogs.  The fairgrounds set up overflow parking for RVs by laying down power cables and water hoses in a big field, and allowing dry camping in one of the parking lots.  I would guess there were at least 60-80 RVs in the field and parking lot that weekend?

This photo shows the main "thoroughfare" and the exhibit halls on either side.  These halls are not only used during the fair but also other time during the year for parties and even weddings.

And one of the neatest places at the EXPO is the fermentation store.  This place sells everything you would need for home winemaking.  It also sells supplies, including yeasts, to larger winemakers.  Anyone need a wine press or two?

10/30 Leaving Yosemite

It was a very cold night, and as usual, furnaces were pumping out warm air all night.  I woke up to find that the temperature outside was 21 degrees and that my lights were dim because my coach batteries were almost dead.  To make it worse, my generator would not start.  That did it.  I decided that I would come back to this place sometime when it was warmer and more sunny. 

One thing I wanted to take pictures of when I drove in was the rockslide on U.S 140 that I was told occurred in 2007 and has still not been repaired.  The main "all-weather highway into Yosemite follows the Merced River for 15 miles.  The whole side of the mountain slid down and blocked the highway.  They have put up two one-way bridges and transfer traffic, one direction at a time, to the old roadway on the opposite side of the river. 

Here is one of the bridges transferring traffic to the other side of the river.

You can see a bit of the buried roadway in this picture. The landslide is to the right.

Here is a broader photo showing how much of the mountain slid down.  It is not a matter of just bulldozing the rock out the way because if you tried it, more would come sliding down.  Hope no one was under this.

You can see the roadway emerging on the right of this photo. Apparently, they are going to build a tunnel under all of this, but I am not sure how.

I posted a few days ago that I had had a rough trip into Yosemite.  The problem was NOT the mountain roads, but the county roads I had to drive on for 20 miles. This route was about 40 miles shorter than driving all the way out of Hensley Lake and then back, so I took it, per my GPS.

Can you believe the patches?  In fact, it is pretty hard to find any original road!  Everything in my motorhome rattles on regular roads, so you can imagine how bone-jarring this stretch was.

 

Ah, this stretch was MUCH better.  Somebody has spent some money on this part.  (Some politician came through on a promise?)  One funny thing was that in 20 miles of driving through these hills and passing a lot of big ranches, only two vehicles passed me.  There were NO oncoming vehicles at all!  Can't imagine why.

As I got closer to the lake, I stopped right in the middle of the road to take this photo of the snow-capped Sierras in the distance.  Pretty, but I prefer a nice sunny, warmer place.

  

My coach batteries charged during the drive, and my generator started right up once I got set up in my campsite.  I knew I would have power here, so I don't really need the generator anyway, but it was good to know everything was working again.  I assume it was just too cold this morning in Yosemite. 

10/29 More Yosemite

Most of the snow from yesterday melted over night, but it is still really cold outside so some is still left.  My furnaces both ran all night.  These motorhomes are really meant for warmer weather so are very poorly insulated and it takes a lot of propane to keep warm in cold weather.  I am using almost a quarter tank about every 36 hours, which means I cannot spend much time in this much cold.  Luckily, I have a couple of down comforters to keep me warm at night, so I tend to back off the heat at night to save propane.

Here is the campground as it looked this morning.  Normally it is almost impossible to get a camping spot here--but since almost all the tenters have gone, there are lots of empty spots!

It looks like all the snow is gone, doesn't it?

However, I took a close-up of the above scene, and you can see that the trees way up on the ridge are still covered with snow.  Both Tioga Pass and Glacier Point road were closed today because of snow and ice.

This guy was very suspicious of me, but eventually I watched him bury his acorn for the winter.

Behind the visitor center is a reconstruction of a Native American village.  The ancient peoples collected acorns and game from the area during the summer.  Here is a ceremonial lodge.

And a temporary bark summer shelter.

A sweat lodge is built into the earth.

The Merced River actually had some water in it today.  Yesterday it was mostly dry.  Actually, all of the waterfalls have been dry, with the exception of Yellowstone Falls, which has some water flowing.  I did not go there because it was too cold to walk around!