October 6 to 9, 2011: Cowpokes, Soldiers, and Saints

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The first weekend in October my friend Sonja and I did something we had never before contemplated doing—we attended a cowboy film festival in Lone Pine, California. We aren't particularly crazy about old horse operas, but we are mad about the place where they were filmed.
Beginning in 1920 hundreds of cowboy and adventure films have been shot at the Alabama Hills, about a five-minute drive along Whitney Portal Road west of Lone Pine, right at the foot of the highest peaks of the Sierra Nevada and just off US Highway 395. The geology of the area is simply spectacular—a jumble of red and orange rocks of myriad shapes and angles. The jagged summit of Mt. Whitney, elevation 14, 495 feet, provides a dramatic background.
The first morning of the festival we spent four hours wandering along Movie Road, investigating the narrow, twisting paths, marveling at the strange geometry, clicking our cameras, and gathering inspiration for our weavings and paintings. This scenery has stood for the classic western landscape of our imagination, as well as the Himalayas of northern India, the plains of Spain, and the deserts of Arabia. My favorite films shot here are the stories set in India—The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (#1 on my list), Gunga Din, King of the Khyber Rifles, products of the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. Scenes from High Sierra (Humphrey Bogart), The Adventures of Marco Polo (Gary Cooper), A Star is Born (the Janet Gaynor version), and Star Trek Generations use these rocks as background. More recently Tremors, Gladiator, Transformers, and Iron Man were shot here. And we can't forget the current Subaru and Dodge television commercials.
But what the Alabama Hills are mostly known for are the oaters starring Tom Mix, Randolph Scott, John Wayne, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Alan Ladd, Tim Holt, et cetera, et cetera. This year the twenty-second annual film festival celebrated this wealth of movie history.
We skipped the showings of classic westerns in favor of the outdoor experience, and in the afternoon we joined a bus tour to the sites where several Tyrone Power films were shot. Stops included the boulders of the Pony Express relay station in Rawhide, the desert plain viewed by the Mormons in Brigham Young, and the mountain road ascended by British soldiers in King of the Khyber Rifles.
When not on location we strolled through the Museum of Lone Pine Film History with its extensive collection of movie posters, costumes, props, vintage automobiles, stagecoaches, and even one of the Tremors worms. We attended a lecture on the Foley art of sound production and we watched a crew of stunt men and women demonstrate fights and falls in the high school gym. But our first love remains the rocks and the mountains behind them, John Muir's Range of Light.  
Lone Pine motels were full so we stayed 60 miles to the north in Bishop, where there was a greater choice of restaurants and the largest grocery store, Von's, in about 300 miles. One night we had delicious Mexican food at La Casita and the next night we ate at Jack's, known for its down-home food and great service. On Saturday the entire town of Bishop bloomed with yellow ribbons to honor America's service men and women.
The drive between Bishop and Lone Pine took us through some of the most fascinating geology of the eastern Sierra—fields of black basalt blocks and long sloping flows of volcanic ash, as well as many glacial moraines that had been pushed out in front of Sierra glaciers millions of years ago. We caught sight of a herd of elk right by the four-lane highway. Bright yellow rabbitbrush and gray-green sagebrush covered the valley floor. Dark rivers of pines trickled down from the mountaintops between wide slashes of new snow.
On our way home we stopped in early morning light at Mono Lake and again got drawn in by the photo opportunities among the tufa formations.
Strange how only one out of the combined collection of our friends has ever heard of the Alabama Hills. Strange how the turnoff to the Hills is marked by nothing more than a small street sign in Lone Pine. Strange how 395 is practically empty of traffic when there is so much inviting the visitor to explore the eastern side of the Sierra: hiking trails, trout fishing par excellence, the World War II Japanese internment camp now a National Historical Monument, Mono Lake and its visitor center in Lee Vining, the Bodie ghost town, a living course in advanced geology, the epic tale of the great Los Angeles theft of northern California's water (aqueducts and pipelines visible all along the route), and unending photo ops. So, if you can't make it to next year's film festival, Sonja and I hope you will go for the many other attractions.
 
 
 
 
 

August 10, 2011: Sky Trail

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Sky Trail is lovely today, lush green under a cloudless blue firmament. A gentle breeze makes for perfect hiking weather. The trail has become quite overgrown with ferns, elderberry, blackberry, huckleberry, and—watsonias. Watsonia is a South African bulb—a garden escapee (from the Point Reyes dairies) that has made itself at home along Sky Trail.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Another charmer in bloom now is California honeysuckle (Lonicera hispidula vacillans). This vine twines through the shrubbery and the scentless pink flowers hang out over the path.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I found two kinds of spider webs. I know very little about spiders except that they are amazing architects.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Came upon three or four adult quail trying to herd twenty babies off the path into the brush. They were too fast for my camera.
That's all. It was a quiet day—just what I wanted.
 
 
 
 

May, 2011: Down East

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            More than one person warned me on hearing about my impending visit to Maine.
"Watch out for all those creepy people and evil goings-on in the woods." And they looked at me as if I should understand what eeriness to expect. In a way, it was rather heartwarming to know that so many people were readers and had dipped into Stephen King.
But the Maine I thought I was going to was the land of painters like Andrew Wyeth, Winslow Homer, and Wolf Kahn—where fir trees crowd the rim of the restless ocean, rocky beaches are bathed in white foam and swarms of small islands gather offshore and slip in and out of the mist, and steep-roofed, white farm houses that have seen better days sit marooned in straw-colored fields. Other than that, until the middle of last May what I knew about the state of Maine was that a lot of comfortable shoes and casual clothes are made there. I knew that because I was wearing them.
            I never understood the sobriquet Down East , so I went to Wikipedia for some light on the subject. This is what I found:
The Down East, The Magazine of Maine FAQ explains the origin of the term: "When ships sailed from Boston to ports in Maine (which were to the east of Boston), the wind was at their backs, so they were sailing downwind, hence the term 'Down East.' And it follows that when they returned to Boston they were sailing upwind; many Mainers still speak of going 'up to Boston,' despite the fact that the city lies approximately 50 miles to the south of Maine’s southern border."
 
 
Thus, Down East refers to the coast from Penobscot Bay to the Canadian border, and that's the area I wanted to visit. So, after attending a workshop in Massachusetts, I took advantage of geography and spent a few days with my friend Terry in Brunswick, a two-and-a-half-hour bus ride north of Boston. US 95, from just out of the city, is lined on both sides with green forest, thick enough to hide the commerce and housing that must exist along that major artery. I knew we had crossed the state line when I spied out the bus window a sign with a big red lobster on it.
This was the last week in May and the skies were thick with lowering gray clouds. Rain and fog were in the forecast every day. In Maine "the season" begins after Memorial Day, and the "high season" is July and August when boaters, fishermen, and shore lovers flock to the rocky, forested coast that wiggles and squiggles up to Canada. This cold, wet week most of the restaurants, inns, and motels were not open, giving a desolate look to the villages and towns I passed through.
I ended up spending six days Down East. That's not a lot of time, but enough to feel the spirit of the place because, well, it's all so . . . Maine-y. In the towns, large white houses with dark blue trim line the road, surrounded by wide green lawns and large, round, purple azalea bushes—all very neat and proper. Not a postmodern split-level structure among them. The shoreline is exactly like Homer's, rocky and windswept. Wolf Kahn, although his paintings are more abstract than realistic, perfectly described the woods. And they weren't like Stephen King's. The real Maine woods, just beginning to come out of their winter browns and grays, weren’t exactly creepy, just quiet and lonely. The only creatures I saw emerging from their dim paths were birders out for an early morning stroll.
During the six days I spent in Maine I never saw the sun. The sky was always overcast with cloud or misty with fog—it wasn't any brighter in one direction than another, so I had no way of knowing if I was facing north or south, east or west. I consulted the AAA map—if I turn left on Route One and pass through a certain town, I will know I am driving north. But, wait, the ocean is on my right. I have spent a lifetime being schooled that the ocean is on my left if I am going north. The whole six days I was completely discombobulated. It was a very strange feeling—perhaps that is the creepiness associated with Stephen King—and I was relieved to be home again, to know where the sun is, and to see it setting into the ocean just as it should.