MROSD Event: Mt. Umunhum
Aug. 28th, 2002 12:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tugrikAs mentioned in a previous entry, I was invited by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District to a press event at the Almaden Radar station. The event happened this morning, and I've got my first sunburn in 5 years to prove it. :)
For those who are just picturehounds, feel free to visit the raw picture album directly. All the images I took are in there, without notes or any cleanup. Only the 'playground' images (two of them) have any editing, as I was fussin' around with them at work. If some of the pictures look redundant, it's because they were meant to be stitched together into panoramas. When I get time to do that, I'll post the finished stitchings and delete the components.
I actually woke up on time, which gave me a good hour to get my act together. As if on cue, my program manager called and flailed on about unimportant things, eating that hour up handily. I rushed out the door to pull into the parking lot of the Los Gatos Community Church just a few minutes before the stated 10:45a gathering time. It turns out I wasn't the only biker in attendance: a Harley was already parked in the lot, the skid-lid dixie-cup of a helmet dangling from the handlebar. I parked next to the Harley and took a moment to nibble on the mini-muffins I'd stowed in the saddlebag. Aaah, breakfast.
People were milling about in that 'nobody knows each other' way, clustered around a ranger vehicle that had its tailgate down. A nice lady there had named badges and a few helpful fliers sitting out, including one with my name on it (whew). She gave me a bright orange parking permit to put on my dash, stating I'd need it to be visible to get through the checkpoint gates. I went about with the usual nod-hiya behavior expected at such gatherings, sharing chit-chat about where each of us lived and why we were glad to see Umunhum up close. Most of us were in the same situation, having only received an invite just a few days prior to the event. The fellow from the Channel 7 news van was fun to talk to, and I even managed to bum a little bit of gaffer tape off of him to apply the permit to the GS's front.
The rangers gave us a quick talk about what was going to happen today. We were to convoy up there, have a light snack, sit for a talk-about with our VIPs, and then taken on a walking tour of the radar base. Afterwards we'd have a little free time to take pictures and wander about on our own, and then they'd escort us down the hill. We were going to wait at the lot for the VIPs to arrive, so we returned to socalizing. Eventually I met the fellow with the Harley. He was a nice enough guy, but fell quite directly into the Harley stereotype: he planned to do the ride in a quarter-helmet and T-shirt. He was also incredibly happy to be there, just about bouncing with excitement. The enthusiasm made me smile, but at the same time pushed me back a bit. We talked pleasantly enough, but I kept things at a professional distance.
Our VIPs of the day rolled in not long after: California District 15 Congressman Mike Honda, and San Jose City Councilmember Patricia Dando. I'd seen both of them on the news before, so when they arrived I actually recognized them. As Congressman Honda got out of his car and went about shaking hands with the event organizers, I figured this was about the most I'd get to see of him. Much to my surprise, he then came right over to have a peek at the bike and talk. After quick introductions, we got to chatting on a wonderfully friendly level.
I really gotta respect this guy. He may be the first politician I actually like. :) He was a gentleman, but without any kind of stodgyness. He talked eloquently, yet casually; the essence of someone who has Slack. I didn't want to be a bother so I kept my end of the conversation lightweight. He seemed to actually want to talk though... not just the required handshake-and-howya-doin' that is expected between elected official and voter. He shifted the conversation to thinks about motorcycles to keep it rolling. "Is that a shaft-drive bike?" "Oh, a dualsport?" "That gastank is huge!" He seemed to really like the go-anywhere concept of it, and I was glad to answer any questions he had. It wasn't long before one of the organizers interrupted him politely, and he took his leave. Before he went, he gave me a hearty handshake and thanked me for coming along. I handed the camera to his assistant to get a picture... which of course the Harley fellow eagerly stood in on. From left to right in the second picture, it's Harley Guy, Mike Honda, then me.
Everybody hopped in their vehicles, and we took the short trip up the hill together. I was downright jittery once I got past the Sierra Azul barrier and entered new territory, wanting to stop and have a look about at each new corner in the road. Getting altitude over familiar territory is a wonderful feeling. My mental 3D map of these home-turf mountains kept filling in wth more detail, like terrain popping into view as you explore a computer RPG game. The slow pace made even the well-cooled GS start to sweat a little, its heat meter rising to 80% of the red mark by the time we'd reached the top. This is exactly the reason I chose the GS over the 'wing; the bigger 1800 would have overheated embarrasingly on such a long, slow climb. Were I doing the ascention on my own instead of in a snail's-pace convy, it would have been no problem. I didn't mind the slow speed today all that much, though. It gave me all the more chance to look around.
After passing through no less than 5 gates, 3 sets of NO TRESSPASSING signs, two painted-on-road No Hikers/Bikers/Equestrians Past This Point warnings, and one very blatantly marked PRIVATE PROPERTY KEEP OUT sign, we arrived at the top. The lot was populated by green-and-tan uniformed rangers handily pointing the way to the right places to park, and it was only a moment's walk to a few shade-tents and chairs. They let us wander about for a good fifteen minutes before they started to get us herded over towards the seating area. The other camera-holders and I used the time to get shots of the surrounding buildings and vistas. It was a hazy day in the valley; the heat and water in the air cut the visibility dissapointingly short. Even so, it was amazing to be able to see all of the mountain range between ocean and bay.
I made sure to get plenty of "The Can" itself -- the huge rectangular building that housed the old radar unit, now long gone. It was in a sad state of repair, with peeling paint and overgrown walks.
Of special interest to me was the view I now had of Bald Mountain. I was now well above it, and could see the whole of its shape without having to resort to satellite imagery. This particular little bump isn't much more than a .6mi hiking trail leading up to a geo-marker, but I still can't shake the feeling that there's something special about it. Seeing it from above only reinforced the mystique. Bald Mountain has been mentioned in some of my earlier LJ posts, and I'm sure it'll feature there again in the future.
They handed out little white lunch-boxes to everybody, and motioned for us to take a seat. Lunch was graciously paid for by one of the MROSD members, and was an inoffensive choice between two vegetarian entres: a pasta dish, or a spinach-pastry of some sort. The point here wasn't to eat, but the nibbles were good nonetheless. The MROSD personnel introduced themselves, and then sat to the side to let Congressman Honda, Councilperson Dando, and a few others take the stage.
The various talks told a brief history of the Almaden Station, which had long ago been abandoned by the air force. The city of San Jose had purchased it at fair market value, with the expectation the Air Force would clean the site, since no discounts were given. Moderate cleanup was indeed done, which is what allowed us to be visiting today, but it wasn't nearly enough. The clean-up contractors had also liberated the place of most all the wiring and electrical equipment around the old buildings, probably making off with more in scrap than they were paid for the work they did. The goal for the old Almaden Station and the rest of the Mt. Umunhum base was to open it to the public, in a way comparable to the visitor areas of Mt. Diablo and Lick Observatory. Umunhum itself was to be a final link in the Bay Area's most ambitious open-space project, the "ring the Bay" trail: 400 miles of uninterrupted hiking trail, circling the entirety of the San Francisco Bay Area. For years it's been the big gap in the system. The partial opening of the land would finally link the ends of the ring, but there was more work to do. Each one of the VIPs spoke on their feelings about the area. Dando, for instance, had grown up in its shadow and always wanted to find out what was up there, in the same way I did. All were well spoken, and got to the point without dragging on. It was the most un-political political talk I think I've heard. A bit of on-camera work for Channel 7 was added in before the speeches stopped.
While the talks were going on, I made sure to get a few pictures of the supporters and organizers. Many of them were rangers, employed directly by the MROSD.
Honda and Dando had been instrumental in getting the clean-up done to the point so far, and now they (and the rest of the city council) had their sights set on tackling Feinstein (one of our California Senators) on the issue of an additional $2.5 million to finish the job. No formal plans were stated for exactly how or when it would be opened to the public; the idea here was to just get the ball rolling. They didn't really give us much an idea of what we could do to help this process along, so I made a mental note to ask about volunteer work before this was through. A slightly amused feeling came from the realization of just exactly why this rag-tag group of citizens were invited, and why it was so last-minute. This was a Media Moment. They wanted to fill chairs with friendly, supportive, local faces so they'd have a venue to show off Mike and Pat to the television crew, as part of making their pitch to Senator Feinstein for the cleanup-and-fixup funding. We weren't here to be asked for our time or money... we were here as Moral Support. While I may make this sound bad -- it's not! In fact, I can really respect the tactic. I'm glad to lend my curiosity-driven enthusiasm to the cause.
Meeting and nibbling over with, the VIPs did their waves to the small crowd before departing. I was again pleasantly surprised when Congressman Honda went out of his way to come over and pat me on the back, again thanking me for showing up. Maybe this is why he's such a popular politican. He makes you feel cool just by talking to you. I like the guy. The MROSD folks passed around some info packets, which I will eventually scan and post elsewhere for other south-bay types who want to know more about Umunhum. They also pointed us at some stand-up displays they'd prepared with data about the site and its trails. My Canon D30 did a decent job capturing the details. If you click-through to the larger version of the images. most of the text should be readable. The display that amused me the most was the cover of a 1967 telephone book, showing the station when it still had the radar on top.
The rangers led us back to our vehicles and had us drive them a quarter-mile or so back down the road, reparking by the barracks of the old air-force base. Enough people were stationed here to man the radar that it took on that micro-city feel that many remote bases had. The site was complete with a pool, a pub (one of the rare ones that had enlisted men drinking alongside officers), workshops, housing, recreation areas, and even a two-lane bowling alley. The walking tour had just enough up-and-down to it to really sock it to me; yet another sign that I've still got a long way to go with weight loss. This is also where I got my sunburn, as silly me was so happy to be up there I'd forgotten to put on the sunscreen I'd bought. Luckily, it turned out to be a very mild burn at best; only a slight reddening. The rangers had a lot to say about the station, but to their surprise, one of the visitors was the child of one of the base's enlisted men, and had grown up there many years past. Most of the tour was spent with the rangers learning as much as we did about the buildings' functions and the daily life around them. He even brought a copy of the badge the radar ops of that site wore. (He's the one with the loudly colorful shirt)
The barracks were in decent shape for how old they were. The housing bits looked right in line with 60's architecture, with tall rectangles and boxy-but-bricky looks. As the tour wound down, I peeled away from the pack a bit to get some photos with the explicit intent of doing artsy things with them. The place was a sterile ghost town, of sorts. It had the soft spookyness of a place abandoned, but the surrounding growth, warm sunlight, and gentle feel of the place offset it. It felt slightly lonely, and a bit serene somehow... but not unloved. Trying to catch those feelings in the lens proved difficult, and I kept changing between peeking inside quiet buildings and staying at a respectful distance. Both would show bits of what I want to relay, but neither did it well on their own.
One of the places that really stood out to me was the playground for the base's children. In the noonday sun, a gentle breeze going through the overgrown grasses, it just seemed incredibly surreal. The color version of the picture felt too unyielding some how... but when I dropped it to black-and-white, a good part of the mood it had me in came through.
The feeling of unrealness, even as I stood there looking at it in the real world, stalled me for a bit. Abandoned playgrounds are often used for imagery representing opportunities lost, childhoods squandered, or a people's hopes destroyed. They've been used for anything from in-your face morality, alit in the brimstone-like fires of Terminator 2, to the quietly scary threat of our own species' mistakes, in all those newsreels of abandoned midwest towns after dioxins were found there. This playground had none of that. It was just quiet, with only enough rust on the metal bars to slow its slide through time. It wouldn't take much at all to make it openly cheerful, in fact. One could close their eyes and hear children of the past playing there, without worry.
I wanted to reflect that feeling as well, and gave in to the rare urge to use some filtering. My hope was to have the bars appear as they would in a children's book, or pastel background to a light summer's story. Please forgive the blatant photoshopping, as a result.
Many other pictures were taken, as I've already mentioned. If the ones put on this page aren't enough for you, please be my guest and browse the album directly. I apologize for the pictures being so unedited. They were literally bulk-copied onto the image server straight out of the camera, so with the exception of the last two playground pictures, you're seeing what my D30 produces without any post-production. When I get a few more round-tuits I'll at least clean up the panorama shots.
It was all over by 2pm, the cars trickling down the hillside in a lazy convoy. I held on to make sure I was the last one, talking to one of the rangers about possible volunteer work that could get me future access to the site. I hope something comes of it. Finally, even the ranger had to leave, so he sent me on my way, closing up the gates behind me as I rode through. Much to my relief, I didn't feel like I'd missed anything once I crossed the final gate at Sierra Azul; I had seen enough to be pleased with it. Maybe I'd gained some respect for the politicians of this area too. We'll see how that holds up with time against the incredible cynicism my generation uses as their primary defense. I felt sorry that I hadn't taken anybody with me, but the solitude of the last half-hour's wanderings really helped. I stopped at the house long enough to grab a quick drink and move my grocery-shopping appointment with Scylla to later in the evening. After the heat and all the walking, I was glad to step into the server room of the office and just relax into my job for the rest of the day.
I may not have a family or future generations to pass this open-space on to; at least not in the ways that the VIPs do when they mentioned "leaving the legacy of this place to our children". Still, I find a sense of pride in knowing I was there as the process began. I'm going to make effort to keep involved, and see where things lead.
For those who are just picturehounds, feel free to visit the raw picture album directly. All the images I took are in there, without notes or any cleanup. Only the 'playground' images (two of them) have any editing, as I was fussin' around with them at work. If some of the pictures look redundant, it's because they were meant to be stitched together into panoramas. When I get time to do that, I'll post the finished stitchings and delete the components.
I actually woke up on time, which gave me a good hour to get my act together. As if on cue, my program manager called and flailed on about unimportant things, eating that hour up handily. I rushed out the door to pull into the parking lot of the Los Gatos Community Church just a few minutes before the stated 10:45a gathering time. It turns out I wasn't the only biker in attendance: a Harley was already parked in the lot, the skid-lid dixie-cup of a helmet dangling from the handlebar. I parked next to the Harley and took a moment to nibble on the mini-muffins I'd stowed in the saddlebag. Aaah, breakfast.
People were milling about in that 'nobody knows each other' way, clustered around a ranger vehicle that had its tailgate down. A nice lady there had named badges and a few helpful fliers sitting out, including one with my name on it (whew). She gave me a bright orange parking permit to put on my dash, stating I'd need it to be visible to get through the checkpoint gates. I went about with the usual nod-hiya behavior expected at such gatherings, sharing chit-chat about where each of us lived and why we were glad to see Umunhum up close. Most of us were in the same situation, having only received an invite just a few days prior to the event. The fellow from the Channel 7 news van was fun to talk to, and I even managed to bum a little bit of gaffer tape off of him to apply the permit to the GS's front.
The rangers gave us a quick talk about what was going to happen today. We were to convoy up there, have a light snack, sit for a talk-about with our VIPs, and then taken on a walking tour of the radar base. Afterwards we'd have a little free time to take pictures and wander about on our own, and then they'd escort us down the hill. We were going to wait at the lot for the VIPs to arrive, so we returned to socalizing. Eventually I met the fellow with the Harley. He was a nice enough guy, but fell quite directly into the Harley stereotype: he planned to do the ride in a quarter-helmet and T-shirt. He was also incredibly happy to be there, just about bouncing with excitement. The enthusiasm made me smile, but at the same time pushed me back a bit. We talked pleasantly enough, but I kept things at a professional distance.
Our VIPs of the day rolled in not long after: California District 15 Congressman Mike Honda, and San Jose City Councilmember Patricia Dando. I'd seen both of them on the news before, so when they arrived I actually recognized them. As Congressman Honda got out of his car and went about shaking hands with the event organizers, I figured this was about the most I'd get to see of him. Much to my surprise, he then came right over to have a peek at the bike and talk. After quick introductions, we got to chatting on a wonderfully friendly level.
I really gotta respect this guy. He may be the first politician I actually like. :) He was a gentleman, but without any kind of stodgyness. He talked eloquently, yet casually; the essence of someone who has Slack. I didn't want to be a bother so I kept my end of the conversation lightweight. He seemed to actually want to talk though... not just the required handshake-and-howya-doin' that is expected between elected official and voter. He shifted the conversation to thinks about motorcycles to keep it rolling. "Is that a shaft-drive bike?" "Oh, a dualsport?" "That gastank is huge!" He seemed to really like the go-anywhere concept of it, and I was glad to answer any questions he had. It wasn't long before one of the organizers interrupted him politely, and he took his leave. Before he went, he gave me a hearty handshake and thanked me for coming along. I handed the camera to his assistant to get a picture... which of course the Harley fellow eagerly stood in on. From left to right in the second picture, it's Harley Guy, Mike Honda, then me.
Everybody hopped in their vehicles, and we took the short trip up the hill together. I was downright jittery once I got past the Sierra Azul barrier and entered new territory, wanting to stop and have a look about at each new corner in the road. Getting altitude over familiar territory is a wonderful feeling. My mental 3D map of these home-turf mountains kept filling in wth more detail, like terrain popping into view as you explore a computer RPG game. The slow pace made even the well-cooled GS start to sweat a little, its heat meter rising to 80% of the red mark by the time we'd reached the top. This is exactly the reason I chose the GS over the 'wing; the bigger 1800 would have overheated embarrasingly on such a long, slow climb. Were I doing the ascention on my own instead of in a snail's-pace convy, it would have been no problem. I didn't mind the slow speed today all that much, though. It gave me all the more chance to look around.
After passing through no less than 5 gates, 3 sets of NO TRESSPASSING signs, two painted-on-road No Hikers/Bikers/Equestrians Past This Point warnings, and one very blatantly marked PRIVATE PROPERTY KEEP OUT sign, we arrived at the top. The lot was populated by green-and-tan uniformed rangers handily pointing the way to the right places to park, and it was only a moment's walk to a few shade-tents and chairs. They let us wander about for a good fifteen minutes before they started to get us herded over towards the seating area. The other camera-holders and I used the time to get shots of the surrounding buildings and vistas. It was a hazy day in the valley; the heat and water in the air cut the visibility dissapointingly short. Even so, it was amazing to be able to see all of the mountain range between ocean and bay.
I made sure to get plenty of "The Can" itself -- the huge rectangular building that housed the old radar unit, now long gone. It was in a sad state of repair, with peeling paint and overgrown walks.
Of special interest to me was the view I now had of Bald Mountain. I was now well above it, and could see the whole of its shape without having to resort to satellite imagery. This particular little bump isn't much more than a .6mi hiking trail leading up to a geo-marker, but I still can't shake the feeling that there's something special about it. Seeing it from above only reinforced the mystique. Bald Mountain has been mentioned in some of my earlier LJ posts, and I'm sure it'll feature there again in the future.
They handed out little white lunch-boxes to everybody, and motioned for us to take a seat. Lunch was graciously paid for by one of the MROSD members, and was an inoffensive choice between two vegetarian entres: a pasta dish, or a spinach-pastry of some sort. The point here wasn't to eat, but the nibbles were good nonetheless. The MROSD personnel introduced themselves, and then sat to the side to let Congressman Honda, Councilperson Dando, and a few others take the stage.
The various talks told a brief history of the Almaden Station, which had long ago been abandoned by the air force. The city of San Jose had purchased it at fair market value, with the expectation the Air Force would clean the site, since no discounts were given. Moderate cleanup was indeed done, which is what allowed us to be visiting today, but it wasn't nearly enough. The clean-up contractors had also liberated the place of most all the wiring and electrical equipment around the old buildings, probably making off with more in scrap than they were paid for the work they did. The goal for the old Almaden Station and the rest of the Mt. Umunhum base was to open it to the public, in a way comparable to the visitor areas of Mt. Diablo and Lick Observatory. Umunhum itself was to be a final link in the Bay Area's most ambitious open-space project, the "ring the Bay" trail: 400 miles of uninterrupted hiking trail, circling the entirety of the San Francisco Bay Area. For years it's been the big gap in the system. The partial opening of the land would finally link the ends of the ring, but there was more work to do. Each one of the VIPs spoke on their feelings about the area. Dando, for instance, had grown up in its shadow and always wanted to find out what was up there, in the same way I did. All were well spoken, and got to the point without dragging on. It was the most un-political political talk I think I've heard. A bit of on-camera work for Channel 7 was added in before the speeches stopped.
While the talks were going on, I made sure to get a few pictures of the supporters and organizers. Many of them were rangers, employed directly by the MROSD.
Honda and Dando had been instrumental in getting the clean-up done to the point so far, and now they (and the rest of the city council) had their sights set on tackling Feinstein (one of our California Senators) on the issue of an additional $2.5 million to finish the job. No formal plans were stated for exactly how or when it would be opened to the public; the idea here was to just get the ball rolling. They didn't really give us much an idea of what we could do to help this process along, so I made a mental note to ask about volunteer work before this was through. A slightly amused feeling came from the realization of just exactly why this rag-tag group of citizens were invited, and why it was so last-minute. This was a Media Moment. They wanted to fill chairs with friendly, supportive, local faces so they'd have a venue to show off Mike and Pat to the television crew, as part of making their pitch to Senator Feinstein for the cleanup-and-fixup funding. We weren't here to be asked for our time or money... we were here as Moral Support. While I may make this sound bad -- it's not! In fact, I can really respect the tactic. I'm glad to lend my curiosity-driven enthusiasm to the cause.
Meeting and nibbling over with, the VIPs did their waves to the small crowd before departing. I was again pleasantly surprised when Congressman Honda went out of his way to come over and pat me on the back, again thanking me for showing up. Maybe this is why he's such a popular politican. He makes you feel cool just by talking to you. I like the guy. The MROSD folks passed around some info packets, which I will eventually scan and post elsewhere for other south-bay types who want to know more about Umunhum. They also pointed us at some stand-up displays they'd prepared with data about the site and its trails. My Canon D30 did a decent job capturing the details. If you click-through to the larger version of the images. most of the text should be readable. The display that amused me the most was the cover of a 1967 telephone book, showing the station when it still had the radar on top.
The rangers led us back to our vehicles and had us drive them a quarter-mile or so back down the road, reparking by the barracks of the old air-force base. Enough people were stationed here to man the radar that it took on that micro-city feel that many remote bases had. The site was complete with a pool, a pub (one of the rare ones that had enlisted men drinking alongside officers), workshops, housing, recreation areas, and even a two-lane bowling alley. The walking tour had just enough up-and-down to it to really sock it to me; yet another sign that I've still got a long way to go with weight loss. This is also where I got my sunburn, as silly me was so happy to be up there I'd forgotten to put on the sunscreen I'd bought. Luckily, it turned out to be a very mild burn at best; only a slight reddening. The rangers had a lot to say about the station, but to their surprise, one of the visitors was the child of one of the base's enlisted men, and had grown up there many years past. Most of the tour was spent with the rangers learning as much as we did about the buildings' functions and the daily life around them. He even brought a copy of the badge the radar ops of that site wore. (He's the one with the loudly colorful shirt)
The barracks were in decent shape for how old they were. The housing bits looked right in line with 60's architecture, with tall rectangles and boxy-but-bricky looks. As the tour wound down, I peeled away from the pack a bit to get some photos with the explicit intent of doing artsy things with them. The place was a sterile ghost town, of sorts. It had the soft spookyness of a place abandoned, but the surrounding growth, warm sunlight, and gentle feel of the place offset it. It felt slightly lonely, and a bit serene somehow... but not unloved. Trying to catch those feelings in the lens proved difficult, and I kept changing between peeking inside quiet buildings and staying at a respectful distance. Both would show bits of what I want to relay, but neither did it well on their own.
One of the places that really stood out to me was the playground for the base's children. In the noonday sun, a gentle breeze going through the overgrown grasses, it just seemed incredibly surreal. The color version of the picture felt too unyielding some how... but when I dropped it to black-and-white, a good part of the mood it had me in came through.
The feeling of unrealness, even as I stood there looking at it in the real world, stalled me for a bit. Abandoned playgrounds are often used for imagery representing opportunities lost, childhoods squandered, or a people's hopes destroyed. They've been used for anything from in-your face morality, alit in the brimstone-like fires of Terminator 2, to the quietly scary threat of our own species' mistakes, in all those newsreels of abandoned midwest towns after dioxins were found there. This playground had none of that. It was just quiet, with only enough rust on the metal bars to slow its slide through time. It wouldn't take much at all to make it openly cheerful, in fact. One could close their eyes and hear children of the past playing there, without worry.
I wanted to reflect that feeling as well, and gave in to the rare urge to use some filtering. My hope was to have the bars appear as they would in a children's book, or pastel background to a light summer's story. Please forgive the blatant photoshopping, as a result.
Many other pictures were taken, as I've already mentioned. If the ones put on this page aren't enough for you, please be my guest and browse the album directly. I apologize for the pictures being so unedited. They were literally bulk-copied onto the image server straight out of the camera, so with the exception of the last two playground pictures, you're seeing what my D30 produces without any post-production. When I get a few more round-tuits I'll at least clean up the panorama shots.
It was all over by 2pm, the cars trickling down the hillside in a lazy convoy. I held on to make sure I was the last one, talking to one of the rangers about possible volunteer work that could get me future access to the site. I hope something comes of it. Finally, even the ranger had to leave, so he sent me on my way, closing up the gates behind me as I rode through. Much to my relief, I didn't feel like I'd missed anything once I crossed the final gate at Sierra Azul; I had seen enough to be pleased with it. Maybe I'd gained some respect for the politicians of this area too. We'll see how that holds up with time against the incredible cynicism my generation uses as their primary defense. I felt sorry that I hadn't taken anybody with me, but the solitude of the last half-hour's wanderings really helped. I stopped at the house long enough to grab a quick drink and move my grocery-shopping appointment with Scylla to later in the evening. After the heat and all the walking, I was glad to step into the server room of the office and just relax into my job for the rest of the day.
I may not have a family or future generations to pass this open-space on to; at least not in the ways that the VIPs do when they mentioned "leaving the legacy of this place to our children". Still, I find a sense of pride in knowing I was there as the process began. I'm going to make effort to keep involved, and see where things lead.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2002-08-28 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-08-28 02:54 am (UTC)BTW, you read and posted your comment after I'd only uploaded about 1/4th the report. Give it a look-see now; I finally finished typing it!
no subject
Date: 2002-08-28 11:19 am (UTC)I suggest you stick this in your memories group if you haven't already done so. It's a wonderful, well-written piece, m'friend, and while I wish I coulda gone with you, I think this was very much a 'you first' thing - the whole charting new territory and reporting back to those of us it's as yet spiritually (and physically) inaccessible to.
And next election, I think Mike and Pat get my vote, on the strength of that.
(peers at the Bald Mountain pic) Hey, is that where I think it is? *silly grin*
-Traveller.
no subject
Date: 2002-08-28 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-08-28 02:44 pm (UTC)Of the two pictures taken of me that day, though, this is the one I prefer. :) I didn't put it in the write-up because it didn't fit in there. It's the first one to show the new 4ga ring upgrade. I'm thinking this is about the right size.
no subject
Date: 2002-08-29 08:39 am (UTC)By the way, regarding the picture that shows off the earring? I'm seeing bone structure in the face that I've never seen before. Considering the fact that photography tends to let you focus on any/all body faults, the fact that the weight loss shows so prominently is a positive sign, I'd say.
Another aside, what are your plans next week? Care to get together for dinner & conversation?
no subject
Date: 2002-09-04 11:20 am (UTC)