Friday, April 6, 2012

Adios California: Big Trees and Big Foots

Colby (an old friend from Washington) stands in front of General Sherman, in Sequoia National Park.  The General is over two thousand years old and the largest living thing on Earth (if we're not counting clonal organisms, and we're not.)

Upper Yosemite Falls, showing the kind of picture I'm sure Ansel Adams would have taken if he had had a hundred dollar digital Fuji.

Plaster casts of Sasquatch tracks are a dime a dozen, but have you ever seen Bigfoot scat?  The curator of this museum outside Santa Cruz was obviously a true believer, but informed me that this exhibit was probably "too dry" to yield a viable DNA sample.

I know you're wondering what an ocotillo (oh-ko-TEE-yo) looks like, so here you go.  They ordinarily look pretty lifeless, but after a rain, they sprout leaves and little tufts of red flowers.

I'm almost ready to leave California, but I've got one last thing I need to do:  here I am at the most south-west point in the continental US.  I got close enough to the fence to wave at the little niños on the other side before the border patrol shooed me off. 

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