Yosemite -- Beautiful and Expensive

Yosemite National Park -- My family has visited dozens of great national parks through the years, from the Everglades to the Olympic, but Yosemite will always be my favorite. The scenery, even when stuck in heavy traffic, is beyond stunning. 

Get out and hike -- if you can find a place to park-- and you will never forget the experience.

As beautiful as it is, sometimes visiting there can be troubling. Particularly if you arrive during peak summer months or happen to be a low income family.  Be prepared to pay a lot, and be crowded.

With crowds,  cars,  past management decisions and global warming the park now can be a nightmare on a hot August day. 

 It is no bargain anytime for average American families. 

And beyond the reach of the truly poor. 

A minimum wage worker in America would have to spend a full day's wages, even  bringing a picnic, just to be there for one day.

It is essentially a park where the wealthy, including foreign visitors, are treated as special guests and encouraged to stay. And that is entirely consistent with the park's history. When first discovered only the very rich from San Francisco, the east coast and Europe, could afford the expensive journey. It was a special place, mostly for the elite. Still is.

Today getting there is not the problem. Staying there is.

  One week at the Yosemite Lodge -- the only basic ""motel" inside the park -- would cost a family of four between $1,400 and $2,100 dollars, probably more. 

If you can get in.

 Meals at the limited eating places near the hotels could cost another $1,000 or so.

One week at the Ahwahnee Hotel, the park's iconic lodging place, today can cost a couple between $4,000 and $5,000. It is a grand looking hotel, even if the rooms are not special and the service lacking. Our recent lunch of hamburgers was $50.

In theory the rates are supposed to be comparable to facilities near the park. In reality park administrators have used destination resort areas like Tahoe and San Francisco, even Disney, not Mariposa or Merced. It is a stupid system.
 

The grand lobby of the Ahwahnee

The dining hall--bring money

Other housing in Yosemite is available only if you are lucky and diligent. There are campgrounds, housekeeping units (a three-sided canvas shelter), tent cabins, and a very few real cabins. You have to plan  months ahead. Demand always outweighs capacity. Most are unavailable half the year.

 Campground spots are so competitive that experienced visitors typically set the alarm clock and jump on the Internet the moment the window for reservations opens --  several months ahead. 

Half the year the vast majority of campsites are completely closed   while the most expensive lodge rooms and hotel remain open and operating. The limited camping spots are almost always  booked way ahead, including the  very few available in winter in the Valley. 

At a time when there are normally no crowds -- a relative term -- the park service jams people into less and less space. My estimate is that non-luxury available housing in the Valley is reduced about 90% for six months of the year.

The park service web site claims more than 1,500 campsites are available in the park, capable of housing almost 9,000 people.  

That is misleading. Perhaps deliberately. 

That number of people assumes most campsites  average six people, an unrealistic number. Three to four is probably accurate.

And then most are closed for half the year.

This November  only one campground was open for car campers in the Valley, plus the small mountain climber's camp, probably with less than 100 total sites and room for about 400 people total.  Other campgrounds, including many below the snow line, were closed for the season. 

A lack of employees due to Covid restrictions affected 2021 numbers.

But Covid is not the real  problem. Population growth and management decisions are. 

 The trend throughout the last four decades consistently has been to shut down the least expensive places to stay the night, and maintain  the most expensive. It's all about revenue, a position the park service finds itself in due to a lack of congressional support and pressure from concessionaires and politicians.

 

Not far from the Ahwahnee, a resident bear

The 150 year history of Yosemite is a classic American tale, including greed, failures, violence, triumph and some success. In the 1800s it was the natives who lived there that were run off. Today it is average American families who pay taxes.  And increasingly, it is the people who drive up to the gate, willing to pay to get in. 

Tour groups and people who use travel agencies get access. They pay more.

 Deciding how the park should operate in the interest of the public has always been a challenge. It remains so today. In the 1800s, prompted by glorious paintings and photographs, Abraham Lincoln set the space aside -- preserving it forever -- and asked California to manage it. The state chased off the early settlers, ignored the natives, and mismanaged it to the point the federal government finally took it back. 

Eventually the National Park Service was given the responsibility to manage Yosemite.

Hiking toward Mirror Lake

It has never been an easy task, and even today there are so many competing voices the future of the park remains uncertain. Congress pats itself on the back for supporting national parks, but provides so little funding the public is asked to pay constantly increasing fees for everything from entrance fees to places to stay to hamburgers. 

The congressional representative of the district that includes the park generally opposes spending any money on anything to make the situation better.  

Outside of a few urban-based environmental non-profits and some employee groups, the park has no effective advocates.

Close to the old stables

 The park's senior management has historically struggled, often forced to make hard choices between protecting the park for the public and bowing to the commercial interests who make money on it. 

 Part of the problem is the mission to "preserve and protect" both the natural wonders and the public's access. 

Too often the natural wonders are protected, but access for the very people who pay for the park is increasingly difficult. 

Where you can wait for dinner

Next: More history of the struggles of the park

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Note: Data from NPS:

Campgrounds

• Yosemite Valley Family Sites: 459 sites accommodating 2,754 people (Note: only one Valley family campground is open for six months of the year)
• Tioga Road/Big Oak Flat/Hetch Hetchy: 856 sites for 5,136 people (Note: All of these sites are closed.)
• 
  
• Glacier Point/Wawona: 206 sites for 1,236 people (now closed)
• Group campsites: 14 group campsites (for 420 people); and 9 horse campsites (54 people) (Closed)

Source: NPS website

Yosemite in Spring

Yosemite National Park -- A mid-week visit to Yosemite in Spring, when the weather is good but not perfect and the tourists are present but not overwhelming,  ranks among the great benefits of living in the nearby Sierra Nevada.

Our day trip took about three hours of no-traffic driving from our front door.
Spring is about many things, but is obviously is about waterfalls.


The first waterfall we encountered on the Big Oak Flat Road was the Cascades. The actual fall is up the mountain and obscured by trees and boulders, but the water below the bridge is a sight to behold.





A little further down the steep road, which clings to the mountainside as you descend into the Valley, are multiple views of the Merced River in full flow through the Valley. Bridalveil Falls is in the distance, spilling out of its hanging canyon high above the south wall of granite.   It is only 620 feet above the canyon floor, about one-fourth of the popular Yosemite Falls, but can offer some of the most spectacular viewing when the wind is blowing back against the crest.




Further down inside the Valley you begin to see falls, on both sides of the canyon. We did not get pictures of them all, obviously, as some are more subtle than others, and some beyond this photographer's ability.



Here is one of our first views  of Yosemite Falls, which looms 2,425 feet above the bottom where it crashes into the rocks and flows into the Merced River.  From this distance you only see the top of the waterfall. This was taken as we drove in, shot from near the loop road on the South side of the canyon.  You can see Spring popping out in the greening trees and grasses, and the still bare branches just waiting for a few more warm days.







Below are two ribbon-like falls just above Curry Village on the south wall.  The sound of water flowing is everywhere you turn, whether crashing off the top of the walls or cascading down the talus slopes. (Not far from here a large section of granite wall fell a year or so ago, scaring the heck out of people and slightly reducing the useable space in Camp Curry.)





At the upper end of the Valley you can look up toward Tenaya Canyon, and see and feel the power of the Merced River as if heads down the mountain. History note: this is one route the native Americans used when trying to run away from Gold Miners determined to wipe them out in the 1850s.






Coming back on the west-bound loop brings you to the trail to Yosemite Falls, the biggest and grandest of all in the park. This is one of the places you can see almost the entire waterfall, which actually comes down the mountain in at least three sections. A few weeks earlier the pool at the bottom of the top fall would have a large snow cone, but it apparently broke up before we arrived this week.





Here's a view from further away:




And here is what you see if hike up close: the bottom of the falls and a lot of cold blowing watery mist.




As we left the Valley we did what most tourists do: stop to look for mountain climbers on the face of El Capitan.  We forgot binoculars, assured each other those tiny dots on the granite were climbers, and enjoyed one last look at the Valley before driving home.




Go soon, before the crowds become intolerable, and while the water still flows.

Parks for People? Or Just a Few People?

At the Warming Hut last Winter

The Trail Through the North Grove

Murphys -- The Gulf Coast town where I grew up offered pretty much everything a kid could need: neighborhoods, schools, friends, family and a  park a few blocks away with ball fields, a playground and tennis courts.
If I wanted a wilderness experience I could explore the mostly undeveloped swamps, bayous and hills nearby. The sugar-white beaches of the Gulf of Mexico were close.
If I wanted to go camping I went with my Boy Scout troop, or slept out on an old Army blanket on the sand beaches.
Today private land is mostly closed off for fear of “unsuitable” people or lawsuits and beaches are wall-to-wall condominiums. If you tried throwing down a blanket to sleep you would probably be arrested as a vagrant.
Public parks -- both state and national -- have become much more important to me.
The Great Smoky Mountains provided my first park experience It was stunning to learn that unnamed people in earlier generations saved this special place for me.
 I discovered state parks initially on Florida’s beaches and in her swamps. Fishing from the beach, watching a storm come in off the ocean or snorkeling on a  coral reef were part of  state parks.
When I migrated to California and was living near Yosemite National Park, it was  a dream come true. My first trip there on an October day over 30 years ago,  we woke up to snow covering our old VW camper. Wonderful.
My family discovered the wealth of state and National Forest parks and campgrounds across the state. There were almost no limits to where we could go and what we could see. Waking to the Pacific thundering onto a rocky beach, or a Roosevelt Elk’s bugling call, were made possible because of California’s parks.
All of this was affordable, from Yosemite to Prairie Creek on the North Coast, and could be reached within a day’s drive. A few more days put us into Washington, Nevada and Utah with enough parks to satisfy even me.
Today, the parks are still  available where we can get in touch with our souls, or simply sit on a rock.

The sequoias are the largest trees in the world

I settled in Calaveras County because of my  experience at parks along Highway 4’s corridor.  Our initial criteria for our home was to be as close to Calaveras Big Trees State Park as possible.
A success story in recent years is the little park by the creek in downtown Murphys. It is available to everyone and used by many. “First Friday” concerts in the summer draw more people than live in the town. Kids play in the creek or on the playground equipment while families picnic. Office workers take their lunch breaks near the bubbling water. People dance, sing and play. The park is part of the glue that holds the community together. With no town government, local people support the park through fundraising efforts.
But there are no guarantees any of these parks will be available to our children and grandchildren. And potlucks and raffles won't keep state and national parks open.

A recent investigation by a watchdog group recommends the state system  be revamped and modernized. Interestingly, they did not recommend the park system be privatized, and encouraged better taxpayer support for the system. They did recommend the forging of new partnerships with local communities and people.
National Parks have gone through lean years as well, which led to decisions to raise entry fees dramatically, and the rates for overnight stays in lodging have been climbing dramatically. When attendance immediately dropped, park officials wondered aloud  what had happened.

Neither the California legislature nor the public has been very enthusiastic about parks in the last five years or so.

As a result, state and national parks may some day be reserved for the small group of people that can afford to pay prices too high for the average family. That is not what community should be.That was not the idea when the parks were set aside for everybody. I want my grandchildren to benefit the way I did.
People who love parks have to do a better job of explaining why parks have value for everyone. Parks really are places where knowledge is gained, health is restored, and we learn important stuff about our world and ourselves.
You know what parks do for you. Now is a good time to speak up.

In the old days they knew how to be tourists!

 Note: This was originally written for the local paper, the Calaveras Enterprise, and was published last week. I added the pictures to give you an idea what my local state park looks like.

Edinburgh, Scotland - Good castles and good people

The entrance to Edinburgh Castle, the premier site to visit in Edinburgh


Camp Connell -- Edinburgh was the last stop on a two week tour of Ireland and Scotland for us, and it was a good place to end a lovely visit.
We stayed at the Priestville Guest House based on the recommendation in Rick Steve's Great Britain book and it was a good choice: comfortable, reasonable rates, close to public transportation, off the main drag so it was quieter, and the hosts were extremely helpful.
In a quiet neighborhood, close to the bus, this was the view from our B&B window

The first day we hopped a bus into the center of town and walked the
Royal Mile. It was rainy, but not uncomfortable, and by being in town in early October we did not have to fight big crowds.Somehow we resisted the temptation to try Haggis, though we actually met people who did


We dropped by St. Giles Cathedral, which proved to be a gem, and were fascinated by the tales told by the docent who showed us around. It was a small comfort to me to find the Duke of Argyll, a Campbell and the 17th century bad boy who hung 200 Lamonts from a tree in Dunoon in 1646, was buried here after he was executed.
The guide also tipped us to the stunning old court building across the courtyard, and to a fine small cafe in the basement where we had a reasonable lunch.
We then took the walking tour (with audio) of Edinburgh Castle. You could devote an entire day to the castle, and it provided great background on Scottish history and culture, canon and jewels, ramparts and dungeons.
The biggest canon around centuries ago, used stone canonballs

One of the more interesting places in the castle is the prison where prisoners of war were kept after being captured in sea battles: during the American Revolution. Those were our guys.
William Wallace, the real hero, before he was drawn and quartered

During the summer festivals the castle also has daily military tattoos, including bagpipe bands, but we missed that.
We walked back down the hill to the parliament building and the Holyrood House, the queen's home in Edinburgh, popping in and out of shops along the way.
The nicest surprise of the visit was the small free museum operated by the city council. It is called "The People's Story" and depicts life in Scotland for the working people, unlike castles which are always about the rich and the wars fought over territory. The displays showed the jobs people had, how they lived and worked, and the history of the struggles of the working class in Great Britain.

Our last full day the weather was cold and windy, and we opted to spend our time inside the National Museum of Scotland, another stunning example of great museums in the world. It is every bit as well-done as the Smithsonian museums in Washington, covered history from the dawn of settlement in Scotland to the present, and even offered hands-on learning/adventure sections for youngsters. Undoubtedly one of the best museums, and most interesting, I've ever been inside. And it did not romanticize the clans and their battles, but put them in perspective of Scottish history, including the struggles with England.
We ended our visit at the high-end and highly-rated restaurant upstairs in the museum. Maybe it was the end of a long trip, but it seemed overpriced and over-rated, high on pretensions and low on actual food quality. I suspect everyone there, except us, was on expense account, or they would not be having $75 lunches.
A word about the people: everywhere we went in Edinburgh people on the streets and buses were eager to help us. If we had a map out, someone stopped and offered help, and a friendly chat. When we were confused about where to get off the bus, a young couple with kids took us in hand and showed us the way.
A very hospitable city.
Our final day required an extremely early trip to the airport. Our B&B host at Priestville arranged for a cab to pick us up at 4 a.m., double-checked on the plan the night before, and made sure we had something to eat set aside the morning we left.

As we drove to the airport at 4 a.m. it was interesting to note that crowds of young adults were still on the streets, just heading home from a night of club-hopping. Obviously, there was a side of Edinburgh we did not have time to see.
All in all, a great city, well-represented by courteous and helpful people.
This is one of many tourist buses you can hop on and off anytime. We chose to ride the city buses, just as charming but warmer

Hearst "Castle," or, where the money went

The five mile driveway from Hearst's harbor to his "house,"with the private airport still owned by the family.

San Simeon, CA - One of the more extraordinary state parks in the U.S., if not the world, has to be Hearst Castle, the palace that William Randolph Hearst built for himself on the family ranch he inherited from his mother.
Technically, it is a State Historical Monument, but it comes under the park system and is run like one.

If your idea of a state park is a campground, metal boxes to protect your food from animals, and lots of trees and hiking trails, forget about it. This place is about how the ultra rich spend their money trying to make a beautiful place even more so. You can decide if Hearst made it better, or somewhat tacky.
After almost 30 years of living in California, Pat and I made it a priority this year to visit this beautiful and unusual castle Hearst built in the latter decades of his life. It was, our tour guide said of Hearst building this place, his hobby. It kept him busy, and entertained him in his old age.The main "house" was far to large to get into a picture without an airplane.

It is the location, and the spectacular views, more than the castle, that really impressed us.
Hearst's father made a massive fortune in the silver mines of Nevada in the 1800s and bought thousands of acres of land, including huge ranches here. At one time they stretched for 50 miles along the California coast, they camped here for vacations, and the Hearst family still owns most of the ranch and coast lands surrounding the castle and environs.
Hearst the newspaper mogul, know as "W.R." to friends and "Chief" to his employees, was born into a enormously wealthy family led by a successful but usually absent father and a doting mother. His education was spotty, but polished by numerous "grand tours" of Europe where he caught the collecting bug and acquired a taste for rich decorations.
Hearst's father gave him the San Francisco Examiner which he had accepted for a gambling debt, and hoped it would keep the son out of trouble. It didn't, but young Hearst built the largest newspaper and magazine empire in America with that beginning, and made an even bigger fortune.The main living room, this shows about one-third of it, is where the family children played touch football on rainy days.

What this park is really about, for me anyway, is a era in American history when massive fortunes were made by a very few people, and they had to decide what to do with the money when they got older. After buying a seat in Congress, but failing to buy the governorship or presidency, Hearst built himself a castle. He filled it with celebrities who came when he called, and entertained himself by building, tearing down, rebuilding, and acquiring more stuff.The dining room served the rich, famous and politicians

The tour guide was full of detailed information about Hearst and the place, and did a great job. I came away thinking he admired Hearst, despite his arrogance and questionable business and political tactics.
Biographers have been less kind, but then tour guides are not expected to harp on the sorted details when the family still lives close by. Hearst was not a good husband in the traditional sense. He provided his wife, a dancer he met when she was a teenager, with a rich and famous lifestyle but lived most of his years publicly with his mistress, a movie star barely mentioned during the tour.The outdoor pool, decorated with some imported art and some reproductions.

One of several guest houses.

The indoor pool, with touches of gold leaf, was too scary for some guests so the employees used it.
If you are wondering what I think of all this, here it is:
-- It is a great state park, well run and kept, and shows part of American history we should know and understand;
-- Hearst was arrogant, spoiled, egotistical part looney and part genius. He was not a great journalist, but he knew how to make money;
-- The castle sits on some of the most beautiful land in the United States, and is surrounded by thousands of acres even more spectacular still in family hands. It is preserved as a cattle ranch and will not be developed, which is a good thing even though I suspect the corporation got a tax break for doing that;
-- The park staff does a wonderful job, and every Californian should visit this place.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the current owners of all that land -- the Hearst Ranch -- would donate it all to the state or the U.S. for a park so the public could actually explore California as it once was-- open and wild and spectacular. The current situation is pretty good, but the land remains a ranch raising cattle, with lots of signs telling the public to stay away.
Most of the coast of California is in the hands of corporations or a few rich families. The public sees it from the road or through narrow windows called "beach access," and some of the agreement calls for more access, which is good, but it could be so much better.
It would be one of the best parks in the state, do honor to the family, and in a small way pay back all those workers who toiled for generations for the Hearst Corporation and created all that wealth.
Maybe now is a good time for the next step.


There's lots more available at:
A New York Times story about the land status in 2003:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9807E2D8103AF930A35754C0A9659C8B63
The current Hearst organization:
www.hearstranchconservation.org/
The state park:
www.hearstcastle.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst

Beach Time

Tenacatita's bay beach along the north shore of Tenacatita Bay draw people year round for food, swimming, and family fun.

Tenacatita, Jalisco, Mexico -- The current population of this village adds up to no more than a few hundred people at most, probably less. The majority of residents are Mexican, with a few people from the U.S. and Canada who found this out-of-the-way place over years and keep coming back every winter. Most of those stay in the one small hotel, or in their own RV or trailer near the beaches. One man we met has been coming here for twenty years.
There are no subdivisions, and no downtown. The village -- if it deserves that title -- straddles a point of rocky land on the north end of Tenacatita Bay, with spectacular sandy beaches on each side.

To the south of the point, sweeping inland to the east, are the bay beaches lined with a dozen or so restaurants. One hotel, two stories tall with a swimming pool, sits back from the beach a block surrounded by palmetto scrub, palm trees and the edge of the mangrove swamp and lagoon. For about $25 you can take a "jungle ride" along backside of the beaches through the mangrove. It's a popular deal for birdwatchers and those looking for crocodiles.
The restaurants are the type found all along the Pacific Coast in smaller towns: a large shaded area covered by palm fronds supported on posts; umbrellas and chairs down to the edge of the water; a utilitarian half-building made of concrete that houses a kitchen, bathrooms and maybe a shower stall or two. Most of the restaurants are illegal, in the U.S. sense, in that the owners do not own the land. They just use it till someone comes along and complains. That's an accepted practice here, and some of these places have been here for years.
In Mexico, possession may actually be nine points of the law.


Where Tenacatita Bay meets the Pacific Ocean

The point where bay and ocean meet rises into the air in a series of short steep hills, decorated with giants rocks where ocean and bay meet, left behind by some long-forgotten volcano and eroded into sharp and beautiful shapes. The swells from the Northwest crash against the ocean side, rocks and beach, sending giant spumes of water and mist into the air. It's easy to get wet standing 50 yards in from the water's edge when the surf is high. It almost always is.
To the north is one of the last great unpopulated beaches in Mexico, sweeping in a long curve, an old plantation of coconut palms marching in a line behind the dunes.
As of last week there are two small houses on the beachside in the first several miles , and those are occupied for less than half the year. Maybe two or three more old places are abandoned and falling down.


Pat taking a siesta at Mario's place, the only new building on the ocean beach.

When we walked on the beach on a Sunday afternoon we did not encounter another walker, though two teenagers on their four-wheelers did ride by on they way into "town."

What we did see as we stepped onto the beach for a walk was a massive whale, coming completely out of the water, turning on its side, and crashing into the sea. he was about a half-mile offshore, and while we could see his spout and some foam on the water, he never did repeat his showy entrance. I was too excited to take pictures.

The beach was noisy thanks to hundreds of seabirds feasting on schools of fish just beyond the crashing surf.

A sign of the future is barbed wire fencing. In one year, virtually every lot along this stretch of beach is marked off by barbed wire boundaries, and an occasional "se vende" or "for sale" sign stuck in the sand.

Bulldozers are carving roads out of the sand, knocking down trees from the old coconut plantation. Speculators are moving in, though so far no one has proposed a condo. There is a rumor, though, that a rich landowner plans to build several homes for millionaires on the rocky point which divides bay and ocean. Right now, battered and dusty campers and RVs are the primary and temporary residents. One Berkeley escapee has her vacation home for sale on the hill. No power. No water. No septic or sewer. But a great view.


North of Tenacatita Bay on the ocean, near Arroyo Seco, reachable only by dirt roads...

Cats and dogs and Cisco's Amigos

The operating room at work...


Post-Op volunteers at work....


La Manzanilla, Jalisco, Mexico -- Interesting things seem to happen to people who travel to this part of the world on vacation.

First, pretty much everyone falls in love with the natural beauty of the Pacific Coast of Mexico.

Second, tourists familiar with Florida, the Gulf Coast or the West Coast, are generally stunned at how inexpensive it can be to visit here.

Third, and most interesting to me as a former resident of other tourists' enclaves on U.S. coasts, is that the kind of people attracted to LaManzanilla, Tenacatitia, Barra De Navidad and similar towns, almost always get involved in the local community. I'd like to think it is the good old American can-do spirit at work, and it probably is so long as we remind ourselves that Canadians and Mexicans are Americans too.
I don't recall seeing this sort of effort in Florida, though I am sure it must happen.

This past week, for the fifth year in a row, the expatriates who live or visit The Costa Alegre in Mexico conducted an animal spay/neuter clinic for the local region's pets and strays. Working cooperatively with veterinarians from all over Mexico, they have been rounding up stray beach dogs, feral cats that prowl the garbage cans at night, and any other pet that any person would like to bring in. The event is called Cisco's Amigos, and a report on the effort this year can be found at:

http://members5.boardhost.com/lamanzanilla/msg/1205378962.html


Michael's "pet" cat, a wary target


Even disguising this trap loaded with stinky fish did not work...

For some of the animals, it may not be fun to wake up with stitches in your tummy, or other parts, but they also get kind and gentle treatment and chance at a longer life, thanks to the scores of volunteers working to keep the population of animals under control.
Beach dogs are so common here they are even considered a breed, adapted to the local environment. Generally they are medium in size, lean and short-haired. They are rarely threatening, as they seem to survive by being moderately friendly and kissing up to patrons of seaside restaraunts.
A friend who has been building a small beach house in an isolated are has had three to keep him company. They hang around, bark at strangers that approach his property, and make the place look occupied when he is away. They are not his dogs, generally living off garbage they find at night, though he feeds them sometimes. They are beach dogs, similar in appearance to hundreds you can see in the villages and beaches nearby. A friendly beach dog will allow a human to pet him or her. After all, they are dogs.

Mario and one of his beach dogs.....

Feral cats are different. Almost all are small, cute and very wary of getting too close. The cats that adopted our hosts here come to the door every morning and night, and meow for food and a little attention. But you don't pet these cats unless you want to see one leap a fence, or nip your fingers. But the image of a feral animal as vicious does not apply. These are still cute kitty cats.
In the neighborhoods you can see them by the score early in the evenings, as they start making their rounds, doing whatever it is cats do.

Sleeping it off after surgery....

The event was a great success, thanks to volunteers like Pat, but there are still a lot of cats and dogs out there if you would like to help out next year.


My favorite volunteer, taking a break...

Mexico Hoy es muy bueno

La Manzanilla, Jalisco, Mexico -- Well, we are on the beach of Tenacatita Bay, a few thousand miles south of our snowed-in home.
And, no, we don't miss the cold and snow one bit.
The high temperature has been around 80 F most days, sometimes not getting out of the mid 70s. The low, on the other hand, has not dropped below 65 so far as I can tell. Really, I don't care. It's warm here. Cold there.

Our normal daily routine has been to let our hosts Michael and Sylvia get up first, and stir around. When they go for their morning walk Pat and I crawl into the kitchen for Yogurt and Cheerios. Then after Sylvia takes off for work (yes, someone we know still works, but that's another story) we might take a walk of our own, usually finding a restaurant with good coffee and an outside table in a sunny spot near the Jardin or Plaza. The town wakes up as slowly as we do, with most businesses, except those that sell breakfast or building materials, cranking up slowly sometime before noon. Of course everyone stays up late every night -- kids included -- so the town is really hopping around 9 p.m. The most popular restaurant in town (Chop Chop, but that's not the real name) is a place with plastic tables on the edge of the street. Full dinner and beer for about $4 US, only if you eat a lot. It gets really busy around 9, and can go on into the evening.
Tonight we went down to watch the sun set, which it does just for us, every day, and went to a Gringo hangout called Palapa Joe's, run by Willie, a Bay Area computer guy and blues guitarist who discovered several years ago that being a restaurant/bar owner in Mexico was a lot more fun.
But back to the beach.
The beach is best in the early mornings, but it is pretty darned good almost anytime. In the morning, after my coffee sinks in, we walk on the beach from the area where the commercial fishermen beach their pangas and mend their nets, through the three-block long tourist-oriented beach area, past the lagoon where the large crocodiles live, and on up the beach to the area where houses are rare and widely-scattered Canadian RVs are the dominant dwelling. Local people still ride horseback on the beach for fun, but Canadian four-wheelers now outnumber the four-legged transports.
Some days this place looks a bit like a southern outpost of Ontario. Canadians outnumber U.S. and other tourists by a significant amount. They are appreciated by the local folk even though the U.S. tourists make jokes about their frugal ways.
But then, you never hear anyone telling "Ugly Canadian" stories about bad behavior and rude jingoistic language. Most people try to be good guests, but a few were jerks before they left the U.S. and remain so when they travel. Fortunately, the Mexican people are extremely tolerant of childish rudeness and adult stupidity, and usually let it pass.
The sounds of this village start early, with roosters and birds putting in early calls. Almost as early is the propane truck with its blaring horn and PA system blasting out "GLOBAL GAAASSS!" Then the competing water trucks come along: my favorite is known as "Tarzan water" because they use an amplified Tarzan Yell to let people know they are coming.
For a brief moment it reminded me of the calls of the street vendors in my early childhood on the Gulf Coast. In Mobile, like New Orleans, we still had street vendors in mule-drawn wagons into the 1940s in our neighborhood. Progress and the end of a World War killed off the cart produce business, but it was an echo from the past.
The other sound that dominates the air here is that of construction. Even though things are reported to be slowing down now, the sounds of concrete mixing and chisels chipping are common. We wake every day to the chip chip chip of chisels. Seems that here they always pour solid concrete walls and ceilings first, then decide where to put the electric wires and chisel away a place to put the wire. After the wire is in place, more concrete seals the deal.
Whatever works. And, here chipping is cheaper than conduit.
This is a really fine place for vacation if you want warm air, a nice beach, lovely people, good food, and an interesting culture. If you need a resort to cater to your every need, those are here too, but why bother. You can go to Carmel and be pampered, and save the air fare.
The picture above was taken by Admiral Fox, formerly Professor Fox and currently Consultant Fox, showing the commercial area of the beach. I had to steal a picture from her computer because I left my Nikon cable in California and can't unload any of the hundreds of award-winning travel photos stuck in my camera. That means you'll get lots of pictures when we get home.
For more of the area, check out the blogs Captain's Blog and the Admiral's Blog, linked above to the right.
Adios, amigos.