Monthly Archives: July 2014

Trying to ignore Israel and Gaza

July 22, 2014Current AffairsSteve Stern

I don’t want to read about Israel and Hamas. All it does is upset me ( maybe enrage is a better word). Almost everybody writing or commenting about this cluster fuck has already taken sides anyway – I know I have – and are now putting all their writing and commenting energy into making the other side wrong. This is much easier than trying to make their side right because nobody is really right here. There may be different degrees of wrongness but they are miniscule.

Meanwhile, Israel has killed over 575 Palestinians, over 100 of them children. Still, that isn’t the worst of it, it seems to me; how many mothers are huddled in the dark, worried shitless that their child will be next? how many fathers watch helplessly as their families are terrorised? how many children – not killed – are making vows of vengeance?

Eastern Oregon: A Sampler

July 21, 2014Americana, TravelSteve Stern

Driving into Oregon from Northwestern Nevada, we were still in the Great Basin, with flat playas in each little basin. After about an hour of driving and futzing around, we came to a T in the road where Highway 140 dead-ended at Highway 205. Logic would say that we only had two choices, turn right deeper into Nevada or turn left towards Oregon, but Michele pointed out that the Winnemucca Chamber of Commerce suggested a third choice. They suggested going straight – cross-country style, I guess – as a better choice. We opted for the road to Oregon (where we had a hamburger in Fields).

Driving through Oregon, both Michele and I kept remarking about how wet it was. True, the hills weren’t wet, but most of the valleys were bright green with intensive farms – ranches? – and even if they were being watered by mining the aquifer, it was wet to us.

We were running along the bottom of Steens Mountain and, on our right, we could see that subterrarium water, running down from the canyons, was watering the trees that were starting to colonize the valley.

I understand that it doesn’t look wet to most people, but it would if you had been driving through much drier Nevada for a couple of days. The green is so bright, so intoxicating, that it is easy to understand why most Arab countries have green in their flags. In the Muslims mythology, the color green represents nature and life. As we drive up this long straight road running alongside Steens Mountain, scratching our bug bites, we were sure they are right about the life part…bug life for sure.

Remember those brown rubber doorstops that are wedge-shaped? Now imagine that the wedge is huge, about 50 miles long from north to south – or the other way around if you are coming from the south, like us – and 9,733 feet high. Except that it is not really a wedge, it is a huge block of the earth’s crust that has tilted and looks like a wedge on the surface. The high part of the wedge catches the weather and is eroding, washing down hill into the valley at the low, western, part of the block. This makes the low part heavier – and the high part lighter – further tilting the block. Now imagine that the block is made up of layers and layers of volcanic rock, basalts and lava flows, from about 17 to 14 million years ago. That is Steens Mountain.

What makes the whole thing unusual, is that Steens is a block with only one mountain. As an aside, Steens Mountain is named after Army Major Enoch Steen because he liberated the mountain from the part of the Paiute Indian tribe which, heretofore, considered it their their home. End aside.

We drove up the wedge from the west and, as we got higher, it got wetter and greener. We passed the delightfully named Donner und Blitzen River and climbed into the trees where we camped.

It had been getting clouding and, the higher we climbed on the mountain, the chances of getting rained on increased. We found an isolated spot in an almost deserted campground and we were set up in time to have a sunset dinner – of fresh salad, raw veggies with Sage and Mushroom Olive Oil, and a barbecued, grass-fed, steak – over looking a dry meadow.

At about three in the morning, it started to rain lightly and we got up, ran around camp checking everything, and threw our bag into the car, just in time to have it stop. Michele and I looked at each other, shrugged, pulled the bag out, and went back to sleep. The next morning, Michele slept in, which I only mention because, when she was going through my pictures from the last couple of days, she remarked Why didn’t you take any pictures of me sleeping in, in a sort of Don’t you love me anymore voice.

Then we started up Steens Mountain, driving slowly with the windows down; enjoying the warm air scented with sage and wildflowers.

^{Photograph by Michele}

When we got high enough to look into the first canyon, it was a revelation for me. From the valley, these canyon looked just like any other Southwest Canyon, but from on the mountain, I realized they were carved by glaciers.

As we got higher, we could see all the way to the edge of the world and we also saw one large rain cloud. It was raining but, because it was so dry, the rain wasn’t hitting the ground.

The top of Steens Mountain was surprisingly flat; tilted but flat. Then, at the tippy top, the edge just dropped away, plunging down into the Alvord Desert, almost a mile below. It was about this time, after we had been out of cell phone range for a couple of days, that Michele’s phone told her that she had a new message, Courtney Gonzales wanted to know if we wanted to join her and Gina to see an Opera that night. Ahhh…the wonder of technology.

As we left Steens Mountain, she – he? – gave us one more gift: a snow field with a couple of guys filling their ice chests, who replenished our ice.

As we dropped off of Steens, the landscape went from green to sage to dry-grass and back to green as we got to Frenchglen.

We were not only in Eastern Oregon, but we were also in the Southern part of the state and had a wedding to go to in Northwestern Oregon, so we made a long haul northwest. The most prominent feature of the landscape, as we drove through long valleys, were the lava flows that formed a capstone over the softer, earlier, ground. The flows must have cooled slowly because they formed columnar formations that were striking.

By the time we got to Burns – population 2,806 – we felt we were back in the Big City. We weren’t, of course, and we had miles to travel and one more major stop, The John Day Fossil Beds National Monument .

There are three separate parts to the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument and we only went to one, The Painted Hills section where we watched the sunset. From there it was west and a little south, in the fading light, to Prineville where the complaint of the day was that Google had used Union Labor to build their new server farm (rather than local guys).

Going to Tuolumne Meadows for a walk, it should be spring

July 17, 2014Around home, PhotographySteve Stern

Finding our first Leftover

July 17, 2014Americana, Nevada, TravelSheldon Antelope RefugeSteve Stern

When we left Cedarville, heading East, we felt like we were going back into the West that we love so much. The green Surprise Valley was behind us and the Sheldon Range, home of the Sheldon Antelope Refuge, Where the antelope play, where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day was ahead of us. The Refuge is in a High Lava Plains ecoregion, ranging from 4,000 to 7,300 feet, cold in the winter and hot in the summer. It is dryer than neighboring areas that have more farming and is just as desolate as it must have been in 1931 when it was a nice Leftover place to turn into a Refuge.

Just before we started climbing into the mountains, Michele said Stop the car, look it’s Another Enigma of the Sheldon Range and then we saw another Another Enigma and we stopped again. When we got home, however, we were not so sure that we saw the real Another Enigma of the Sheldon Range (of course there might not even be a real Enigma).

^{Michele and Mike Moore with “Another Enigma of the Sheldon Range” (by Mike Moore)}

When we entered the actual Refuge, I was surprised that a Federal facility would have such an amateur sign. Maybe it was the result of a school contest or maybe the Feds were trying to save money because Congress voted for the Refuge in 1931 but stopped voting for any money to run it. Either way, it was a low-key operation and Antelopes are pretty strange-looking animals anyway.

Climbing up into the Range, we got great view back from where we came.

We did see some Antelopes – this is an Antelope Preserve after all – but we saw alot more wild horses.

As long as we were driving, both the Antelopes and the horses would ignore us, going about their daily business, but, when we stopped, the horses would move away. This is not surprising, the horses are the center of a controversy out here. Like wild burros, the horses are not native, being a mix of escaped Conquistador horses, Indian ponies, left over Cavalry horses, and probably stray ranch horses and, in the past, they have been rounded up and put in horse jails. Like any other invasive species, they have no natural predators and are eating the native species, like Antelope, out of house and home (they also compete with cattle, another invasive species brought in by invasive ranchers, for food). The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has cut back on rounding up the horses because they no longer have the money to store them – as you can imagine, killing horses draws protesters – and there are actually more wild horses in storage areas than on the range. I am ambivalent on this, it is exhilarating to round a corner and see a group of wild horses and, I know, they don’t belong here.

Mike had suggested a place to camp that was just off of the road we were on and he said that when we got to the Dufurrena Rim we will have gone too far. We all knew that we would recognize Dufurrena Rim because we have two of his paintings showing the Rim from the road and sure enough, as we started down a grade, there was our picture. It was kind of thrilling.

^{Dufurrena 4 by Mike Moore}

^{Dufurrena 10A by Mike Moore}

When we doubled back to Mike’s secret – secret in about 1976, that is – campsite we found that it is now an official campsite and even has outhouses and a camp Welcomer (just like Walmart). The campsite also has a hot spring that has been tamed and is now a pool (although it is a pool with a sandy bottom and fish). Our first thought was to look for a place camp that was more private but there were signs everywhere saying No camping except in campgrounds, so – being good citizens – we camped in the authorized campground. Our campsite was perfectly fine, private and quiet. It was also near water and had thousands of bugs. Michele and I are used to drycamping and the bugs were a big surprise (we had no bug repellent and our ever-increasing bug-bites became a major source of conversation for the next week).

We were rewarded however with an outstanding sunset including just the sliver of a moon which went down early giving us the best night sky I can remember seeing in years. In Death Valley, the light pollution from both Los Angeles and Los Vegas have washed out the night sky, sure, we can see the Milky Way in Death Valley, but here, it was more like looking into infinite space. The stars were bright enough to cast shadows.

While Michele slept in, I went over to the hot-spring for a look and to fill up our water jugs. The hot spring was packed but still looked very inviting and I hoped we would get a chance to use it. We were also visited by a flock of Yellow-headed Blackbirds – Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus, try saying that fast five times – which we encouraged by tossing out crumbs.

By the time we were ready to leave, surprisingly enough, the hot spring was empty giving us a chance to enjoy a short swim like it was our private pool (with little fish nibbling at us).

After the swim and after a shower – from the same water; somebody told us not use the shower water to fill our canteens because the shower water was from the pool although it looked to be the other way around – we started out for the Steen Mountains.

The Goats next door

July 16, 2014Around homeSteve Stern

While we were at a Woodside Highlands Improvement Association meeting/get together the other day, we were told that a Goat Family had moved in next door at The Hayfields. As an aside, when our area, Woodside Highlands, was incorporated into Portola Valley, Portola Valley didn’t want to maintain the roads which do not meet the usual standards. As a workaround, we maintain our own roads through an Improvement Association, and Portola Valley gives us an allowance for that purpose. It is local government at its best. End aside.

Anyway way, Michele and I went over to the Hayfields to meet our new neighbors thinking we might know some of their relatives.

Because they were all working so hard, it was difficult to get any of the Goat Family’s attention, but finally Ms. B. Goat came over and chatted.

She told us that they were not moving in and they were just here on some sort of agricultural H-2B Visa through the Woodside Fire Protection District. About that time El Jefe, a Mister B. G. Gruff, came over and suggested that everybody get back to work, so we left and everybody else went back to work.