Category Archives: Around home

Driving Up & Down 395 Looking For Fall Color and Thinking About Elon Musk

Americana, Around home, California, Photography, Sierras

Generally, if draining is worth doing at all, it is worth overdoing...civil engineer George E. Waring Jr., speaking for the drainage design of New York’s Central Park, in 1867.

Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. My favorite homily, although Lazarus Long in Robert A. Heinlein’s Enough Time For Love (1973) apparently also said it.

Last week, we drove to Olympic Valley – formerly known as Squaw Valley – to spend some time with Rick Paine and Lynnaea Lumbard, who were passing by on their way to a family meeting. In a way, we were passing by, too, on our way to find some fall color in Bishop Creek Canyon, west of Bishop, California. We were in our electric Kona, which, while not exactly a problem, does take some planning to drive around rural California (exactly is the operative word here).

Our first stop was a Tesla charger near Roseville that’s almost next door to a Japanese restaurant. I thought about Elon Musk for the first time. Well, NOT the first time ever, but the first time on this trip. We had a Japanese meal while we topped up on electrons just before we started the uphill grind to Donner Pass at 7,056 feet. It worked perfectly.

We had a delightful but all-too-short 24 hours with Rick and Lynneae, and then they were on their way. We had charged the Kona overnight, so soon after, we drove around Lake Tahoe, on the west side, past Emerald Bay, through the border city strangely named South Lake Tahoe, over Kingsberry Grade, and finally dropped 3,000 feet into a different world on Highway 395 in Nevada.

We drove down the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada –Snowy Mountain Range in Spanish – crossing the border back into California at Topaz Lake as the shadows cast by the Sierras turned into twilight.

I want to make an aside here. The above photo was made by Michele, as was the photo above it and the photo above that. On the driving-to-get-somewhere part of the trip, at least, the great majority of the photos were taken by Michele while I drove. End aside.

While we had a very late lunch at the Whoe Nelli Delli, we topped up the Kona at a Rivian charging station, and I thought about Elon Musk again. Not that I like Elon Musk; he seems very juvenile and insensitive at best. And I want to add, I really don’t know much about Musk except for the chainsaw stunt or whatever it was – political speech? demonstration? childish asshole stunt? or just plain whatever? – in the White House with President Trump. Oh, and that he has a lot of kids, 14, I think – by four different birth mothers. He seems more childish and wacky than interesting, but he is worth a trillion dollars. A TRILLION DOLLARS, so he must be doing something right (assuming he does want to make lots of money).

A trillion dollars is an unfathomable amount of money, though, in the middle of the 19th century, the entire Rothschild family – in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna, and Naples – were probably richer in total. Still, Musk is richer than any single person: ever. Sure, Elon Musk is exceedingly smart – he taught himself computer programming at an early age and sold the code for a basic video game, Blastar, when he was just twelve years old – and has often been at the right place at the right time, but I think his not-so-secret ingredient for financial success is that he is fully committed to whatever he is involved in.

Musk is a “put all your eggs in one basket” kind of guy; I’d even say, an “anything worth doing is worth overdoing” kind of guy. His 14 kids are an excellent example, so is Tesla. Every automaker makes electric cars, but most do it sort of begrudgingly. Tesla not only makes electric cars, but Tesla also makes high-speed chargers to make electric cars more convenient, and now they are starting to build diners nearby so people can eat or grab a cup of coffee while their car charges. They are committed. I’m pretty sure we could not drive across the country without using Tesla chargers.

We had a late lunch at the Whoe Nelli Deli, owned by the same kind of “anything worth doing is worth overdoing” kind of guys. The Whoe Nelli Deli is located in a Mobil gas station on Tioga Pass Road just off Highway 395 and just outside the small town of Lee Vining. To quote the New York Times, our editors were relieved to find the Whoa Nellie Deli, a shockingly gourmet oasis located at the local Tioga Gas Mart, and The Los Angeles Times described chef Matt Toomey as a manic figure in a white chef’s jacket and a baseball cap whose charisma and sense of humor are reflected in his cooking….To have one of the better meals of your life in a gas station is bizarre. It leaves you staring at your plate for a moment or two in disbelief. I know that feeling; I just had it at our lunch. I ordered the steak salad – again, because it’s so good – and just stared at the plate, thinking this is the most perfectly cooked steak I’ve ever had except, maybe, two or three restaurants in Japan and one in Paris.

After lunch, we drove to Bishop in the dark, had a late dinner, went to sleep early, and woke up to a view of a small portion of the Sierra Nevada’s eastern wall.

After an early cup of coffee and egg-thingy at Starbucks, we drove up Bishop Creek Canyon to see the fall color. Bishop Creek Canyon starts west of Bishop at about 4,150 feet and climbs up an additional 5,000 feet. Near the top are three lakes, North, South, and Sabrina, all with lots of Aspens in color. We hope.

The last time I was here was in October of 2018, and I was the only person at North Lake except for a Chinese women’s photography class. This year, eight years later, North Lake we had to follow a honey wagon on its way to servicing the new portable outhouses.

Years ago, probably about 15 years ago, I remember meeting Michele and Karen Amy for lunch in Nashua, New Hampshire. We walked around, stunned by the fall colors, especially in the lovely – can I use that word? – old cemetery where the bright yellow leaves were almost ankle-deep. The Eastern Sierras are not like that. The Eastern Sierras are less color and more mountains. (So, be forewarned, Karen.)

I think North Lake is the most photogenic lake in the entire Sierra Nevada that anybody can drive to in a regular car. In this case, there were too many regular cars already parked along the narrow dirt road for us to find a place to park close to the lake. The lake was packed, but from what we could see, as beautiful as it was in 2018.

I blame the internet for the crowds; I blame YouTube specifically; and I have very mixed emotions about it. Michele and I have pitched the Eastern Sierras for years with very few converts. I think YouTube, with dozens of people, often with kids, pitching the magic of the Eastern Sierras in fall, probably has a low conversion rate as well, but they have an almost infinite audience. More than 15 million people within easy driving range. It is the democratization of information in a way we have never experienced before.

Out of all these people, some, probably not very many, maybe a lot, I have no idea, will have their soul touched like I did in 1956. They will look at North Lake, even in a crowd, and their life will change. That’s great, but last week, they were just blocking the road. I have very mixed emotions.

North Lake in 2018.

After crowded North Lake, Lake Sabrina, South Lake, and the surrounding area seemed pretty empty, the kind of empty where you stop and chat when you meet someone. Most of the people we chatted with were locals, and most of them were interesting and charming, and most of them probably voted for Trump. But we didn’t talk politics; we talked about how stunning the whole area is, and even more so in fall colors.

A Couple Of Gratuitous Photos Of A Blooming Mammalaria

Around home, Cactus & Succulents
Mammillaria candida
Ditto

The plant above is a Mammillaria candida, but the tag on it says Mammillovdia candida. A while back, I wrote that Carl Linnaeus named the Mammillaria candida, and used it to support my theory that Linnaeus was inordinately obsessed with nipples and named these cacti Mammillaria because they have nipples that the spines grow out of. It turns out I jumped to a wrong conclusion: one of Linnaeus’s students, Belgian botanist Michaël Scheidweiler named these cacti Mammillaria in 1838.

In 1951, Austrian botanist Franz Buxbaum renamed the plant Mammilloydia candida because the seed covering is slightly different from other Mammillarias. But most people, most botanists – who care – most people in the cactus world, have said something like Awww, come on, this plant is a Mammillaria; you’re just splitting hairs.

When I was in the San Jose Cactus and Succulent Society, I learned there are Lumpers and Splitters, and I am a Lumper, and the plant above is a Mammillaria despite what the tag says.

Our Agave Is Blooming

Around home, Cactus & Succulents, Current Affairs

Asparagaceae Agavoideae Agave americana, the full name of our main backyard Agave (also known as a Century Plant).

I have no idea why we have a huge agave in our backyard, except that – I’m guessing – we thought the plant would not grow very big. But it just kept growing until it dominated our yard. I want to say garden here, but as a friend replied when Michele complained about how difficult it is to maintain “her” garden with the quail and rabbits eating all the sprouts, “You don’t have a garden, you have a habitat”.

Whatever the backyard is, the agave dominates it, and we’ve grown to like its sculptural quality. Then, at the end of last year, it started growing a huge, asparagus-like stalk. In the hot spell we had in early March, it seemed to be growing a couple of inches a day. Then, in late May, it started branching out. Last week, it started blooming, and we are thrilled.

Well Shit! I Didn’t Expect That

Around home, Medical

I thought about the possibility of death, but that wasn’t what bothered me the most. It was the feeling of helplessness. I just couldn’t see myself lying in bed, not being able to help myself. That, to me, was worse than the fear of death. John Wayne after beating “The big C”.

I found out at the end of last week that I have cancer of the bladder. More accurately, I most likely have cancer. The conversation went something like this: Dr. Sean Berquist, “You have a tumor in your bladder, and it might be cancerous. Well, it most likely is cancer. Actually, for a person of your age with a history of smoking, I’ve never seen it not be cancer.” Steve, “Is there a chance it could be benign?” Dr. Sean Berquist, “If you were eight years old, I would say ‘Yes’, but not at your age.”

The good news, the great! news is that the tumor is pretty small and can most likely be removed by fishing a cystoscope up my dick into my bladder and, according to Dr. Berquist, “scooping out the tumor and treating the inside of the bladder with a chemotherapy solution”. It is a simple procedure and almost always successful. The operation is late next Wednesday afternoon.

I know I have had a lot of medical problems, but counterintuitively, between medical emergencies, I feel fine. As far as the bladder cancer goes, I’m very optimistic and pretty upbeat about this whole thing. Still, I feel like this post is too short and too blunt. On the other hand, I don’t want to pad it, so I’ll just leave it at that.