Karen and I slipped away to Yosemite for a brief vacation. In the old days, I used to shlep an SLR and half a dozen lenses. Now I just use my iPhone. The truth is the best camera is the one you use and my iPhone, for better or worse, is always there like an extra limb.
When we were first married in 1977, Karen and I used to go camping and indulge in some hair-raising rock climbing. But now our idea of roughing it is staying in the Ahwahnee, a luxury hotel in the heart of Yosemite Valley.
Karen and I could not believe how smoothly the hotel was run. Afterall, Yosemite is a National Park. Is it possible, we asked ourselves, that the federal government is capable of running an efficient and profitable business? Were our Conservative ideals about to be shattered?
Of course not.
Karen did some googling and discovered that the Ahwahnee and all the finely run Yosemite concessions are outsourced to Deleware North Companies, a private corporation.
Which, I suppose, is a great big duh.
On the drive up to Yosemite we pulled into a rest stop where this politically incorrect Indian statue stood at the entrance to a souvenir shop.
Here’s a view of the Ahwahnee’s inner courtyard. I’d get up at 5 in the morning, sit at one of the tables, and sip coffee while writing. After determining that there was little chance of a pogrom, I put on my yarmulke. One morning a young couple approached and said: “We are Christian and we want you to know that we support Israel and the true Jewish people.” I kind of stumbled, embarrassed but deeply touched. I thanked them for their kindness. “G-d bless,” they said. I thought to myself: Only in America.
Okay, you can’t go to Yosemite and not take more than a few landscape shots. But after Ansel Adams why bother? Thus, Karen’s sculptural hat in the foreground of El Cap.
On the Sentinel Dome trail, previous hikers built elegant little monuments that play with weight and gravity. In Biblical times they were cult altars. Now they are viewed as art.
This is a sign that’s posted in the lobby of the Ahwahnee. Karen and I looked at it and smiled.
What can I tell you? I really like Karen’s hat. The mountains are, y’know, okay.
Driving home we pulled into a gas station where I came across a rusting truck. I confess my eye is more quickly drawn to this than to nature shots.
Karen and I wish all our friends and relatives a lovely and inspirational Shabbat.
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
13 Comments
I really dig that Chevrolet emblem! Like you, Robert, I’m more likely to shoot a pic of that than a vista. Photographs rarely do justice.
Yosemite is on the itinerary for my US roadtrip. And I’ll be asking travel tips from Bill.
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Earl:
I love shooting old, rusted things. Flowers, trees and mountains bore me to tears.
Bill is our go-to guy for true Americana!
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Robert – Earl – I plan and lead these ‘First Sunday Drives” for my car club – if you want some more ideas just Google “First Sunday Drives” with my name – I send email members a Google map of the drive – be glad to send you any you want.
If you are ever traveling north from Yosemite Robert – a far better route – and quicker – is catching Sonora – an old gold rush town – and go up 49 – we always go down there to see the Sierra Repertory Theater – they always have first rate plays – audition actors from all over CA – and the townspeople put them up
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Indeed, G-d bless America, whose kindness to the Jewish people has been unparalleled throughout our long exile. With vistas like these and in countless other national parks, it truly is a blessed land.
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As a kid in the sixties we went to the Grand Canyon and everything was run by Fred Harvey. I didn’t know who this Fred Harvey guy was but he did a great job running things. Even down at the bottom of the canyon you could get things you needed.
Mitt Romney is 100% right. It is good to be able to fire people that aren’t doing an acceptable job for you.
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When I was 15 we spent 11 days in the high country above Washburn Lake trying to make it over Red Pea Pass. Fot four days we were above the tree line and never saw anyone else. We never made it across the pass because we lost the trail in the snow (in July) and had to go back down to the JM Trail.
We never saw any bears up there but did meet a couple of teenagers who had witnessed someone as they went over Nevada or Vernal Falls, I don’t remember which. Never understood what people were thinking as they swam or waded in the river above those falls.
And back then they had the firefall off Glacier Point. Can’t do that now thanks to the environmentalists.
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DN is a homegrown company; several people I know work for them.
From the Delaware North website:
“A Rich History of Providing Hospitality for Nearly a Century
In 1915, brothers Marvin, Charles and Louis Jacobs took the first step toward realizing the American dream of their immigrant parents by establishing a modest popcorn and peanuts vending business in Buffalo, N.Y.”
Yes, that’s Buffalo, the City of Good Neighbors.
Looks like you had a good time, beautiful pics!
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Dr. Carol:
Indeed, the Jacobs family were poor, immigrant Jews who came to the Goldena Medinah, The Golden Land, and worked hard to achieve the American dream. Their company does a fantastic job in Yosemite and Niagra Falls and in countless other businesses.
But of course they didn’t do it.
Obama did.
Or maybe Barack Sr. really should take credit.
We had a fantastic time!
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Beautiful sun hat! Karen is obviously a very private person, but one can’t help being curious to see a contemporary face shot. Mind you,there’s something to be said for the Garbo-esque mystique.
A luxury hotel in a natural setting is my kind of vacation, glad you had a good time.
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Franny:
The hat is a beauty and so is Karen. As for her Garbo mystique, well, even when I was 9 years old it was working its magic—and it has never ceased.
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Sounds like you had a great time Robert! I haven’t been to the Ahwahnee in years. At least traditionally, booking there for New Years involves a waiting list of some years. Do they still have the old bobsled in the front?
Last time I was in Yosemite I stayed at the Evergreen Lodge – a good 10 years ago. It is a rustic place, built in the 1920s.
http://www.evergreenlodge.com/
It’s really the “other Yosemite” – right outside the park gate you can walk around Hetch Hetchie reservoir. That is the reservoir that keeps all those ecologically-minded San Franciscans in water.
I read somewhere that to shoot Half Dome, Adams waited 12 (or 24) hours just for the right light.
Down the road in Groveland try to visit the Iron Door Saloon some time. Takes you back 150 years.
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Bill:
Bobsled?
You mean like in Citizen Kane?
Nope, did not see it.
We had a wonderful time and plan on returning. We’ll check out the Evergreen, as you suggested.
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Robert – one thing I do remember is that it was accessible only by a dirt road – for 3-5 miles? I think it is closed in the winter although a lot can change in 10 years. But with the cabins and lack of crowds you will see Yosemite completely different!
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[...] Secret spent time in Yosemite and not long afterwards, Offspring #2 and family arrived in Los Angeles for a two-week vacation. [...]
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