Memories of Japan

His name is Yoshihisa Yamada. The Japanese characters that make up his name can either be pronounced Yoshihisa or Miku, so he suggested we call him Mickey or Mike and so Mike he was to us. He was a foreign exchange student who lived with me my senior year in high school back in the mid 70s. He spent almost 12 months living with my family and me. We welcomed him into our home and he learned about American culture while we learned about Japanese culture. 


His first night, he asked how to use a bed, as he had never slept in one before. Later in the summer, when we were having Tacos, he stated, quite enthusiastically that he loved Tako. He was rather disappointed when the Tako (Octopus) didn't show up on the table. He introduced us to Tako, and tempura and cooking with Sake. He became an honorary cheerleader at our high school that year, dressing in typical Japanese garb for each football game and basketball game that year. 


We introduced him to Disneyland, hamburgers and camping. That year, we camped twice at Yosemite National Park and he ran to the top of Nevada Fall along the Mist Trail. That trail is extremely slippery and tough just to hike, let alone run. On the second camping trip, he ran to the top of Yosemite Fall, just because he could. 


He and I both cried when he left the following summer in mid July, just after our country celebrated its bicentennial. We exchanged letters over the first couple of years, but then life seemed to get in the way and we lost touch. He called the morning my sister got married and we all talked with him. He'd lost a lot of his English in those last 6 years and it was difficult to understand him at times, but he still sounded like Mike. 


I have tried over the years to contact him, using all sorts of Internet search engines. His name is a rather common name in Japan and I haven't been able to reacquaint myself with him. 


His family is from Morioka, just north of Sendai where the earthquake hit this past weekend. Unfortunately, I have no idea if he still lived there or somewhere else. Needless to say, he's been on my mind a lot this past week. I hope and pray that he is safe and that his family is also safe. He would be 53 as of last December.

A tree grows in Brooklyn

Well, the tree doesn't really grow in Brooklyn, but actually grows on the top of Devils Postpile.  The first time I was at Devils Postpile, we climbed up to the top of the postpile.  It's like being on top of a large patio terrace in someone's back yard, with the major difference being if you take a wrong step, you're falling a long way.

10 years ago, I took all three kids camping in Yosemite National Park.  On one of our hikes, we hiked up to the top of Vernal Fall.  The hike is strenuous, with lots of stair steps rocks to negotiate.  There is a guardrail along that part of the trail, and once you get to the top, the guardrail had a screen wire grate along the bottom portion of the rail to prevent anyone from slipping out and falling over the waterfall.  The viewpoint is right on the edge of the waterfall as you can see by the picture.

The Tadpole, at the time was four years old and when we climbed to the top of the fall, he dutifully held my hand, mainly for safety, but also because he wanted to feel the support of Dad as he made his ascent.  It was at the top when all hell almost broke loose.  In every parent's worst nightmare, he broke free of my hand, just as we crested the trail and the viewpoint.  I hadn't seen the wire mesh grate, but even if I had, I probably would have freaked a little bit.  Because I didn't see the wire mesh, needless to say I freaked a lot.  Suffice to say, nothing happened that day and the Tadpole is still around, as am I.

One of the things I noticed about the Tadpole on this past trip was his willingness to just take over things that I normally did when we camped.  He decided to be in charge of the food storage box.  In California, most campgrounds in bear country are outfitted with metal storage lockers to prevent bears from raiding your supplies and also to keep bears away from populated areas.  Bears that feed on people food, as opposed to what they're supposed to be eating isn't good for either bears or people.  The Tadpole decided that the storage box was his territory on this trip.  He organized it, he got the supplies out when it was time to cook dinner, and he put the supplies away at the end of the meal.  It was nice to not have to do everything this time around.

I think I might have been more nervous on the top of Devils Postpile back then had we gone there.  There is no guardrail and not anything to remind people of a steep drop.  Everyone knows it's there.  I didn't even think twice about walking around up there nor did I worry about the Tadpole.  His maturity, at almost 15 now, is showing big time and he's turning into that responsible young man that we all hope our sons turn into when they reach that age.

One of the things that I wanted to show the Tadpole at the top was a small tree.  I'd photographed this tree back in 1977.  As you may have noticed if you're a regular reader, I enjoy seeing the struggles of like, especially when plants grow where you don't think they should grow.  The tree that used to grow on the top of Sentinel Dome is one good example.  When I took that photo, I figured this tree might be something along that line and I hoped that someday I might get back to see it.  As you can see, the tree hasn't grown much.  By comparing the two pictures, I think it's safe to say there's about a foot of growth on the tree.

I guess I was overly optimistic when we came back this summer.  I think I was expecting the tree to be several feet higher.  After all, it had 33 years in which to grow.  I forgot about where it was growing.  It had two major disadvantages going against it.  The first, and probably the most important was the fact that it was growing in very shallow soil.  There were a lot of nutrients at the top of the postpile and so it's growth would probably be microscopic.  Because it's so readily accessible during the summer months, I'm sure it gets beaten around by all the people that make the short trek to the top of the postpile as well.

Still, the tree had grown a little and that was promising.  It also showed, that it would be a long time before this little tree towered over anything else in the forest.  It has its foothold.  Now, hopefully, it will continue to send down roots and continue to thrive.  The Jeffrey pine tree on the top of Sentinel Dome is no more, but it lived a good long life and never got more than about 12 feet tall at best.  The living conditions up there were probably harsher.  I have hopes for this little tree.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
Mist Trail Cache - by V-man
Devils Postpile Glacial Polish - by TerryDad2

Back to school

Part of the anticipation of this trip was touring the campus of Humboldt State University in Arcata, CA. Back in the dark ages of the late 70s, early 80s, I attended Humboldt as an undergraduate, eventually earning a degree in Geography from the school. I spent the better part of 3 and a half years communing with the organic and groovy, enjoying the outdoors and pretty much getting rained upon during long stretches of the winter months.

Surprisingly, outside of a brief driving tour on some of the roads in 1987 with my young bride at my side, I hadn't been back to campus since 1981 when I graduated. That changed this past month when the Tadpole came on campus to find a cache and explore the campus.

The first thing we noted was a lot of construction going on. The alumni newsletter has been mentioning expansion of various facilities for several years now, but it's different when you're being remotely told about changes and actually seeing them. It appeared as if new dormitories were being added to the campus. When I attended, there were some apartments in the middle part of campus and then a series of three different style dorms on the north part of campus; Canyon, Cypress and the Hill which was composed of Redwood and Sunset dorms.

The Canyon dorms were built on the opposite side of a small ravine/canyon on the north edge of town. 8 red buildings, four stories high, each housing approximately 50 students per building loomed high on the north side of the canyon. It was there I chose to live during my tenure at the school, living in Chinquapin, Maple, Tan Oak and Alder. Opposite those dorms were the Cypress dorms that were built up the hillside on the south side of the ravine. Then on the flat hill behind Cypress, were Redwood and Sunset.

Now, there appears to be several other building for student housing plus the ones that were being built this summer. Many universities want to establish a "feeling of community" among students and many require that freshman live on campus. My daughter's school requires that freshman and sophomores live on campus. I have a feeling this is where this expansion is coming from.

But apart for the living arrangements expansion, there were also many new buildings to be found on campus. We ended up walking through the admissions building which was new. I couldn't begin to tell you where the old admission building was when I attended school there. But I made a comment to one woman behind the main counter about how much the school had changed and she said that it's mostly been in the last 10 years that most of the changes have occurred. We ended up realizing that we'd both attended the school at relatively the same time period. The big difference was she stayed up there and I came back down to Southern California mostly due to financial reasons.

As we wandered around campus, I started getting my bearings. There was the library and the open plaza in front of the library. The school has added a new sundial to this plaza, which I waymarked. To the south of the plaza was the theater arts building. This was another "must see" on our tour of the campus because of the moon trees planted next to this building. Late last year, I'd discovered that seeds of five different species of trees had been taken on Apollo 14 to the moon, then germinated back here on Earth. These seedlings had eventually been distributed all over the country. Three Coast Redwood seedlings had been donated to Humboldt State University and planted on the west side of the theater arts building.

Interestingly, there is no plaque commemorating that these trees are in fact Moon Trees. There is a website on NASA indicating that they are, plus a newspaper piece from fall 1999 on the school newspaper's website. Here these trees grow, in relative obscurity, with very few of the student body or faculty who know about their interesting history. I didn't know they were there until last year and they were probably freshly planted when I attended the school. I'm at a loss for words as to why the school hasn't placed some kind of commemorative plaque by them.

Eventually, we worked our way up to the east side of campus. And by up, I do mean up as the school is built on a hill, and so we literally were climbing up hill, up to Founders Hall, the oldest building on campus, built around 1913. I can remember sitting in a classroom in Founders Hall once, listening to Professor Bennion talking about some long forgotten aspect of geography when an earthquake rolled through the area. It was a relatively small quake, small enough that only about half the class felt it, the back half where I was sitting. We asked Professor Bennion to please stop while we investigated the Seismograph downstairs and verified that we had indeed had an earthquake.

The quake rolled through the classroom diagonally starting where I happened to be sitting. I can remember lifting my head up from my notes and then with curious amusement, watching the other students pop their heads up as they felt the motion of the quake. The back diagonal of the class felt the quake, so it was really interesting to see the dynamics of how the earthquake wave had been perceived, since Professor Bennion hadn't felt it in the front of the room, nor had other students sitting in front. I can remember thinking about sitting in a 60+ year old building that probably hadn't been retrofitted for earthquakes. Founders Hall is close to 100 years old now and I'm pretty sure it has been retrofitted.

After wandering around in the school bookstore and purchasing two HSU t-shirts to celebrate our own trip to the school, we finally turned our attention to geocaching and went and found the cache hidden on campus. It wasn't anything really special as far as caches go being a lamp post cache, but it brought back many fond memories of my life as an undergraduate there.

Later on, we wandered over to the dorms so I could show the Tadpole where I lived. In the picture, the back two are Maple and Tan Oak. To the right of Tan Oak, when I attended school was redwood forest with a logging road leading up into the hills. If you wanted to get away from it all for a little bit, all you had to was leave the dorm and start walking up that gravel road. It was you and the wilderness within five minutes. Now, the paved road goes farther back and there's another dormitory complex back there. Time marches on.

I also showed the Tadpole where we used to eat most of our food at the Jolly Giant Commons. The thought that was pretty funny. I actually thought it was pretty funny where I was going to school there, but apparently they still haven't changed the name of the place because I noticed some reference to JGC while walking through the building. The mailboxes are still the same and haven't been moved. In fact about the only change to this complex was to make it ADA compliant by adding an elevator for handicapped students. With the complex being in the middle of the canyon, students had to climb four sets of stairs to get up to the Redwood/Sunset hill where the main body of campus was.

The Tadpole indicated that he might want to come back here and visit again, perhaps in his junior or senior year in preparation for deciding where he wanted to go to college. But that could change as he's only a freshman in high school at the moment. Still it would be fun to go back to school on a fairly regular basis, as opposed to once every 28 years or so.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches or waymarks:
Cache in a bottle - by hunter1440
Humboldt State University Sundial - by Webfoot
Humboldt State University Moon Trees - by Webfoot

Reminiscing

When the Tadpole and I went out last Sunday, we deliberately stopped at 2501 cache finds for me. Everyone has numbers in their lives that have some significance to them. This is one of the ones that I'll remember for my entire lifetime. 2501 S. Linda Way, the blue mark on the satellite image is the house in which I grew up in Santa Ana, CA. I lived there from age 3 (1961) until I moved out several times during and after college, and finally moved out for good in the fall of 1983 just after I got my first teaching job in Buena Park. My parents moved to Riverside, CA about 10 years ago, moving to be closer to all three of their children.

The cul-de-sac to the southwest of our house was where the neighborhood kids played baseball. You can see the manhole cover we used for home plate. Joe's house, at the entrance to the cul-de-sac on the south side was out of bounds and an automatic out if you hit the ball into his yard. He didn't like us playing and made it clear that we better not go on his lawn. Mad dashes were made whenever an errant batted ball ended up on his lawn. Fortunately, I don't remember a single lefty in the neighborhood, so we were usually pretty good about avoiding his lawn.

I've lost touch with the old neighborhood kids, although I've bumped into one of the girls who used to live on that cul-de-sac. She's now a teller at my local credit union. All of her brothers and sisters now live out in my area, about forty miles away from where we grew up. Looks like many of us didn't leave home too far behind.

I went back about 6 months ago, because I happened to be geocaching down in the area. The house looks very familiar, although it has bars on the windows now. We drove by, looked at it and drove on. I pointed out some of the landmarks of the neighborhood, some of the things that weren't there anymore. Then we went out and found the cache that was in the park closest to the house.

Although it's no longer home, I have fond memories of that house. I learned how to behave properly with other adults in that house. I learned the importance of taking care of animals in that house. I learned how to be a good citizen in that house. I grew up in that house. It will always have a special place in my heart.

A Walk on the Boardwalk

Last weekend, I took my older son up to Santa Cruz. We took off Thursday afternoon after I was done with school. I left so quickly after school, that I literally beat the school buses out of the parking lot that day. There was a method to my madness. Getting out at 2:10 in the afternoon, afforded me the time to get home reasonably early, so the two of us could be on the road near 3 o'clock and thus miss most of the traffic. That worked to perfection and we were out on the Grapevine before any real traffic hit down below.

We got the Santa Cruz a little bit before 10 in the evening and both of us were tired, so we checked in and crashed. The next morning, I woke sometime around 7:30 and decided to go out on the balcony of our motel. Getting in late the night before, I was a little disoriented and wasn't sure exactly where we were in Santa Cruz, but was I in for a big surprise when I opened the door to the motel. The motel was literally only two blocks away from the Boardwalk, a popular Coney Island type amusement park right on the beach in Santa Cruz. That made our evening's entertainment easy after our tour of the campus.

Back in 1976, two friends and I took a senior trip following our graduation from high school. We explored almost all of what California had to offer back then, driving up Hwy 1, seeing Hearst Castle, Big Sur, San Francisco, the coast Redwoods, then cutting across the northern part of the state and visiting Lassen Volcanic National Park and Yosemite. We also stopped in Santa Cruz for a night since one of my friend's sister was attending UC Santa Cruz at the time. We crashed at her apartment and took a walk on the Boardwalk.

There is no entrance fee at the Boardwalk. The place prefers to charge by the ride. So many tickets would get a ride on Hurricane, or the bumper cars. The primo ride there is the Giant Dipper a beautiful wooden roller coaster which first made its appearance on the Boardwalk back in 1924. The Giant Dipper is a classic woodie twister and has a very small footprint for a roller coaster. Its overall track length is only about a half a mile and it tops out and just about 70 feet in height. It's not like other woodies around the country like Beast at Kings Island in Ohio, or Colossus in Southern California. Yet, the Giant Dipper consistently gets rated in the top ten of woodie coasters by coaster enthusiasts surveys.

I really can't remember how many times I rode the Giant Dipper back in 1976, but I would hazard a guess and say it was about half a dozen times. It was a great coaster from start to finish. I hoped that it would be as good as I remembered it. My son and I worked our way up to it by riding Hurricane, a smallish metal roller coaster right near the entrance to the Boardwalk. It was very jerky and not much for good dips. After getting off that one, we headed over to the Giant Dipper.

Getting in line, we waited patiently as the cars kept flying over the station, shaking it as it sped around and over it. We listened to the screams of the visitors as they rode the ride. It's all part of the ride as the excitement built. Then it was our turn and we got a nice bonus. 6 people were ahead of us and for some reason, they all wanted to go to the front of the train. Silly riders. The back is best and we had the prime seats for this ride, and what a ride it was. Whipped around in a dark tunnel and then up the lift hill we rose. Then it was over the first hill and it was non stop action as we plummeted and twisted along our half mile course. It was as good as I'd remembered it.

The rest of the Boardwalk was also as I remembered it, expensive fattening food and cheap carnival type rides, most of which spin you around in circles until you want to throw up. Those are not my cup of tea at all, but that one ride was worth every penny we spent to ride it. I kept pointing out to my son different things that I could remember from 33 years previously. I showed him the display of the old boards that used to be THE Boardwalk. Renovated in the mid 1980s, it's now just cement, probably easier to maintain and keep clean, but not really a boardwalk any more.

Still, it seemed to be doing quite a business for most of the day. I'd been down earlier to find a cache attached under the Boardwalk and it was fairly crowded for a weekday, albeit Friday during what might have been spring break for many. The deep friend Twinkies and deep fried cheesecake were tempting, but my son kept me in line and refused to allow me to indulge. It was nice to see he was looking out for my welfare. I probably wouldn't have anyway, but it was fun messing with him nonetheless.

Since my son has decided that he's going to attend Santa Cruz, I probably will have ample opportunities to enjoy the Boardwalk again and again in the future. I doubt if I'll ride the Hurricane again, but the $4.50 I spent to ride the Giant Dipper, will be spent again and probably again. And even though the surface is cement now, I couldn't help but hum a tune by the Drifters as I took a last walk on the Boardwalk.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocache:
Under the Boardwalk - by little_bear_blue and Big Green

Explorations

For whatever reason, I'm getting excited about this camping/caching trip we will be taking this summer. I'm not sure if it's because the price of gas is rising so steeply that this might be the last extended driving vacation I take with any of my kids, or it's because of the added GPS games I've added to my repertoire. Maybe it's because I'm headed back to Redwood country, the place where I went to college, the place that I hold near and dear to my heart, the last place where I would just leave my place of residence and just disappear for a couple of hours, just to be away from it all, without anyone know where I was. At those times, I was truly alone with my thoughts and alone in the world. With today's technology advancements, unless you deliberately leave your communication devices at home, it's harder to do. Of course, with the extra responsibilities that I've added to my life, I wouldn't even consider not taking my communication devices with me, even though they probably wouldn't work.

There are other possibilities as well. For the first time in about five years, I'm also heading to a place that I've never been before, Point Reyes and Muir Woods. When I was in high school two of my school friends and I planned a graduation trip through California with the purpose to explore as much of California as possible. We drove up the coast and spent a couple of days camping at San Simeon State Beach along the central coast of California. This particular campground is just south of Hearst Castle, so naturally we toured the castle. That was the second time I'd seen the castle, having seen it when I was four on our first extensive trip my dad took us on, in his explorations of California.

After that we continued out drive up the coast to Santa Cruz to visit with one of my friend's sister who was attending UC Santa Cruz at the time. We paid a customary visit, crashed at her apartment and then decided the the boardwalk had to be explored. Once on the Boardwalk, the Giant Dipper was beckoning to us. If you've ever been to Santa Cruz, you really do need to take a walk on the Boardwalk. It's probably not the same as it is on the some of the east coast boardwalks, but it's still a lot of fun to explore and enjoy. The Giant Dipper, a 2,640 foot "woodie" type rollercoaster is neither the biggest, nor longest at all, but it still rocks and usually ranks up there in the top ten of classic wooden rollercoasters when these types of lists come out from time to time. I think we rode it 5 or 6 times that evening. I haven't been on it since, but I will sometime.

We continued up the coast, stopping just north of San Francisco, very near where we will be camping this summer at Mt. Tamalpais State Park. Interestingly, this is just over the hill from Muir Woods and just down the road from Point Reyes, yet we didn't visit either one of these places, choosing instead to take in the sights of San Francisco, walking the hills (don't ask why, I'm still not sure myself), taking in Chinatown and exploring the city's main tourist areas. We had also resolved to take in a baseball game and got lucky because it was family day at Candlestick Park, so we got to see a double header against the San Diego Padres. Both games were decided in the ninth inning with the home team winning both.

While the first half of our trip seemed to be dedicated to more cultural aspects of the state, the second half definitely leaned towards the natural beauty of the state. We camped in Redwood National Park. It had been a national park for less than a decade when we visited. We hiked the Lady Bird Johnson Grove and in the Jedidiah Smith Wilderness area of the park. We got pulled over just south of Crescent City by the Crescent City Police, the Del Norte County Sheriff and the California Highway patrol. I'd crossed the solid white line on the right hand side of Highway 101 once too often according to them, so they decided that since it was a slow Saturday night in Crescent City, we were the likely entertainment for that evening. After checking us all out, running license and registration, they let us go.

Our trip eventually took us over to Lassen National Park and then down to Yosemite National Park as well. This was in the days before they had campground reservations in Yosemite, so we literally drove all night to make it to the park early in the morning so we could grab someone's campsite as they were pulling out in the morning. The entire trip lasted close to two weeks and I came home with 2 dollars in my pocket, having spent everything else that I had brought along for the trip. I can imagine that I'll probably spend more, on just gas, during this upcoming summer trip.

The interesting thing about that trip is there are so many memories that are etched into my brain, some of which might seem strange now, but it's all of those collective memories that help me to relive the trip any time I want. One of my friends had never been camping before in his life. He'd never cooked before either so was amazed that I, his contemporary could. I think he might have believed that we were going to survive on cold cereal morning, noon and night, but we ate really well.

Different silly things make up that trip. The flat tire south of Laytonville, the notion that I might root for the Padres at Candlestick and the realization, that even at 18, both young and naive, I was able to recognize the reality that I might get hurt if I openly rooted against the Giants that day. I have to hand it to San Franciscoans. They, at least, rabidly support their team, much like what I've seen happen in sports venues in the east. I can't say that I've ever seen that with Angels or Dodgers sports fans.

As noted above, getting pulled over by all three major law enforcements agencies of the region could be considered a highlight by some. I wasn't thrilled about it, but I understand why. 101 was, at the time, a two lane road, with speed around 55 mph and the possibility of accidents probably caused them to think that we were three teenagers already on a liquor induced bender and so they decided to stop us and check. They were doing their job. The Crescent City policeman who did all the inquiries was very young and he had a partner that reminded me the entire time of a George Kennedy character. They partner even stuck his head in the window of the car and bellowed, "You've been drinking there son?" I smile today with the memory, but didn't then.

Another memory that flashes into my mind is the Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream store in Chinatown, complete with Chinese writing on the sign. One of the big selling items that many stores in Yosemite Valley sold for many years during the 70s was the famous "Go Climb a Rock" tee shirt. In San Francisco, I found a store that sold a "Go Climb a Street" shirt and found one in Lassen that stated "Go Climb a Volcano." I came home with both of these plus another one from Yosemite to add to my bright orange one that I had purchased the year before.

While driving into Yosemite, I saw my first and only badger. It ran out on the road and I almost hit it before it realized that our station wagon would probably do it much more damage that it could probably inflict on it, so it turned around and scurried back into the scrub on the side of the road. About an hour later, I hit and killed a blue jay that had been feeding on road kill in the road. I can still picture in my mind's eye, the bird as it hopped and then seeing it fly over the windshield after I'd hit it and land in the middle of the road behind the car. Like I said before, it's those silly little memories that make up an entire story and keep the trip alive.

I can remember picking Salmon berries which were growing wild around our campground in the Redwoods and having fresh berries in my cereal for breakfast. I can remember opening up the tent one morning and staring right into the face of a small gray bunny rabbit. We stared at each other for about a minute before it got bored and hopped off. I love those kinds of encounters.

As I look back on this entry, it appears as if it rambles quite a bit and I'm not sure exactly what the point of it is, other than to re-emphasize that I'm looking forward to this trip. It will recreate much of that senior trip the three of us took way back when. It will allow me to share these memories with my son. There it is. Sharing those memories with my son is what it's about. I'll be able to tell him about these things and we'll be able to create new memories in the process. He's turning 13 at the end of the summer. There's not too many more of these memory building trips left. I want to make them count.