Hurrah - Boo Hoo - Hurrah!

Good Grief.

Tonight was the first musical of the Davis Musical Theater Company for which I hold a season's ticket. My musical play buddy Cornetta also has a season's ticket and tonight, spot on schedule, I headed to her home in Sacramento to pick her up. I've dropped her off at home a couple of times after our ushering duties, for example when we saw the Music Circus production of Aida in July.

Our drives are nothing if not NOISY. Post-musicals as we barrel down the freeway, we can't help but sing our very-nearly-musical hearts ♥ out. So I've been by Cornetta's place a couple of times. Anyway, tonight I was spot on time, driving along Highway 99 and I suddenly realized I had no clue which freeway exit would lead me to 42nd, 43rd, 44th or whatever-the-hell street she lives on; no clue whatsoever.

Oh... a half dozen exits later, I realized I had NO clue where the ef I was. I got on the cell phone to Cornetta. No answer. I was supposed to by then have been on the street by her house honking my Honda horn, pissing of Cornetta's neighbors. No dice. A few more freeway exits - still, no dice. Finally I parked on some unknown street and called, and called and called - no answer. Had no clue if I was even calling the correct phone number.

I was in full self-pity mode. Why had I not made note of the directions to Cornetta's? I keep a little paper pad in my car that I jot location directions and even the hours kept by my favorite shops and such. Why the ef hadn't I made note of Cornetta's?

Now it was so late that even if I found her house we would not make the play. 'What an idiot I am', thought I was overwhelmed with self-incrimination. 'Now Cornetta will think I'm some sort of flake! And why-the-ef doesn't she call to find out why I'm not honking outside her front door?'

Awash with feelings of failure, I slowing aimed the Honda homeward. I was not going to the play by myself - I didn't deserve to see it after screwing up my promise to pick Cornetta up.

'Ring!' Cell phone - actually it plays Hedwig's Theme.

'Um... Claire?'

Turns out Cornetta was yaking on the phone with a buddy all the while patiently wondering where the ef Claire had got to. With directions I was over to Cornetta's spit-spot and we raced off to Davis. I realized all the driving around had nearly emptied my gas tank so I had to stop for a re-fill. By now we would be lucky to get in the first act and I could not stop appologizing. Cornetta, bless her heart, was totally ok with all this and forgave me over and over as I whinged and whined.

Ok, guess what? We got to the theater just as the play, West Side Story, began. We hadn't missed a beat. It was a true miracle of the sort that normally requires honking great hosts of angels fluttering around, molting feathers and blowing celestial horns.

And how was the play? Excellent! Herein lay the second miracle of the evening. The guy who played Tony sang 'Something's Coming' - it was so-so at best. Cornetta and I both felt like it was going to be a long evening. It was only after Maria lifted an angelic voice trilling to the heavens, to be joined by Tony's lower tones that Tony's voice shifted somehow. It was as if Maria's voice picked up Tony's voice, dusted it, dressed it up and polished it off. Is that clear? It was like their voices/ their souls - to use the overused expression - completed each other.

Honestly, your jaw would have dropped at the difference in Tony's voice!

Add to the above that Tony could dance! There were a few dance scenes to the musical and most of the cast's hoofing was only so-so. The Davis productions are only cast the plays a short while before opening - two months tops. But the guy who played Tony had it down - he danced with skill and from his heart. Cornetta and I were highly impressed, moved even, by the sight of Tony & Maria swaying to a brush of soft notes.

Suffice to say, we enjoyed the play immensely and both of us were choked up by the ending scene where Tony bites the big one and Maria knees over his body. Richard and Natalie could not have done it any better.

To Yosemite's Heights

Today we decided to start our day up at Glacier Point, so we headed up hill and on the way stopped at an overlook. I’d hardly parked when I heard Gene shouting at me there were chickens in the parking lot, wtf? Indeed! The chickens’ were a pair of beautiful Blue Grouse hens and they certainly did look like chickens and they were as naturally tame and approachable as any farm yard chicken. I didn’t even bother to use a long lens to get pictures of the two ‘girls’. I took at least 50 shots of the grouse hens and I lucked into this wonderful sequence as follows:

Only minutes up the road from the grouse hens we spotted several more grouse roadside, including a Blue Grouse Cock was strutting around with a few hens. No pictures worth showing of the cock, but Joann pointed out a curious bird call like a tin trumpet. Our guest appearance trumpeter was a Red-breasted Nuthatch and I got lovely pictures of the lively little beauty.

These shots we took up at Glacier Point when we finally made it there. Joann and Gene hiked to the overlook and I made do a little closer to the main overlook. The view was spectacular; great looks at Sentinel Point and Half Dome. Gene and Joann hiked out to the point and I whimped out staying at the overlook. The view was the one you see just below - Half Dome.


We headed down to Yosemite Valley and then straight back up to Tuolumne Meadows. Joann enjoyed the wicked thrill of horn honking in the tunnels we drove through on the way up - weeeeee! We briefly stopped at the outrageously blue Lake Tenaya.

Tuolumne meadow was out from under snow, broad and lush. We made several stops along the route to the Visitor Center both for scenery and bird ID and photo ops that included scenery and wildflowers.

The drive made for a lovely final day in Yosemite and we enjoyed the hell out of it.

Yosemite!

I was twenty-one when I first entered Yosemite Valley, one of several co-eds, out to hike over the Spring break. We were young, fit and ready to hike up the steep Vernal and Nevada Falls trail into the back country where I saw my first black bears and if I recall correctly, I pretty much pissed meself when I saw one of the great bruins eating out of some unfortunate backpacker’s campfire stove. I was so scared I ran away backwards because it would have taken too much time to turn around and then run. I’m not kidding, I ran away backwards; nearly slammed myself silly into a Ponderosa Pine. Each day we hiked I felt stronger and stronger. By the end of the trips I was always feeling more fit than when we arrived. Oy - are those days over!

This week I am back in Yosemite with my childhood buddies Joann and Gene; eschewing the Vasque hiking boots for Berkenstocks and Nikes. We spent the day viewing the great Yosemite Valley via the valley’s touring bus system. My so-called hikes did not take me more than 500 feet from the comfort of my Honda. Yeah, my high country trekking days are just a fleeting memory.

Happily, Yosemite is accommodating to old farts as well as young ones. I am happy to proclaim the Valley remains a land of perfection and beauty of the ‘point your camera and you get a frame-able Kodak moment shot, Yosemite is the place. Honestly – you can’t take bad pictures there. I sincerely believe anyone can be anywhere in Yosemite, turn, point their camera at an upward angle and get what I think would do for a National Geographic Cover Shot. See? Just look up and there's a shot.

Day one we started our tour with Mariposa Grove. We played the soundtrack of the PBS special on the Civil War and shortly afterwards found out it was Abraham Lincoln who put aside the Mariposa Grove and the Yosemite Valley lands for California to protect – long before California was even a state. Later it was John Muir & Teddy Roosevelt that took the lands back and made Yosemite a National Park so we can still admire the beauty of the place. Here are Joann and Gene posing with an eensie, weensie - as Sequoias go - tree.

We drove through the granite tunnels (with Jo happily honking the horn) and took in views of El Capitan from above, and then from below on the Yosemite Valley floor. We watched the late summer waters cascading, wind blown down Bridal Veil Falls. Gene recalled when he was a kid seeing the burning logs tossed off the falls after sundown to thrill the spectators below. That must have been awesome.

We parked and took the Yosemite tour bus for a little trek that took us to the Awanee Hotel and the main visitor’s center where we toured a Miwok Village.

Outside the Visitor Center (see it at the base of the mountain in the picture above?) first a mule deer buck, and then a doe and her spotted fawn wandered so close I had to back up to get a photograph of the fawn.

I’ll be the first to tell you the animals at Yosemite, are not as diverse in species as those at Yellowstone - which I admit, still owns my heart – but the Yosemite critters seem to just romp out of the forest at every turn to pose for my camera.

Late in the day as we headed back to where we were staying at the Apple Creek Inn at Fish Camp, we passed a golf course near the grand old Wawona Hotel. There we spotted a mule deer buck. I barked out instructions for Joann to stay in the car, least the buck run off. Seconds later I was leaning over a wooden fence taking picture after picture of the buck who showed no shyness what-so-ever. I sheepishly told Joann she could ignore my instructions and get out the car. That buck posed like a pro and we spotted a second buck nearby, one with his impressive antlers still in velvet. This photo, astoundingly enough, was taken with my 55mm lens.

The bucks were so bold and so unafraid of people; the only photo hazard was avoiding photographing the golfers in the background. This buck's impressive antlers are still in velvet.

It was a lovely day in Yosemite. Not hot, not cold, just right. How could I have stayed away from Yosemite for so long?