I spent the predawn hours hiking to the top of Mission Peak with Dan Mitchell, in the photo above; Tom Clifton, who took this picture; John Fedak, who joined me at Mount Shasta in October; and a hiker named Randy who reads my hiking blog.

Details of the hike posted at Two-Heel Drive.

I looked out the window of the house tonight and saw this; ran back to fetch the camera before it went away. Arrived just in time.

Americans cannot stand a unified government, and there’s at least a scrap of evidence that unified government doesn’t like America. To wit:

1960s: Democrats run everything. Result: Calamity in Vietnam.

2000s: Republicans run everything: Result: Calamity in Iraq.

The saying goes that power corrupts and ultimate power corrupts ultimately. Think of all the small-government Republicans who stormed into office in the past 12 years with the earnest intention of cutting the size and expense of government. They had the comfort of standing by their principles with the comfort of knowing they wouldn’t survive a Clinton veto.

Bush comes to office, veto threat disappears and suddenly they discover the vastness of American power right there in their hot little hands, and so what do they do? Abandon their small-government principles faster than poop through a goose.

In the ’80s the country prospered with a Republican president and a Democratic Congress. In the ’90s it prospered with a Republican congress and a Democratic president. In this decade the economy did OK but the overseas adventure cost the country dearly on the international stage.

Power in the United States is divided roughly five ways: Courts, Legislature, Executive, Wall Street, and the Media. With the current election the Democrats control the Legislature with friends in the media, while the Republicans control the executive and the courts with friends on Wall Street. This still gives the Republicans a 3-2 advantage, so they don’t really have all that much to complain about.

Checks and balances seem been bred into the DNA of Americans. For 30 years, conservative operatives did everything in their power to discredit their opposition and place themselves at the power pinnacle but when they got there, they choked. Maybe it’s because they’re Americans, too, and have no concept of what to do with unchecked power.

Maybe a bit of sanity can return now that we’ve gotten through this bad patch.

… of the day I came squawling into this world (and haven’t stop complaining since).

To all who’ve sent birthday greetings: Thanks a bunch. To all who’ve failed to send me the riches and fame I so justly deserve: what are you waiting for? I’m not getting any younger.

Ten years ago, in the autumn of 1996 — back in that halcyon era before Bill stained Monica’s dress — I posted my first Web page. Since then I can’t imagine how many pages, how many paragraphs, how many words, how many links I’ve posted. Most of the stuff on my first page is out of date, The cats have passed on; we’ve moved 2,000 miles to California. I’m still newspapering, and my siblings are married to the same people, that much is still true.

Back in the day I posted a page called “Toxic Emissions” in which I stated things I considered inerrant. An example:

Tom On Politics: It’s the natural state of
existence for a Republican to be an enemy of the common people and a
Democrat to be an enemy of common sense. (12,327 Brownie points to
the person who tells me the wit who said this first. It sounds so
familiar I could not have invented it on my own.)

Criminal Element Corollary: A man who will not steal you
blind and swear it is for your own good has no right to call himself
a politician.

I stand by these remarks.

My accomplishments of these past 45 years have not been remarkable, but these pages of mine have given me one thing which belongs to nobody else: The first “Tom Mangan” listing in Google. Every other personage on this planet who shares my name is in line behind me. An obscure honor, for sure, but still nice to have. If only one of those other Tom Mangans would get busy so I could enjoy the pleasure of being mistaken for somebody who is rich and famous.

They’re not only in the Dakota country. As of last night they were barely more
than a hundred yards from our front porch.

About 250 acres burned in the brushfire; no homes were lost but there were
some traffic jams getting past the firefighting equipment last night. One of
the neighbors has one of these nifty plastic picket fences; now it’s melted
in places.

Bit of a scare but we’re thankful that so much of the available fuel has now
been burned, making it less likely that another blaze will make it to our place.

Went camping at Mount Shasta with a bunch of folks I met via Two-Heel Drive, my hiking blog. Check out the details here. There are pictures, but you have to scroll down a ways to find them.

I forgot to mention all the Joshua trees. I saw my first a week ago Saturday in the land between Death Valley and Mount Whitney, the lowest and highest points in the continental United States. The trees look otherworldly, with bunches of needles jutting out in strange directions.

They were hundreds of miles from Joshua Tree National Park. They grew like mad across the wind-pounded expanse of the Mojave Desert — but only at certain elevations. A lesson in biodiversity that just happens to be the name of a popular U2 album.

I never took a single picture of a Joshua tree, though. They were always growing along the routes between where I’d been and where I was headed.

I can’t say for sure whether Joshua Trees even grow in Southern Utah, but they do seem to symbolize what I remember most about spending a week there: Patches of green in the desert. It was surprising to find pine forests covering vast swaths of the region. Green meadows are not out of the ordinary; farming happens, assuming there’s access to irrigation. Trees grow from between cracks in giant
stone monoliths.

If you come expecting a moonscape, you’ll be disappointed.

More random thoughts:

• If the Grand Canyon seems to be proof of a Higher Power, then Bryce Canyon seems to be evidence of Alien Intelligence — with a sense of humor. The stone formations called hoodoos look like they might be statues of previous tenants from another dimension.
• The waters of Zion canyon are as interesting as the cliff walls — especially the water seeping through the walls. You wonder how something as huge as Zion could be carved by river erosion alone, then you learn that water seeping into seams between layers of sandstone freezes and expands every winter, forming cracks that weaken the rock. After a few winters (or maybe a few thousand), gravity does the rest of the work, pulling down chunks of canyon wall.
• You could spend several vacations just gaping at rock formations visible from your car. I can’t imagine how much totally cool stuff must be visible from the backcountry trails and dirt roads.
• It’s OK to be a tourist. We did a few short hikes on this trip but my main goal was to see the main attractions. Those canyons will still be there the next time I stop by.
• It’s OK if it all doesn’t fit in the viewfinder. Close-ups are more fun
  anyway.

"So where are you off to," the innkeeper asked us.

"Cedar Breaks."

"It’s COLD up there. Take your coats."

"Thanks, we have our coats."

Actually, we had jackets designed for a spring or autumn chill, not parkas that would stave off a freezing mountaintop gale. Parkas would’ve been much preferred when we arrived at the Cedar Breaks National Monument, a giant, semicircular gash in the landscape of Southern Utah. Much of what we’ve seen elsewhere — Bryce Canyon’s hoodoos, Zion’s multicolored rock, the pink-striped cliffs throughout the region — is on display at Cedar Breaks. What the other places don’t have is the bone-chilling winds of the Breaks.

One view of the Breaks.

A close-up on the wacky stone formations far down into the canyon.

A branch of a bristlecone pine; another section of the Breaks has a bristlecone that’s over 1600 years old, but it required a mile of hiking in the cold to reach it, so I decided I’d leave that for another trip.

Yet another view over the Breaks.

A steep canyon divides one section of the Breaks. There are no trails below the rim, so it all has to be seen up here in the direct wind.

Trees reflect the cooling weather.

Looks like autumn — feels like winter, though. The monument is above 10,000 feet, another reason for the chill.

If you’re thinking of a sight-seeing trip to Southern Utah, Cedar Breaks might be a good place to visit first and get an idea of what’s in store at the other more famous locales.

On Wednesday it came time to check out Zion Canyon in Zion National Park.
Having seen the Grand Canyon from the top and Bryce Canyon from the middle,
it seemed only fitting to see Zion from the canyon floor. Zion is a huge park
with plenty to see on its backcountry trails and slot canyons, but just as you
can’t really "do Yosemite" without swimming among the schools of tourists
in the Valley, you can’t "do Zion" without a trip through the Canyon.

There are crowds at canyon-floor level, but all the action’s happening up on
those steep canyon walls, colored a hundred shades of brown, black and gray.
When you look up, you might spot a hiker high atop the canyon rim, but otherwise
you won’t be troubled by puny humans. Shuttle buses make regular stops at trailheads
throughout the canyon — one way to do the canyon in a day is to just get off
at each stop, wander around till you’re ready to see something new, and wander
back to the shuttle stop and do it all over again at the next stop.

We took the shuttle to the last stop and walked about a mile of paved trail
to the end of Zion’s famous Narrows Trail. The Narrows Trail obliges hikers
to wade through miles of cold, occasionally deep water. It’s considered one
of the great scenic wonders of the Southwest — it’s definitely on my list for
a future Zion visit.

Melissa takes in the sights along the paved trail toward the Narrows.

The Virgin River doesn’t seem like much, but it helped carve out the is whole
canyon.

Towering canyon walls near the entrance to the Narrows. The sky was cloudy
when we arrived — the views got much better after the clouds started to clear.

A guy leads a large youth group across the river after their Narrows adventure.

The canyon is full of interesting plant species — trees, bushes, flowers.
You’d never know it’s in the middle of a desert.

Stripes on the canyon walls come from water that seeps into the rock high above
and escapes via small cracks. In the winter the water freezes and creates large
cracks in the walls, speeding the erosion process.

Skies start to clear above Angels Landing; we could barely make out hikers
on the canyon rim. This is at a shuttle stop called Big Bend. It has no trails
nearby but from here you can just admire the vastness of the canyon rising to
the sky. Few people get off at this stop, but those who do are treated to perhaps
the truest canyon-floor experience.

One of the large cracks between columns of rock is visible here.

Water droplets pour from the cliff side at Weeping Rock. A tour guide told
us the water can take more than a thousand years to reach the canyon walls.

Tiger-striped canyon walls at Weeping Rock.

The clouds cleared, creating excellent vistas. This is looking up-canyon near
the Zion Lodge.

A sampling of the many rock colors — grays, oranges, browns among them.

I’m working on controlling my urge to photograph dead trees. Honest.

All kinds o’ color happening here.

A lizard paused to pose for a pic.

A small waterfall near the Lower Emerald Pool. Probably more interesting in
the spring, when the water runs stronger.

Clouds do a dance near a site called Court of the Patriarchs.

A couple of said Patriarchs. They’re named after famous men of the Old Testament.

We were done touring the canyon and walking back to the car when I looked up
and saw this scene behind the Visitors Center.

An arch in the rock near the road taking us out of the park.

We ended up passing through the park three times in our travels — initially,
the tourist crowds and the steep canyon walls felt like Yosemite Lite, but as
the first impressions wore off the charms of the place started to grow on us.
An amazing place, and we saw a mere sliver of it. Can’t wait to get back and
see more.

… I’m supposed to be on vacation here.

I’ve got a bunch of swell pix from Zion National Park but it’s turning into a chore to post daily updates, so how about this: tune in next Monday and I’ll have more highlights from Southern Utah and points nearby.