Just thought I’d post a pretty picture of this morning’s fog moving across the hillsides.

"It’s humbling."

That’s Tilly, summing up the immensity of the sights at Yosemite National Park.

Here’s Dad and Til in the Yosemite Valley.

Dad puts his chin back in place. The jaw-dropping splendor of the place can
be a bit mind-boggling at first. And second, and third. (It still boggles mine
after my fourth visit to the place.) That’s the famous Half Dome back behind
him. Used to be a whole dome till a combination of earthquakes and glaceriers
broke it in two. The idea of forces being powerful enough to break mountains
in half is another of the humbling things about Yosemite.

This is the first time I’ve been here early enough in the year to see the waterfalls
flowing powerfully. We’ve gone up three times in the fall, when the snowmelt
has nearly dried up so the waterfalls are more like waterstumbles.

Here’s an angle on El Capitan that I hadn’t seen before. Note the cloud bank
moving across the sky… it looked like a storm was brewing in the valley; turned
out we did see a few sprinkles, but nothing that’d cause Donner Partyesque difficulties.

Dad gaping in wonder again. You could strain your neck if you’re not careful.

Now we’re on a bus to see the Giant Sequoia Redwoods at Mariposa Grove.

Dad walked into the frame while I was shooting the base of this giant redwood,
creating a priceless image.

Dad and Til pass the roots of a fallen giant. It’s really bigger than you can
imagine.

This is about half of it.

There’s nothing small about a trip to Yosemite. It’s four hours over, four
hours back, and four hours in the park if you day-trip from Silicon Valley.
The park’s a hundred miles across and you end up spending half your day on the
road (but what a road!). Really takes three days to get a sense of the place,
and that’s before you step foot on a hiking trail.

Coming here provides a perspective the place of a single species — us — in
the grand scheme of things. Trees living here now were saplings before Jesus
was born. Lord knows how long those rock formations have been there … hundreds
of millions of years, probably. New brush is filling up hillsides burnt black
in fires a few years ago. In 50 years a whole new forest will be there.

This morning, the thought of humanity’s self-inflicted insanity makes me wanna
scream: people, chill out. Sit down on a rock, stare at a mountainside for an
hour and get over yourselves.

We have company calling from the flatlands. Today I’m taking ’em up to Yosemite.

My dad, Larry Mangan, and stepmom, Tilly Mangan, stop by the ranch.

Tilly considers the local flora and fauna … that’s Melissa’s finger pointing
to some off in the distance.

Dad curries the favor of a neighborly hooved creature.

Tilly proves she can take a digital picture.

More to come as the week progresses.

I’ve been taking walks in the country just about every morning since we moved
here. I’m posting this pic because it seems to best summarize the nearby scenery.

Our place is near the top of a local mountain range, so there aren’t many people
up here. The main road (don’t worry, this isn’t it) comes up from town, runs
past our place, turns into a one-lane stretch of pavement a few miles down,
then goes back down the hill into San Jose. This morning, for instance, I walked
that road for 60 minutes and had three cars pass me.

Words and pictures don’t do proper justice. They can’t convey the sound of
songbirds’ conversations or the feel of a breeze that might’ve gone ten thousand
miles across the Pacific to get here. There’s no smell of fresh horse poop or
damp dogs running in the yard.

The gravel road here goes past a farm where a guy raises goats and sheep. When
I walked by the other morning, they started baying at me … like maybe they
wanted me to come by and catch up on the latest gossip.

In town if you find yourself alone, you almost immediately feel lonely; maybe
it’s because there are so few creatures to keep you company. I can walk down
a road up here and experience complete solitude for maybe 60 seconds at a stretch.
There’s always some critter dashing through the underbrush, or a hawk soaring
way up there, floating on the thermals and waiting for that critter to do something
foolish.

What I love about the country is that it was here for eons before I came along,
and it’ll still be here for eons after I’m gone. Puts our puny little human
affairs in perspective.

OK, here are some pix of the inside of our new place.

Melissa takes a rare break from her duties of whipping this joint into shape.
Just as well that I’ve spared you the "before" pictures. They were
too ugly to behold. Now about the only major job left is to hang pictures on
those naked walls.

Looking across the place from one corner to the other. Cozy, isn’t it?

The master bedroom. Which would mean something if we had, say, Barbara Eden circa 1967 on the premises.

The place from which all folly springs.

The kitchen is rather spacious, which is a good thing because we needed someplace
to put that table and chairs.

The view from the opposite corner. The cottage has six windows; I spent all
day yesterday putting those shades in front of them. They let the sun and the
breeze in fine.

The next hill over has real live (well, dead) ruins; Chris the landlord tells us some guy built a house up there 25 years ago but things never worked out and it ended up being abandoned. A couple decades of wind and rain have sheared the exterior and left nothing but rotting timbers. From my new front porch, the sunset shines right through it. Cool.