In Which My Husband Has A Wish

It's getting near the end of NaBloPoMo and I have no pictures because of the stolen computers, etc. My pickings are slim. Last year, I could just post random cute pictures of Darcy and pretty much get away with that. The lack of access to our photos is really interfering with my blog.


Luckily, my husband has a wish, and that is clearly material for the blog.


(Of course, really, my husband has many wishes. He wishes he could have an iPhone. And an iPad. He wishes people would buy all the CDs and books he has listed on Amazon. He wishes the wind hadn't blown down a gazillion leaves and redwood needles last night after he spent time raking on Sunday morning.)


The relevant wish is that he has a goal for the Redwood National and State Parks Facebook page. He created and maintains the page as part of his job. His goal is to get 1,000 "likes" before the end of the year and he now has 971. If you have a Facebook account and you don't yet like the Redwood National and State Parks page, would you please follow the link above and like it? And if you wanted to repost or let your friends and their friends know about his wish, that would be awesome!


If you need some heart-string-tugging to make you do this: we decided last night that we need to skip presents to each other this year because of the money we'll spend replacing the stuff we had stolen in the break-in. The total loss is not enough over our deductible to make it worth having the insurance claim on the books. By liking this page, you will help me give him a gift that is free of financial burden. How great will that feel? I'm banking on pretty darn great!

The Roads Less Taken

I don't know about you, but I really hate driving the same exact route both coming and going to a destination, even a local destination, like from home to work and back each day. For someone with this particular pet peeve, I live in a brutal place. Only two paved roads go in and out of our county, one north-south along the coast and the other, north-east away from the Ocean into Oregon. For most other towns we go to, there IS only one route to choose from. 


The one exception is when I head south to Arcata or Eureka. Southbound, there's a great scenic by-pass that winds through old-growth redwoods AND saves gas because it's significantly flatter than the highway. I take that most of the time, even sometimes in both directions. But recently, it's been unavailable because of this:

There was a massive tree-fall across the by-pass several weeks ago. This picture comes from the Redwood National and State Parks Facebook page. I've been reduced to stealing photos because of the whole business of the computers in the hands of thieves and the hard drive in the hands of the sheriff. It's annoying.


I have to admit that I'm ok with the trees having fallen -- even though a couple of them were massive old beauties -- because it's a natural process that occurs to trees. It's not as if someone cut them down. But I was definitely not ok with having my alternative driving route taken away for weeks. It's almost ready for action now, after massive efforts to remove the enormous amount of biomass these trees hold. You can watch them on this YouTube video, also courtesy of the amazing media specialist Park Ranger at Redwood National and State Parks.


And you? What are some of your favorite drives?

It's Not All About Michael

Tonight, we went out to dinner because my husband is wonderful and I was really, really tired. Darcy fell asleep in the car on the drive home and so we were free to enjoy our evening starting at 7:35! Unheard of. And this story makes today's post NOT all about Michael, as he requested when I asked him to provide me some links for the rest of the post.

Which is all about Michael and some of the amazing things he does in his job. 

Michael looks great in a park service uniform. Those of you who haven't seen him wearing the badge are missing out, but you can get a small taste of it in this post and this one (which also gives you a sense of the wonders of a desert flower display). Michael is an interpretive park ranger, so he's the kind of ranger who teaches you something and touches your heart in a program around the campfire, not the kind of ranger who pulls you over for speeding in the park. Just want to make that clear.

(And apologies to our friends who are or love law enforcement rangers: I'm not trying to say that one kind of ranger is better than the other or anything like that. Just clarifying.)

However, he has a particular specialty these days, as the park media specialist. So he tweets and Facebooks for the park, makes the park newspaper great, creates site bulletins, picnic table signs about feeding animals, and almost any other thing that could count as media. I'm pretty proud of the work he does and I thought I'd share some of it during NaBloPoMo.

First, if you want to know what's going on in Redwood National and State Parks on a day-to-day basis, you can follow him on Twitter or "like" the official Facebook page. The parks also have a YouTube channel where the "Redwood Ranger Minute" series (produced by Michael) is housed (they're video podcasts and can also be found on iTunes). He also maintains much of the park website and is working on an update now. As you can imagine, taking care of the social media for five combined parks every day can be tiring. But Michael still does more!

Recently, the interpretive staff at Redwood have been taking turns writing the "Hey Ranger" column in our local paper, the Del Norte Triplicate (formerly known as the Daily Triplicate, but now it's down to three days a week, so not very daily). Michael wrote this one and helps edit and organize the others. 

He's a busy and productive man-in-uniform, despite what many Republican members of Congress want you to think about government employees. I haven't even mentioned the roadside signs, posters, event flyers, and who knows what else gets designed and produced on the giant pair of computer monitors in Michael's office. He's a all-around good guy and I just thought I'd share some of the stuff he does and doesn't talk about much. I hope you enjoy the vicarious tour of Redwood National and State Parks while admiring my man.

A Day Of Moss

Today was one of those rare winter weekend days without rain. It's raining now, of course, but the precipitation held off until about six o'clock and we got to spend quite a lot of time outside. It was warm(ish), too, so very enjoyable!

We walked around the Mill Creek campground after having a slightly disappointing salmon-viewing in Mill Creek. We saw a few huge salmon, but only a few. The water was high and fast, so the water clarity was against us. Mill Creek campground is one mossy, fungus-y place and I took lots of pictures of cute mosses and fungi. I will share them very soon. But for this evening, your entertainment is in the form of Darcy.

After we walked around for quite a while, we went back to the bridge to see if there were any more salmon. We started throwing leaves in one side of the bridge so we could watch them as they appeared on the other side. The big-leaf maple leaves were perfect for this game, but Darcy just threw handfuls of whatever was lying around, too. Here she is, getting a running start after dropping leaves in:

...and waiting for them to come out downstream:

Running With Scissors

The park recently opened a new hiking trail -- the first in about a decade. Invitations went out for a dedication ceremony. We went and joined about fifty people gathered at the dedication site for the Lady Bird Johnson Grove, where we listened to a number of short speeches, met some of the trail crew who built the trail, and then walked a short distance to the trail head. Where there was a ribbon. That needed to be cut. With giant scissors.

You might think a Park Ranger would know better. A supposedly all-grown-up Park Ranger at that. But no. If you put my personal Park Ranger around an oversized pair of scissors, the end result is pretty much inevitable. Those of you who know him well will not be surprised:

Early Spring on the Coastal Drive

Many months ago, we drove a long section of the Coastal Drive between Klamath and the Newton Drury Parkway. It is mostly dirt and often one lane in each direction. It is not heavily traveled and shows few signs of previous habitation. And then we came upon this bank:

Daffodils! My very favorite-est flowers! Daffies make me a very happy person, so we had to stop so I could take pictures of these feral, naturalized-for-who-knows-how-many-years lovelies.

And here's the great thing about the Coastal Drive. It is, as the name suggests, right on the coast for the majority of its length. So when I turned around to take a picture of the other side of the road, this is the view I captured:

Not too shabby, eh?

Boy Scout Tree Trail

As part of our Christmas/New Year's outdoor fest, we hiked the Boy Scout Tree Trail last weekend. It is a gorgeous trail leading to a smallish waterfall. We started it later than we should have due to an untimely nap, but we forged ahead and managed to get to the waterfall and back before Michael's headlamp was necessary. Near the beginning of the trail, Darcy was in the backpack, but soon after they posed near this leaning redwood, she got out and hiked on her own for (we estimated) about .75 miles!

Darcy and I disappear among the trees (you may have to enlarge the picture to see us).

The fern mass on the trunk near the left of the picture is huge, but the picture I took that gave some sense of just how huge didn't come out very well.

Part of the trail ran right alongside and old redwood log. It was gorgeous.

The final destination: Fern Falls.

Drinks, Fungus, And Actual News

The pictures don't have much to do with the post, but I know everyone likes pictures! So here's a series of Darcy trying to drink from an outside water fountain. She had seen some other kids playing at it earlier and I think that and the big puddle of water at its base (from the playing) made her view this differently than every other water fountain she's used in the past. Michael first had to demonstrate the technique.

Then there was a serious attempt.

And then there were just giggles.

And about twenty minutes later, there were teeny-tiny mushrooms growing in the debris on a downed redwood log. The range of fungus types up here (and mosses and lichens, too) is incredible.

In actual news, Darcy has moved on from her obsession (my mom says I should call them "enthusiasms", but I've already got an obsessions label for this blog) with the Wright Brothers! Other than a very occasional slip-up, I am no longer Will. And Michael is no longer Orv. We are infrequently mommy and daddy, much to Michael's delight. (His delight is that it happens at all, not that it happens infrequently.) More often, we are reflections of her new obsession.

After six months of living and breathing the Wright Brothers, we now live in a dinosaur nest. When we've been running errands (a lot) this week, Darcy has asked several times, "Is it time to go back to our nest?" In keeping with the new theme, Michael and I are Mr. and Mrs. Pteranodon. In case you're not up with your Cretaceous Era critters, here's a tutorial on pteranodons. Pteranodons were fish-eaters, so all treats (candy, Christmas presents, cakes) are fish now. Darcy is a T. rex. Buddy the T. rex, to be exact, the orange beastie seen in the birthday summary post.

My small T. rex is waking up now. I expect to hear, "Good morning, Mrs. Pteranodon!!!" at any moment, so I'd better wrap this up.

For those of you who haven't already heard, I got a job offer on Friday and will start working full-time in February. The hunt for day care prospects has begun in earnest and at some point when I don't have a dinosaur waking up from her nap, I'll even provide more details.

In the meantime, Merry Christmas to you all and for those of you who sent the packages under our tree, thanks for all the fish!

Just How Big Are These Trees?

Darcy loves the redwoods. She also loves and misses the Joshua trees, so frequently tells me that Crescent City has redwood trees, but Cima house had Joshua trees. And it's all true -- both places have some very special trees. She likes to pretend to be a redwood by standing on her tip toes and reaching her hands really high over her head. She doesn't quite reach their heights. All the pictures in this post were taken on the same day in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (hope I got that right; all this jurisdictional stuff has me confused). As soon as we got out of the car, Darcy ran over to hug this redwood.

We had lunch on this bench. I know that it looks like a small bench. It isn't. We all three sat on it with our lunches spread out, too. It's a goodly-sized bench.

Even as you get further away, a big redwood is still really, really big. Notice that it's instant darkness behind it as you get into more redwoods. On a sunny day, in the middle of the day, if we're driving through old-growth redwoods, our car will automatically turn on the full headlights. Because it's confused and thinks it is suddenly night. Not much light gets through the canopy.

It's hard to get a whole tree into the picture, but this is the rest of the tree from the other pictures. I did my best. Unless I had crossed into the (STAY OUT!!) elk meadow, I couldn't get any further back.

Even when they're lying down, redwoods are still big. This one's a little taller than Michael, which wouldn't be that impressive at the base of the trunk, but this cut is probably twenty or thirty feet from the roots. We were admiring mushrooms. I needed the flash. On that bright, sunny afternoon you see in the previous pictures.

In other news, the rain has returned to Crescent City after two weeks of sunshine. The clear skies brought very cold temperatures and we learned that our pellet stove doesn't really do much when it's in the thirties unless we keep it on all day long. And our central heat doesn't like to come downstairs, apparently. So we can have the stove on and be warm in the living room and almost-warm in the kitchen. Or we can have the central heat on and be warm upstairs. Not both.

And in book news, I am still on my quest, but I got stuck on Swallows and Amazons (or is it Amazons and Swallows?). I thought this was one I was going to really enjoy. I first heard about it in a NY Times poll asking people for the Harry Potter of their childhood. People raved about this series of books and I couldn't find it in my library at the time. I found a used copy on our drive here from Cima, but I haven't gotten past the second chapter yet. I don't really know why. I think I've read a couple more since I last updated my quest, but I'll have to look at my master list to see what they were. I've got Bleak House on deck because someone gave me the BBC production to watch on DVD and I don't want to see it before I read it.

Klamath River Overlook

A couple weekends ago, we had a gorgeous sunny day and we headed south out of Crescent City for a variety of activities. The first was a hike down to the Klamath River overlook. This picture was taken from the overlook looking back up to the parking lot, at the very tippy-top of this hill. It was a steep trail, but not too long and surrounded by lupine. Not in bloom, but with the promise of quite the show when it is.

Here's Michael and Darcy hiking down to the overlook. The ocean was pretty calm and our drive out of Crescent City featured many, many whale spouts.

Darcy and I check out the rocks and surf to the north of the overlook.

The main event: the Klamath River meet the ocean.

Darcy danced around the overlook for a while before we headed back up to our car. Our wildlife spottings here included several woolly bear caterpillars and a snake. Yes, a snake. I never encountered a snake on any hike in the Mojave. Which, as you may know, is full of snakes of all different kinds. But two of our hikes have included snakes. This one was a decent size snake. On our first hike down to a beach to look for tide pools, we encountered two very small snakes. Not just two different snakes, but two different kinds of snakes. Prior to meeting these small beasts, I had been thinking that this is very un-snake-like habitat, being all wet and cold and all. How wrong I was!

Crescent City Has Big Trees

I suspect you all knew that, but if Blogger cooperates today, I have pictures to prove it! I tried to post these pictures from our trip to the Stout Grove in Jedediah Smith State Park yesterday, but Blogger refused. Not friendly at all. Anyway, these pictures were taken about a 10 or 12 minute drive from our hotel. Here's a cluster of redwoods with our car for scale:


And here's an uprooted redwood with an insane amount of biomass living all over it. There's nothing here for scale, but it's probably at least twice as tall as our car. I was really impressed by the downed trees in general. Whole trees grow on fallen trunks and stumps. And everything is so green! And so many different shades of green!

We are anxiously awaiting our stuff, which is supposed to arrive first thing tomorrow morning. My minimum goal is to have our bed and Darcy's whole bedroom put together in time for a more or less normal bedtime tomorrow night. (And remember, if you click on any photo on this blog, you'll get a bigger version of it.)

And The Next Park We'll Be Around Is...

... Redwood National Park! Yesterday morning, Michael accepted a job at Redwood as a park ranger/visual media specialist. It was a hard decision because there was another job possibility we were weighing and both options are truly wonderful places.

We'll move to Crescent City, CA, sometime in October; the parks haven't negotiated Michael's start date yet. We are excited by all the new opportunities living in a town will bring. There's a multi-screen theater! There are TIDE POOLS! (When I was Darcy's age, we lived just a block or two from the beach in Wollongong, Australia, and there were tide pools we loved to play in and near, so I'm thrilled that I'll be able to share that amazing experience with Darcy.) There are playgrounds! There are supermarkets! Neighbors! A post office! Harbor seals piled up on the piers! And, of course, really, really tall trees.

With any luck at all, we'll be living in a rental duplex that is already home to some park service employees and has its own indoor pool and playground equipment. It's on the opposite side of town as Michael's office, but it's not a huge town. It won't mean a super-long commute. Michael's office is in an old house overlooking the ocean. One of his soon-to-be coworkers said that she can sometimes watch Roosevelt elk and whales from her office window!