Visiting Yosemite - what could possibly go wrong?

Yosemite sunrise, Day One

Visitors are facing unprecedented traffic gridlock while attempting to enter Yosemite National Park this holiday weekend. Outdoor enthusiasts reported long wait times before making it through the world-famous park’s gates. One visitor said traffic ground to a halt 80 miles outside of Yosemite Valley, and continued crawling at a snail’s pace for three hours, before they finally reached a parking space. KRON 4, July 3, 2023

Highway 120 west entrance to Yosemite on July 11, 2023 at 5:50am. Crickets.

Canceled and delayed flights. Crowded venues. Extremely hot temperatures. Over-priced lodging and meals. Changed hiking plans. While it seemed that anything that could go wrong on our trip to Yosemite National Park last week did go wrong.

Our Minnesota hiking group

Had we known a year ago when planning this trip that:

• Extreme snowfall damage in the Sierra Nevadas would lead to park road closures and inaccessibility of many hiking trailheads.
• Pent up demand for travel would lead to record-breaking numbers of visitors to Yosemite’s limited areas that are open.
• A global heatwave would shoot temperatures up to near 100 degrees - even in the mountains
• Sun Country’s labor shortage would cause flight cancellations and delays 

we might have gone somewhere else. Still we managed to have a good time.

Typical view, Ho, hum.

Given the publicity around the excessive wait times for park entry (see above), we entered the park early - the first day before 6am - before the rangers manned the entry booths. I have the senior pass for National Parks (best $10 I ever spent), so payment was not an issue. It would waiting for others to pay and ask 300 questions of the ranger that I was worried about.

We found an early parking spot at Curry Village and left the car parked there for the day, taking a shuttle to see the iconic wonders of the park. The upside to large snow falls over the winter was is that the waterfalls were in full roar. Besides the shuttle, we walked a lot including a hike to Mirror Lake and did most of our sightseeing by early afternoon. We did all the “must-sees” on the first day in the park.

Our campsite in the park

The extremely hot weather and closed planned hiking trail led Heidi and me to decide to do day hikes instead of the backpacking trip we had planned. Our day hikes were in less popular areas of Yosemite - Wawoma’s Swinging Bridge Trail along the Merced River and the Grizzly Giant Loop in the Mariposa Sequoia area. Again, we finished by early afternoon and spent the hottest parts of the afternoon napping and reading in air conditioned comfort.

Merced River on hike to Mirror Lake

Besides the hiking and good company of Heidi’s daughter, son-in-law, and a couple friends, I especially enjoyed driving the constantly looping roads through the mountains around the park. I had not realized just how big a park Yosemite actually is in square miles and driving time! With the exception of a motorcyclist who passed us doing about 100 mph on a blind, sharp curve, most drivers were pretty good. 

Along the Grizzley Giant Loop through a sequoia grove.

The canceled flight that delayed our arrival in San Francisco by a day meant that we did not get to see the city as we had planned at the beginning of the trip. We did, however, get to spent most of our last day before our evening flight home, driving through the town, viewing the Golden Gate Bridge, and touring the military remnants of The Presidio. I was hoping to see Dirty Harry or Steve McQueen barrelling up and down the city’s hills in fast cars, but no such luck.

A small forest fire within the park made for hazy skies but great photos

Trips (like most of life) don’t always go the way they’re planned. But we stoics manage to have a good time anyway. Good memories and on to the next adventure!

A visit to Golden Gate Bridge and the The Presidio before the flight home.

More photos can be found here.

A thank you to Frank Birmingham

I was informed by his son Rick that professor emeritus Dr. Frank Birmingham passed away last week. Below is my tribute to him...

“You have a fax machine in Saudi Arabia?”

I did not know it at the time, but those words changed the course of my career. Let me explain…

In the spring of 1989, I was finishing five years of teaching for the ARAMCO schools in Saudi Arabia and looking forward to moving back to the States. While I appreciated the opportunities for travel and financial rewards the expatriate experience afforded me, I wanted my toddler son to be closer to his grandparents and for me work where technology and libraries were beginning to merge.

I wanted to relocate to the Twin Cities but first I needed that Minnesota teaching license. In order to get that, I had to have my credentials examined and approved by a professor at a Minnesota library school program. I somehow got a hold of a Dr. Frank Birmingham at Mankato State University (now Minnesota State University, Mankato.)

Frank was rather gruff when I asked him to review my transcripts and Iowa teaching license on a phone call I made from Saudi. “It’s the end of the semester here and I have a lot of work to do. How soon can you get this stuff to me?” he asked.

“How about if I fax it to you within the next half hour?” I replied.

With both incredulity and delight in his voice, he exclaimed, “You have a fax machine in Saudi Arabia?” 

I discovered later that Frank had lobbied for a fax machine for the library school which until that time, sat unused. (Takes some time for modern technology to become accepted.) My faxes justified his purchase and made me his friend. 

So in mid-July when I moved back from Saudi with my Minnesota teaching license in hand, I drove to Mankato to met Frank in person and take him out for lunch. While eating, he asked if I had applied for the secondary library position in St Peter, a small town just north of Mankato. 

“That job is filled, I believe.”

“No,” Frank informed me, “the guy they hired backed out, so the position is back open.”

I has a spare resume in the visor of my car, so on drive back to Minneapolis, I stopped in to the office of St. Peter public high school. The principal was on vacation, but I got a spur of the moment interview with the Assistant Principal and the Curriculum Director. I got the job. They were desperate.

This was just the first of many helpful suggestions Frank gave me as I was starting the Minnesota episode of my career.

• He encouraged me to join the state school library association (MEMO at the time) and attend their fall conference that first year I taught. I remained involved in MEMO for 25 years, serving as president, conference chair, newsletter editor, and legislative chair.
• He published my first professional article in library school's newsletter “The Virtual Librarian.” I went on to publish 148 more articles during my career (along with columns and books.)
• He hired me as an adjunct professor, teaching School Library Management and early internet courses. The materials I created for those classes became the framework for my first book, The Indispensable Librarian.
• He recommended me for the AV Director position in the Mankato Schools in 1991, which morphed into the Technology Director job title. I held that job for 23 years. He had earlier suggested I get my supervision license by taking administration courses.
• He got me and the other librarians in the school district email accounts on the university’s vax computer. This made our librarians early tech specialists and allowed me to join LM_Net, a discussion list of school library leaders from around the world.
• He suggested I join the local Kiwanis organization where I served as president and in other roles.  This large service club had members that were influential in the community = government workers, business leaders, etc. I semi-jokingly like to say that I kept my job with the school district since I convinced the community I was a technology genius because I could hook almost any laptop up to the club’s projector. 

Frank each summer hosted library school get-togethers at his home on Lake Jefferson to which I was always invited and always enjoyed. He made me feel a part of the library school department with Fran McDonald, Ken Pengally, and Don Descy. I got to know his sons. I visited Frank in his retirement home in Florida. We would get together at least once during the summer when he returned to his lake home.

To my regret, we mostly lost touch after he retired and moved south, remaining there during the summer as well as winter. I should have made more effort to see how he was doing. I should have told him how much his guidance and encouragement helped me in my career and my life. I should have just been more grateful.

My guess though is that Frank’s “payment’ for his mentorship was the knowledge that he helped me, and many others. Why is it that we often get more satisfaction and pleasure from the achievements of those we care about than we do our own achievements?

Thank you, Frank. You made a big difference to me and I am sure to many others. You made the world a better place.

Allora! Biking and hiking in Italy (part three, Cinque Terre)

Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre

Our hotel host met us at the train station in Vernazza late in the afternoon. After a rather long day of train riding, we were tired and happy to be escorted to our apartment so we could rest for hiking the next two days. We found our apartment (recommended by Rick Steves) to be a comfortable place with large windows overlooking the town’s main square and swimming beach. (And only up a 40 step climb from street level.) A long set of recommendations and advice from Christian, the apartment owner, a nice meal at one of the restaurants on the plaza, then an early beditime. Oh, restaurants in the region don’t open until seven.

View from our Vernazza apartment

My sense of Cinque Terre before actually spending time there was that it was a somewhat remote area, visited primarily by hikers. I could not have been more mistaken. As or more crowded than Venice, the small streets and alleys were again mobbed with tourists. Yes, the picturesque towns were indeed beautiful with their snug, brightly colored, multi-story houses climbing steep hillsides. The coast and beaches were lovely. The hiking paths, scenic. As my son informed me after seeing our photos, Disney's animated film Luca is set near here.

Vernazza from the trail to Montorosso

But I was amazed by these five small towns’ popularity with beach goers. And those tourists, I guess, who did not find enough fridge magnets in Venice that they needed to look for them here, a World Heritage Site on the Ligurian Sea. Early mornings and evenings were less busy, and other than having to wait a bit for one’s turn to get a gelato, the crush wasn't much of a bother. 

Stone steps. Lots and lots of stone steps.

We had two full days in Cinque Terre, and as avid hikers, we decided to make the most of them. On the first day we hiked from our base in Vernazza north to the next village of Monterosso. Heck, an easy two miles each way, according to the guide book. We left early, planning to eat breakfast in Monterosso. We purchased our Cinque Terre cards that were required to use the trails, but also covered train and bus fares as well as entrance to public toilets (of which, I swear, there are only about three in the entire country).

Stone bridge and terraces

As it turned out, our easy four mile hike turned into a rather challenging seven mile hike. The villages are set along the coast but the trail wanders up high on the coastal hills, never remaining flat for more than a few hundred steps at a time. Most of the hike was either challenging stone step climbing or knee stressing stepping down. And the steps we climbed up on the way to Monterosso, we got to climb down on the way back to Vernazza.

Groves of lemons, grapes, and other fruits

The trails, landscape, and views, however, were worth the effort. Long ago terraced, the trails were stone with stone retaining walls and stone bridges over small creeks. The ocean views were incredible. And of course the views of the villages were iconic. Groves of fruit trees and small farmsteads still abound in this national park. 

Much of Cinque Terre is still farmed - as it has been for thousands of years

I found Monterosso less charming. Lots of beach goers and more modern, we walked the street along the coast to the far northern end where the remains of the statue of a giant guards the entrance to a private enclave. After a light breakfast, we headed back, knowing the challenge we faced.  A shower, a nap, and a takeout meal in the apartment ended the day.

The sea is nearly always visible from the costal trails

We still hiked on the second day, starting after an early breakfast. While a more modest hike, the path from Vernazza south to Corniglia was still three miles of ups and downs. Again, great views. Happily, Corniglia is the only village of the five that does not sit at sea level, but clings to hills above the coast. After a midmorning coffee stop, we set off to find the train station.

The Giant looks over the beach in Monterosso

The train station was on the coast, so we found ourselves on the 395 steps needed to reach it. Thankfully going down. There are regular trains that run through each of the towns so we used those to reach Manarola and Riomaggiore, the two southernmost towns of the Cinque Terre. (GoogleMaps, BTW, is great for figuring out public transit.) The coastal trails between these towns have been closed for years due to landslides. Manarola and Riomaggiore were again, quite pretty, and we enjoyed our short stays in them, but by midafternoon we were back on the train headed to Vernazza.

Vernazza from the trail to Corniglia

Our final full day in Italy was spent on trains crossing the country back to Venice. Rather uneventful. We had a hotel room close to the airport and got a 4am shuttle in order to catch our 6am flight to Minneapolis via Amsterdam. Despite long check-in lines and some rather short connection times, our travels went smoothly. No mis-bookings of hotel rooms. Good weather. No serious injuries or illness. The travel gods were smiling. It was a good trip.

Oh, I did lose one sock and a waterbottle. I guess it wasn't perfect.

Street view of Vernazza

More photos from the trip can be found here:

• Venice https://dougj.smugmug.com/Travel/2023/Venice-/
• Bike trip https://dougj.smugmug.com/Travel/2023/Boat-bike-Italy/
• Cinque Terre https://dougj.smugmug.com/Travel/2023/Cinque-Terre/