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Thread: Stay out of Yosemite NP New Years!

  1. #61
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Stay out of Yosemite NP New Years!

    Getting worse. One of the reason the road into Joshua Tree was closed is that vandals were chainsawing down Joshua Trees!

  2. #62
    Serious Amateur Photographer pepeguitarra's Avatar
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    Re: Stay out of Yosemite NP New Years!

    Southern California, just a little portion of the State, from Ventura County (Karsashian's live there) to the Mexican border has 19 million people living and driving cars everyday. In 1992, there were 15 million. When I hear another State with 800,000 people, I feel that is just my neighborhood size. It is a shame that education at home is at the bottom of the priorities in many homes.
    Last edited by pepeguitarra; 14-Jan-2019 at 12:04.
    "I have never in my life made music for money or fame. God walks out of the room when you are thinking about money." -- Quincy Jones

  3. #63

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    Re: Stay out of Yosemite NP New Years!

    We took a detour through a huge Joshua Tree forest on BLM land S. of Las Vegas (I-15 was closed by a pile up---injuries but no fatalities, thank God!)
    I'd better not post the exact location to keep it "safe"
    "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White

  4. #64

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    Re: Stay out of Yosemite NP New Years!

    I kinda of think somebody should use a chainsaw on such vandals...

    They're busy proving my theory that stupid people are never infertile and just keep making more idiots.

  5. #65
    ic-racer's Avatar
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    Re: Stay out of Yosemite NP New Years!

    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    That would look like Niagara Falls to an ant, so it's all relative. Besides, it's fun to fool people with scale. You should have put a little plastic Monopoly Hotel or model railroad building at the edge.
    I used to do that...
    Click image for larger version. 

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  6. #66
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Stay out of Yosemite NP New Years!

    Well, one interesting thing about the shutdown in that Elephant seals took over the parking lot at Drake's Beach at Pt Reyes Natl Seashore; so that spot is still officially closed except by guided ranger tours. And cleaning up that kind of poop will probably tax the patience of the docents and other volunteers. Meanwhile, a strain of blue-eye coyotes have been spotted there. Maybe one of Sir Francis Drake's crew left some DNA behind?

  7. #67

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    Re: Stay out of Yosemite NP New Years!

    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    Well, one interesting thing about the shutdown in that Elephant seals took over the parking lot at Drake's Beach at Pt Reyes Natl Seashore; so that spot is still officially closed except by guided ranger tours. And cleaning up that kind of poop will probably tax the patience of the docents and other volunteers. Meanwhile, a strain of blue-eye coyotes have been spotted there. Maybe one of Sir Francis Drake's crew left some DNA behind?
    Poop has become kind of a trademark for the Bay Area, hasn't it?
    Blame it on the elephant seals. lol!
    "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White

  8. #68
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Stay out of Yosemite NP New Years!

    There are usually handful of elephant seals on that beach each winter; but now it's pretty crowded with them. So anyone who wants to see them has to park at Pt Reyes North Beach parking lot and catch a shuttle bus Ranger tour it seems. I haven't been that direction lately. The poop reputation is otherwise a skid row thing in a section of SF greatly overblown for sake of political poop fights. But where things are really getting awful is along the Fwy in Berkeley where frontage road closures due to storm and sewage drain replacements have encouraged a homeless sprawl that looks like an Emperor of the North Depression era setting. You have to be really careful where you drive because there's all kinds of sharp junk and metal and random bicycle parts laying all over the streets, and the even bigger problem of a lot of these folks having mental or drug issues, so they'll wander right in front of a moving car or train without realizing it. But due to rising sea level, those old underground drains just have to be replaced. Some of them were still brick from the 1880's! About 20 years ago one of them backed up and flooded the parking area under the overpass. There were hundreds of drowned rats laying around stinking for about three days, and the office ladies were complaining about the smell.
    So one of the foremen had his wife stuff a gray sock and put a tail, feet, nose n whiskers n beady eyes on it, and brought it to work in his coat pocket. Then he went to the accounting office where all the ladies were, stood in the doorway and pulled it out of his coat, and hollered, Hey, look what I found in the parking lot!, as he threw the thing in the room. They all stampeded out of there screeching. I saw the whole thing. As long as we our work got done,
    the Owner looked the other way, and pranks were a routine form of letting off steam.

  9. #69

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    Re: Stay out of Yosemite NP New Years!

    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    There are usually handful of elephant seals on that beach each winter; but now it's pretty crowded with them. So anyone who wants to see them has to park at Pt Reyes North Beach parking lot and catch a shuttle bus Ranger tour it seems. I haven't been that direction lately. The poop reputation is otherwise a skid row thing in a section of SF greatly overblown for sake of political poop fights. But where things are really getting awful is along the Fwy in Berkeley where frontage road closures due to storm and sewage drain replacements have encouraged a homeless sprawl that looks like an Emperor of the North Depression era setting. You have to be really careful where you drive because there's all kinds of sharp junk and metal and random bicycle parts laying all over the streets, and the even bigger problem of a lot of these folks having mental or drug issues, so they'll wander right in front of a moving car or train without realizing it. But due to rising sea level, those old underground drains just have to be replaced. Some of them were still brick from the 1880's! About 20 years ago one of them backed up and flooded the parking area under the overpass. There were hundreds of drowned rats laying around stinking for about three days, and the office ladies were complaining about the smell.
    So one of the foremen had his wife stuff a gray sock and put a tail, feet, nose n whiskers n beady eyes on it, and brought it to work in his coat pocket. Then he went to the accounting office where all the ladies were, stood in the doorway and pulled it out of his coat, and hollered, Hey, look what I found in the parking lot!, as he threw the thing in the room. They all stampeded out of there screeching. I saw the whole thing. As long as we our work got done,
    the Owner looked the other way, and pranks were a routine form of letting off steam.
    Sounds like a fun place to work.
    "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White

  10. #70
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Stay out of Yosemite NP New Years!

    Oh it was wonderful fun. The pranks could get really clever and rough however. Lots of those guys have passed away, and the second generation of ownership cracked down pretty hard on the culture of anything-goes antics, but not like a white collar operation. I was well prepared. I have a whole book somewhere around here containing first person stories by the mountain road crew and cowboys etc up in the hills. I knew them all personally because I grew up with their kids, though we were scattered many miles apart. A bulldozer driver was smoking a cigar at lunch at the equipment yard, sitting atop a case of dynamite, when a co-worker shot the cigar out of his mouth and howled with laughter. No complaints. But the next day, while the rifleman was napping at lunch and airing out his hot feet, the dozer driver returned the prank and filled his boots with fast-setting concrete. It would go on and on like that, back and forth, for months. I've seen some far rougher pranks among cowboys. No sense telling the lore here. City folk simply wouldn't believe these things.

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