Redwoods For Cubby

I had planned to post some pictures of the California Redwoods at some point, but since Cubby over at Cubby Goes Digital expressed a specific interest in seeing them, I thought I would do so today. Basically, these photos will speak for themselves (in other words, I don't have too much to say about them). And yes, one of the guys did climb over a down redwood, naturally picking one that was over top of a deep ravine. And yes, we did stick one of the other boys into a tree, and force him to sit there while we all took pictures, I don't think he really minded tooo much. Good times, good times. Sorry guys. lol

This last photo is one I shot out of our second hotel's window. I don't really have another spot to put it, so I am going to put it in with this post.

More From California

On our last full day in California, Dr. Tryon, our chaperone, made sure we got to 'See the Sights' in San Francisco. This included a stop to Pier 13, and a lovely trip out to Alcatraz. It was incredible. The boat ride out to Alcetrez left a little something to be desired, as it was foggy and rather chilly by California standards. Not too mention the Bay was incredibly choppy, and I don't really like being on big boats in the best of circumstances. However, once we got out there it was truly a memorable event. We got to tour most of the island. Unfortunately, the pelicans and gulls were nesting, so a fairly good portion was closed to visitors. And to make that a bit worse, we couldn't even get any of the pelicans to hold still long enough to get their pictures taken. However, while we were in the main jail house or whatever you want to call it, the youngest guard to ever serve on Alcatraz, Frank Heaney, was there signing copies of his book. I had been having great difficulty finding something to bring home for my father, and it was totally perfect. Kind of one of those moments where the person you have been having trouble finding that perfect gift for pops right into your mind when you see something and you think, yup, that is just what I've been lookin' for.

I believe that is the officer's club we are coming up on in this photo, but I'm not certain, even after I took these photos in and got them developed I had a hard time figuring out what some of them were.

From what I can tell from the map in Dad's book, the church like building is probably the bachelor's quarters on the island, but I'm not sure.

I believe this should be the upper portion of the married officer's quarters building. It goes over the edge of the cliff and down to the lower level. This is a view of the lighthouse and what is left of what should be the warden's house. The park that now owns the island is trying to get up enough money to fix all of the buildings, and while they have done a tremendous amount of work, they hadn't gotten quite to this point yet.

Now this photo I know if of the married officers quarters. I took it as we were pulling up to the dock. Up above you can see the lighthouse and the warden's house.

These last four photos are from the inside of the prison. The first three are the cells from the famous 'Escape from Alcatraz' inmates, Clarence Anglin, John Anglin and Frank Morris. The interior contents of the cells are set up the exact way they were found after the men had escaped from them. The last one is a photo from the group of cells were Robert Stroud "The Birdman of Alcatraz" was held. (Sorry they are so tilted. I think that happened when I scanned them.)

The cell in the very top right hand corner was the Birdman's.

I will post some more photos from the trip in the near future. I had about seven cameras full of pictures after the trip. Including shots of the mountains, the Redwood forest, two vineyards, and a bunch of sea lions, as well as a few more dairies. I also have a whole bunch more shots from the places I have already posted on. If anyone would like me to post some more, just let me know and I would be happy to do so.

Hmm, Gee, Doesn't This Make Us All Feel Good

This information found by TFS Magnum is quite disturbing. It just goes to show that, 'when guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns!' And this will also tie in surprising well with the post I am planning for later, on the stop we made at Alcetrez while on break in Califonia

River and Fish Hatchery

After going to Ocean-View, we headed farther up into the foothills of the Rockies to visit a fish hatchery, which I believe was on the Russian River. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but the postcards they were selling in the gift shop were all of the Russian, so that was my guess as to what the river and associated lakes were called. Here are some of the photos I took of both the hatchery itself, and the view we got from the top of the mountain, looking down onto the lake and river.


This is a view of part of the lake/river/ whatever it was. You can't see them in this photo because I had a really crappy disposable camera, but there were a pair of golden eagles below us, circling the water. It was so incredible. They flew right up past us when we were getting ready to leave, naturally I was out of shots on the camera I had with me. While we were at the fish hatchery, the tour guide told us that three pairs had been released within the mountains and all of them seemed to be getting ready to nest. It was really cool.

This is the other half of the water that was below us. The mountains themselves were just as lovely as the water. The water was merkier up close, but from a distance it really looks clean and pure.

Those ripples are from a HUGE fish that leaped completely out of the water after a butterfly, which it got as a lovely afternoon snack. I can't remember what type of fish were coming into the hatchery to spawn, but I do know that we were a week late to see the Salmon. The fish that were in were enourmous. And some were really torn up from their journey, and I mean that literally.


Those big blobs in the water aren't oversized rocks, they are the mammoth fish that were heading up to the spawning pools. They were so incredible. There were several hundred of them along the little creek that we walked along, and there were more that were farther down that we couldn't see.

This was a pretty cool stop on our tour of Califonia. Unfortunately, they weren't really all that friendly towards visitors. Oh well, it was still fun. I just wish I had been able to get a shot of the cool little lizard that was checking our group out. Sadly, it decided we were probably dangerous and took off. It was a cute little thing though.

Some of the Scenes from California

During the spring semester of 2005, I had the opportunity to use my week of 'spring break' to go on an agricultural field studies trip to California, in the Napa valley and surrounding area. As this so called spring break falls during the second week of March, when it is generally brutally cold in upstate New York, I leaped on the chance. Especially since the trip would include a stop at Ocean-View Holsteins. I had long been using this farms bulls as young sires. Bulls from Zenith to Extra Special, all the way up to Zander and Zebra. When we got there, the cows we saw were absolutely incredible. Just amazing. I wouldn't have ever left if it had been an option. Unfortunately, we did have to leave. But I got a bunch of photos of their stellar cows.

This photo is of Ocean-View Juror Hay-ET. She goes back to the legendary To-Mar Wayne Hay, the dam of the incredible To-Mar Blackstar bull. Juror Hay's dam is the daughter of Blackstar's full sister. Juror Hay was classified EX-93 with a lifetime production of over 100,000 lbs of milk and she was still going strong at the time.

This is Ocean-View Integ Dixie. She is an Integrity daughter with a classification score of 92. Pretty darn nice cow. This photo really doesn't do her justice.

This cow here is the full sister to Ocean-View Extra Special. Her name is Ocean-View Outside Sheen-ET. Sorry the photo is so terrible. She wasn't too big on cooperating. She was really lovely though.

This is an Extra-Special daughter that the Nunes' had in a pen with two of his other daughters. Unfortunately, she was the only one who would stand still long enough for a photo. The three of them were consigned to a sale the next week. The whole group of us was really wishing we could have gotten to it, but we were back in NY by then.

The animal on the left in this photo is a bull calf out of Ocean-View's incredible Zandra family. This is the same family that Zenith, Zander and Zebra are out of. Impressive bull. If my family had lived closer I would have worked very very hard to get my father to buy him as at the time he was for sale. The heifer on the right is a Fustead Emory Blitz daughter, who was I believe out of the farm's Jewel family, but I'm not certain. They were a lovely pair of animals, and though you can't see her, farther to the left was a gorgeous daughter of Zenith. She was awesome, and the farm was getting her ready for the summer's shows.

All in all the trip was incredible. I'll post more photos from other places that we visited, including Alcetrez, vineyards, and a massive fish hatchery.