Spotted on Highway 25, an otherwise gorgeous slice of California, just south of the east entrance to Pinnacles National Monument. I think it may be the first time I’ve seen the anti-illegal-immigrant cause married to the sacrifices of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A couple of things come to mind looking at the signs. It’s tempting to look at how many of the war dead–in these and other wars–arrived in the United States without their engraved invites or are the children of parents who came without papers. I’m thinking their sacrifices are still worthy.
It’s also tempting to come up with a list of all the other things the troops may or may not have died for besides “open borders.” Maybe some other night.
I feel like I’ve been hearing about California condors all my life. When I was a kid back on the other side of the Mississippi, the story was about the imminent extinction of a giant bird in a faraway place. In the ’80s, the story was about the capture of the last 20 or so wild birds and the beginning of a captive breeding program in Southern California designed to save them. Since then, most of the news has seemed remote and mixed: the condors have reproduced fairly readily in captivity. They’ve been reintroduced to areas in Southern and Central California as well as Arizona and Baja California. According to the San Diego Zoo, which launched the captive breeding effort, the California condor population stands at 348, which 187 birds in the wild. On the other hand, much of what we hear about the wild condors is bad news: birds that have been shot, killed by power lines, or died of lead poisoning after ingesting lead shot or bullets in carcasses they’ve dined on.
Bottom line, the birds have seemed remote to me. Part of another world, for all the effort that’s gone into saving them. That was how I felt before today, anyway.
Yesterday, we drove down to Pinnacles National Monument after hearing earlier in the week that a pair of condors nesting are incubating an egg in the back country there. I hadn’t realized until then that maybe a couple dozen condors have been released in the area, and at least one other pair has produced an egg. The drive is about 130 miles from our place, through San Jose and the towns south of there, then down a road that follows the San Andreas fault into a remote part of San Benito County. We got there too late to see any birds, but stayed in King City, about 30 miles away in the Salinas Valley, so we could go back again.
I wasn’t worried about getting there early because I had been told that condors “keep a teenager’s hours”–since they don’t fly until the day has warmed up a little, you generally don’t see them in the sky until mid- or late morning. We got back to the park at 11 or so, only to discover we couldn’t take Scout, The Dog, on any of the trails. While we stood in the parking lot outside the visitors center, Kate pointed and said, “Look!” Big bird overhead. Didn’t look like a vulture; bigger body and heavier wings. Didn’t look like an eagle; heavier wings with those splayed-out feathers at the tips. We grabbed the binoculars and each looked. No doubt about it: a California condor. In two or three minutes it was joined by one, then four, then five others: six condors wheeling upward–directly above the visitors center. One-thirtieth of the wild population, circling overhead.
There were about 40 people standing in line to catch a shuttle bus to a trailhead higher up, and not one of them was looking up or seemed aware of what was happening above them. I couldn’t resist calling out, “Look up, everyone,” and Kate walked over to point out what we were seeing. Binoculars and spotting scopes came up. I had my radio sound kit with me and talked to a few people about the condors. I found two people in line who had close encounters with them in Big Sur. One of the people was a volunteer condor guide and knew all about the birds, the other had managed a construction project that the condors visited. The endangered birds pulled stunts like pulling out a 50-pound box of nails and strewing it around the site. The condors apparently love to dig into things and would rip out insulation when they could get at it; on one occasion, a bird ripped out the seat from a bulldozer.
In the course of the day, and after having seen the birds myself, they suddenly seem real. Check out the video below, one of the first things I came across when looking for condor information this evening. (And here’s a link to a sort of hammy video with some good shots of the condors at the Pinnacles.) That’s it–except for our bonus sighting of the day: a golden eagle that appeared above the road on our way home and circled for awhile after we pulled into a church parking lot to watch it.
We took off from San Francisco yesterday in weak sunshine, with lots of clouds left over from Sunday’s rain. Heading north and east across the Bay, the clouds billowing up to the west, out toward the ocean, were beautiful. I did what I normally do from my window seat: reach for my camera, advisories to keep electronic devices off notwithstanding. When I tried to switch it on, the screen said, “Change the battery pack.” Damn. So you’ll have to take my word for it: a long line of what looked like low, low cumulus rising up along the spine of the Peninsula, shrouding the ocean side and leaving the bay side clear.
In the morning, I’m up and off to Chicago for the week. Family visit–not work. Packing consists of counting, and I try to make sure the number of shirts, socks and underwear-things I bring matches the number of days I expect to be away, with maybe an extra pair of everything in case I’m in a rodeo or a tackle football game. The hardest part, simply because I’ve lived in a two-season climate for so long where winter gear is totally optional: remembering to bring gloves and a hat. That is all. Tomorrow, SFO to ORD.
We’re back west. And to get here, we took a flight at 6:30 a.m. from Newark to San Francisco. That’s a shot out a starboard window, a couple minutes off the runway. It was a beautiful trip, even if most of the pictures did not turn out.
To get to the flight, we got up at 4 in the morning or so and were on our way from our friend Lisa’s house to the airport at 4:30. The weather on the other coast was summery but not appalling. Meaning humid and warm bordering on hot. I saw in the weather forecast last night that alerts for poor air quality had been issued for parts of the New York area, and a string of 90-degree days are coming up, too. Maybe we dodged some unpleasant, sticky, August weather. I don’t mind missing it. What I will always miss, what memory does not oversell, are the nights, so warm and lush they practically demand you come outside and sit or stroll.
Back by our bay, our summer is in full force, too. Sunny and highs in the 70s. After sunset, the temperature was a breezy 60. Our summers aren’t oversold either: they’re humane and let you go from Memorial Day to Labor Day without thinking about air conditioning. You just need to remember your sweater or flannel shirt for that after-dark walk, and your fine.
We took the boat from Highlands, New Jersey, to Manhattan (an East River dock at E. 35th Street). The trip is about an hour each way and costs $40 round trip (I gather most of the patrons are daily commuters who get a deal for buying a 40-ride ticket). We caught the 2:50 p.m. boat, which actually departed about half an hour late (no announcements were made to the two or three dozen people, mostly tourists like us, waiting to make the trip).
It was a beautiful, calm day on the water, but even so this trip is much more like being on the sea than the short trips across the Bay from San Francisco and Oakland. The boat rolled slowly on the swell and made it tough to walk straight across the deck. At the New York end we sailed east of Governor’s Island, under the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges, and got off the boat at the end of 35th Street. We walked to the New York Public Library, then doubled back to Grand Central Station and jumped on the No. 5 subway to downtown Brooklyn. We met our friends Jan and Chris there, then took a GPS-assisted drive to Fornino pizza on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg. Two small-world experiences: first, my brother John lived in this now hipster-intensive neighborhood about 20 years ago, when it was a little less given over to sidewalk performers, book vendors, and nice restaurants, bars, and boutiques. Second, Fornino, where we ate, is run by a friend of his.
Dinner was great, then Chris and Jan drove us back to Manhattan for the ferry home. It was warm and clear all the way across. Fireworks over Coney Island. A couple of shooting stars fell as we crossed the bay back to New Jersey. Ashore, then back to Highland Park.
On the harbor at Atlantic Highlands, N.J. About 5:30 in the afternoon, this boat is preparing to go out for an evening sail. One of the signs on the dock says: “You are permitted 4 cans of beer per person. Absolutely no drinking prior to departure.” And fluke? They’re a kind of flounder found here in the summer.
We drove from Geneva on the Lake, Ohio, to West Hazleton, Pennsylvania, today. Nearly 400 miles, and the first 300 on two-lane roads–state highways and U.S. routes out of Ashtabula County, the northeasternmost in Ohio, across northern Pennsylvania to Mansfield. Eastbound on U.S. 6, we hit U.S. 15 there and took it south to Interstate 180, which makes a semicircle to the east and south of Williamsport and leads you to I-80. From there we drove until very heavy rain hit, just after sunset. After about 10 miles during which a lot of traffic simply pulled over to the shoulder, we and some other kept going with our hazard flashers on until we got to the Pennsylvania 93 exit and drove south until we found a motel.
We got a late-ish start out of Geneva OLT, about 11:30, but I was inclined to stop when I saw stuff that interested me anyway. Well, most stuff. I did skip a picturesquely seedy old resort called "Ralph's" on the outskirts of town. But not too far down the road, I stopped at the little box of a public hall in Denmark Township. And just east of there was a little crossroads (Ohio 7 and 167) called Pierpont, near the Pennsylvania line in Ashtabula County. The place is as closed as it says it is. It looks like a mess, outside and in. But if one local's review is to be believed, it would be a pretty unusual dining experience. (The text of the sign in the window: "Temporarily Closed. If you live out of town, leave your phone number if you want me to call when I reopen. Thanks.")
