These people have the right idea. Any time I come across a beautiful, peaceful place, my first thought is “I could just sit down here with my book and read all day.” Bringing Piroko along would be even better.
We took our lunch up on a mountain view, where we met some human-desensitized animals. They rifled through bags when the owners weren’t looking, grabbed leftovers from abandoned meals, and investigated our Grey Poupon.
In the beginning of June, Andrew and I spent two nights in Yosemite National Park. Here’s the view from the top of Half Dome, where I proved it’s possible to hike to the top of a snowy mountain in Doc Martens. An extraordinary amount of snow had fallen, so the paths in the high areas were covered, and the lower areas were flooded. All of the waterfalls were rushing much more strongly than usual.
Still on the way back from Grand Coulee, Andrew wanted to stop by Diablo Dam. I was quite tired and wanted to get back, but I didn’t disagree. It turned out to be the most exciting part of the whole trip. Maybe it was because we were actually allowed to walk out onto it, but it seemed way more impressive than the much larger Grand Coulee Dam. You used to be able to walk out onto the Grand Coulee Dam, but not anymore, because of “security concerns”. I don’t know what’s worse: the possibility of someone blowing up something important, or the loss of the freedom to go see something without being hassled and suspected of being a terrorist. If we can’t visit, touch, and photograph our country’s treasures, won’t they lose all cultural merit and become simple utilities? Anyway, you _can_ still walk out onto the Diablo Dam, and it is vertigous. Looking down its side is like looking across a sizable parking lot, one that is twisted around and vertical. I spent a while just looking straight down it from various spots and trying to fathom just how far I had to fall.
On the way back to Seattle, we took a different route to see more scenery. At this mountain pass we got out and stumbled around; look at all the _majesty_.
