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Yosemite National Park, California
If she remembers, she hides it whenever we meet
Despite all the times I have been to California, this was just my third trip to Yosemite National Park, and unlike the last one which was all hiking all the time, this was a short, half day trip where I probably spent as much time getting there as actually being there. Still, even a short time in the valley is welcome, and the ride there isn’t really all that bad, all things considered.
The classic view of the unforgettable valley, with El Capitan and Bridalveil Falls guarding a distant (though still half visible) Half Dome.
I had booked the basics of this California trip- a flight to San Francisco, a Giants game with my father, a drive out to Yosemite- well before I learned that the day we would be at Yosemite coincidentally was a day the park offered free admission in celebration of the National Park Service’s birthday, which is an odd way to say the anniversary of its founding since the National Park Service is not a person and doesn’t have an actual birthday (sorry National Park Service, I’m just stating the facts here). While it was certainly nice to get free admission, the crowds that the promotion brought were pretty noticeable in an always busy park. And since I was traveling with my father who is mobile but not super mobile, I found myself driving a lot and hunting and hunting for parking everywhere I went. The limited parking up at Glacier Point was the worst, and by the time we left they were already diverting traffic to an overflow lot and bus shuttle service. But of course there’s a reason that the crowds are there, and it’s the same reason I was there too. The view of the valley from the high country is spectacular, and an hour long drive followed by endless circling of a parking lot sure is faster than walking up from the valley floor.
Speaking of the valley floor, here is another constructed panorama of El Capitan, this time from ground level.
About that constructed panorama, increasingly you have probably been noticing a lot of panoramas from me, something which I have been finding hard to resist. When at a place like Yosemite, I take a series of overlapping photos with my Sony RX100 M4 and then use a program called Kolor Autopano to assemble them into one monster photo. And these panoramas are not always panoramas, sometimes I’ll stack them to create a slightly unreal fake wide angle view froma camera whose angle really isn’t all that wide. Something to look out for throughout the slideshows, for anyone looking to look out for such things.
As I put together these slideshows I’ll sometimes try and present photos and stories in the order that I experienced them, although often such blind devotion to a timeline that only I know of doesn’t tell the best story. So with that in mind, we go back across the country to Smoke Rise, a gated community only about five miles from home in Kinnelon, New Jersey, where on an island on a lake is a building that I never even knew existed until now: Saint Hubert’s Chapel, designed by Louis Tiffany.
Kinnelon wasn’t always Kinnelon. The lake was home to a tobacco baron named Francis Kinney, and his house was known as Kinney’s Lawn, which eventually renamed the lake and entire township. Kinney not only built a great big house on the lake, he also hired Louis Tiffany (of Tiffany Glass fame) to design a small private family chapel on an island in the middle of the lake, reachable (as many islands are) only by boat. The chapel was named after Saint Hubert, a saint so unpopular that he doesn’t even have his own Wikipedia page. Saint Hubert is supposedly a patron saint of the hunt, which makes sense since the woods around Kinnelon are home to all sorts of adorable, furry huntable creatures. Saint Hubert (or Sancte Huberte) has his name on the chapel’s absolutely gorgeous door, in case you were unsure that the lone chapel on the lone island in the middle of the lake you named after yourself is the right Saint Hubert’s Chapel. And the rest of the Latin translates to “pray for us,” which in this case may mean “pray for us to kill those adorable, furry huntable creatures before they kill us.
The chapel opened in 1886 and is in generally good shape, although there are definitely some restoration projects ready to be started there. To help pay for them, the chapel is open for weddings. There are a lot of restrictions though. First the chapel and island have limited capacity, so that monster dream wedding with hundreds of guests is going to have to be somewhere else. Second is to remember to bring your own water bottle, since even though the island is surrounded by water, there is no drinking water (or toilet) on the island. And finally, you need to be prepared to abandon or cancel your wedding if the weather turns ugly. The only way out there is by boat, and once you’re there, you’re a great target to be hit by lightning. No one ever wants to be struck by lighting, especially on their wedding day.
And… we’re back in California, this time north of San Francisco at Muir Woods, where the redwoods are high and have stood for longer than one can realistically imagine.
