Photos and Story about Staying in the Fancy Hotel at Crater Lake, Oregon... It's like the hotel in "The Shining" Movie... and the Delightful Valley at the Base of the Mountain. (Fort Klamath)

 Ranger Station - Gift Shop
Flag at Half Staff on May 15th, 2015
for Peace Officers Memorial Day

After I retired I drove around and explored Oregon, Washington State, Nevada and Utah. At Crater Lake I stayed at an OLD Hotel that had a balcony overlooking the lake. The rooms did not have television because the hotel was a historic landmark refurbished to be like it was before the invention of TV. So I played with my digital camera taking pictures of printed materials distorted by the water in a drinking glass and drank tap water. It was very tasty because they just pump it out of the lake... So, I drank a Lot of that excellent water...

That night I had a very realistic dream where I thought that I was sleeping in my Van and I woke up in the middle of the night to urinate... I got out of my Van and stood by the side of it and took a piss. Then I realized that I was not outdoors in a campground but in a fancy hotel! I was worried that I had done harm to the rug in the hotel room and dreaded getting a huge bill... I was actually worried about this for hours because the dream was so realistic... I went back to sleep. When I awoke I could not find a wet spot on the carpet... I guess that I actually went into the bathroom while dreaming... Lucky Me! Auto-pilot saved the day.

So I went down to the Hotel's Desk and checked out. I walked out the front door and everything was covered with Ice. I could not walk to my car or drive it if I did get to it. So I went back into the Hotel, got some stationary and envelopes from the clerk and wrote letters to my family while sitting by the roaring fire. A lady sat next to me and said that her husband was considering moving from Buffalo, NY to Brookings, Oregon. I recommended that move highly and drew her a map of where the freeways and cities were in Oregon and Northern California. Then I ate a fine breakfast and by then, the ice had melted...  So I drove around looking at the lake, parked and drew drawings in my sketchbook. I had been camping out in the van and had amused myself by drawing and listening to the radio. Great public radio stations in Southern Oregon broadcast from the University... Totally free station without corporate profits deciding what songs to play...

I tried to drive all the way home but felt too sleepy on Highway 101 near Crescent City. I stayed at a campground that looked a lot like the movie Jurassic Park- Lost World. There was a big meadow in the redwood forest.  The next day I drove home.

Advertising Novelty Duck
at a Swimming Pool Store in Medford Oregon

Souvenir Aluminum Coffee Cups and My Farmville Cow... Riding on the Dashboard of My Van...


Dairy Cows at a Farm in the Valley
Next to Crater Lake Oregon
(Fort Klamath)


Water being Pumped to the Dairy Cows

Welcome Sign to a Forestry Science School 

in the Valley at the Bottom of Crater Lake

Student Housing Klamath Outdoor Science School

The Road to Crater Lake Oregon

Rogue River Oregon

Pen Drawing about Jefferson Public Radio 

Southern Oregon University

I Drew This While Waiting for the Ice

on the Road Down the Mountain

to Melt... Dangerous Driving Conditions

https://www.ijpr.org/

It's Good to UNPLUG and Go Sit Quietly in the Warm California Sunshine. Listening to the Geese at the Farm next door... and the Frogs... and the Guys Chainsawing Firewood...

This is Called "ME TIME." Observing the Vineyards, the Trees, The Little Chirping Birds... And Everyone Loves The Sound of a Harley in the Distance... 

It's all Just Grist for the Mill. At First, I was Angered about having to Listen to The Annoying Sound of an Internal Combustion Engine but then... I remembered days when I was Chainsawing Firewood for My Own Wood Burning Stove in My Own House in Virginia. While Tripping on Heavenly Blue Morning Glory Seeds... We went out to Mountains near the EPIC Shenandoah Valley... and Stopped at Luray Caverns... and took a Rubber Life Raft Ride down the Shenandoah River past Harper's Ferry and Continuing Down the Potomac... We say a Couple of Men Fishing in a Homemade Boat coustructed out of a single sheet of plywood. Saw Off a foot on each side, turn them up and nail 'em in place, Caulk and You Have a Boat... Harper's Ferry is Where John Brown Had a Civil War Battle. It had a Factory that MADE RIFLES. The North was able to Shoot Farther with Rifles than the South could using Muskets. A Northern Soldier could stand OUT of Range and Kill the Enemy. Technology Helped the North Win the Civil War.

As I Walked Down Stream past the Vineyards, I Noticed an Orange Tree, Fully Loaded with Ripe Fruit. We Eat Oranges Every Day Here... After all, They are Very Cheap at the Farmers Market. On the TV I Noticed that "Those People Over There Were Behaving Crazy" so I Changed the Channel... to Classic Rock Music Choice... It's True that What Trump and His Band of Flying Monkeys Have Almost No Effect on My Life... Unless they Bankrupt The US Economy and Cause Global Collapse... Personally, I'm on Medicare (65 Years Old) and so If The rest of the Country Embraces Improved Obamacare or Medicare For All, I'm Not Effected. Certainly TrumpCare Would be a Disaster... Millions of People Dying Young... I DO Care that Social Security and Medicare are Under Attack by Trump's Evil Minions. I DO Care that They are Destroying the Environment and Drinking Water Could Become Poisonous... One of My Care Givers Lives Near McClellan Air Force Base and Everyone is Told to NOT DRINK THE WATER that comes out of the Tap... However, they still Shower in Toxic Waste... and That's Horrible... I DO Care that Trump is ANTI-Choice and Plans to Overturn Roe v Wade and Force Women to Give Birth to Unwanted Babies... "It's Back to The Coat Hanger" with Evil Brat Kava Kava Noogie and the Just-Us of the SCOTUS.

Digital Lotus Card for sale... 

Two Sided Card... Unfold and Thumbtack it to Your Wall for an Instant Visual Mantra... Just Look at it and You are Blessed With Bliss!

Click on the Picture to see the Back Side Art!

Digital Lotus Card
by gregvan

Original Art For Sale...
and there is a different picture on the back of the Greeting Card... a Rainbow Spiral...

"Art in the Time of Coronavirus" Holiday Card
by gregvan

Welcome to Freshwater, California USA. Location of a year long tree-sit Protesting Logging of the Redwood Forest. The people living in the trees were evicted by Eric Schatz... A Sub contractor working for MAXXAM Corporation.

View from the top of Freshwater Valley near Eureka, California. Looking at the Ocean... Now that MAXXAM has cut down all the trees, it's easy to get a fine view of the valley below. 

We went to a tree-sit/ecology action where 9 Earth First!ers were arrested. (full text of newspaper article I wrote below) It Happened on Greenwood Heights road. That road goes very far up into the hills of the Trinity Alps near the area called Kneeland. It's a totally different climate up there in comparison to Eureka. It's hot grassland with cattle ranches.

This is a picture of the clearcut forest two years later when pampas grass has grown where redwood trees used to be.

Scenes before the trees were all cut down... very dark pictures in the forest... Protesters watch the eviction of the treesitters by Eric Schatz... a contractor that specializes in removing ecology activists from PALCO trees... yep, that's a business here in Eureka...

 Eco-Action Families... the forest people...

"No Compromise 

in the Defense of Mother Earth"

Man moving from one treehouse to another on mountain climbing ropes. Thru the amazing power of the Internet, The man who is pictured above emailed me... He has the "Forest Name" of Rudi Bega... and is helping with the Nanning Grove treesit... Please visit his websites. Thanks!

www.wesavetrees.org

We Save Trees has some stunning photographs of the forest...

www.rudibega.org

Police, sheriffs and the Highway Patrol all attended... why highway patrol? 

I saw no traffic related problems...

RANTING OF A DERANGED LUNATIC (MOON WORSHIPPER) ABOUT REDWOOD TREES... ME !!!

Full text of an article I wrote for the Humboldt State University newspaper about an ecology protest. Update: The forest is returning to health after being clearcut. The pampas grass is thriving and that helps keep the soil on the steep mountainside and out of freshwater creek. Pacific Lumber clearcut this forest in 2003 and every six months I go and take a picture of the same location... There is a "convenient" abandoned logging road where it is easy to park and hike around. You can see the Eureka Bay quite easily now that all those trees are out of the way...

Soon MAXXAM will be just a bad memory... Like ENRON and Silverado Savings and Loan. MAXXAM has filed for bankruptcy and has closed the Fortuna and Carlotta lumber mills. Now they want to sell 6,600 acres of land that may not be logged for 42 years to pay off creditors... Very expensive... not kidding... like 5 million dollars for 160 acre plots... Just Ridiculous... No one will buy them...  just a tactic in the lawsuits... 

HEADLINE: 8 arrested March 18th in Freshwater tree-sit.

One tree chainsawed to death.

This morning I drove to Beautiful Freshwater (near Eureka, California) to visit the Tree Sitters. There were 10 sherrifs cars and 5 highway patrol cars. I saw 3 people handcuffed and then put in a sherrifs van. One person down the road was handcuffed and in the custody of a different sherrif. This lady was wearing "press" dogtags and was complaining that all she was doing was taking photographs. There were about 40 people standing around, talking on cell phones and playing drums. I could hear the sound of chainsawing. Then a large tree fell over. It makes a tearing sound then a big thump and a wail arose from the people. When four highway patrol cars stopped in the middle of the crowd and turned on their spinning lights, I left.(I was afraid of the police...protect and serve...corporations) As I was walking to my truck I noticed another highway patrolman writing tickets. I asked a citizen what that was all about and he said "don't woory about getting a parking ticket, none of these people will pay them anyway". I am concerned about the highway patrol being there. THERE CLEARLY WERE NO HIGHWAY RELATED PROBLEMS THERE. What's up with parking tickets? We were in the middle of the forest. 

...this part written later that night... 
We went to a protest to defend redwood trees today. There are 8 people that are camping at the top of redwood trees to prevent loggers from chainsawing the trees. The owners of the forest (Palco/MAXXAM) hired a guy (eric schatz)to climb up the trees and forcibly evict the trespassers. Then the Humboldt county sherrifs arrest the tree-sitters and send them to jail. Yesterday, there were 7 tree sitters and the police arrested 3 people. Then, during the night, 4 people went up. The grand total of people INCREASED. The loggers started chainsawing at the bottom of a tree that had people camping in it. This action enraged the crowd. We feel that if a logger cuts down a tree with a person in it that it is dangerous to that person. The loggers cut away a 2 foot circle of bark all the way around the tree. Someone said that was called "girthing" and the purpose was to kill the tree. My wife decided that some medicine was needed for the tree, so we went to the hardware store and bought a bucket of "tree wound" compound. It is used to seal the bare wood after pruning. We drove back to the ecology protest and she (with help from others) spread the healing compound on the bare wood. I got to spend a lot of time talking to a knowlegable fellow named "Atilla". He said that the MAXXAM corporation has to cut down redwood trees in order to pay the interest on a giant "junk bond" debt. MAXXAM, a texas corporation, purchased the Pacific Lumber Company about 10 years ago in a hostile takeover financed by "junk bonds" that they got from Mike Milken. (remember, Ivan Boesky and Mike went to jail for wall street fraud) I saw on the News tonight that our governor, Gray Davis, has ordered the highway patrol to work 12 hour shifts to help defend the state of California from "terrorist" attacks. GEE, WHY WERE ALL THOSE CHPs OUT IN THE FOREST TODAY ? WHAT TERRORIST ATTACKS WERE THEY DEFENDING US FROM ? Atilla also told me why there were large trucks that look like they carry sand. They are used to haul gravel to build logging roads. After I left the protest in the morning, I drove way back into the woods and noticed large orange trucks with PALCO on the doors. The reason Palco hired a subcontractor (eric schatz)to do "tree service" is to protect themselves from lawsuits in case anyone gets hurt. 

How to get there: From highway 101 traveling North, Take the Myrtle ave exit in Eureka and drive to Freshwater road. Take a right and then an IMMEDIATE left onto Greenwood Heights road. Drive 2 miles. When you see all the sherrif cars, you are there. From Arcata, travel south on 101 to Indianola cutoff. Take a left and drive to Myrtle ave. Take a right on Myrtle. Left on Freshwater road.  


of course, the ecology action happened four years ago and now you may visit and see how the forest is healing itself...

Two members of the Ecology Group Earth First! were bombed by the FBI in Oakland. There was a Trial and the FBI agreed to award the Survivor a large cash settlement but denied doing anything wrong. Judi Beri died and  Darryl Cherney Survived. He has retired from Activism but still performs as the leader of a musical group. They sing satire protest songs...

Interesting Movie: Who Bombed Judi Bari? 
https://www.imdb.com/video/vi742497305?ref_=tt_pv_vi_aiv_1

Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were falsely arrested for car-bombing themselves on May 24, 1990 while on an Earth First! musical organizing tour for Redwood Summer. They sued the FBI for violations of the First Amendment, claiming the FBI knew they were innocent but arrested them to try to silence them. Having survived the bomb but now stricken by cancer, Judi Bari, a leader of the movement to save California's old growth redwoods, gives her on-camera, deathbed testimony about the attempt on her life and her colorful organizing history with the radical environmental movement Earth First.

—Anonymous

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1754621/

Who Bombed Judi Bari? is an American historical documentary about an assassination attempt on the life of Judi Bari, an American environmental and labor activist, which occurred on May 24, 1990.^[1]

While driving through Oakland, California on their way to a benefit concert for the Redwood Summer campaign to save California's coast redwood trees, Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were injured when a pipe bomb detonated under the driver's seat of their car.^[2] Bari, who was driving, was critically injured. Oakland police and the FBI approached the explosion as a terrorist incident, arrested Bari and Cherney, and tried to prove that they were transporting their own explosive device which accidentally detonated. The two were never charged with a crime. In 2002 they won a lawsuit and were awarded $4.4 million for civil rights violations by the FBI and Oakland Police Department.^[3] The authorities allegedly did not investigate any other suspects.^[1] Discovery during the lawsuit revealed crime scene photos that clearly showed the bomb was located under Bari's seat, not in the back seat as investigators had alleged.^[1]

In 2012, a federal judge ordered the FBI not to destroy another pipe bomb that had only partially detonated at a lumber mill about a week before the car bombing, which investigators agreed had been built by the same bomber. Attorney for Darryl Cherney, Ben Rosenfeld, had requested that an outside lab perform DNA testing on the Cloverdale bomb, which the FBI claimed it had never performed, a request which the judge upheld.^[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Bombed_Judi_Bari

I'm Really Enjoying the Croaking Frogs in the Creek. The Sound is so Very Three Dimensional. Some are Behind Me to the Right, Some Really Close and Some in Front of Me Far Far Away. And Everywhere In Between...

It Rained Here Two Days Ago and That's What Brought Out The Frogs...

We also have about a dozen geese that live in the field down stream... and little chirpy birds... I was watching the Sunset... Big Puffy Clouds... and appreciating the wonders of nature... We Have so many trees... and they are just starting to blossom... It makes me feel that all is right in the world... then there are Jet Airplanes way up high... people rushing, rushing, rushing to keep appointments... seems silly... and of course, everyone loves the sound of a Harley in the Distance... It's a Wonderful World Here in the Central Valley of California.

I was looking at the Constellation Orion last night and the three Stars of Orion's Belt are NOT exactly in a straight line. One is slightly offset. JUST LIKE THE PYRAMIDS IN EGYPT. If you look at a Map... The Pyramids are Exactly in the same Arrangement as the Stars. Thanks, ANCIENT ALIENS TV SHOW. I Never would have noticed this without you. MY QUESTION is what is that Really Bright Planet nearby? REALLY REALLY BRIGHT... My Guess is Mars...

It's Important To Remember that... While those Crazy People on the TV News are Doing Insane Stuff... Life is Pretty Good Here. Yes, There is a Crisis in the World but, SIMPLY CHANGE THE CHANNEL ON THE TV and it all goes away... I Enjoy watching "Ancient Aliens." It raises some interesting Questions... and "Jeopardy" game show is FUN.

To Quote Wavy Gravy at the Ram Dass Funeral...
"Gimme an 'F'... (and the crowd says 'F'), Gimme a 'U'... ('U'), Gimme an 'N'... ('N')... What's That Spell? FUN!, What's That Spell? FUN!, What's That Spell? FUN!, What's That Spell? FUN! Of Course, This Chant Only Works if You Know Who Wavy Gravy IS and Had Seen the Movie 'Woodstock' so this is Totally Wasted on Rap Music Fans... and Who IS Ram Dass? Country Joe and The Fish? Why would anyone want to BE HERE NOW?

Free Coloring Book Art. Find MORE at Google Image Search using the Words: "gvan42 Coloring Book" - Print as Many Copies as You Want and Share With Friends... https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2020/04/peace-and-love-free-coloring-book-art.html <--- Click Here

That Creepy Masonic Eye from the Back of the Dollar Bill - and Pink Floyd's Wall - Dark Side of the Moon Prism
Free Coloring Book Art by gvan42

When I was working at System Industries in Santa Clara, California (1976) the owner of the company (Dr. Edwin Zschau) went to Japan to learn how to run a business.

They were doing very well in comparison to USA companies and there was a lot of interest in learning why. So we adopted many oriental concepts and implemented them in our business. One thing was that we had a company song. We had a birthday meeting every month and we would all sing the company song.

Lyrics:
"System, System Industries, Here we go, Hand in hand.
Solving Data Mysteries for the betterment of man."

Another thing we did was take a two hour lunch so we could exercise. I swam at the Santa Clara International Swim center with my wife. She was working the Graveyard shift at National Semi-conductor so we met twice a day. Lunch and evenings.
We had many people from foreign countries working there. When Dr. Zschau went to Japan he hired many Japanese people. Immigrants made our company better. That was a universal fact of life about Silicon Valley... The brightest engineers worldwide came here for work. I had a neighbor from Nicaragua who came to work at IBM. And another Engineer I knew came from Germany at the end of WW2 to work at Lockheed. Very Common.

~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~

Another time in Santa Clara we partticipated in a "Car Rally". Everyone would meet at a starting location then we were given a series of clues as to where to go next. One clue was "Go to a street named for a part time orchestra leader." We were supposed to figure out the puzzle and navagate to checkpoints. The answer to that clue was "Semi-conductor Blvd"... semi meaning part time and conductor is the leader of an orchestra. This was all part of the California Car Culture.

Read more of my Auto-Biography at: http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2018/03/growing-up-in-los-gatos-california-in.html

Pictures of where I live in Orangevale, California - Taken at Dawn - Near Folsom and Sacramento in the Central Valley. Trail to the Vineyard and Chicken Coop.

My trail to the grape vines in the backyard

Looking the other direction at the chicken coop

My grape vines at home

The Tree with Pink Blossoms and Sunrise

Looking at the House Next Door -
Mine Looks the same - Sunrise over the grapes

Great Book: "Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now" by Jaron Lanier... They encourage bad behavior and stifle good...

https://www.amazon.com/Arguments-Deleting-Social-Media-Accounts/dp/125019668X
A timely call-to-arms from a Silicon Valley pioneer.

You might have trouble imagining life without your social media accounts, but virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier insists that we’re better off without them. In Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, Lanier, who participates in no social media, offers powerful and personal reasons for all of us to leave these dangerous online platforms.

Pointy Cap Magic Mushroom Graphed in WINPLOT

https://www.amazon.com/default/e/B00J1ZK6S6/?redirectedFromKindleDbs=true
Books by Jaron Lanier 
https://www.amazon.com/Who-Owns-Future-Jaron-Lanier/dp/1451654979 

Who Owns the Future?

Jaron Lanier is the father of virtual reality and one of the world’s most brilliant thinkers. Who Owns the Future? is his visionary reckoning with the most urgent economic and social trend of our age: the poisonous concentration of money and power in our digital networks.

Lanier has predicted how technology will transform our humanity for decades, and his insight has never been more urgently needed. He shows how Siren Servers, which exploit big data and the free sharing of information, led our economy into recession, imperiled personal privacy, and hollowed out the middle class. The networks that define our world—including social media, financial institutions, and intelligence agencies—now threaten to destroy it.

But there is an alternative. In this provocative, poetic, and deeply humane book, Lanier charts a path toward a brighter future: an information economy that rewards ordinary people for what they do and share on the web.

The Search for Rainbow Spiralism in Ancient Civilizations

One Cause of Global Warming is Automobile Exhaust. I don't own a car. I ride the bus... It's fun! Fix Global Warming...

I sleep on the way to work... You can't do that if you drive...
I drink booze on the way home... You can't do that if you drive...

However, I know people that travel great distances to get to work and cannot ride the bus or use BART. Friends of mine LIVE in Sacramento and WORK in San Francisco and commute back and forth every day. That's INSANE but you do what you have to do to survive.

A really great solution would be to move the workplace closer to Home. Housing costs in the Bay Area are very high and MANY people choose to live in the central valley where housing costs are reasonable. Why NOT move high tech offices? What is the advantage to having an office in Sunnyvale, Santa Clara or Mountain View? With a shorter commute people would be happier and more productive... An hour+ commute each way really makes for a long workday... We should move offices to Stockton, Modesto, Turlock and Gilroy... That's where the people live!

Zoning Laws made sense in the past when we wanted to keep industrial buildings far away from Homes. Industrial buildings often caused smoke and pollution... like steel mills and oil refineries...

Office Space could fill the empty stores at shopping malls... Since Amazon has caused retail stores to close why not use those vacant buildings for Cubical Farms?

Fix Global Warming

Great Movie: "Valley of the Giants" about timber wars in the California Redwoods. Filmed in 1938

Filmed on location in Humboldt County.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_the_Giants_(film)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030925/

Elk River Valley Meadows, Horse and Blackberry Brambles...