Route 50

Route 50. Great Basin, Nevada. (Click image for full-size view.)

I used to think pictures like this were doctored, somehow impossible. But this is really what it looks like. Except it's better to be there. I've driven this road twice now, and I'm ready to go back again.

Grand Canyon, 50 years later

Bright Angel trail, Grand Canyon south rim, 2016.

Fifty years ago, my parents started a series of summer trips that eventually took us all around the country. The highlight of our first trip, in 1966, was a hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon via the Kaibab trail. We stayed overnight at Phantom Ranch, and hiked out the next day on the Bright Angel trail.

My daughter graduated from college last spring, and we drove back home to California, stopping to see some sights along the way. The Grand Canyon was a must, as she had never seen it, and I haven't been back. We drove in the back way, along the Little Colorado, which is pretty spectacular on its own.

The Bright Angel trail looks pretty much the same, and the exhausted (but exhilarated) hikers look familiar. We want to come back and hike from the north rim to the south rim.

Running on the Jumbo track

Medford, Massachusetts

Baby Jumbo at the track. I did a short, slow track workout today on the Ellis Oval at Tufts.

Virgelle Ferry, Montana

A while ago, I wrote about the Rocky Hill to Glastonbury ferry in Connecticut. I mentioned the Virgelle ferry across the Missouri River in Montana. I recently came across this wonderful photograph of the Virgelle ferry:

Virgelle Ferry, near Loma, Montana. Photograph by Gary Splittberger.

Gary Splittberger, who took the photograph, tells me that there are two other small cable ferries across the Missouri in Montana: the Carter Ferry and the Stafford-McClelland Ferry. I see another trip to Montana in my future.

More on the Virgelle Ferry here (or you can do a search for Virgelle Ferry).

View from the marine terrace, Santa Cruz

The shoreline near Santa Cruz is pretty cool. This article about marine terraces on the Mobile Ranger blog explains it.

Santa Cruz, California

Santa Cruz, California

View from the second marine terrace on Back Ranch Road.

Public art: Mission Street, Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz Mission, Santa Cruz, California

There's lots of formal and informal public art around Santa Cruz. Last spring, a large group of volunteers installed this large mosaic mural at the entrance to the Santa Cruz Mission. Two students at the middle school designed the mural.

Santa Cruz, California

This is the plaque with the artists and supporters.

UCSC Tanks, Santa Cruz, California

There's some art in the woods above UC Santa Cruz.

Rail rider, Santa Cruz

Wilder Ranch, Santa Cruz, California

I was riding home after a longer-than-expected exploration of the Smith Grade area in Santa Cruz, when I spied this guy putt-putting up the coastal rail line. You can barely see him among the brussels sprouts (Click on the photograph for a larger view).

While he used a powered cart, he reminded me of this hilarious account of a similar wind-powered adventure in Montana, recounted by the inimitable Bill Vaughn.

Public art, Amarillo, Texas

On our way back from North Carolina to Santa Cruz via I-40 and Route 66 and taking in some of the sights.

Cadillac Ranch. Amarillo, Texas

Cadillac Ranch artist

Amarillo, Texas

Arroyo Seco

Arroyo Seco Canyon, Santa Cruz, California

Arroyo Seco no está tan seco hoy.

We had over two inches of rain yesterday from an El Niño storm. This canyon and the creek are normally bone dry, but everything is pretty green now, and yesterday was literally over the top.

Monterey Bay

After moving to California from the East coast, it took me a while to get used to the fact that driving toward the ocean is generally west, not east. Even more confusing is that Santa Cruz faces due south, so the ocean is not to the west here, unless you head north or south of town.

In any case, some days the views in any direction are sublime. We've gotten some rain this winter, so the fields are looking pretty lush again. This is the view looking south toward Monterey from the Coastal View trail in Moore Creek preserve just west of Santa Cruz.

Monterey Bay from the Moore Creek Preserve, Santa Cruz, California

In Patagonia

Many years ago, my roommates made me a gift of Bruce Chatwin's book In Patagonia. The book itself is fantastic. Worth reading and rereading. And it made me want to go to Patagonia someday.

Last year, our kids, who were working and studying in Buenos Aires, invited me to come join them for a week of hiking and exploring in Patagonia. I jumped at the chance, and I was not disappointed with either Patagonia or with Buenos Aires.

El Chaltén, Patagonia

My only regret is that we did not have clear enough weather to see the peaks looming right behind the village of El Chaltén. The panoramic view above shows what we missed (click on it for the full-sized image). We'll just have to go back.

El Niño comes to Santa Cruz

This past weekend,  El Niño brought more rain and big surf to Santa Cruz. This spot, just around the corner from the surf spot at Steamer Lane, is popular with some swimmers who dive off the rocks into this small cove. No diving today.

The toilet bowl at Lighthouse Point, Santa Cruz.

(As always, you can click the picture for a larger image.)

Update: a friend pointed out that Winslow Homer painted a scene in Maine that resembles this one. The interesting thing is that Homer painted a stop-action image before most cameras (and films) could support the low shutter speeds (less than 1/30 of a second) needed to stop action like this. He had vision.

Winslow Homer, West Point, Prout's Neck,1900.
The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

Ruby's

Ruby's Taqueria, Sunnyvale, California

Try the vampiros: they will make you happy.

Pumpkin time

Finally, a practical use for pumpkin guts:

Pumpkin carving contest. Elon, North Carolina

Companion, Wilder Ranch Bike/Run

I biked down the canyon to Companion Bake Shop this morning for a maple-bacon biscuit and a latté. Then I headed up the Route 1 bike trail to Wilder ranch and up the Englesman Loop Trail. There's some nice single-track trail that heads off toward Wilder Creek and Cave Gulch and back to UC Santa Cruz. Great way to start off November.

Trail in Cave Gulch. Wilder Ranch, Santa Cruz.

Ashland, Oregon

For the first time since we were kids, I'm able to drive to visit my sister, now that she lives on the same coast (and the same continent). Ashland is only about a 7-hour drive from Santa Cruz, and I finally made the trip this weekend. After spending most of the day in the car, I unwound with a run on the trails just south of town.

View north from the White Rabbit Trail, Oredson-Todd Woods, Ashland, Oregon.

Today we drove into the hills north of town and explored a bit.

In the hills north of Ashland, Oregon.

There is a wonderful dirt road that meanders around the Ashland watershed. I explored a bit this afternoon in the car, but next time I'll bring my mountain bike.

Ashland Loop Road south of Ashland, Oregon in the Siskiyou Mountains.

Barn Raising in Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz, California

The new Cowell Ranch hay barn at UC Santa Cruz replaces the 150-year old original with a traditionally-built timber frame barn in the same location. The barn will house the Farm and Garden program at UCSC.

Buses

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Buenos Aires runs on its buses, and each line has its own color scheme, so you can see from a distance if your bus is coming.

Go, pi

I have a friend who used to know \(\pi\) to about 50 places. I can barely remember nine. But on pi day last weekend, I wrote a little Go program that approximates \(\pi\) by calculating many terms of an infinite series (Nilakantha's Series).

You can express Nilakantha's series as: $$\pi = 3 + \frac{4}{2\times3\times4} - \frac{4}{4\times5\times6} + \frac{4}{6\times7\times8} - \frac{4}{8\times9\times10} + \dots$$

Here's the Go program:

  package main

  import (
          "fmt"
          "os"
          "strconv"
  )

  const ndefault = 10000

  func main() {
          // How many iterations?
          n := ndefault
          if (len(os.Args) > 1) {
                  n,_ = strconv.Atoi(os.Args[1])
          }
          if n == 0 { n = ndefault }
          fmt.Println("n =", n)

          pi := 3.0
          s  := 1.0    // Sign for alternating terms

          // Nilakantha series.
          for i := 2.0; i <= float64(n*2); i += 2 {
                  pi = pi + s * (4 / (i * (i + 1) * (i + 2)));
                  s = -s
          }
          fmt.Printf("%1.20f\n", pi)
  }

Not perfect, but not bad (maybe I'm doing something wrong):

                     Starts
                     going off
                     rails here.
                        |
  approx: 3.14159265358953820879
  actual: 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197

If you really want to know more about the history and the mathematics, there's a nice paper here from the Mathematical Association of America: The Discovery of the Series Formula for \(\pi\). And the Wikipedia page on \(\pi\).

Pi, a few days late

Everyone knows this one:

$$ A_{circle}=\pi{r^2}$$

But this one is a great wonder:

$$e^{i \pi} = -1$$