What I did on my summer vacation

I saw several specimens of the Sellars' Jay, a bird whose plumage has the unusual property of looking blue even though it is actually green.

I also went to three waterfalls, climbing up slippery rocks near to the lips of (parts of) two of them, and over the lip of the third (that one stairs); saw some of the oldest living things on the planet; was surprisingly affected by an internment camp in an apple orchard; saw two lakes from a local maximum not very far beneath the spires of Cathedral Peak, and preferred the barren rock to them; played chess near a third lake while being swarmed by mosquitoes; experienced an excitingly high pulse; walked into a tree; saw Half Dome and ducks in crepuscular half-light, jumped into a freezing cold river and thought, immediately on getting out, "that wasn't so bad" and did it again in a cycle that may have repeated endlessly if someone hadn't hoven into view; dismissed a lovely view as too picture-postcard; and walked only halfway up Mt. Whitney, having turned back after about five and a half miles and three thousand feet, which is probably not bad for someone who is basically sedentary and underwent no preparation that can't be had from REI.  I also told this joke (with revised punchline as suggested) and look forward to telling it again.

I return with at least 60 bug bites on my shoulders and back, and a little bag in which one can shit if no place else is handy, but no photographs, since my camera battery apparently doesn't work, though I anticipate the photographs of my more aerobically accomplished companions.

Comments

[JP Stormcrow]

Sounds good, great territory out there, but I strongly suspect that you saw a Steller's Jay. (Not that there is anything wrong with folk spellings.)

[ben wolfson]

See §§14–5.

[ben wolfson]

Er, of this.

[bitchphd]

Ah, we've already discussed what I was going to say.

[JP Stormcrow]

I shoulda known, too obvious and the green thing was "wrong" as well.

[ben wolfson]

I just realized that this post should have been titled "The air on Whitney is hard to breathe; I'll just have to stay in Lone Pine".