Category: My Photos

Speaking of silence… when written in all caps, if you invert the name “ZION”, you get “NOIZ”. Cool. Huh huh.

So regular life is an upside-down canyon of red rock?

I know there are some ways that I am quite strange.  One thing that happens, when I’m traveling alone, is that I will go off on long walks for no good reason, or as an alternative to some much more convenient means of transportation.  So this morning, I walked from my hotel on the Las Vegas Strip to the airport, even though a taxi would have probably been less than 8 dollars.
Las Vegas doesn’t really interest me much.  It’s not that I don’t like kitch — I love it.  And it’s pure americana, in some respects.  But it’s very hard for me to find stuff to DO in Las Vegas:  I don’t gamble, I despise dining out alone, and going to shows or movies alone can be kind of depressing too.  I guess all of this could be summarized by stating that Las Vegas might be a fun town, WITH someone, but it’s stunningly dull for someone who’s alone.
I went on a long walk along the strip last night, looking at lights and signs and people-watching.  And I slept a lot, in my pyramid-shaped hotel that I got for an incredibly low rate (because they expect you to spend your money gambling and watching the shows, of course).  And I got up this morning and strapped on my luggages and walked to the airport.

Here is a last look at Zion, taken yesterday upon departure:

It was a few days early, but I was feeling very thankful last night. I had dinner with Jeffrey, his parents Randy and Barb and their daughters (his half-sisters). What’s my relation to them? It’s complicated: Jeffrey is my stepson, by my marriage to Michelle. So Randy was Michelle’s first husband, before she and I got married, and Barb is his second wife. And although we’re as different as people can be, we have a certain family-like relationship, that came about in the wake of Michelle’s death.
I feel very thankful that after Michelle died, Randy and Barb stepped up so completely to provide a healthy and relatively stress-free home for Jeffrey, as that was a very hard time for him. Of course, when Michelle and I were together, she had very little positive to say about Randy and Barb, and their relationship as “exes,” with arguments over things like visitation for Jeffrey, etc., were fraught. This is typical of such relationships, of course. The fact that when Michelle died, everyone involved (barring, perhaps, Michelle’s parents) were able to set aside those earlier acrimonies and do what was “right” for Jeffrey has always struck me as a minor miracle of human interaction. And as such, I’m very thankful.
We met for dinner at an Italian restaurant in Maple Grove that the girls (Jeffrey’s sisters, Ashley and Tiffany) like. I best recall them as around 3 or 4 years old, but now they’re 10 and 11. After dinner, we made a little parade driving in the rain and fog back up to Albertville, where they live currently, and spent some time just hanging out. The girls, especially Tiffany, asked me, spontaneously, to write their names in Korean. This was the first time I’d interacted with American kids who seemed genuinely interested in Korean culture, and as an unrepentant language geek, I was pleased to try to sound out their names and write them in the Korean alphabet, Hangeul.
The girls were fascinated, and soon had me writing the names of everyone in the room, then their friends and teachers, on scraps of paper. Tiffany’s face lit up as she suddenly realized the phonetic principles behind the Hangeul writing system, and with no timidity, she began trying to “guess” how to write various names she could think of. I was stunned and amazed – you always hear Koreans (and rarely, Westerners) talking about the simplicity of the Korean writing system, but watching a midwestern 10 year old grasp all its essential principles in under 30 minutes in a casual exchange was amazing.
Finally, I taught them a few simple phrase, such as 고맙습니다 (go-map-seum-ni-da = thank you), and Tiffany did a perfect-looking Korean-style bow and uttered it repeatedly. The whole experience felt like a charming reversal of my normal role and job in Korea, but it was additionally pleasing because Americans normally are so uninterested in foreign languages and cultures, yet here was this unassuming midwestern kid, with whom I have a “relative-type” connection (how else to explain it?) showing true interest and excitement for Korean.
Well, anyway, that was my Tuesday evening out on the prairie in the northwestern suburbs of Minneapolis.
Here’s a picture of the clan – Randy, Barb, Jeffrey, Ashley, Tiffany:

Here’s a picture of Tiffany, and you can see quite clearly she’s writing her teacher’s name, Miller, sounded out in Korean letters (밀러):

When I take long road trips, I often return to my youthful fantasies of becoming a truck driver. I used to imagine “finishing my PhD” and then, rather than going off into academia, instead going out and becoming a truck driver. I liked to imagine hanging the little degree in its frame like professors and professionals do in their offices, but hanging it up in the little sleeper cabin attached to my big rig. Really! I thought like this, sometimes, right through college. As much as I’ve always enjoyed road-tripping, truck driving always seemed like something that would make a good career for me.
Well, I never finished the PhD. And I never became a truck driver, unless you want to count some months as a primary tow truck driver for my support battalion on Korea in 1991, and some cross-Korea convoys we participated in during weeks-long field exercises, from Geumchon north of Seoul over to Wonju and down to Daegu. Yes, I was one of those US GI trucks cruising on the Korean backroads dodging “kimchi wagons,” way back when.
But driving across the country as I have been, I return sometimes to those truck driver fantasies. That’s a job that, if all else fell apart, I could manage, I’m certain.
Drive, drive, drive.

Montana is a very long state, to drive through. I think I-90 is about 700 miles.
It’s especially long under wintery highway conditions. Toward the end of my day, in the early evening dark, I was going 25-35 mph through blowing snow over very icy interstate eastward from Bozeman.
I saw overturned trucks, jackknifed trailers, cars in ditches. So I stayed slow. And as much as I generally find driving about as close to a meditative state as I can attain, driving through that can be kind of stressful. I’m tired.
Here are two pictures from earlier in the day.
A freeway rest area:

A stop at a “ranch exit” (i.e. there’s no town at the freeway exit) around sunset:

Juli and Keith’s neighbors have a bunch of animals, including a llama, a very friendly horse, some cows and chickens. I went on a walk earlier today and visited them. Here’re llama and horse, saying hello.

After doing so much, traveling, keeping so busy… I kind of came to a stop, today. Resting at Juli & Keith’s house here on the Oregon hillside, kind of having a lazy day. I did however make a small, important step. I sent off the email confirming my intention to return to Korea today. So that kind of represents a commitment.
Here’s a picture from Patrick’s Point, a few miles north of Arcata, taken in late afternoon on Tuesday:

Arcata is a small town.  I took about 5 long walks through and around the town during my 3 day visit there.  Yesterday afternoon, I walked down to where my middle school was, in SunnyBrae.  Then I walked up Shirley Blvd (a very steep winding hill) to Fickle Hill Road and back down to the house.  I went into Redwood Park (which is the name of Arcata’s city park, about 2 blocks up the hill from the house where I grew up).  Here is a picture from a path inside the park:

I took a long walk in the rain around Arcata. I walked over to the high school, where I attended. It looked almost the same. Hmm… it’s a beautiful town, but I think it was a good thing for me that I moved away.
Here is Humboldt State University’s “University Annex” building. But in 1965, it was the Trinity Hospital, and this is the building I was born in.

This is Arcata High School, which I attended 1979~83. It basically looks exactly the same as when I was there: California-classic-high-school-as-prison architecture, with its outdoor hallways and grim, utilitarian exterior.

This is the view up 11th street from its foot near Janes Road, looking up. At the top of the hill, that’s Redwood Park, and my house is a few blocks below the top of the hill.

In the 1930’s and early 40’s, the northern counties of California and southwestern counties of Oregon launched a secession effort aimed at creating a new state, which was to be called the state of Jefferson.  It was one of the most successful “new state carved from existing states” movements of the 20th century, but got derailed by WWII.
Even now, however, the region as some distinctive features.  The high incidence (relative to most of the west) of rural poverty means that it has often be attached with the sobriquet “Kentucky-by-the-sea”, for example — at least that was something I heard sometimes, growing up.
Anyway, I was born and grew up in Humboldt County, which is, historically, part of this never-to-be State of Jefferson.   And I was in Roseburg, near its putative northern border.
I stayed the night with my aunt Janet and uncle Bob, who live outside of Eugene.  I saw a lot of relatives at my aunt Freda’s memorial service, some of whom I literally hadn’t seen since I was a child.
Today, I drove back down across the Oregon border and back into Humboldt, to spend a few days in my hometown, in my home “house.” The house isn’t owned by my mother anymore, but a very close friend of ours, Peggy, bought it, so I can “visit” and stay in the house. Although it’s been remodeled and changed a lot over the years, it still has the feel of home. Peggy was one of my babysitters when I was an infant, and she was also, later, my 6th grade teacher. She’s like a godmother to me, in many ways. She has been very important in my life.
I went on a hike in the morning with my aunt Janet, my dad and their cousin Larry.  Here is the view from Janet and Bob’s driveway in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, looking at some very relaxed-looking neighbor cows.

Below is a picture of Larry, Janet and my dad, stopping to talk about something near the top of the hill.

Is it possible to love a highway?
I certainly harbor a special feeling toward US Route 101. I was born 3 blocks from it, and grew up 4 blocks from it, and have lived more than half my life (discontinuously) within a few miles of it.
When I left San Luis Obispo on Friday night, I knew I’d have to drive all night to get to Roseburg, Oregon, on time, so I figured I might as well go up 101 (which takes a few extra hours due to its not being freeway the whole way, as compared to Interstate 5) most of the way, just for sentimental reasons.
It was strange, especially from downtown San Francisco on northward through Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino into Humboldt counties, because although I was driving in the middle of the night, I’ve been up and down that highway so many times I was able to visualize the scenery along the way effortlessly. Kinesthetic memory on the curves is almost eerie, too.
Anyway, I got to Arcata and stopped at the beach for a few hours. I watched it get light (the sun was behind thick clouds) and then went on to Oregon.

The name of the island where Ketchikan is located is Revillagigedo. There are actually a lot of Spanish names attached to geographic features in Southeast Alaska – something to do with Spanish explorers making the navigation maps later used by Russian and English and American colonists.
It’s a cool name, though the locals mutilate the correct Spanish pronunciation – but who am I to criticize the mutilation of correct pronunciation?
Here are some pictures I took in Ketchikan, over the weekend.
Driving down to the south coast of the island:

The end of the road, at about mile 15. This is about as far from downtown Ketchikan as you can get, using a car:

A great view of downtown Ketchikan from the north end of town (where the “mall” is) (note the disconcerting presence of strange bluish coloration in sky due to absence of normal cloud cover):

Looking straight out from the seawall at my hotel:

Similar view, after the clouds shifted, revealing an unfamiliar but naturally-occurring thermonuclear phenomenon suspended 95 million miles in space above the planet:

Wow, nice. It lasted almost an hour. Then it rained again:

Tug boats, congregating:

Along the main drag, Tongass Ave:

The way in and out – the Alaska Marina Highway ferry Columbia docked:

The strange case where the northbound traffic uses a tunnel, and the southbound traffic goes around the hill – but they’re not even a block apart:

A Ketchikan streetscape

The pale pink skyscraper of downtown Ketchikan, AK:

The town’s famous “Creek Street”:

A fishing boat, heading out southward:

Here's what you can see if you stand at the shoreline of Arthur's property, looking west down the Saint Nicholas Fiord toward Craig (sort of off to the left).  That's Sunnyhay Mountain with some fresh snow sticking up in the clouds.

I went on a drive today, just to go exploring. During all my time here, back in 98, I didn’t do much exploring beyond Craig and Klawock (which are the island’s “twin city” metropolis, with something around 2000 inhabitants, combined).
So  I drove up to Coffman Cove, which is where the ferries from Petersburg and Wrangell stop, then I went down a 40 mile dirt road along the east coast of the island to Thorne Bay, thence back to Klawock. A big circle.
Driving on these old forest service logging roads is all about dodging potholes. I made a video of the drive along the Port Saint Nicholas Road from Arthur’s place into Craig. It’s 8 miles, but takes 25 minutes, dodging potholes all the way. I’ll post it, when I get some bandwidth.
Today, about halfway between Coffman Cove and Thorne Bay, I saw a downed tree across the road (see pic at right). Someone had used to a chainsaw to carve a path exactly pickup-truck-sized through the branches and under the main trunk of the tree. I took a picture.
OK, more later.

Catch as catch-can – I always, always wanted to say that stupid pun. So there.
Here’s a photo taken from my hotel window. Ketchikan is, of course, quite beautiful.

My little pickup truck turned over 100,000 miles yesterday. I can imagine what everyone is thinking: Jared drives so much, how can he have a truck that’s over 9 years old and only now be turning over 100,000 miles?
I think the reason is that although I have taken many road trips in this truck (I’ve done the Minnesota/Phoenix/LA/Portland circle at least 6 times by my count, plus several loops out to the east coast too), I have only rarely used it for substantial commuting. I always tried to arrange my life so that my commutes were short or even walkable, so except for that rather unpleasant almost-a-year when I was driving almost every day from Long Beach to Newport Beach, I’ve never had a commute over about 10 minutes. And of course, for the last two years, it’s been in storage, putting on exactly zero miles.
So, anyway, I set out from Bob and Sarah’s yesterday morning, and per my usual randomness, I decided to avoid interstates for a few hours. I traversed northwest Illinois without even getting onto a 4-lane highway: I drove to the west of Rockford, around Freeport and Sterling, through many small towns and past the endless umber expanses of ripe corn and soybeans.
I crossed the Mississippi at Clinton, Iowa, and follwed the river on the west side down to Bettendorf. It was along this stretch that I happened to notice my odometer was at 99999. I looked up and saw a sign with an arrow: “Picnic Area, 1 mi.” So I drove to the picnic area (not, in itself, anything worth blogging about), watched the odometer turn over to 100,000, and then took a picture of my pickup truck for its “milestone” moment.
I crossed Iowa on the interstate. I went through some pretty major rain around sunset at Omaha, and I stopped at a motel near Lincoln, Nebraska. And here I am. I’ll post pictures when I get a better internet connection.

I drove through Peshtigo, Wisconsin on my way back down from the UP (you-pee = Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, one of my favorite places on planet earth). I saw not one, but two, signs in Korean in this tiny town.  Of course, knowing what they said made them less interesting: one said 시온교회 (Zion Church) and the other said (태관도 Taekwondo — of course). Still, it was weird seeing these signs in a tiny town (population <1000).
Here are some pictures from the UP.




Odometer: Start 99408 End 99833 = 425 miles.

But it’s beautiful. I drove to Duluth, just for the hell of it. Because I love Duluth. I’m not sure I could live here… though I often fantasize about it. It was very windy, and there were waves on Lake Superior.




Then I got really crazy and drove to Houghton. Michigan. I got here after dark, but I’ll look around tomorrow before recrossing Wisconsin, north to south, and visit my friend Bob and his family.
Notable music from soundtrack: Röyksopp, Jesus Jones, Cat Stevens, Dylan (of course)
Odometer: Start 99107 End 99408 = 301 miles

Here are some other uncategorized still photos I have uploaded from my computer.
First, here is a picture of an octopus sculpture I saw in the Busan subway.

Next, there is the Busan skyline as seen from the top of Jangsan (which is situated north of Haeundae beach in the northeast part of the city). I’m looking south by southwest, here (roughly toward Taiwan, off across the sea by a thousand kilometers or something like that). You can click on these pictures to see bigger versions.

This is a picture of “Busan Tower” that I ascended while in Busan one evening. The view of the city, all lit up, was pretty spectacular, but I didn’t get any photos. Sorry.

Here is a picture I took of the screen in the express elevator that runs to the top of this tower.  When your express elevator is running Microsoft Windows, and Windows crashes (as is its wont to do), does the elevator then crash, too? We were all somewhat alarmed to see the error message suddenly pop up on the screen, two thirds of the way to the top of the tower.

Here is a picture of greenery on Ulleundo that I like.

Here is a picture of red peppers drying in the morning sun on a Dodong, Ulleungdo, side street. A very common sight everywhere in Korea, this time of year. Such a delicious country!

Last: I met a guy and his wife and mother-in-law who were on tour visiting Ulleungdo. They shared some food with me and we chatted in a rewarding mix of his terrible English and my terrible Korean and his mother-in-law’s monologue. I took some pictures of the three of them, using their camera, with the view of Dodong harbor behind them (I hadn’t brought my own camera on that particular hike).
Then he took my picture in the same spot as they’d been standing. I wrote my email down for him, because he said he would email the pictures to me. I thought nothing of it – but the other day, I got several pictures of myself via email. So… here I am, standing on the rock path at the southwest corner of the Dodong harbor entrance (the camera is pointed roughly north).

Here are some still pictures. I didn’t actually take that many, because I was too busy playing with my video camera. Not sure how to balance that out, yet.
The first is from Cheonbu harbor (center of the north coast) looking west toward the Chusan outcropping. Straight west past that is South Korea. Northwest, to the rightish, is North Korea.  Exactly north, to the right, is Vladivostok. And behind is Japan. All off across the sea, of course.

The next is from the southeast coast, between Dodong and Jeodong on the walk to the Dodongdeungdae.

These are some boats in Dodong harbor.

This is the view of Dodong from the ferry terminal. Cute town.

This is the “no road existing” sign that made sure I didn’t get lost.

This is the island of Jukdo, off the northeast coast. According to a guidebook, it is inhabited by 3 families and their cows (which have to journey to and from the island using slings into and out of boats to get up and down the cliffs all around it). I want to visit this island.

This next is from somewhere along the northeast stretch of highwayless coast. I liked the tree very much.

And here are a few from my cellphone camera (much lower resolution).
Here’s a buddha next to a modernist cartoony statue of various sea-denizens that are part of Ulleungdo’s identity.

Here’s a temple wall that has a very striking picture of a sea-dragon amid the waves. It was a gorgeous painting but didn’t come out so well on the cellphone camera due to the lighting and resolution.

Here’s the excursion ferry arriving at Dodong from Dokdo. I nearly went to Dokdo myself, but the mobs of nationalistic Koreans rather put me off.

You see, Dokdo is a tiny outcropping of rock (less than 1 square kilometer) that juts out of the water about 90 km southeast of Ulleungdo. It is claimed by both South Korea and Japan, though it’s currently controlled by South Korea, and as far as I can tell, they have the most valid claim: since medieval times Dokdo has always been grouped with Ulleungdo administratively, so whoever “owned” Ulleungdo also was considered owner of Dokdo, regardless of whether the “owners” were ultimately the Japanese emperor or the Korean king, depending on epoch.
Right now, there is a huge nationalist fervor in Korea, provoked by recent ambiguous but typically in-denial-of-history mumblings by some Japanese ministry or another. The government and the media powers-that-be are encouraging all Koreans to believe firmly that “Dokdo is ours!” You can even get “Dokdo” t-shirts at Dunkin Donuts. Nationalistic geo-fetishes always make me uncomfortable, as historically they often seem to lead to bad (read: violent) outcomes.