When is Graffiti not Graffiti?

Every now and then I stumble across things that make me go "Hmmmmm." I'm sure most people have a working definition of graffiti, but I thought, why not write about it anyway. I'm sure most people would recognize the artwork on this truck which was parked on a street in San Francisco as graffiti.

According to most sources, "graffiti is a form of visual communication, usually illegal, involving the unauthorized marking of public space by an individual or group." In each of the three examples I'm posting with this, I'm pretty sure that the image makers were not given permission to create what they created, although some will argue, and I think rightfully so, that the middle example probably didn't need permission before creating what they did. But are we sure that the first example of the truck isn't a piece of art that's on display on the streets? I did not research who created the artwork on the truck. I didn't feel like I had to.

What I wanted to do was examine each piece and try and figure out if it's art, graffiti, or something else entirely. I think I would argue that all three pieces are art and graffiti. The phrase, "One person's trash is another person's treasure" comes to mind immediately. I think most people would say that the first piece is graffiti, but some graffiti is wonderful art at the same time. If you don't believe me, then look at the last photo I've attached to this. Those images, on the last four columns, are original graffiti that was placed on the Berlin Wall during the Cold War era.

The second one is the most interesting, I believe. If we look at the definition that I wrote earlier we can makes some judgements about it. Visual Communication?  I would say so. Illegal? Hard to say, but probably not. Unauthorized marking of a public space? Probably, but then again, the Ancients of Utah and Colorado probably didn't have the concept of ownership of land, so it was all public space and who's to say they didn't have permission to create those symbols on that rock outcropping? Today, I know that almost everyone who sees this would view it as artwork, not to be disturbed. I mean, the state of Colorado has viewing points set up alongside the road where you can look at these pieces of art from afar. There are also posted signs stating that the defacement of the art is considered a crime. 

So I guess, time plays an element in all of this. Even the National Park Service has weighed in on this issue. While they don't condone graffiti, they actually preserve graffiti in some of the areas they are set up to protect. I know of at least one instance in Great Basin National Park where writing inside of Lehman Caves inside the park have been preserved as part of the history of the park and cave. The writings (mostly signatures and dates) were done by employees of the National Forest Service over a hundred years ago. Time heals all wounds?

What it boils down to I guess is the public's perception of it or maybe the authority's perception of it. The Berlin Wall, when it was all in Berlin was a striking example of this. The western side contained all of the graffiti. The eastern side was pretty much pristine. Different forms of authority obviously made this a reality. People in West Berlin let their feelings known about the wall in the one way they could at the time and that was by drawing on it. People on the east side didn't not have that kind of freedom since there were barriers in place that prevented people from even getting close enough to it to place graffiti on it.

And while I don't like the gang related graffiti that is so pervasive in some areas, I'm not going to deny that some of it is amazing artwork. What's your take on this? Graffiti? Art? A combination of both? As always, comments are welcome.

Checking on Caches

Today, I went on a hike up in the Claremont Wilderness Park. It was the first 5 mile hike doing one of the loops in several months and it really felt good to get out on the "trail." You'll notice I put the word trail in quotes. Park of the trail, as you can see here is a maintenance road leading up to a microwave tower on the hill overlooking this part of the wilderness park. When I hike, I always come up that way as it's pretty slippery and I'd rather slip going uphill as opposed to downhill. I very rarely take that particular trail downhill for that reason.

Anyway, part of the purpose, besides just getting out and enjoying the 75 degree January weather we're having, was to check on some of my caches along the trail since I hadn't been up this way in awhile. I'm happy to report that the ones that I checked on, all were right where they should be. 

I used to always worry about cache maintenance a lot and didn't have many cache hides, because I felt that if I had a lot of cache hides, then all my time would be taken up in cache maintenance and not cache finding. But over the years, I've gotten a different attitude regarding caches. First, you don't have to check on all of them all of the time. Second, pick an area and just check on the ones in that area. It works for me now and I'm still able to maintain a good balance between the two aspects of geocaching.

After checking on the caches along this part of the trail, I then headed into the interior of the park. Most of the hard part, the uphill slog along that slippery road was done and the rest of the hike was predominantly downhill on good dirt fire roads. I got to enjoy the views and the good weather. 

As I started working my way down the other side of the canyon, I descended into one of my favorite parts of the trail. It follows a stream that is intermittently wet and dry depending upon the season. There's lots of sycamore trees lining the creek bank which means it's usually cool, green and shady in the summertime, but today I could see lots of sky since the sycamores have dropped their leaves. I've also encountered several snakes and other wildlife in this section, but saw none today. Even the lizards which seem to be everywhere were only venturing out in the really sunny areas and this part wasn't sunny because of the lateness of the day.

I noticed some of the first weedy plants were starting to grow in this area too. I was particularly intrigued by the patterns on the leaves of this plant. I'm not sure what kind it is and I'm sure I wouldn't want to bushwhack through it. Look closely and you can see some nasty spikes on the end of each lobe of the leaves of this thing. Whatever it is, it definitely wants to protect itself, although, I seriously doubt it would stand a chance against a deer if they wanted to partake in eating it.

With more rain expected in the area in the next 10 days, the next time I get up on that part of the trail, the growth will be substantially lusher and taller. That's perfect, in my estimation.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

 

It's been awhile since I've written in here, but as I look back over the calendar of blog entries, I missed a couple of other months last year too, so now I don't feel so bad. This is a continuation of the series that I started back in October for my road trip I took in the middle of October to Colorado and Utah. 

Back in October, I wrote about my first full day in Colorado and my visit to Colorado National Monument. I had hosted a geocaching coffee event that morning, then toured the monument for most of the day afterwards. The next day, I drove southward out of Grand Junction heading for Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. I'd been to the park previously, before it had been upgraded to national park status, but the time gap between visits of over 50 years made me want to go back and see it again, as all I could recall of the park was that it was very vertical.

On thing that I noticed as I got to the park was that it was surprisingly busy for it being the middle of October. I figured that I'd have the park mostly to myself, with maybe some other senior citizens traveling around the country visiting sites in the "off season" but that was not the case, at least the day I was there. There were plenty of families and many of the viewpoint areas were filled to capacity with cars. 

As a kid, you don't remember things like parking problems, but I couldn't help but wonder what this would be like in the middle of summer during the height of the tourist season. And of course, my mind went back to that summer day over 50 years ago when my dad hopped us all in the station wagon for the trip north from our base camp in what I believe was Durango to visit this seldom visited national monument. Perhaps, the upgrade to national park status has boosted tourism to the place, but I still couldn't help but think that the minuscule parking lots during the summer would not be a positive experience for the average person visiting the park.

Because it was October, the park was beginning to experience multiple signs of fall with many of the park's deciduous trees and bushes showing off their fall colors. I saw photos from a national park group on Facebook that I frequent where someone posted similar photos, but had been there about 10 days later and they were even more spectacular in color than the one I've posted here. Being from Southern California, almost any color is amazing, so I guess you could say I was impressed with what I saw that day.

As I noted above, the park is very vertical. The Gunnison River carved through the volcanic rock and carved it very deep, but not very wide. At points in the park, the canyon is only about there quarters of a mile wide, but almost a half mile deep. Contrast that with the Grand Canyon in Arizona which might be a mile deep but 10 miles wide and you can see where this little canyon can be quite impressive.

As always, part of my reason for being there was to learn some geology and what better way to do that than through some of the earth caches that had been placed in the park. I did many of the tasks that were required by the different earth caches and walked several trails to get closer to the edge of the canyon. As I drove out to Painted Wall, the crowds thinned tremendously. I was actually surprised at this since I felt that the Painted Wall section was the most spectacular in the park, but it also meant that the trails were less populated and so there was time for some solitude, so I wasn't complaining.

It was also in this section where you could really see where the canyon got it name. The walls of the canyon are composed mostly of gneiss, but had bands of intruded light colored pegmatite running through them. This area is also the deepest part of the canyon. Imagine being in Paris. You could stack two Eiffel Towers on top of each other and they still wouldn't reach the top of the canyon from the river below.

I know the nostalgia of wanting to come back and retrace my childhood steps might seem silly to some, but I was glad I came. I can remember being not very impressed with my dad's photos of the park at the time and I know why now. With little to no clouds directly overhead, the sun made for very harsh lighting conditions. Lots of deep shadows so you really couldn't see a lot of detail in some of the photos and my own photos are very similar in appearance.

I enjoyed my time in the park and if I'm ever in the area again, I'll make sure I spend some more time on the opposite rim for a different perspective. There just wasn't enough time to squeeze both rims in on the same day with all the driving that entailed. After spending several hours in the park and enjoying a light lunch there, I headed back to Grand Junction, geocaching all the way back to my motel.

Lizards and Spiders and Snakes! Oh My!

Today I went out on a hike and missed seeing the trifecta in my title by about 50 feet or so. I hiked the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park loop today, a little over 6 miles from my car back to my car. I decided today was a good day for a hike, since it's supposed to rain again later in the evening and on into tomorrow. We got rain on Wednesday, so the trail had dried out enough that footing wasn't an issue, but it was still damp in spots where you could make out deer tracks.

I think I got on the trail right around 9:30 or so. Being as it's sunny, but cool, it seemed like a perfect time for me to go hiking when most of the morning crowd have already left the park. Less people means there's a likelihood of seeing more animals out and about and I was able to spot all sorts of interesting things.

For one thing, there were still quite a few butterflies flitting about. I saw one tiger swallowtail and at least two different cabbage white butterflies. I saw several lizards running away from me along the trail or disappearing into the brush as the side of the trail. Lizards are interesting creatures in that they'll hold still for a very long time and then all of a sudden will make a mad dash. I think in reality if they were to hold still and just stay there, many people would miss them altogether. I, for one, have noticed many lizards only after they started moving away from me. They tend to blend in a little better into the dirt and stuff of the trail than do snakes, so I feel that they're not as easily spotted as are snakes.

The main attraction along the trail today however were the tarantulas. For the most part, this is about the only time of the year when you can really see tarantulas out and about. It's mating season and they're out prowling around for mates. This guy was about halfway across the trail/fire road when I encountered it. I took quite a few shots of it, but several of them came out blurry. I guess I'm still getting used to the camera on my new phone, but I got several good shots, this one being the best of the bunch. After taking this shot, I got back up and let the spider walk between my legs and continue to the other side of the trail.

Later on I encountered another tarantula walking along the side of the trail. I watched it for a little bit, even putting my shoe out in front of it to see if it would climb over my shoe. It touched my shoe with one foot and then decided to detour around it. Oh well, I tried. And I can already hear some of my friends and family thinking, "Geez Paul, why do you do some of the things you do?" Because I'm interested in things like that. Anyway, I left that tarantula alone, continued on my hike, but just around the corner, a maintenance truck was coming down the trail and so I became worried that it might run over the tarantula, so I walked back down and was relieved to see that it missed it by at least a foot or so.

I didn't see any snakes today, however as I noted above, it appears as if I missed seeing a rattlesnake by about fifty feet or so. I was on the downhill stretch of the trail, heading back to the car, but I still had about a mile and a half of walking to do when a guy came jogging up the hill. Instead of the normal wave or quick hi, he said, "There's a rattlesnake on trail." My response back to him was "Cool." He said it was about fifty feet further down the trail, so I walked down, but unfortunately (at least for me), I never spotted the snake, which means it had probably already slithered off into the brush along the side of the trail. No photo of a rattlesnake today, so you'll have to be satisfied with this photo of the gopher snake I spotted a couple of days ago along another part of the trail.

All in all, it was a good hike and workout today. I feel like I'm back to my old self once again and I even thought about hiking the loop a second time, but I knew that probably wouldn't be good for me since I could feel myself getting hungry. Another two hours on the trail without any kind of sustenance would not make a happy me. But the good thing was that my energy level seems to be back the way it was before all this health shenanigans started almost a year ago. The only thing that I have noticed is the my mileage times aren't quite there and I'm not sure they ever will be. I used to be able to do that loop averaging about 18 minute miles. Today, I averaged slightly over 20 minutes per mile, which I find acceptable. I'm getting older and it doesn't make sense to punish my body for the sake of fast miles. The whole purpose is to get some exercise and enjoy the scenery. I did both today.

Be Ever Vigilant

 

Every now and then we all make mistakes. Today, while out hiking, I was doing my usual thing, scanning the trail when I heard something off to my right, so I looked over there to see if I could see anything of interest. The problem with what I did is I usually stop and look. This time I didn't, but kept walking up the trail. And that's when everything went kind of sideways.

I turned my head back to the trail, took one more step and out of my peripheral vision, I saw something move right about where I was going to place my foot. This little guy now had my complete attention and apparently I had its complete attention too as it immediately coiled into strike position. And it's amazing how many thoughts went through my head in probably the one second or so it took to push off with my other foot and take an exaggerated jump over this snake.

Thought one, "Oh crap, I'm stepping on a baby rattlesnake."

Thought two, "Why isn't it rattling? Too small to have an active rattle?"

Thought three, "Where's its damn tail, oh there it is. Oh, it's a gopher snake."

As you can see from the photo, I really got way too close to this one. That's the first time I've ever seen a gopher snake go into strike mode. It was prepared to defend itself and it didn't really believe that I was friendly and wouldn't hurt it on purpose. And as you can see it remained in a semi-strike mode even after it took off into the bushes at the side of the trail.

The lesson is, if you hear a sound off trail, stop, look and listen. Then continue on with your hike. Had I done that, this encounter probably wouldn't have been less stressful for both of us. Also, be ever vigilant, even in the cooler months as they still could be active.

My First Full Day in Colorado

This is a continuation of my post from last week chronicling my road trip to Colorado and Utah. I pretty much took enough photos for each day, so from here on out, each day will be a different blog post to cover the entire road trip.

Usually, when I road trip and the day is primarily going to be sightseeing, it will still encompass some kind of geocaching, either earth caches or virtual caches and this was no exception. That third day, I woke up and headed off to a meet and greet coffee event that I was hosting in Grand Junction. I'd met two people the day before who were planning on attending but I wasn't sure what my turnout would be for a mid-week (Wednesday) meet and greet at 8:00 in the morning. I was pleasantly surprised when 11 people showed up for my coffee event. 

There were actually a couple of reasons why I decided to host an event mid-week. One, I enjoy meeting other geocaching people, putting names to faces of some of the caches that I'm probably going to find later during that trip. Two was a purely selfish reason. I wanted an extra cache type in Mesa County, Colorado to help me with that challenge I was working on for 6 different cache types in 20 different counties. We all had a good time at the event and then we said our goodbyes and I headed out to Colorado National Monument.

I've known about Colorado National Monument for as long as I can remember. My parents took us to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument back in the early 70s, so I'm at a loss as to why they didn't drive the extra hour north to visit Colorado National Monument. Needless to say, it's been on my list of places to visit ever since and it didn't disappoint. As I approached the entry point to the park, the ranger told me that there might not be a whole lot of parking at any of the pullouts or parking lots as there was a naturalization ceremony going on at the park's amphitheater. Glad I was told ahead of time, so I made do with what I could that day, but it wasn't much of a problem. Rangers were overlooking some sketchy parking that was happening on the sides of the main road, which was understandable given the circumstances.

As I drove up the road, I pulled out several times to enjoy the view and work on a couple of earth caches. Balanced Rock, in the second photo, was one of the formations I was able to see from below. Most of the park, you're looking downwards into the valley below, but I was still working my way to the mesa above. The wind and water erosion that created this formation and others in the park will eventually destroy them as well, but that's the geologic cycle at work. 

As I continued up, I saw birds circling in the distance to the east towards Grand Junction and the town of Fruita. I came around and found another viewpoint and stopped there. There was a man viewing the birds with binoculars and I asked him if he knew what they were and he stated Golden Eagles. About five minutes later, we both spotted a Bald Eagle soaring along the ridge line. I think that's the first time I've ever seen Golden Eagles anywhere outside of a zoo and only the second time I've seen a Bald Eagle. Later in the day, I saw another Golden Eagle as it flew over my head at another viewpoint. I inquired at the visitors center later on and learned that Golden Eagles nest in the park, but Bald Eagles are rare sightings as they live and nest down in the valley near the Colorado River. I thought I was rather fortunate to experience both within five minutes of each other.

While continuing my drive along the road, I stopped at another viewpoint and got to see one of the main features of the park, Independence Monument. One of the early explorers of the area climbed to the top of this particular rock and planted an American Flag on the summit, some 450 feet above the valley floor. It's become a tradition for rock climbers to ascend the formation on July 4th and fly the flag each year.

I decided on one short hike to get out to another viewpoint, then after that headed to the visitors center to gather more information about the park. By that time, there were all sorts of parking spots as many of the people who had attended the naturalization ceremony in the morning had left. I spent another hour or so in the park, then left to find some geocaches outside of the park as I'd done all of the earth caches inside the park.

To the north of the park, I found a road that had a series of challenge caches on it and I traversed the length of that road finding all of the challenges. This was actually of particular interest to me as most of the challenges were about finding different types of caches in a certain number of counties. One of the challenges wanted me to find a multi cache in 25 different counties. A multi cache is a cache that usually has at least two different spots you have to visit in order to find the cache. Before the trip, I'd found multi caches in 24 different counties and I'd literally found my 25th county earlier that day when I found a multi cache in Grand Junction on my way to visit Colorado National Monument. I'd say that was fortuitous.

All in all, it was a very good day. I'd enjoyed myself tremendously sightseeing in the monument and then had a good time geocaching later in the afternoon. As noted above, the monument didn't disappoint and I was thrilled with all of the geology and the spectacular scenery. Eventually, I got back to my hotel room, had dinner at a nearby restaurant and had a good night's sleep. The next day would also be a big day of sightseeing somewhere else.

Road Trip!

This post is primarily dealing with geocaching, so if you're not interested, then you can probably stop reading right here. Things have settled down tremendously over the early part of the year where everything seemed to be upside down. In my last post which I published back in the early first week of August, I mentioned that one of my happy places was in planning road trips. This post is the first of several detailing the road trip I took to Colorado and Utah in the month of September.

The first two days of the trip were mostly traveling, getting to my first destination in Colorado, so it was primarily driving and taking breaks here and there for geocaching. Most of the geocaches that I wanted to find on this trip were either going to be virtual or challenge caches as those two were my primary focus. I would also be working on several challenge caches, including one that wanted me to find at least 6 different types of geocaches in 20 different counties. Since I had already done that in 19 different counties, I only needed one more, so I had a focus on Iron, Salt Lake, and Washington Counties in Utah, as well as Grand County in Colorado. My first night's stop was going to be in Cedar City, UT, located in Iron County, so that's where I figured I'd be able to complete that challenge.

I didn't end up getting what I needed in Iron County, since I couldn't find a particular cache near my motel, so I settled on other things that first night. One of the last caches that I ended up finding on the first day was a virtual cache in Cedar City that focused on the history of a fort that had been built there. In the morning I tried for a couple of other cache types nearby, but it just wasn't meant to be for Iron County and so I took off for Grand Junction, CO which would be my next stop.

Once again it was a full day's drive to get to Grand Junction, so there wasn't a lot of sight seeing involved, but mostly driving and stops to find geocaches. One of the stops that day involved a virtual cache which highlighted the first Olympic gold medal athlete of Utah, Alma Richards. I'm pretty sure that something like this probably wouldn't get approved in California, but I was surprised with this one since it took me literally onto the high school campus that Richards attended, onto the track, during the school day, while a physical education class was finishing up their running activity near the monument seen in the photo. No one said anything to me, no one questioned me as I walked on to campus. It was a little on the weird side to say the least since I'm used to schools being a little bit more security conscious when it comes to strangers walking onto any school campus. Anyway, I got the information I needed for the virtual and then quickly got off of campus and back on the road.

Another goal for the trip was to find at least one cache in each county I traveled through on the trip. This was a success as I only failed to find a cache in one county that I traveled through and ended up finding caches in 14 new counties. Yes, you guess it. I'd signed a challenge cache that wanted me to find caches in at least 200 counties. At the beginning of the trip, I was at 199, so Paiute County just off I-70 became my 200th county cached in and the first new one on the trip.

At a rest stop along I-70 was a great viewpoint called Spotted Wolf Canyon. There was a virtual cache here which I completed and then it was just a matter of stretching the legs a little bit. This particular canyon was amazing as it highlighted not only the view, but the engineering that went on to wind I-70 down through the canyon at a rather steep price back in the day. This spot also highlighted one of the main reasons why I've really come to enjoy geocaching so much. I've said it many times in the past, but it bears repeating. I probably would have missed this spot entirely were it not for geocaching. This silly little game has taken me to several spots that I never would have visited were it not for the game and that included spots in places like Yosemite Valley, that I felt I had explored extensively and there was no possible way that there would be something new to see in Yosemite. Geocaching proved me wrong there and it has continued to take me to awe inspiring and interesting places.

Finally, sometime further down the road that day, I ended up finding a traditional geocache. I actually found several traditionals during the day, but this one was intriguing in that when I signed it, about five signatures above it was another cacher's stamp who lives in the same area that I do. This is not the first time I've encountered things like this, but just the latest. The last time was when I encountered another local geocacher's name in a cache that I found in New Mexico. For the most part, geocachers love to travel, so this shouldn't be that surprising, but it's always cool to see friends' names in the log sheet that you've just signed.

That evening, I stopped in Grand Junction, CO which would be my base camp for the next three days or so. I did some caching in the area, actually bumped into a couple of local Grand Junction cachers who were looking for the same cache I was. When I'm on a road trip like this, I usually try to host an event somewhere just so I can meet the local geocachers. Grand Junction was no exception, so I asked them whether they were planning on attending my coffee event the next morning. They said they'd be there and then we ended up finding that cache, plus another cache nearby that had eluded them before. After finding that second cache, we said our goodbyes with the promise of seeing each other the next morning and I headed back to my motel to log my caches for the day and to get a good night's sleep. The next day promised to be a good sightseeing day for me as I was going to tour a nearby national monument, but I'll write about that in a future blog entry.