The mind-boggling profusion of the Spring has elbowed its way into Summer. Went for a hike at Tennessee Valley recently (easily accessible from the connector road from Highway 101 to Stinson Beach), and was astounded to find that there were nearly as many wildflowers as there had been after the rains of April. It’s a fabulous time to get outside, and walk at a good clip through hillsides covered with pea blossoms, ceanothus, Farewell-to-Spring, and a host of other blooms I’ve never seen and can’t name.
Drove out to Yosemite about three weeks ago and took two long strolls in the unseasonable heat. I think of myself as an ocean person, but there are times when those waves and whorls of granite, scraped and sheared by the retreating glaciers of the last Ice Age, give me a similar feeling: a familiar awe for the enormous forces animated by the Earth’s molten core and slow, steady rumble around its axis. Yosemite Valley, as ever, was mobbed; but I took the shuttle bus up to Glacier Point and hiked down the Panorama Trail, spending long moments lost in the rainbow mists that dance over Vernal Falls in the hour before sunset.
Closer to home, there are great entertainments of another sort. The world of solo theater is a realm I entered just recently, but it’s been a revelation. For those of you in the San Francisco neighborhood, two strong recommendations:
At the Magic Theater in San Francisco, Marga Gomez’s solo show – Los Big Names – upholds the Tomlinesque tradition of genius lesbian performances that leave you howling with glee. Meanwhile, the amazing Mike Daisey has
returned to the Berkeley Rep for a West Coast run of his steam-powered monologue, The Ugly American. I first saw Daisey last year, when he was performing 21 Dog Years – a brilliant rant about his experiences at Amazon.com. The Ugly American is an improvised tale of his harrowing experiences studying acting in London, and it’s terrific. Daisey himself is a force of nature, a huge and inspiring presence who might just be the lost half of Half Dome. He and his wife/director, Jean-Michele, joined me this week for dinner, and I probably learned more about the world of theater during that evening that I did during my three runs of Strange Travel Suggestions.
As for myself, I just finished three fairly big stories (including a piece on Medical Tourism for Time Inc, and the introduction to Lonely Planet’s new USA guidebook) and am off for a weekend of star-gazing in Occidental. When I return I’ll start preparing, as I do this time of year, for "From Page to Stage": the course I’ll be teaching at the annual Book Passage Travel Writers’ Conference in Corte Madera.
Later this Summer, a very exciting new project will put me in partnership with the Seacology Foundation, which works to preserve and improve island ecologies around the world – and it looks like Strange Travel Suggestions may be up and running again by the equinox. Lots going on. More details in my next blog – stay tuned.