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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 26, 2013 - 10:37am PT
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Elvin Bishop/Juke Joint Jump
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sfQRKCbohU
Jump, jump, jump, cow!
Over that moon, girl, you can do it!
Paul Bunyan in Planada plays a plastic axe.
Elvin Bishop in Bishop plays a blues axe.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 26, 2013 - 11:37am PT
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I was wrong in my weather prognostication, but took off for the hills regardless of the potential. I cruised out into the Mariposa foothills, Agua Fria Road, Hornitos Road, Old School Road, Old Highway, Indian Gulch Road, to name the major ones.
The clouds were all over, so it made for some good stuff and then the clouds left for the most part, leaving vistas bathed in the gold of the hills.
Then I came down to the plains and opted to check out the Ag Museum on Highway 140, next to the Fruit Barn. It's closer to Merced, really, than Planada. And it's loaded with stuff, not nearly all of which is related to agriculture.
For instance, how does a rat car like the one Charlie built impress anyone as being a farm implement? The same wsy Elvin Bishop casts himself as a hayseed. It's associated.
People have much different lives now than in our grandad's day, but gadgets that purport to make life more enjoyable are part of the culture, no matter if you are living on a farm or in an apartment in the City. The Sears catalog is now replaced by Craigslist and eBay for us, but the civilizing instinct is inbred to our nature.
We need toys, in other words.
I don't know how many of us got to visit the old Sutro Baths in SF before it was torn down, but there was an exhibition of wild stuff there in their old museum, spread out among the rooms of the Sutro Baths (Cliff House area). The vibe in the Ag Museum is nearly the same.
Charlie doesn't open up regurlarly as his visitorship there was never "overwhelming." A visit here would likely take hours away from a trip to Yosemite, which is why he never had much luck attracting visitation. It's bothersome to him, but the guy's an alky, sucking down brews, walking around in his socks, but he's a kind old man, 76, and the thought occurred to me when I left, "Who's gonna get to deal with all of this when he passes?"
There is a note somewhere on one of the doors, Charlie told me, with his phone number, in case anyone wants to see this stuff. It's not the Smithsonian, just the Bizarro World/Merced County version of that venerable repository of the past.
We have a total of nine museums in Merced County, in Atwater, Merced, Los Banos, and Gustine, representing municipalities and the county itself, plus the Ag Museum, Castle AFB's flight museum, and a few more which escape me. You all know me as an enthusiast for Old School anything. This was like a waking dream, walking around that place.
Charlie left me alone in the yard, told me how to get out on my own, as he was leaving for the day. A trusting guy, he knows my older bro Mike, has for a long time, so that was no issue for him, but I had to climb a fence--weird story, too long and irrelevant, but that illustrates old Charlie's attitude, the loveable old tinkerer.
He has a working blacksmith shop out in the back acres, and a separate building where he stores more of his restoration projects like the rat car and the Starfire, for example. the museum itself is just one room full of cars, motorcycles, bicycles, tricycles, birthing chair, collections of old kitchen gadgets, and a plethora of antiques not restored, just collected and plonked down. It's dusty, too.
At the door to the restoration garage. He also has a room with a bar, which he rents out for parties and is full of old stuff, like his BB-gun collection.
Throwpie, you got to see this place. zBrown, a motorcycle bum like you would cream his jeans.
He likely has a surfboard in there someplace, too.
Edit: Before TT catches me up again, there is no Old School Road in Mariposa. It is Skoal House Rood and it crosses Old Highway. Take a map, for gauze shakes.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 26, 2013 - 12:07pm PT
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Thanks, Andy. I thought something looked odd. Now I think on it, this is the fire the Rev was telling me about on the way over to see Tom Crow at Mono.
He said that "meatheads" were responsible for this "controlled burn" getting out of hand: they must've been thinking about a barbecue and the Fire Lord obliged them. Such a damn shame, because it burned up into the Tioga Road higher up in the red fir forest. UGLY!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 26, 2013 - 03:30pm PT
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These are all shots taken in what I call a "restoration garage."
And these coming up are from the "party room" next door but in the same building. There are two buildings facing Hwy 140. This is the one on the right side, next to the Fruit Barn. When Charlie first opened the museum, he tried to sell fruit but he had to compete with the Barn and they won because they have buses stopping in for lunches, while he could not attract the drivers' custom, because the bastards would just offer the drivers more of a tip for bringing the bus in to them, not Charlie. His side of the story, anyway. So he opened up a party room to rent out.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 26, 2013 - 04:29pm PT
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Into the museum itself, free of charge, and with a kindly old docent who happens to have disposable income too high for his own good, I think. But he's havin' FUN!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 26, 2013 - 04:30pm PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 26, 2013 - 04:31pm PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 26, 2013 - 04:31pm PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 26, 2013 - 04:37pm PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 26, 2013 - 04:37pm PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 26, 2013 - 04:37pm PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 26, 2013 - 04:38pm PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 26, 2013 - 04:39pm PT
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The original Mariposa County included all ov Merced County, and in 1855 the farmers voted themselves out of Mariposa and the affairs of the miners, whose constant needs for roads and such they were not willing or able to pay for.
My family's history is bound up in the Merced River and all three brothers are 'familiar' with the lower reaches and the upper.
Mike has lived on the river in Merced Falls for years and years and has hunted and poached all through Briceburg and North Fork and the South Fork.
Brother Tim is a fishing guide on the local rivers. He was a ski racer and cut his teeth at both Bagger Ass and Dodger Itch.
I have fished the river all up and down its length, but never caught anything at all in or above Yosemite Valley. I have climbed to the top of Lyell and watched the snow melt into the Merced drainage. I have climbed to the top of El Cap and been raided by weather destined to fill the river and water your crops. I have peed into Nevada Fall. I have peed off the lip of Yosemite Fall, upper and lower. I love my river. I love those who respect that river and its drainage.
I love what the river of ice accomplished and destroyed and created again.
I love the lessons this place has taught me.
I cherish each moment I think of cherishing each moment of being in this dendron of Gaia.
I hope you all do the same and I hope we all live a good long time with A LOT MORE FUN!
//The curse of sorrow is comparison!
As the sun casteth shade, night showeth star,
We, measuring what we were by what we are,
Behold the depth to which we are undone.//
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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujo de La Playa
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Jun 26, 2013 - 06:26pm PT
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Not a surfboard, but this looks like a reverse tricycle with a skateboard deck mounted on it.
It seems somebody up there in The Great Central Valley (has anyone checked the crime stats?) liked Leonard, at least enough to paint a picture of him.
That's not the electric light, my friend,
that is your vision growing dim.
They were well on the way to world dominance with the scheduled introduction of the czBrown model, but they somehow lost their vision and it was tossed in the junk heap.
"it's possible to say that there is a bit of CZ on all the Japanese motocross bikes! "
http://www.kocmoc.com/BikeCorner/cz/
more historically accurate "it's possible to say that had the czBrown not been abandoned, there would have been no Japanese motocross bikes! "
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lostinshanghai
Social climber
someplace
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Jun 26, 2013 - 07:17pm PT
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Hey! where have I seen that photo before. Wonder if they upgraded the viewers with 1/2 " polymer clear plates same stuff that they make beer cans straps of. Dimes to doughnuts they haven't but soon hopefully.
Don't want sticky hands reaching those handles to open.
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throwpie
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jun 26, 2013 - 08:01pm PT
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Lucky are we who have spent our lives dunking in River of Mercy. Being a Merced/Yosemite boy has always been a point of pride for me.
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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujo de La Playa
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Jun 26, 2013 - 08:53pm PT
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[Click to View YouTube Video]
Note: A Shelle Production (apparently spelling was not their forte).
Stay tuned there may be another episode in the pipeline.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 26, 2013 - 09:28pm PT
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Throwpie, mass urination on the forces of aging is called for.
But it might take a while.
I'm glad urinal pal of mine.
Remember cruising Mariposa's dirt roads?
Dig this! A mouse scared a big bad owl out of his midday roost, the peckerhead! I was just gonna pee, too. Lucky shot here.
But I totally missed the coyote skylined on this hill.
As for wildlife in the foothills
Kevin Pickett/Long Strange Ride
http://www.reverbnation.com/kevinpickett
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 26, 2013 - 10:10pm PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 26, 2013 - 10:13pm PT
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Da bridge at Bridgeport.
Intersection of Agua Fria and Hwy 140. It is the site of the Yosemite Slate Quarry, as advertised.
Feeder of Agua Fria next to McGregor's driveway.
North side of Da Bridge. Choked.
South side of Da Bridge. Fading.
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