Today we left the Walmart of Barstow, CA at 8:30 in order to arrive at Fort Irwin at 9:30 for our tour of the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex.  After clearing security at Fort Irwin by showing drivers licenses, registration, and proof of insurance, we had to do the same thing at the NASA checkpoint.  Goldstone is entirely surrounded by Fort Irwin, so I’m not sure why we had to be checked again.  For security reasons, they insisted that we not take the RV into Goldstone.  By the time we had unhitched, Leslie, our guide for the morning, had come to meet us.  Goldstone is operated by a contractor hired by JPL, and part of the contract is to provide interpretive staff for visitors.  There are two tours a day, and today it was just us and Leslie.

We followed Leslie’s car for 15 minutes or so into Goldstone, and eventually arrived at the Mars Antenna.  It is 230 feet across and like all the Antennas at Goldstone, it’s used primarily to communicate with NASA probes.  Mars was expanded to it’s current size to support the Voyager missions:

The outbound signal from the Mars Antenna is 250,000 Watts in strength, and it can receive back signals from Voyager which are one-billionth of one-billionth of a watt by the time they reach Earth.

Next to Mars was the 34-meter diameter Uranus Antenna:

After visiting these antennas, we were taken to the visitor center:

Aiming the antennas in the ‘50s wasn’t exactly rocket science:

The visitor center is adjacent to the Echo Antenna, which like Uranus has a 34-meter diameter:

After our tour, we had lunch in the RV.  Outside our window, an armored column of 50 or so vehicles thundered by:

We headed into “downtown” Fort Irwin to visit the museum there.  The tanks outside carried OPFOR Russian livery:

There was an exhibit dedicated to Hi Jolly, whose grave we saw in Quartzsite:

From Fort Irwin, we drove to the BLM campground at Afton Canyon, the “Grand Canyon of the Mojave”.  We are overnighting here for $6 because I’ve read that dispersed camping is not allowed in the Afton Canyon BLM subdistrict.  I’ll be calling the BLM office in the morning to confirm.

See the trip map for driving details.

Today we hiked up to Vernal Falls.  On the way, we traversed a fen near happy isles:

Looking up from Happy Isles:

After a while, the path transitions to steps:

At last, we reached Vernal Falls.  There’s not much water this time of year:

This California Ground Squirrel was waiting for us to turn our back so he could raid our pack:

After some more steps, we reached the top:

Continuing on towards Nevada Falls, we had a great view of Liberty Cap, which Trish and I summited in ‘93:

Broderick and Liberty Cap:

Water coming down from Nevada Falls towards Vernal Falls:

Heading back:

One last photo of Vernal Falls:

Towards dusk, we went for a short bike ride:

Today we got up early to catch the 9am photo walk with a guide from the Ansel Adams Gallery:

The team preps their gear:

We had a bit of water coming down Yosemite Falls, and there was a tiny rainbow in the mist:

We spotted a hawk in the tree.  Do you see it?

We worked on adding foreground framing to background objects:

I was enjoying this tree in the sun with the rock face behind it in shade:

I carry a highly portable stand and umbrella, and used it with an off-camera flash to create this portrait:

The family that chimps together stays together:

After lunch we drove up to Tunnel View.  It is a truly amazing scene.  To give an idea of scale, El Capitan, on the left, is 3000 vertical feet from its base to the top:

On the way down, we hiked in to view Bridalveil Falls.  This is the dry season, but water still falls down the 619 foot cascade:

Towards sunset, I took the kids for a bike ride up to Mirror Lake, which is dry in the fall.  Here they are standing in the lake bed:

Mirror Lake is right under Half Dome:

We rode back towards Yosemite Village for a more traditional view of Half Dome:

We also stopped in at Housekeeping Campground.  The tent cabins have been partially disassembled for the season.  This is where we would stay when we visited Yosemite when I was a child:

This morning was quite chilly, as you would expect for being in the Sierra Mountains in November.  We rode our bikes over to the Visitor Center where we watched an excellent video presentation, then toured the adjacent Indian Village exhibit, which demonstrated the living conditions and daily operation of the Indian settlements in Yosemite Valley before the Indians were forced into reservations:

Next we took a tour of the Ahwahnee Hotel, a luxury hotel built in the late 20s to bring people of wealth and influence to Yosemite in the hopes of turning them into supporters of the then-nascent National Park system:

On the ride back to the RV, we spotted Half Dome in the distance:

After a late lunch, we walked out of the RV and captured photographs of the alpine glow on Half Dome:

Pity sunset is at 5pm this time of year, there’s still so much to do!

This past Shabbos was one of our more interesting ones to date.  We were exposed to the off-road motorcycling culture, something none of us had ever encountered before.  Of the 50 RVs in the competition area and the 30 RVs in the campsite, we were the only people without off-road vehicles.  On our Shabbos walk, we noticed we were the only people on foot; everyone else was thundering by on their motorcycles.  Our son very much wants to try his hand at off-road motorcycling now, as there were children as young as 7 or so riding.  We even saw a motorcycle with training wheels.  The little kids were very cute on their pint-sized machines.  We watched the riders fly through the air after launching from jumps on the tracks, as well as extended wheelbase motorcycles climbing straight up mountain faces in the hillclimbing competition.  It was all very interesting.  And loud.

Saturday night we packed up and headed back into Tracy to stay at the Home Depot.  It was nice and quiet, and had WiFi to boot.  The next morning we visited the WinCo next door only to find out that they take neither credit cards nor traveller’s checks.  OK, off to Safeway then.  After shopping and laundry, we headed East towards Yosemite.  Here we are rolling across the arid grasslands on route 140 east of Merced:

We arrived in Yosemite after dark, which was unfortunate except for the fact that we could see the flashlights of climbers sleeping in hammocks lashed into the sheer rock face of El Capitan, which is so high that it takes most climbers several days to climb.

  See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.