mikes web log

The Green Man has been part of our heritage. The evidence points to this mythological figure being linked to the fertility of the ground. In many respects the Green man is Natures representative. The Green Man is linked to death and revival and regeneration.  
 

The Green Man is enjoying modern day resurgence as we become progressively alarmed by what we are doing with the environment. The Green Man is now associated with environmental awareness.
One of the problems we are going to have is that the images of the Green Man are usually of an angry foliated face. They are dotted all over the 14 Century churches joining the other grotesque gargoyles that adorn them. Were they a medieval environmental warning of environmental change?

 
Quite a lot of the users of the Green Man are going to be young users. How will they cope with a grotesque foliated image? The image has got to persuade these young users to communicate and through this discover the mysteries of the gardens.

To help the young visitors we will have to find or devise a story that will introduce them to this controversial figure. A story which is going to support its mythological origins and also make him a ‘real’ figure that children will want to communicate with.

The Green Man is a brilliant choice to lead visitors to discover the gardens. It is planned that the Green Man will give the gardens users ‘Quests’ which will lead them to question what they see and help them find answers to there questions. They will discover for themselves the magic of plants and the environment in which they exist.

There is a Butlins element about this place. They have table tennis and horshoe throwing competitions and last night we had a talk on forest fires and the role of fires in the forest. I now know what an ‘In condition’ and an ‘Out of condition’ forest looks like.

Yesterday we went on two trips. The first took us back to Yosemite Valley and the fantastic granite constructions. We were taken to a 6000ft elevation called Glacier Point  and then embarked on a four mile hike down to the floor of the valley, a fall of about 3000ft. It was a brilliant hike with unbelievable views almost every foot of the way but it did test your muscles and I reckon I have found some I didn’t know I had.

We were about 1000ft down and Gina was leading. She approached a corner of the path. Virtually all the way down you had the granite cliff on your left so you were constantly going around corners. She approached the corner stopped and backed tracked. “Theres a bear on the path” “What” “A BEAR”. Camera on we stealthly went around the corner – no bear. However there it was just above us. No path needed for the bear it just went straight up. We watched it climb away from us. Eventually we reached the bottom aching all the way and bathed our feet in the Merced river.

Last night we went on a sunset trip to a point in the hills where we could see the sun st across the valley. Just us, the driver and a bottle of wine. One more day here before we move on to San Francisco. We will miss it.

This is the fifth national park that we have visited. The 50 dollars which we spent two weeks ago (seems like months) is repaying itself. We left Clovis for the short hop to Evergreen Lodge (www.evergreenlodge.com) with a little trepedation. As I was now a hotel snob what would the outcome be! No tv, no telephone, no no no – what else?
After another spectacular drive through (what do you expect – afterall it is only a National Park!) you see a small road to the left directing you to Evergreen Lodge. Its six mile away. But wait. We are already 30-50 miles from the nearest grocery store, liquor store, bank and all other essential amenities and here we are having to drive six miles down a country lane!
Six more miles of twists and turns with not a house or any other form of civilisation brings us to Evergreen Lodge and what a place it is. The first thing you notice is the cabins (we have booked one). They are small. The one we see from the car park could surely only accomodate a single person and a washroom. The others around it seem to be just as limited. What have we let ourselves in for? You can understand why no TV you couldn’t fit one into it!
What we didn’t know was that this cabin and the surrounding ones were built between 1908 and 1912 for workers building a nearby dam. They are still used – but by special guests. Our cabin was down the hill. It was two years old and has a spacious living room, a super bathroom (no mould), and a great airy bedroom plus a balcony that overlooks the forest. It doesn’t have robes or slippers like the Wynn although I do believe the Wynn is two sets of slippers missing as I saw them in the corner of one of our cases. The Lodge is brilliant and my next blog will be about todays hike and the second bear that we met.

Tuesday

Toady we left Barstow – a town which has a very suitable name. We began to move onward to Fresco. A change in plan meant that we would go further north and through the Sequoia National park – the home of the giant Sequoia tree. To both of us this turned out to be one of the most moving parts of our trip – even beating the first sights of the Grand Canyon.

We slowly drove into the park moving through a fantastic landscape. America seems to have a surfeit of such landscapes. After 30 minutes of twists and turns we came to the Sequoia forest. Suddenly the trees that you were passing did not just fill one side window, they filled all the side windows. “Gina look at that” as we passed one. “What” . “That tree”. “What tree – I cant see a tree” and she couldn’t all you could see was a window of red bark. Unless you had seen them as you approached them you would have no idea of the size of them, it would be uncomprehensible.

We stopped and joined the magnicent trees, some of them were 3000 to 4000 years old. We walked among them and enjoyed their habitat. They wer so soft to touch. You cried at their magnificence and were overjoyed to see young Sequoia’s growing beside them. It was a brilliant experience.

And then there was the BEAR. Not a caterpillar this time but a real live brown bear which passed within 30ft of us as we were marvelling at the trees (we have the video evidence). Later we saw some deer and more chipmunks. We din’t see the cougar and the rattlesnake.

Of interest: The Sequoia trees need fire. It burns the undergrowth debris creating excellent potash and allows the seeds to germinate successfully. In good faith they tried to stop fires for about seven years and in that time no seeds germinated.

As we slum it through Nevada, Arazona and California using Best Western motels I realise that Gina has managed to achieve something that I thought impossible – I am becoming a hotel snob. I find myself comparing every room to every other in terms of the amount of bathroom mould, the number of television channels, the wear on the carpets, the stains on the wall, the view from the window and lots of other features. Best Westerns are at their best just motels and pretty disgusting.

Another feature of driving in the USA are the Onk-onks. I am, of course referring to the trucks which have abnormally large snouts that seem to dominate all the freeways. They are quite frightening as they get larger and larger in your rear mirror. Are they going to pull out and pass – or are they just going to push you off the road?  Phew it passed. On the odd occasion that you try to pass one of them it takes ages and have you ever tried to integrate with a pack of them as you enter a freeway? I dont recommend it.

They are magnifcent beasts – so silver,so polished, so clean, so powerful and sooo part of the American highway

What an experience. Up at 5.00 and off to the airport and our first flight in a helicopter. We were both up front with the pilot, a nice German guy (don’t mention the war). We were both as scared as one could be. I wondered if he would he stop and let me off if I asked him nicely. Off on a 45 minute trip to the Canyon, over the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead (which is fed by the Colarado and the Virgin rivers).  The into the brilliant breathtaking Canyon. We then landed to drop two passengers off, took off again and then landed again at a ‘watering hole’ in the Canyon. Champagne was served and we took off again for another 45 minute trip back to Las Vegus. A brilliant experience.

Back to the Strip. A glass of wine in the hotel, its so like ‘Little Britain!’

Our next major stop is in  two days and the Yosemiti National Park where the hotel proudly announces that it’s rooms dont have televisions or telephones or anything else beginning with ‘t’. A different form of madness.

All of the toilets in this place seem to act like those you meet on planes. Pull the flush and there is  huge sucking sound that seems to want to suck everything out of the room.

The real madness is the extravagance of this place. We had to be outside the hotel this morning at 5.50 to catch the shuttle for our helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon and the casino was still very busy. The people never seem to stop gambling.

Yesterday we walked the strip and looked in all the major hotels. We therefore had a Venetian experience follewed by a Parisian experience and then a New York experience. The focus for all these hotels is gambling so to get the ‘experience’ you have to fight your way through slot machines and gambling tables all very busy.  We then did the water fountains at the Bellagio hotel looked in at Ceasers Palace and finally visited a dissapointing Treasure Island before returning to the Wynn.

It’s the vulgarity of it all, the heat, the masses of people that have made this place so mad and so much fun. We will both miss it when we move to quieter areas tommorow.

A train has just passed through in the distance and it was pulling over 70 tucks. It seemed to strtch for miles. It says it all.

This morning we left our comfortable ‘cabinish’ type of room with its balcony overlooking the Virgin river and our lump of rock. This evening we are on the 59th floor of a 60 floor hotel with windows from ceiling to floor overlooking Las Vegas and the famous ‘Strip’. Below us we can see (in the distance – 59 floors makes a not inconsiderable distance) a lake with a galleon in it (Treasure Island hotel) the Eifell Tower (or is it Blackpool)  and New York in the far distance. There are also thousands of cars, the sky is buzzing with helicopters and there is madess in the air.

I feel quite comfortably cocooned up in these amazing heights. No noise, no apparent pollution and you overlook almost everything in Las Vegas. You approach the city in a similiar way to the approach to Birmingham, you climb a hill to reach a plateau and there in front of you is the city bathed in sunlight with this orangish cloud sitting above it which is probably the pollution from the thousands of cars you have to compete with as you enter the city. Four lane highways  – are we in the right lane? How can you read signs at this speed?  Suddenly you miss the strip and seem to be on the way to the Hoover Dam – so lets go there instead and then try to get back.

The place is all about gambling. We have a litle red card that we can use in any of the slot machines downstairs. A clever idea. The card gets us into our room, feeds us and also alows us to gamble and the credit card company will pick up the bill when we checkout. Its so easy. What they don’t know is that I havent the faintest idea how to use the machines ( and i dont think Gina has) so it is unlikely that we will spend much time on them. Lets find out. We could win so much money that the credit card company could owe us!!!!!!!

As we approach our last day a Springdale it might be worth mentioning storms. Most evenings have been accompanied by the most fantastic thunderstorms and rain. The Virgin River runs about 20 yards from our window and you can see the colour changes as it collects all the run off from the mountains. At the moment it looks like liquid cement which is strange because the mountains are red sandstone.