Thoughtful birthday gifts

As usual I received a thoughtful birthday gift in the mail from a seasoned travelers couple—one of them is a Life Book (100 places to see in your life time: America the Beautiful).  We’re counting the places we have visited (sort of counting the blessings) and the places we hopefully will visit; the next one mostly will be Yosemite National Park.

John Muir is synonymous to Yosemite.  Unlike Ansel Adams, Muir was not a naturalist photographer (photography was available in his time, but he couldn’t do what he did carrying the heavy and bulky equipments), but it was more than made up by his words.  Appreciating the beauty of words as much as the natural beauty, I’ll see Yosemite thinking about his writings, and you should, too.

Ansel Adams, not only gave us the beautiful images of our national treasury, he also said, “No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied—it speaks in silence to the very core of your being.”  I know he was referring to Yosemite, probably about Half Dome and El Capitan.

Janice said she presumed we won’t climb and scale Half Dome; she was right and we wouldn’t have anything to brag to Ben and Gabby.  Let this post serve as a Thank You note.

The other book has an article of "Great fall gardens--our top tips", which is what we need now as the summer garden has seen its best days.