{"id":4879,"date":"2024-04-23T10:06:04","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T17:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/?p=4879"},"modified":"2024-05-23T09:50:52","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T16:50:52","slug":"sixty-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/2024\/04\/sixty-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Sixty Years"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Yeah, six decades. The big day was approaching and I wasn’t looking forward to answering questions such as “how does it feel?” (How could it possibly feel, anyway, dude? Not any different than the a day earlier, right?) So, to minimize the fuzz around turning sixty, I set up a plan to be completely alone and offline from the day before to the day after. As it happened, my plan hit a couple of unexpected roadblocks. Not figurative ones, but literal ones: two of the roads I intended to use in Los Padres National Forest were closed due to recent storms, but that was not enough to derail my plan. I declare success: I got to spend the entirety of that special day all by myself!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pinnacles National Park<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Designated as a National Park just in 2013, Pinnacles is the newest of California National Parks. Most people rank it low when compared to other National Parks because they have all been spoiled by Yosemite, but it’s the closest one to home and it deserves our love all the same.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"They <\/a>
They call it the Tunnel Trail for good reason <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Juvenile <\/a>
Juvenile California Condor <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pinnacles\" <\/a>
Pinnacles <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"From <\/a>
From the Top <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n\n\n

Laguna Mountain<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Being mid-week and low season, at Laguna Mountain I had the entire campground to myself. As Charly Garcia said, “no necesito a nadie, nadie alrededor<\/em>” (now, if someone could explain to me why that verse is preceded by “no voy en tren, voy en avi\u00f3n<\/em>“, I’m all ears. My take: Charly Garc\u00eda may be a great musician, but not a very sophisticated poet. Sorry, you probably have no idea what this old man is talking about.)<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Home <\/a>
Home with a view <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"No <\/a>
No cake but tea is just as good <\/div> <\/div>
\"From <\/a>
From the trail <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Laguna <\/a>
Laguna Falls <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The day after <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n\n\n

I hadn’t realized how much I like solitude. Absolute solitude. It feeds my soul. I’ll do this more often in my next sixty years. In fact, I’m doing it as I write this post. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bonus, previously unreleased material<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In December, when I was still young, we drove to the Panamint Valley to experience the Geminids Meteor Shower. We had never prepared so well to maximize the count of shooting starts we’d see, setting up to spend the entire night under a moonless Milky Way, all warm and cozy in our sleeping bags. And we had never seen so few. (Okay, that’s not true in its literal sense, since, for instance, last night a saw zero, but I wasn’t trying and<\/strong> there was no shower; you know what I mean). Still, the trip and the scenery was well worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Sunrise <\/a>
Sunrise on I-5 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Panamint <\/a>
Panamint Mountains <\/div> <\/div>
\"Death <\/a>
Death Valley <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Almost <\/a>
Almost new <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Highway <\/a>
Highway 120 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Eastern <\/a>
Eastern Sierra <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Mono <\/a>
Mono Lake <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yeah, six decades. The big day was approaching and I wasn’t looking forward to answering questions such as “how does it feel?” (How could it possibly feel, anyway, dude? Not any different than the a day earlier, right?) So, to minimize the fuzz around turning sixty, I set up a plan to be completely alone … Continue reading “Sixty Years”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/O3D7k-00156.jpg?fit=2560%2C1465&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7GCAo-1gH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4879"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4926,"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879\/revisions\/4926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}