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Grandma and Grandpa Prusso

A Few More Lucy Pictures

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What a Difference a Day Makes

On Saturday it was nearly 70 degrees here in Sandy. I washed all the cars (big mistake) and enjoyed the sunshine. Today, it is snowing! I don't think the apricots will survived.

The First Day of Spring

Today is the first day of Spring. It came at 7:44 this morning. Right on cue, our apricot tree has bloomed. It is a welcomed site after a long cold winter. (Now, just keep your fingers crossed that we don't get a freeze)
Another sign of Spring is Chris' orchids. They started blooming last month and have continued with one new blossom each week.
But the best sign of Spring, however, is that it is going to be 70 degrees here on Saturday! Wahooooo....

Dogwoods In Yosemite

Spring is almost here. (Or at least we wish it were almost here!) When I think of Spring, I can't help but think of Yosemite. As a kid, we would go to Yosemite each Spring with my grandparents. To my grandfather, Yosemite was sacred ground. It was his temple. I clearly remember him pointing, with his crippled hand, to each waterfall, each mountain peak, each unique feather of the valley, then crossing his arms and smiling with great satisfaction as he breathed in the sweet, clean mountain air. He was old and crippled with gout, but just being in the valley brought life back to him. You could see in his eyes that he was in heaven.

At night we would sit on the porch of our rented cabin at Camp Curry and wait for the firefall to begin. "Hello, Camp Curry!" a voice echoed from the high a top Glacier Point. "Hello, Glacier Point!" a voice echoed back. Then someone on Glacier Point would push a fire over the 3000 foot cliff.


A ribbon of fire would cascade down the face of Glacier Point, lighting the night sky. It seemed magical to a six year old kid.
Sunday morning was always the best. We would stroll through the valley looking at all the pink and white dogwood trees. He would tell us stories about his 1928 hike from Yosemite Valley to Devil's Postpile. He would tell stories about Chief Tenaya and the Ahwahnee Valley. (As it was called before the white man came.)
As my kids grew up, I tried to pass some of his reverence for Yosemite on to them. Teaching them to look beyond the pavement to appreciate the grandeur of the valley. (Truth-be-told, their greatest memory of Yosemite was making mud balls on the banks of the Merced River and chucking them as far as they could into the icy water.)
Vanessa and Chris are planning a trip to the valley this summer. Chris has never been before. They will be too late to enjoy the blooming dogwoods, and the firefall has disappeared to help reduce Yosemite's carbon footprint, but I hope a they take time to look beyond the pavement and enjoy my grandfather's temple.

The Ship Brooklyn

This plaque marks the spot where the Ship Brooklyn moored in 1846, bringing 238 Mormons to San Francisco. (Incidentally, that doubled the population of the city!) The plaque reads,

Commemorating the landing at this point of the Ship Brooklyn, July 31, 1846. A 370 ton vessel, carrying Mormon Colonists and crew of nearly 300 under the leadership of Samuel Brannan. In the hold was a printing press, 179 books for educational purposes, two complete flour mills, plows, harrows and a supply of implements for settling the new country. The Daughters of Utah Pioneers, San Francisco County, July 31, 1940.

The plaque is at 100 Broadway, about three blocks from the current edge of the bay. However, in 1846, this spot would have been the bay. The picture to the right shows Yerba Beuna Cove (Note yet called San Francisco) at it would have looked in 1846. The street along the water's edge is now Montgomery Street. In the map below the 1846 beach is in yellow and the red dot is the location of the plaque.




In this photo, taken last Friday of the current San Francisco Embaradero, everything you see, every building, street, tree, car, bus, would have been part of the bay in 1846.
Not much remains today that would have been visible in 1846. However, the side of Telegraph Hill would have been a prominent landmark to the Mormon Pioneers. The hill would have been covered with a mixture of redwood and pine trees. The eucalyptus trees that currently dominating the flora of Telegraph Hill were imported from Australia in the 1850s. (Coit Tower was built in 1933 as a tribute to the fire fighters of the 1906 earthquake and fire. It is built in the shape of a fire hose.)
Read below about my room with a view!

A Room with a View.....

On Thursday I had to go to San Francisco for business. I stayed at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco. When I got to my room and pulled back my blinds, this was my view. For those of you less familiar with San Francisco, that building is the Ferry Building, built in 1892 and one of the few buildings that remain from before the 1906 earthquake. The view is looking east with the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, Yerba Buena, Treasure Island and the Oakland-Berkeley hills in the background.

For any Indiana Jones fans, the white building on Treasure Island is the old Pan American Clipper (flying boats) terminal. It was used as the zeppelin terminal in Berlin in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Between 1957 and 1989, the Ferry Building was cut off from the rest of San Francisco by the ugly double-decker Embarcadero Freeway. The silver lining in the 1989 earthquake was that the freeway crumbled and was later torn down. From 1992 to 2002, the Ferry Building underwent extensive restoration. Now it is full of unique shops (not touristy stuff) and on Saturdays it hosts a farmer's market. Ferryboats once again ply the waters of the bay bringing commuters from Marin, Richmond, Berkeley, Oakland and Alameda to the Ferry Building.

A Brother's Tale

So my brother tells the sailing story a little differently from my recollection. First of all there was a relentless, driving rain all day. Gale force winds buffeted us from the moment we left the dock till we return that evening. Even without our jib sail and the main storm reefed, we sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge at a clip of 20 knots. Then, just west of the gate we hit 20 foot waves. (Actually, they were rapids created by the out going tide.) The waves completely swallowed the boat. From the bottom of the wave's trough the bridge was completely blocked from our view by the mountainous wave crest. Our very lives were now in peril and we feared the little sailboat would capsize.
Just when we thought all was lost, a school of porpoise came to our rescue. Alerting us by their squeaks and squeals, they beckoned us to follow them to calmer waters in the lee of the Marin headlands.
Safe, we waved joyfilled thanks to our new aquatic friends and, still facing a raging head on squall, we forged forward until we safely navigated our way to the yacht harbor.
That evening we enjoyed a great meal, warmed by a fire, and marveled at the intelligence of porpoise.