California Rivers

Minaret Peaks at dawn

If the weather stays mild, California trout aficionados would do well to head to the mountains before the snow flies.

Recently, Dennis Greninger and I drove north from LA to fish in the eastern Sierras. Although summer hatches were over, we found fish by prospecting with dry flies and nymphs. On the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin, we had two nights in a row where something brought fish to the surface.

We used Mammoth as a base of operations for a three day fishing trip. Mammoth has two fishing tackle shops, good restaurants, a large Vons’s supermarket and some reasonably priced hotels. Here’s what we found . . .

The Middle Fork of the San Joaquin: Because of its just right scale, I really liked the San Joaquin. We fished the Middle Fork in Devil’s Postpile National Park. After Labor Day, the highways and campsites are not crowded

Driving to Mammoth is dramatic. Driving to the Middle Fork takes the drama up another notch. The road climbs mountains and then spirals down into the river valley. Of this drive, my friend, Carl Crawford, says, “The view of Minaret Peaks and the eastern section of Yosemite may be my favorite view on earth.” The photograph with this post is of the Minarets but Carl is right: nothing does justice to seeing the real thing.

We caught native and holdover brown trout. After a fishless month before, I caught a nice brown trout.

Dennis on the Middle Branch

 
Hot Creek: In upstate New York, the biggest angling hazards are abruptly rising waters from power dam releases or poison ivy. While fishing the canyon section of the public water on Hot Creek, I looked down and saw smoke coming out of a seep hole for a hot spring. Every so often, when the wind shifted, the sulphurous smell of other, larger hot springs wafted past.

The springs are fueled by subterranean volcanic activity and are slightly radioactive, adding a frisson to the Creek’s otherwise enjoyable fishing.

Hot Creek has three sections open to the public. In the middle of the public access is Hot Creek Ranch, with private water in beautiful open meadows and incredibly picky trout

Come to think of it, trout on the entire stream are picky or protected from anglers by water conditions. Despite its name, Hot Creek is a spring fed. It has aquatic vegetation that gums up a fly, has many braided currents that pull a fly from a drag-free drift and has water so clear that the trout know what you are doing before you do.

As you might guess from this description, I caught no fish on Hot Creek. However, the Middle Fork was so beautiful and Hot Creek was so challenging that I want to return and try my luck next year!

The joy of catching this fish was doubled as it took a Parachute Adams dry fly that Dennis tied and shared.

Striped Bass Fishing Extravaganza

If you fish at Montauk right now, the waters look just like this picture, Gridlock, taken by photographer Jim Levison

Drop what you are doing. Right now. Get a plane, train, car, kayak or whatever and head to Montauk, New York.

As you read this, the striped bass fishing at the eastern end of Long Island is, according to Jim Levison, a gifted photographer and fishing guide, “epic.”

Striped bass migrate south during fall and concentrate as they swim south past Montauk Point. For the last few days, the fish have been schooling all around the Point.

If you have a boat, they are reachable by boat. If you have a kayak, the weather has been calm enough to launch from the beach and paddle out.

If you are a surf caster, the fish are within easy range of the beach, sometimes right at the water’s edge, churning through the water, like miniature sharks, gobbling baitfish.

This past Sunday, I drove to Montauk to see if there were any fish. As I drove slowly around the circle by the Lighthouse, I saw anglers coming up from the beach with stripers.

On reaching the beach, there were anglers everywhere. The beach was crowded but not elbow to elbow crowded.

Every ten minutes or so, a school of striped bass would come by within easy casting range of the beach. Between 2 and 3:30 PM, I hooked and lost three bass. The fish were taking white bucktail jigs, silver spoons of all types and surface plugs.

Seeing dozens of three feet fish swirling by on the surface almost wiped out my angling manners. It took several times crossing other anglers’ lines to finally learn that you must cast straight out and not diagonally to the fish.

Russ Drumm, the East Hampton Star’s fisheries reporter, advises that it’s better to cast on the edge of a school of feeding fish than in the middle of it. Striped bass do not have sharp mouths as do bluefish but they have lots of sharp edges and when lots of fish are swirling around, those sharp edges can cut your line.

Striped bass come and go. For now, there is a chance to see once in a lifetime fishing at Montauk Point!

Striped Bass links:

Jim Levison's website is fillled with beautiful photographs of striped bass and Montauk.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's website offers useful information on striped bass and on striped bass fishing.

Russ Drumm is an excellent, witty writer.  He has his own website,  www.russelldrumm.com, and his writing is found at The East Hampton Star's  website.

The Pasadena Museum of California Art: An Appreciation



Edgar Payne, Hills of Altadena, 1917-1919. Oil on canvas,
36 x 45 in. Steven Stern Collection

 
Just a few days ago, my daughter introduced me to a delightful museum in Pasadena, the Pasadena Museum of California Art. This is a smaller museum than the Norton Simon but makes up for any size difference with excellent permanent and visiting collections.

The Museum is in downtown Pasadena, near City Hall.

In recognition of the automobile’s importance in southern California, the art starts with free flowing spray paintings by artist and cartoonist, Kenny Scharf in the Museum’s parking garage. Scharf’s paintings turn the garage from just a place to store cars into a “Kosmic Kavern.”

Upstairs from Scharf’s painting are the main exhibit spaces.

Until Sunday, October 14, 2012, nearly all the museum is given over to nearly 100 paintings and drawings by Edgar Payne, a Chicagoan who moved to California in the early 20th century and was swept away by the artistic possibilities.

Payne was an American Impressionist; his paintings are best viewed from about six to 10 feet away, to best appreciate his use of color and light. Many of the pictures in this exhibit are on large canvasses and are breathtaking.

In addition to painting California landscapes, Payne’s painted scenes from New Mexico and Europe. An artist is not obliged to make his or her work realistic. However, two pictures in the exhibit of the San Gabriel Mountains are almost dead ringers for the mountains as they appear today.

After visiting the eastern Sierras on a fishing trip with my friend, Dennis, I realized that Payne’s paintings of these mountains are as close to an exact copy to the landscape as one can come without a camera.

The Museum does not have a permanent collection but has rotating exhibits. The next exhibits are described in the upcoming exhibits section of the Museum’s website and start Sunday October 28th. The new exhibits are devoted to Swedish-American architect and designer Greta Magnusson Grossman, sculptor and photographer Jessica Rath and printmaker Paul Landacre.

Rath, who works in 'porcelain sculptures and large-scale photographic portraits of hybrid apple trees, is makng art with a bicoastal touch. The LA artist's exhibition is informed by visits to the USDA/Cornell University Plant Genetics Resource Unit in Geneva NY, which preserves endangered varieties of apples from extinction, and its Agricultural Experiment Station, in which apple clones are crossbred to create new varieties for large-scale consumption.

Update on Stamps with Aloha Shirts

About two weeks ago, I wrote about new postcard stamps issued by the United States Postal Service. The stamps include five vivid color photographs of classic and new Aloha, or Hawaiian, shirts.

Then, a week ago, my daughter and I had a 20 minute excursion along the star-studded sidewalks of Hollywood. We lunched at Musso and Frank’s, the oldest restaurant in Hollywood and a favorite of writers, actors and general people about town.

We saw the star for Harrison Ford on the sidewalk, a few steps from the restaurant entrance. We went into a souvenir shop and bought postcards.

After this stroll, we went drove through the Hollywood hills. We were looking for the homes of two noir Los Angeles guys, Jack Nicholson and Harry Bosch, the main character in Michael Connolly’s LA police procedural series. Later, we learned that Nicholson’s house is no more, having burned in 2011. We thought we found a house that might have been the inspiration for the tree house-like cottage that Harry inhabits on Woodrow Wilson Boulevard, but are not sure.

Well, thanks for reading this digression because we are going back to the stamps. . .

On the last day of my visit, I wrote postcards and sent them home. When I went into the post office, I asked for Aloha stamps. The postal clerk said they were all sold out. Instead, he gave me 32 cents worth of stamps for each card, which winds up as a 20, 10 and 2 cent stamp.

If you want to grace your vacation postcards with these attractive stamps, it might be a good idea to buy them before you get on the plane, train or automobile.

And, if you are in a CVS in California, there’s a very good chance you can pick up an Aloha shirt for a reasonable price, as the well-dressed model below is showing!

This shirt fits right in with the theme of Dodger Blue at a recent game between the Dodgers and Cardinals.
Photograph by E.C. Rowen, with technical advice from S. Singer





Sending Post Cards in Style!




The U. S. Postal Service's new post card stamps have Aloha shirts, fresh from Hawaii
Photo courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service

 Thanks to the United States Postal Service, sending postcards home has just gotten a little bit more festive!

The Postal Service has a new book of 10 postcard stamps. The stamps, which are also available for individual purchase, feature photographs by Rick Noyle of five classic Aloha shirts. As you can see from the photograph above, the shirts have appealing colors and delightful renderings of surfers, surfboards, fish and birds of paradise.

Aloha shirts, also called “Hawaiian shirts,” are a fixture of my wardrobe - - and in wardrobes of other friends and readers of this blog. I first started wearing such shirts after seeing a picture of journalist Hunter Thompson in an Aloha shirt and white pants.

I bought my first Hawaiian shirt at a sidewalk sale on the courthouse square in either Bloomington or Bedford, Indiana. A few months later, my friends Susan Jensen and Ruth Purcell gave me an Aloha shirt that actually came from Hawaii.

Thanks to decades of pizza and beer, my first shirt fits snugly. My rotation now includes a Susan's and Ruth's shirt and a new shirt.

While I have never been to Hawaii, the shirts on these stamps remind me of the times that we would sing along with Don Ho’s Tiny Bubbles in college watering holes and the nights as a teen staying up to watch the original version of Hawaii Five-O. With the approach of winter, using these stamps will help battle the sadness of shorter days.

With the Internet, it’s tempting to take photos and send them home by computer. However, there is still nothing like getting a postcard with real handwriting and the actual feel of the place depicted in the card.

Buying and sending lots of postcards helps our wonderful Postal Service, which is getting pummeled by the rise of the Internet. When you buy postcards on vacation, it is an artistic way to leave some of your money at a destination that you like!

If any of you have pictures of yourselves in Hawaiian shirts, feel free to send them along. Perhaps with my limited computer skills, I can upload them and add them to this post!

Saranac Lake Days

The view from the front yard.  Mount Marcy is behind the trees.

We rang out the official last weekend of summer on the West Coast, the West Coast of Saranac Lake in New York’s Adirondacks.

Our friends Jack and Mary Brennan invited us to their camp on Saranac Lake. Their “camp” is an attractive, rambling home from the late 19th century, separated from the Lake by a wide lawn. With its brown paint, large kitchen, screened-in porch and white pines framing the lake view, it is the quintessential Adirondack camp.

For many years, I have wanted to see Mount Marcy, the State’s highest peak, but have not had the ambition or preparation to hike into the High Peaks Wilderness to see it. Within 30 minutes of arriving, Jack pointed out the summit of Marcy to me in the skyline of mountains visible across the lake.

The next two days went along at a pleasant pace. In addition to Jack and Mary, there was a small crowd of congenial, conversational and welcoming guests.

When it got too hot, people swam. For games there were board games and croquet on the lawn. There was a great dinner with grilled chicken and roasted vegetables, served on the big porch - - and an equally great breakfast the next day.

Most of the land across the Lake from the camp is wilderness. So, I was intrigued when, during dessert, I saw a thumbnail sliver of light on a mountain summit. In what seemed liked seconds, the sliver became a nearly full moon. In equally quick time, the moon rose up through the pine trees and moonlight began sparkling on the calm lake.

Later on, we had an unobstructed view of the Moon while sitting by a campfire. The fire-keepers honored the traditions of capable Adirondack guides by starting the fire with just three matches. The silences in the campfire conversations were occasionally punctuated by the cries of loons on the lake.

This camp looks like a near replica of the big house in the recent movie Moonrise Kingdom. And, in fact, one of the guests had the movie soundtrack and played it in the bright morning.

But the movie analogy works only to a point. Many of the characters in Moonrise Kingdom were dissatisfied or treated each other poorly. We were just a band of good-natured people, enjoying the moment. The pleasant memories will help us soldier on, when we are in the gloomy, rainy, snowy and cold days ahead.

For the Birds

My friend, Steve Jaffe and his wife Janice moved to Virginia, a stone’s throw from the Chesapeake Bay. Steve built a new house, a large pole barn and a garden.  With a combination of fields and woods, Steve always has something going on with flora and fauna.

Recently, Steve sent two photographs of birds sitting on his finger. Here are the pictures and his account of how they joined him. . .

We've had several birds hit the large glass windows on our house. These two guys survived the crashes. They both hit the ground motionless, but I could see they were still breathing.

In the picture above, I walked over and softly rubbed the bird’s head and feathers while several of his clan watched from the nearby fence. After a few minutes I lifted him so he could stand, and put my finger at his feet. He hopped on with no coaxing.

So at that point I'm beating the outside wall to get Janice's attention to get the camera. I walked all the way around the house to get her; the bird stayed on the whole time and obliged three pictures. We then sat on a front porch rocker for a few minutes; He wasn't much of a conversationalist. He finally gathered his wits and flew off.
 

The second guy hit with a real bang and must have been out for 10 minutes. I picked him up and held him ‘til he could stand. He stayed on my finger for about 20 minutes. He was such a wreck I had to help preen him. I put him in a shady spot where he stayed for some time, and he finally flew off.

I'm going to adorn the windows with something that keeps the birds away.

Summer Houses

The Sunset over Cape Cod Bay, September, 2011

Although the summer has rocketed by, there are still over two more weeks until Labor Day, summer’s official end.


If you have the time, this is a marvelous time of the year to take a vacation in the country before fall and winter return. A “vacation” can be anything from a day trip to an entire week at a cottage on the water.

Just a week ago, our friends Aosta and Seth invited us to a summer house party on Otsego Lake. Although the drive was less than two hours, it was if we had entered another world.

The view to the south of Otsego Lake

The house they had rented had a lakeside deck and it was possible to look all the way up and down the Lake. Much of Otsego Lake’s shores are wooded. If you squint just right, it’s possible to imagine that James Fenimore Cooper’s Deerslayer would come out of the woods at any moment.

After considering this historical fantasy, we were back in a congenial present. There was a large dinner table, crowded with food, lots of genuinely friendly and congenial people and the Lake was a delight to swim in.

Speaking of delightful swimming: when pools and lakes are too warm by the summer heat, swimming at a bay or ocean beach can be refreshing. Saltwater swimming can be the gift that keeps giving, even into late September. The water can be warm as the leaves are changing.

While out in the country, keep an eye out for fresh produce. In some communities, the farm stand is as busy as a supermarket. But there are also places where a farmer or gardener puts out a few ears of corn or tomatoes on a table by their driveway.

With the nationwide drought, the number and variety of vegetables may be less than last year. So, that makes any produce you do find all that more appreciated.

In July, lightning bugs ruled the night sky. They are now gone from our backyard. However, the night is still alive with a chorus of unseen insects that hum, buzz, whir and make other noises that might arise from a piece of music composed by Philip Glass.

I hope you have a great time between now and Labor Day. If you have any stories from present or past summer vacations, feel free to share them as comments at the end of this blog post!

Hassle-free Travel between JFK to Manhattan



A taxi to JFK is a fast, convenient and sometimes
reasonable way to get to the airport

(© Andrew K. Stauffer, akstauffer.com )


New Yorkers have the following old joke:

Lost tourist: How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Man on street: Practice. Practice. Practice.

With practice and planning, we now have options in traveling from Midtown Manhattan to John F. Kennedy (JFK) Airport: personal car, taxi and the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR)/Air Train combination.

Choosing car, cab or train depends on your schedule, number of travelers and budget. When we traveled between midtown and JFK in January, there were three of us and a large suitcase. Compared to the cost of three one-way tickets on the LIRR and Air Train, the taxi cost was reasonable, the service more convenient. Coming back, with two of us and no baggage, the Air Train was as convenient as the taxi and less costly.

Here’s how the options stack up:

Personal Car: If you already have a car in the city, this can be a reasonable option. The costs include tolls if you use the Queens-Midtown or Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and, possibly, short-term parking.

JFK has limited automobile access from the Van Wyck Expressway to the north and the Belt Parkway to the west and east. In rush hour, both roads clog up. Limited routes and rush hour traffic require planning enough time to get there.

If you go to JFK for a passenger pick-up, you can park in short-term parking or use the recently opened “cell phone parking lot,” at the Federal Circle exit, near the airport entrance.

When your traveler is ready for pick up, he or she calls from the curb and you then go get them. If you try this plan, take time before arriving at the airport to learn where the flight is arriving, there are many terminals, and where arriving flight pick-ups are.

With two people available, one person can wait at the terminal for a welcome and helping out. The other drives back to the cell phone parking lot and waits for the call.

Taxi: The fares are $45 now, plus tolls and tip, if any (no surcharges apply, and there is no luggage charge in NYC) for any trips to OR from JFK and anywhere in Manhattan, or $52 starting September 4, 2012.

When we took the cab in January, it was clean; the driver was alert, careful fast. The big suitcase fit nicely in the trunk. The cab dropped us right at “departing flights” at our terminal.

If you leave from a hotel, hotel staff may push you to use a car service instead of a taxi. Car services are not constrained by a flat fare and you could pay significantly more.



Here is the Long Island Railroad station at Jamaica, where rail travelers can transfer to and from the Air Train
(Photograph courtesy of MTA Long Island Railroad)

 Air Train: This is a combination of LIRR and Port Authority rail service between Penn Station, at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue, and JFK. There is also a less expensive subway/Air Train connection, but it takes longer and may be more complicated for people new to the subway.

The Air Train is a set of computer-guided rail coaches that go between airport terminals, rental car offices and parking lots - - and the LIRR’s Jamaica station in Queens.

On the trip where we took the taxi out to Kennedy, we returned via Air Train. The walk from the Jet Blue terminal to the Air Train station took five to 10 minutes. It was speeded along with moving sidewalks and was in a covered, climate-controlled walkway.

The Air Train and LIRR trains run relatively frequently. Both services are clean, well-lighted and felt safe at 9 PM on a Sunday evening.

You pay the $5.00 Air Train fare when leaving the train at Jamaica or the stations in JFK. Staff will help with ticket machines; it is possible to buy an Air Train/LIRR pass, which saves a few dollars.

Once you pay the fare, you walk one or two minutes and are in Jamaica station. The LIRR takes about 15 minutes to get to Penn Station from there.

LIRR/Air Train pricing may be confusing. The price depends on whether you travel on a week day or the week-end - - or peak/off-peak. A one way Air Train/LIRR ticket ranges from $8.75 to over $13.00. The Port Authority website explains fares. The Long Island Railroad website also includes pricing information.

A Nice Change For Breakfast!



Paley Park, next to a Le Pain Quotidien
restaurant in midtown Manhattan



Le Pain Quotidien has both a communal and
individual tables (photo courtesy of Le Pain Quotidien)


  












Le Pain Quotidien is a bakery/restaurant that provides a tasty alternative to standard travel breakfasts.

What I find most frustrating about breakfast on the road is the relatively stark choice of healthy food with sparse taste or tasty food with lots of fat and salt. And the presence, early in the morning, of loud television at some places does no help, either.  Why does almost every hotel chain in America assume every breakfast diner is deaf and that the television volume should be set accordingly?

Le Pain Quotidien, a restaurant chain founded in Belgium, offers a mostly organic breakfast that is as plain or as rich as you would like. The chain has restaurants in New York, California, four other states and the District of Columbia and in overseas locations as diverse as Brussels and Qatar.

The Le Pain Quotidien breakfast menu is fairly consistent at each location. I particularly like their breakfast special which includes a croissant and a slice each of baguette, whole wheat and five-grain breads. The restaurant’s breads have the paradoxical properties of being both light and substantial at the same time. The bread has a slight, but not overpowering, taste of sourdough.

You can also get individual pastries, soft-boiled eggs, steel-cut oatmeal and fresh fruits. The orange juice is very nice. The coffee is all right, better than that at the Holiday Inn but without the pizzazz of coffee at the Marriott.

Later in the day, you could return for quiche, tartines (breads with assorted meat, vegetable and cheese toppings) and salads.

We have eaten at Le Pain Quotidiens in Pasadena, California and in midtown Manhattan.

At both, the dining room was quiet and peaceful, allowing a wake-up without crowds or loud television. The service is unhurried but if you have to catch a plane, the staff will speed your order.

Each restaurant has common layouts and features. These include a choice between sitting at a communal table or individual table. Diners can also buy cookies, pastries or jams and spreads to go.

However, the restaurants also draw on their communities. In Pasadena, for example, we had breakfast outside. The Pasadena location also had an egg white omelet, which is very good. In New York City, we were delighted to discover that one of the midtown locations is just to the right of that wonderful mini-park, Paley Park.