Author Archives: sammozart

I took a lot of photos of the beaches, high surf and sunsets around where I lived in Southern California. If I still lived there, I’d be taking more.

In the photo above, I stood on the hill in Palos Verdes and captured this scene of an unusually low tide at Malaga Cove, just south of our Torrance Beach, and the people exploring the tide pools.

Below, is a photo my daughter took recently of the ramp down to Torrance Beach by where we used to live, where she grew up. That’s my older granddaughter in the lower left corner of the picture.

This is Redondo Beach looking south towards Torrance Beach and at the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

My centering spot for many years when this was the Redondo Beach Library. You can see the ocean on the right through the trees. I’d enter the room on the right, walk to the back past the stacks and sit in a chair by the tall, open window in the sea breeze and read. I could hear the gleeful people on the beach, the seagulls, the surf breaking on the shore and the bell buoy dinging.

The city built a new library. This is now Veterans Park.

On the right foreground is a historic Moreton Bay fig tree. Out in the water is the Redondo Pier.

I shot two series of photos, one of Redondo Beach at sunset, and one of Hermosa Beach storm waves. The following are the Redondo sunset photos:

Just 95 steps down to the beach.

I call the one above “Goodnight, Jonathan.”

“Sunset.”

These next ones are my Hermosa series.

These two images, above and below, are waves I photographed from the Hermosa Pier.

Following are more images of my fascination with big waves.

Here, below, are a few photos of Manhattan Beach.

Above is a view of Malibu and the Santa Monica Mountains, taken from the Manhattan Pier, with an oil tanker in the distance, probably coming from the Chevron facility in El Segundo.

Above is Manhattan Beach taken from the Manhattan Pier.

Fishing from the end of the Manhattan Pier.

Me on Manhattan Beach with the Palos Verdes Peninsula to the south.

–Samantha Mozart

What if you went to Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park and found the valley filled up with 300 feet of water?

It happened to Hetch Hetchy Valley in northwestern Yosemite National Park, the near twin to Yosemite Valley, a second glacier carved valley, a cathedral of granite cliffs and rushing waterfalls, a mere 20 miles away. In the early 1900s, after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fire, that city decided they needed access to more water. So, they got the United States Congress to legislate the Raker Act, building the O’Shaughnessy Dam to hold back the waters of the meandering Tuolomne River at the mouth of the valley by creating the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. To fill the valley with water, they had to clear-cut stands of ancient trees; pristine waterfalls were buried beneath the rising reservoir waters, all the wild grasses (hetch hetchy is what the native people called these grasses), the wildflowers and the shrubs gone.

Proclaimed naturalist John Muir when he encountered the High Sierra, “As long as I live, I will ever after hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I’ll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near to the heart of the world as I can.”

The ensuing love affair between man and nature saw Muir devote a lifetime to preserving the awesome wilderness he had found and to the birth of Yosemite National Park. Ah, but the fruits of Muir’s untiring devotion could not extend far enough into the political wilderness to save Hetch Hetchy. President Woodrow Wilson signed the Raker Act into law on December 19, 1913, and though John Muir continued the battle, he died, devastated, a year later. The Congress immediately recognized their tragic error. There had thus far existed no coherent policy for national park management. So that such a travesty would never happen again, Congress enacted the National Parks Service Act of 1916. Since then, ecological and engineering studies have found that there are more efficient sources of water for San Francisco, and including damming the Tuolumne at the western end of Hetch Hetchy rather than at the mouth of that valley; and that if the reservoir were slowly drained, within five years, as the Tuolumne reclaimed its original channel, native wildflowers and grasses would grow in the valley and wildlife would return. The bathtub ring would gradually disappear. In 100 years the valley would be completely restored. There is a grassroots movement on called Restore Hetch Hetchy, raising public funds towards the restoration.

I wanted to see Hetch Hetchy. So, while my friend Cheryl and I were visiting the Eastern High Sierra and Yosemite Valley in August 1992, we decided to drive over to the western slope of the Sierra and up through the Stanislaus National Forest to Hetch Hetchy.

We drove through Coulterville, a gold rush town where gold can still be found in the creeks. I took a photo of the historic Hotel Jeffery.

On November 12, 2014 a fire destroyed much of this hotel. It was the fourth fire in the Hotel Jeffery’s history, three occurring in the late 1800s. The hotel has since been restored and, from what I’ve read, apparently to better than before the fire — they exposed the original adobe walls and pulled up the carpets and sanded and polished the original floorboards.

When we traveled to Hetch Hetchy, a recent fire had burned much of the forest, so this is the landscape we encountered.

A Jeffrey pine.

A manzanita bush.

The road to Hetch Hetchy Valley.

There are ample other resources, other reservoirs, data shows, to supply San Francisco with water and hydroelectric power. Yet the city refuses the dismantling of the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The battle goes on.

From this high point in the road you can see the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.

This is a view, above, of the Tuolomne River on its course below the dam.

The O’Shaughnessy Dam.

Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. Since we were visiting here in late summer, the waterfalls had dried up, as they do every year, except for the ones fed by living glaciers.

You can get an idea of the drama of nature that lies beneath this 300 feet of water, even waterfalls below the surface.

Here’s how Hetch Hetchy looked before the building of the O’Shaughnessy Dam.  This, of course, is not my photo. I got the following photos from the Internet.

This one, above, was taken in 1912.

Hetch Hetchy Valley clear-cut.

I got this image from the Internet, too. Wapama Falls is 1,080 feet high and, like Yosemite Falls, has three drops. Kolana Rock has an elevation of 5,774 feet. By comparison, in Yosemite Valley, Yosemite Falls is 2,425 feet, El Capitan has an elevation of 7,573 feet and Half Dome, 8,884 feet. The falls and peaks in Hetch Hetchy Valley are still some of the longest and highest in North America.

Here is the link to some short Restore Hetch Hetchy  videos and a 21 minute one by Harrison Ford.

–Samantha Mozart

Finding Middletown was the first thing I did when I came to Delaware for a visit in October 1995. I spent six years of my childhood in Delaware and a few years as an adult, but I had not heard of Middletown. I watched a movie when I was living in Southern California and I thought, “Where is that? The scenery a canvas so natural with broad fields, white with snow or barren brown in winter, sweet green in summer, and thick woods, and a pond pristine in its beauty.” It seemed the perfect place for a poet and a curious wanderer such as I. The movie was Dead Poets Society, and it was filmed in 1989 at St. Andrew’s School in Middletown.

In 1928, when founder A. Felix duPont purchased the 360-acre Comegys farm, he purposefully selected a site some distance from urban and suburban life. Then, that site was a comfortable two miles from Middletown and, since he, himself, was a rower, on a body of water suitable for rowing. Noxontown Pond, which Thomas Noxon dammed for his grist mill around 1740, shapes the heart of the campus. Over the years the trustees have expanded the buffer zone to include the present 2,200 acres.

Noxontown Mill historic photo, courtesy Hope Motter, 83 in 2007, whose family owned the mill since her grandparents’ time.

Looking across Noxontown Pond to St. Andrew’s School boat dock.

Noxontown Mill

Noxontown Mill and Cider House

Raft on Noxontown Pond

Boathouse trefoil.

Steps down to boathouse and dock.

Boat dock.

St. Andrew’s School has long been committed to graduating young men and women with a deep commitment to environmental stewardship. The mission of the 270-student Episcopal secondary boarding school states “St. Andrew’s is committed to the sustainability and preservation of its land, water and other natural resources. We honor this commitment by what we teach and by how we live in community and harmony with the natural world.”

Founders Hall and Bike Rack

The campus is a protected wildlife habitat covering a broad share of the Appoquinimink watershed. The campus is situated on what has become the largest open green space in New Castle County.

View from Noxontown Pond to Founders Hall

Cloisters – Founders Hall

Campus and staff homes.

“St. Andrew’s serves as a model, like a table-top model an architect would make.” said Michael McGrath, then Delaware Department of Agriculture director of farmlands preservation for the state in 2007, now a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) and secretary of the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture. “It is a microcosm of the world,” he went on. “It is in itself a little village. The school has to deal with sewage, water; they live there, eat there and they are surrounded by farmland. They have to be self-examining, reflective about suburban agriculture and sustainability.”

Yet, today, with unsettling property rights trends kicking up, it could happen that, notwithstanding the founders’ and trustees’ foresight, “Someday Rodney Point [on the campus] might look like a good candidate for open space acquisition via eminent domain,” wrote St. Andrew’s alumnus Tim Abbot in a St. Andrew’s Magazine Winter 2007 essay.

T-Dock on Noxontown Pond

Paving Paradise: Overnight, the impervious surface has spread to the edges of the pastoral campus that served as the setting for  Dead Poets Society, rendering the campus as what Headmaster Tad Roach terms a precarious outlier. At the time that movie was filmed, the population of Middletown was around 3,800. By 2020, housing starts are expected to spawn a population of more than 30,000.

Housing developments encroaching upon Middletown farmland.

Housing rising out of former farmland rushed at St. Andrew’s gates, rapping at their door, perched to stay, its prophetic plume ravenous, gobbling up acres of farmland.

View of Appoquinimink River from boardwalk along Noxontown Mill sluice.

Throughout the school’s history, St. Andrew’s students have done daily farming chores, raked leaves, played football, lacrosse, whiffleball, engaged in rowing competitions on the pond, tended an organic garden, adorned tables in their dining hall with flowers they had grown, picked and dried, engaged in community service, enjoyed mountain camping trips, or simply sat on the T-Dock on the pond and contemplated the ripples in the water glinting rose and gold in the sunset.

Noxontown Pond: I sat on Hope Motter’s porch while we drank iced tea and chatted and overlooked this view of the pond. We held common interests. She was a former journalist. I am honored to have met her and shared a lovely spring afternoon with her. Sadly, she died in December 2012.

In his September 9, 2006 convocation address, Dr. Peter McLean, environmental coordinator and biology and environmental sciences teacher at St. Andrew’s, encouraged students to appreciate “what is most significant in our lives; that is, to appreciate what God has granted us – each other, and a beautiful and remarkable natural world. So continue to sit and contemplate,” he said, “appreciate the silence, breathe slowly and deeply, focus inwardly. For in so doing, appreciating yourself begins. For me, it best happens in front of a stream or ocean or fire, or after a long run or hike or from just being outdoors; I find such solace and truth there as nature has such integrity and beauty.”

And, indeed, it is not uncommon to find a math class held outdoors under a river birch.

Twelve years after I visited the campus that first time in 1995, I published several newspaper and magazine stories about the school. In keeping with their rigorous curriculum, for research material they sent me home with stacks of books and other publications they lent me, and I had the honor of attending classes with the students and eating dinner in the dining hall on family night followed by attending a chapel service.

Noxontown Pond and, under the trees, Hope Motter’s boats for hire.

Thus, I contemplated what would be the verse I will contribute to life. I contribute by my pen, my sword in life, so I offer you this story for your own ruminations. For, you see, the ravaging of our environment first hurts the poorest of the poor.

The historic theatre in Middletown used in the movie “Dead Poets Society.”

The title of this post comes from the subject of a Walt Whitman poem, that Dead Poets Society‘s John Keating quotes for his students, from Leaves of Grass.

We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, “O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless… of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?” Answer. That you are here – that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

–Samantha Mozart

I had a home in Redondo Beach overlooking the Santa Monica Bay. From those Southern California days here are some of my photos of the piers along the South Bay beaches between Santa Monica and San Pedro.

This is the Redondo Beach Pier and Harbor, with the Santa Monica Mountains across the bay to the north. The Redondo Pier is horseshoe shaped and the water around it is clear and green as an emerald.

Below are photos of the Hermosa Beach Pier. Hermosa Beach is the next city north of Redondo.

Next, this is the Manhattan Beach Pier. Manhattan Beach is just north of Hermosa.

Above is the view from the end of the Manhattan Pier.

If you’ve been following this series of A-Z posts, you’ll know that I also lived for a while in Naples, Fla., on the Gulf of Mexico. Here are my photos of the Naples Pier.

–Samantha Mozart

In the summers of the 1990s when the farm stand where I worked in Naples was closed I worked on Marco Island for a real estate rentals agency.

Marco Island is known for its crescent shaped beach of sugar white sand. I took these photos at the south end of the island. I’ll always remember the sailboats out on the sparkling Gulf during the day, the gentle morning rain on the Marco River as I drove across it to work, the peaches and pinks of a Marco Island sunset on a summer evening.

Inhabitants of Marco Island differ from those of Naples. They come mostly from the Mid-Atlantic states and are laid back, come to Marco to beach and boat in winter and then go back home to Jersey and Delaware shores to beach and boat in summer. Marco Island lies just south across the Big Marco River from Naples. It is one of the Ten Thousand Islands and has a total area of 22.8 square miles. In the early 1900s a clam digging industry and two canneries thrived here, on the south end of the island at Caxambas Pass. On Caxambas Island I climbed Indian Hill, the Calusa Indian shell burial mound. Flying tribes of big, black salt marsh mosquitoes attacked me. When you swat them, they spring back. Think what you will about the spirits of the dead. I got out of there.

The above is a view of Caxambas Pass from Indian Hill.

Marco Island, situated in the Gulf of Mexico 90 miles west of Miami and 157 miles south of Tampa, is built upon a cluster of mangrove islands. I’ve seen overhead photos of when Marco Island, as such, was not there, just the green mangrove islands in the blue water. The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad ran across to the island from 1927 to 1944. Major development took place on Marco in the 1960s, led by the Mackle Brothers of the Deltona Corporation. My mother and stepfather owned a home here in the 1970s. As a result of the development across these mangrove islands, many Marco Island homes sit on waterfront properties with boat docks, connected by a series of canals leading to the Gulf, and when you drive around the island you go over a lot of little bridges.

Sea oats on Tiger Tail Beach at the north end of Marco.

This chair is reserved for you.

Yet what you see next fascinates me more than anything in the region — the sinking Cape Romano, once on the southern end of Caxambas Island, connected by road, is now only accessible by boat. See more photos and read the story about these mysterious dome homes. This vintage photo below is copyright Kristian Maples.

Photo taken around 1982. Once there was an exhausting walk to the beach, they say. Successive hurricanes took their toll.

Photo in 2014, above, from messynessychic.com.

Below, from the Coastal Breeze News,  printed on September 7, 2012, from an intriguing story of this house, titled “Cape Romano Uncovered” — are photos of before and after. Two other houses on Cape Romano are of note, a stilt house and a pyramid house.

I am deeply intrigued by this story, infinitely fascinated. This part of Southwest Florida holds an enigmatic quality that only the natural elements and those who live there know, like they’re all part of some secret cult, a collective with a discrete shape of mind. Maybe it’s just the humidity. However, if you are so compelled to learn more, you can see many more before and after photos plus videos and family and news stories on the Cape Romano Facebook page, on the Abandoned Florida website, and on the blog of Kristian Maples, grandson of dome homes designer Bob Lee.

Talk about having that sinking feeling….

–Samantha Mozart

Naples Pier, on the Gulf of Mexico.

Pelicans at the Naples Pier.

I left Southern California in October 1994 to spend a working winter vacation in Naples, Fla., where my mother owned a villa. I stayed seven years. This is the farm stand where I worked in Naples. The farm is no longer there; the land has been developed, a place called Treviso Bay. I wonder if you can still hear the zzz-ing of the cicadas in the adjacent woods.

Founded in the late 1880s as a fishing village and vacation winter resort serving mostly the elite from Kentucky and Ohio, Naples, on the Gulf of Mexico, way down almost on the southwest tip of Florida, began to grow as a city in the 1920s when the railroad came taking fish to market and bringing in tourists. Barron Collier, a New York millionaire, arrived in 1923 and bought up the land. He bought the Rod & Gun Club in nearby Everglades City, too. There he hosted foreign dignitaries and U.S. presidents. Ernest Hemingway came. The newly arrived traveled a lot between Tampa and Miami and they soon realized they needed more than a couple of sand ruts upon which to drive. So, federal funds in tow, they set up their supply depot at Everglades City and, beating their way through the jungle with machetes, shovels and fly swatters, set to work building a road connecting the two cities. When the federal government ran into a financial snag, Collier offered to finish the road in return for the new county being named after him. He made Everglades City the Collier County seat. The new road, the Tamiami Trail, now U.S. Route 41, opened to great fanfare in 1928.

This is the train that brought them to Southwest Florida.

Everglades City is Ernest Hemingway’s Florida. It is Key West and the Keys 70 years ago. After Hurricane Donna struck in 1960, ripping out the torso of Everglades City, older than Naples and too weak financially to rebuild, everybody conceded that Naples, just up the Gulf, was the more important trade location at which to build. Since then, Naples has blossomed into home for not only vacationers but home for the retired from jobs of intrigue such as the Secret Service and the FBI, retired prominent figures and the wealthy. Stephen King is said to have a home here. He is said to have a home in several Southwest Florida cities. Fans have sighted him all around the area, even at Publix, the supermarket chain. I think I might have seen his Mercedes once. Other celebrities have magnificent homes in the area, too. And, many Canadians, Europeans and Russians visit. Here are some photos from around town:

The Flower House: A historic home on the beach in Naples, painted with flowers.

Fifth Avenue South, the heart of upscale Naples.

Historic Naples Depot.

Below, Naples Pier and the Gulf of Mexico.

A banyon tree near the beach in Naples.

A nearby coconut palm.

Below are two photos I took at the 729,000 acre Big Cypress National Preserve, a short drive east of Naples:

I visited Big Cypress mainly to see the black and white photography of Clyde Butcher and his Big Cypress Gallery and studio where he explained how he develops his black and white photographs. Big Cypress was set aside in 1974 to protect the flora and fauna and recreation in this region and particularly the importance of the Big Cypress watershed to Everglades National Park. The park was established in 1934 and dedicated in 1947. Big Cypress refers to the vast cypress strands spanning this area.

Pictured above, Spanish moss in Big Cypress National Preserve of the Everglades at Ochopee, Fla. Big Cypress is located on U.S. Route 41, the Tamiami Trail, about midway along the 125 mile route between Miami (on the Atlantic coast) and Naples.

In 2000 I lived in a little apartment on Henderson Creek, a tidal creek in Naples. My neighbor across the creek had a mango tree that became so laden with mangos in June that he had to hire a group of Mexicans to come pick them. I wished I could just swim across in the night and pick a few mangos. But, then, there were the alligators….  This is the boat dock outside my apartment (I didn’t have a boat.)

My next-door neighbor here had basically one item in his wardrobe. Eponymously, I called him (not to his face) Loincloth.

Roots of the mangrove trees next to the dock.

The view above is from the screened lanai of my mother’s villa.

–Samantha Mozart

Twin Lakes, two of the lakes at Mammoth Lakes, Calif.

Mammoth Lakes, Calif., has an elevation of 7,880 feet and higher and a population of just over 8,200. Mammoth Lakes began as a gold rush town in 1877. By 1880 the mining company had shut down and the population dwindled from a peak of 1,500 to 10. Nonetheless, by the early 1900s the economy of the town shifted from mining to logging and tourism. The first people to inhabit the area were the Mono people and the county is named after them. (Mono is pronounced with a long “o”.) Mammoth Lakes is located in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains near Yosemite National Park. The town is named for the woolly mammoth, remains of which have been found in the area. It is believed the woolly mammoth became extinct about the time the glaciers receded at the end of the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago.

A motorboat on Lake Mary.

Fishing boats for hire at Silver Lake.

The Mammoth lakes are a chain of glacial lakes above the town in the Inyo National Forest connected by plumbing — a system of pipes and faucets running down the mountainside regulated to provide water to the town and to California. It is somewhat disconcerting to be hiking in the Inyo National Forest when you round a bend to find a waterfall and, then, round the next bend to find a lake with big faucets, gauges and pipes leading to the next lake.

My friend Roland standing at Lake Mamie Dam, elevation 8,898 feet.

Lake Mary boathouse.

Lake Mamie and Crystal Crag.

Lake Mary and Crystal Crag.

Boat on Lake Mary.

Twin Lakes and Crystal Crag.

Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort is the primary economic sustainer of the town. Mammoth Mountain is a lava dome complex located in the Inyo National Forest. Dave McCoy founded Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort, when he, a member of the Eastern Sierra Ski Club, noticed that Mammoth Mountain consistently held more snow than the surrounding mountains. He borrowed a portable tow rope from the Ski Club in 1941 and the skiers hauled themselves up the mountain and skied down. The first ski lift was built in 1955.

Here are some of my photos of Mammoth Mountain Ski Area:

–Samantha Mozart

The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal was built to connect the Chesapeake Bay with the Delaware River, to save time transporting goods mainly between Baltimore and Philadelphia. The canal was completed in 1829, originally a lock canal, now a sea level canal. In the 1920s the federal government assigned ownership and operation of the C&D canal to the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Wikipedia offers a good account of the canal’s fascinating history since its inception in the 17th century.

One fine October afternoon at the end of the 20th century my mother took me to lunch at the Chesapeake Inn overlooking the C&D Canal and marina in Chesapeake City, Md. Here are some photos I took during our visit.

Chesapeake City Bridge over the C&D Canal.

Chesapeake City, Md.

Below, more scenes along the canal:

A barge went by when we were eating lunch and I tried to get a photo through the restaurant window, but mostly what I got were our reflections.

“Red Boat” — An enlargement of this photo was exhibited in a gallery in Naples, Fla., on Fifth Avenue South.

–Samantha Mozart

The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River bisects the Kaibab Plateau in northern Arizona. The north side of the plateau, part of the greater Colorado Plateau, has an elevation of up to 9.200 feet. The south side ranges in elevation from 8,800 down to 6,000 feet. Because the North Rim, itself, of the canyon is a thousand or so feet higher in altitude than the South Rim, the North Rim is colder and has more snow. My photos here are taken from the South Rim. I have not visited the North Rim.

The Grand Canyon is more than one mile deep, 277 miles long, and up to 18 miles wide. The Colorado River falls 2,000 feet during its course through the canyon. Most first time visitors to the Grand Canyon stand speechless as they gaze out across the awesome vastness. The nearly 40 layers of sedimentary rock layers of sandstones, shales and limestones lay exposed like pages in an open book revealing a story of geological phenomena inscribed from 200 million to two billion years ago. It simplifies the story to say that the Grand Canyon was carved solely by the Colorado River; other geologic forces are involved, too, including movement of the earth’s tectonic plates, volcanic activity and wind erosion.

President Chester A. Arthur designated this land federal government property in 1882, effectively pulling the land out from under the Havasupai (the People of the Blue-Green Waters), all but 518 acres, who had existed on their land, the size of the state of Delaware, for eight centuries. The Havasupai have held strong bonds with the Hopi people, who live in close proximity.

President Gerald Ford returned much of the land to the Havasupai. Supai is the Havasupai city on the floor of the canyon. The town is home to about 500 tribe members, and the tribe charge tourists, required to make hotel and rooming reservations, to visit their land.

The Bright Angel Trail you see in the photo above, descends 4,380 feet, at a 10 percent grade, to the floor of the canyon. The highest point is 6,860 feet at the South Rim; the lowest point is 2,480 feet at the Colorado River. Follow the eight mile long, narrow trail by foot or by mule, from the South Rim down to the canyon and then another 1.9 miles to Phantom Ranch. Mules rather than horses carry you and your packs along the Bright Angel Trail because mules have calmer dispositions and are more sure footed.

El Tovar, situated on the rim of the canyon, is a National Historic Landmark. Opening in 1905, the hotel had its own greenhouses growing herbs and flowers, poultry, cows and a butcher shop. Even today, although regulations do not permit husbandry within park boundaries, the hotel maintains sustainability, sourcing these products from just outside the park. El Tovar was once a part of a chain of hotels owned by the Fred Harvey Company in conjunction with the Santa Fe Railway. Such luminaries as Teddy Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, Western author Zane Grey, President Bill Clinton and Paul McCartney have stayed here. Teddy Roosevelt thought this location beautiful as it is, that no hotel ought to be built. He also told the Havasupai that this land was being designated a national park and that they would have to leave. I ate breakfast here with a Tahitian couple I escorted on their tour. To the waiter’s question, “How would you like your eggs?” the French-speaking wife replied, “Sur le plat.”

This picture above is of Hopi House, a gift concession featuring a large selection of Native American handicraft. Hopi House is a National Historic Landmark. The building, located on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon next to El Tovar, was designed by architect Mary Colter on the model of a Hopi dwelling and was completed on January 1, 1905.

And here is how I got to the Grand Canyon to take these photos. (And, no, Capt. Steve Smith is not looking for pennies on the ground. It’s a cold, windy day.)

–Samantha Mozart

You are viewing June Lake and Silver Lake from the top of June Mountain Ski Resort. You can see Mono Lake in the distance. June Mountain and June Lake are a short drive north of Mammoth Lakes and Mammoth Mountain, Calif., on U.S. Route 395.

I visited June Lake and Lundy Lake at different seasons. A friend and I went exploring in the autumn and drove around Lundy Lake. Here, below, are rabbitbrush blossoms. Rabbitbrush is a member of the daisy family. It is not related to sagebrush.

The road to Lundy Lake, above.  The 10-foot tall stakes at intervals along each side of the road are there to mark the road when it snows. On the ground today, at the end of March, beginning of April, they have 91-100 inches, that’s around eight feet.

Autumn on the road to Lundy Lake; quaking aspen leaves turning gold, and white fir trees.

When the leaves of quaking aspen trees, above, change color in the fall, they look like gold doubloons shivering in the breeze.

Tule fog on sagebrush along the June Lake Loop. Obscured in the distance is Mono Lake.

Tule fog crystals on sagebrush, above.

June Lake Loop and rabbitbrush flowers. Rabbitbrush is a member of the daisy family.

Below are scenes we passed along the way.

Lodgepole pine, above. Lodgepole pines grow straight, so they make good lodge poles.

Glacial moraine.

Minaret Mountain vista, in the distance.

June Lake.

Dead lodgepole pine.

June Lake.

June Lake Loop and Carson Peak.

–Samantha Mozart

The Strasburg Rail Road is a heritage railroad operating an excursion train line pulled by steam locomotives through the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch and Amish farm country in Lancaster County, Pa. The Strasburg Rail Road began operations in 1832 and was horse drawn until 1851 when the railroad purchased a Norris built 4-2-0 steam locomotive named The William Penn. The Strasburg Rail Road is the oldest, continuously running passenger railroad in the world. My family and I enjoyed the four and a half mile, 45 minute coach car ride in 1995. An optional ride, one we didn’t take, is lunch in the wooden dining car. This is said to be the only operating wooden dining car in the United States. Our trip took us from Strasburg to Paradise — and back. Naturally, I photographed our adventure. Here are some of the pictures:

No. 475 is a 4-8-0 (wheel alignment) built at the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1906.

A passenger coach like the one we rode in.

The passenger coach we’re riding in.

Below, Amish traveling by horse and wagon.

More views of Amish farmland.

End of the line:

Below, on a siding, sits an old Pennsylvania Railroad passenger car — not so old that I don’t remember riding in one of these on my many Pennsylvania Railroad journeys, starting when I was very young. I remember standing on the Pennsylvania Railroad 30th Street Station subterranean platform in Philadelphia, being enveloped in clouds of steam when the steam engines would pull the train into the station.

For you to get an idea of the locomotive in motion and what it feels like to ride the train I have included the link to this four minute video:

Strasburg Rail Road featured on BBC’s Great American Railway Journeys

–Samantha Mozart

Harpers Ferry, W. Va., is located where the states of West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland meet, situated at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac (uppermost) Rivers, as you can see in the photo above.

Quaker colonist Robert Harper was granted a tract of land here in 1734 and in 1761 he built a ferry across the Potomac, opening the way for settlers to move into the Shenandoah Valley. In 1763 the Virginia General Assembly established the town of “Shenandoah Falls at Mr. Harper’s Ferry.” In 1796 the federal government purchased a parcel of land from Robert Harper’s descendants and built an arsenal there in 1799. The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal reached Harper’s Ferry in 1833, linking the town to Washington, D.C., and a year later the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad came through. On October 16, 1859 abolitionist John Brown led a raid on the arsenal, hoping to use the weapons to initiate a slave uprising in the South. The first shot fired alerted residents even from surrounding towns. Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee was called from leave to lead the expedition against the raiders, with Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart as his aide-de-camp. In the end, Brown was tried for treason and hanged. It is said this raid was a catalyst for the American Civil War.

Not surprisingly, since the lower part of the town is built on a flood plain, Harpers Ferry is prone to devastating inundation. A guide pointed out to me the waterlines of the Johnstown flood and other floods high up on the walls of the buildings.

Thomas Jefferson, who visited Harpers Ferry on October 25, 1783 with his daughter Patsy, called the site “perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature.” I agree with Thomas Jefferson on a number of things and this is certainly one. Everywhere I looked, I wanted to take a picture. I could not stop. I remember my mother and her poodle BeeGee patiently sitting on a bench while I ran hither and thither photographing everything. I hope you will enjoy these scenes I have posted here.

Piers for an old bridge crossing the Shenandoah.

This is the B&O Railroad track crossing the Potomac.

Steps up to the arsenal.

–Samantha Mozart

I have traveled up and down the East Coast and across country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Pacific to the Atlantic, with my mother and my daughter. They have been great company to travel with. Here’s a picture I took of them on Marco Island, Fla., in 1993.

I have driven across country alone and I have traveled with family and family dogs. My first trip across country was with my mother, brother and grandfather when we flew to Tucson, Ariz., in 1958 to visit cousins, my grandfather’s branch of the family with the gypsy gene who had migrated out there from Philadelphia 20 or 30 years earlier. A fan of Westerns, I was thrilled to be in Cowboy Country. In those days to get from Phoenix to Scottsdale, you had to drive across miles of open desert. In 1967 my husband, four-and-a-half-month-old daughter, Kellie, and I drove from the East Coast to Southern California to live, courtesy of the United States Navy. In 1985, Kellie, her boyfriend and I drove from Los Angeles to Wilmington, Del. Here I am in Charleston, S.C. I have a funny thing about Charleston: I am compelled to look at all the graveyards, studying the names on the tombstones to see if I recognize myself from a former lifetime.

On that same trip, here are Kellie and I in Goodyear, Ariz., near Phoenix.

In 1999 I was living in Naples, Fla. Here are two photos, below, from when Kellie came to visit me and I took her to Chokoloskee Island, just south of Everglades City. After she got back home to California, trying to remember where I took her, she asked me, “What was the name of the chocolate place?”

Here are my mother and her toy poodle BeeGee (Beau Geste), in 1995. The three of us are waiting for the Cape May-Lewes Ferry.

Here are my mother and BeeGee at the south end of the Avalon, N.J., boardwalk, sitting on the steps of a restaurant, 1995.

Again, my favorite tour companions after tea at the Ritz, Naples, Fla., 1997.

–Samantha Mozart

This is a brief photo essay of the Cape May-Lewes Ferry’s crossing at the mouth of the Delaware Bay between Lewes, Del., and Cape May, N.J. The ferryboats make several trips daily, year-round. A one-way voyage takes approximately an hour and a half. Lewes, a Dutch name, is pronounced “Lewis.”

Dock pilings at the ferry berth on the Delaware side.

Ferry ramp.

Here comes the ferry.

Ferry unloading travelers from Cape May.

Waiting to sail.

Sailing out alongside the breakwater.

Lighthouse marking the end of the breakwater and the channel.

Ferry route and map of surrounding area where I live.

Passing ferry coming from Cape May.

Passing ferry wake.

Coming into Cape May.

Coming into our berth.

Ferry wake.

Happy Travels.

–Samantha Mozart

Above is my photo of Mammoth Creek.

I worked for a commuter airline in the late 1980s and early ’90s that flew out of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Mammoth Lakes, Calif., in the Eastern High Sierra Mountains, so, making the most of my good fortune, I spent as much time as I could exploring Mammoth Lakes, elevation 8,000 feet, and nearby Mammoth Mountain world class ski resort, elevation just over 11,000 feet.

Even before I worked for the airline, the airline crew invited me to fly for free with them to Mammoth — and to the Grand Canyon, their other destination, where they flew mostly Japanese tourists. The airline personnel were among my customers on an Executive Lunch Route I ran for a catering company, selling sandwiches and salads to office workers. I ran the only route that had flight benefits. When the owner of the airline, who resembled Woody Allen, hired me, he said he did so because I wore shorts.

Looking down on Mount Whitney from 15,000 feet. Mount Whitney is the highest summit in the contiguous United States, elevation 14,505 feet.

Mammoth Airport.  No, this isn’t our airline’s airplane. To Mammoth and the Grand Canyon they flew a Beechcraft 1900C, 19-passenger turbo prop, and a seven-seat Cessna 421 (piston engine). For the system of weights and balances, the Cessna could safely fly seven Japanese or five Germans to the Grand Canyon. Sometimes we’d fly from Mammoth down to Bishop, a short flight of a few minutes. When you take off out of these airports you have to fly straight up, as best you can; otherwise, you’ll fly into a mountain. And the flight between the airports is bumpy, because of the crosswinds and drafts.

The mountain you see in this photo is Mount Morrison. It has a storied history. Behind it is Convict Lake, pictured below, where on September 23, 1871 a posse encountered escaped convicts from a Carson City prison. Robert Morrison, a posse member and Wells Fargo agent, was killed. The mountain was named after him. In February 1990 twelve teenagers and two counselors were on an outing at the lake. They fell through the thin ice. Three teenagers and four would-be rescuers drowned. Just before their deaths they had been warned that the ice was too thin to support their weight. Movies have been filmed at Convict Lake.

Driving from Mammoth Airport to the town of Mammoth Lakes.

Dog Sled Adventures:

I went on a dog sled ride on Mammoth Mountain.

A friend, Katherine, and I at the top of Mammoth Mountain, 11,053 feet elevation. You may have seen car commercials made on this spot. The Minaret Mountains are across the ravine behind us. Before motor powered vehicles, when someone was injured up in those mountains, they’d have to run a dog sled team up there to the rescue.

The dogs don’t like to be still. They’d rather be pulling a sled. This was a warm day, temperatures in the low 50s F; the dogs had just pulled us about 3,000 feet up the mountain and they were resting. The sled dog owner puts the big dogs in the back to pull the sled and the small dogs in the front. The dog on the front left is the lead dog who follows the owner’s commands. The dog on the front right is learning.

The owner of this house in the Mammoth Lakes community, on his phone answering machine, said he was out back feeding the bears.

This is Juniper Ridge, where they were planning a housing development.

Horses in the Agnew Meadows area, near Mammoth.

Cowboy Country — that’s what I call it. This is the common terrain and ground cover in Mono County, Calif.; that is, eastern central California, along the Nevada border. (Mono is pronounced with a long “o”.)

God’s country.

My friend Roland at Old Mammoth Mine Stamp Mill. I visited another gold mine in Mammoth with another friend. I went inside. I hadn’t gone far when it occurred to me that there could be an earthquake, so I turned around and came out.

Roland in Agnew Meadows.

American Indian dances at Bridgeport, Calif. Unfortunately, my camera couldn’t zoom in close enough to capture the vivid colors of the Native American attire. My friend and I spent a wonderful, hot July afternoon — 90-some degrees F, but no humidity — among these people. I bought a silver ring from a Shoshone woman who had made the ring from a Navajo mold.

The photo above of a snow cloud and the photo below, both of the Sherwin Mountain range at Mammoth Lakes are prints made from slides, and I haven’t been able to get the color and lighting just right; but I like the scenes.

–Samantha Mozart