Month: November 2017

At the end of an hour it approached a jutting cape, and Higby ran ahead and posted himself on the utmost verge and prepared for the assault. 

 

The agony that alkali water inflicts on bruises, chafes and blistered hands, is unspeakable, and nothing but greasing all over will modify it– but we ate, drank and slept well, that night, notwithstanding.

 

An excerpt from Book Five in “The Knowledge Path Series” dedicated to helping you find the place of your dreams in the Sierra Mountain resorts.

Calvin Higby and Mark Twain decided to explore the area in and around  Mono Lake.

They surveyed all its wonders in a small boat to explore the lake, just as a storm brewed.

Things go from bad to worse.

But we found nothing but solitude, ashes and a heart-breaking silence. 

Finally we noticed that the wind had risen, and we forgot our thirst in a solicitude of greater importance; for, the lake being quiet, we had not taken pains about securing the boat. 

We hurried back to a point overlooking our landing place, and then–but mere words cannot describe our dismay–the boat was gone! 

 

 

Surely, they felt.  There’s couldn’t be the only boat on the lake today.

The situation was not comfortable–in truth, to speak plainly, it was frightful. 

We were prisoners on a desolate island, in aggravating proximity to friends who were for the present helpless to aid us; and what was still more uncomfortable was the reflection that we had neither food nor water. 

But presently we sighted the boat. 

For over an hour Twain and Higby paced up and down the shoreline.

It drifted, and continued to drift, but at the same safe distance from land, and we walked along abreast it and waited for fortune to favor us. 

At the end of an hour it approached a jutting cape, and Higby ran ahead and posted himself on the utmost verge and prepared for the assault. 

If we failed there, there was no hope for us. 

The winds didn’t cooperate as hoped for.

But when he gave a great spring, the next instant, and lit fairly in the stern, I discharged a war-whoop that woke the solitudes!

But it dulled my enthusiasm, presently, when he told me he had not been caring whether the boat came within jumping distance or not, so that it passed within eight or ten yards of him, for he had made up his mind to shut his eyes and mouth and swim that trifling distance. 

Only a long swim would probably do them in, but safe in the boat they made little progress.

When we had pulled a mile, laboriously, we were evidently in serious peril, for the storm had greatly augmented; the billows ran very high and were capped with foaming crests, the heavens were hung with black, and the wind blew with great fury. 

We would have gone back, now, but we did not dare to turn the boat around, because as soon as she got in the trough of the sea she would upset, of course. 

Our only hope lay in keeping her head-on to the seas. 

It was hard work to do this, she plunged so, and so beat and belabored the billows with her rising and falling bows. 

Both drenched by the alkaline sprays they pushed on forward, against the storm winds.

But things cannot last always. 

Just as the darkness shut down we came booming into port, head on. 

Higby dropped his oars to hurrah–I dropped mine to help–the sea gave the boat a twist, and over she went!

The agony that alkali water inflicts on bruises, chafes and blistered hands, is unspeakable, and nothing but greasing all over will modify it– but we ate, drank and slept well, that night, notwithstanding.

But Twain surveys Mono Lake’s near unchanging landscape and asks an almost universal question on every visitor’s lips.

… picturesque turret-looking masses and clusters of a whitish, coarse-grained rock that resembles inferior mortar dried hard; and if one breaks off fragments of this rock he will find perfectly shaped and thoroughly petrified gulls’ eggs deeply imbedded in the mass. 

How did they get there? 

Well, of course, if he were alive in the winter of 2009, he’d have his answer.

Tufa is rock composed of calcium carbonate, or common limestone. 

It is formed when calcium-rich underwater springs in the lake combine with carbonates, known to cooks as baking soda, in the water. 

The result is calcium carbonate, which settles around the springs. 

Decades or even centuries later, these tufa formations slowly grow into towers that may climb to more than 30 feet tall. 

All this takes place underwater.” 

Steps:

(32) Plan extended seasonal vacations during summer and winter months. Group destination locations together in regional trips to explore what several bucket list towns have to offer in the general vicinity – with only a week or two vacation time to spend, we recommend organizing your itinerary by travel regions.