Author Archives: Shawn E. Bell

National Parks

New Museum Exhibit, Yosemite, the Grand Experiment, Opens in Yosemite National Park

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Exhibit Commemorates 150th Anniversary of Yosemite Grant

Yosemite National Park unveils a new exhibit entitled Yosemite, the Grand Experiment which opens to the public on Tuesday, June 3. It will run through Saturday, October 18, 2014. The exhibit is located in the Yosemite Valley Museum (adjacent to the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center) and features paintings, prints, artifacts, and ephemera from Yosemite’s early years. Photographs and paintings of visitors and the landscape from the park museum’s extensive collection, including some of the earliest Yosemite images, will also be on display. Survey equipment, notes, and maps will be included.

Digital slide shows will include additional historic paintings, drawings and photographs. A video presentation will feature interviews with several scholars focusing on the importance of the Yosemite Grant, and the influence of painting and photography. An audio kiosk will feature quotes from various important individuals in the early years of Yosemite history.

In addition to material from Yosemite National Park’s collection, the exhibit includes items on loan from the National Archives and Records Administration, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, and several private collections.

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Interesting Places

Happy Birthday, Golden Gate Bridge!

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

The most beautiful and the most photographed bridge in the world, the Golden Gate Bridge which links the city of San Francisco to Marin County in California opened on this day way back in 1937.  The festivities lasted for a full week before Mayor Angelo Rossi along with other officials crossed the bridge in a motorcade past three ceremonial barriers (the last being a blockade of beauty queens).

The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate strait, which is a three mile long, one mile wide channel between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

Activities, Wildlife

Today, I screamed like a little girl and boldly ran away from a tiny rattlesnake

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

I’m not too proud to admit it: snakes are scary.  Not spider scary, but scary nonetheless.  So, since summer is quickly approaching, here’s some timely tips from the USDA so you don’t end up looking like me … running away from a tiny little 1.5′ lightning-fast rattlesnake:

Warmer weather lures humans to the outdoors about the same time snakes are increasing their activity, making encounters of the slithering kind inevitable. California has many kinds of beautiful and harmless native snakes. However, one kind of snake that is a safety concern for anyone outdoors in California is the rattlesnake. All snakes, including rattlesnakes, provide humans with a tremendous service because they control rodent populations.

Rattlesnakes are the only venomous snakes in California that can cause serious injury to humans; however, very few people die from rattlesnake bites in California. Generally not aggressive, rattlesnakes strike when threatened or deliberately provoked, and given room they will retreat. Never try to pick up a rattlesnake. Most snake bites occur when a rattlesnake is handled or accidentally touched by someone walking or climbing.

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Inspiration

Happy Towel Day #happytowelday

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

“A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

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General Aviation

2014 “Women in Aviation” – Truckee Tahoe AirShow & Family Festival

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Some of the world’s top air show performers have committed to perform at the 2014 Truckee Tahoe AirShow & Family Festival (TTAS&FF), including three-time national Aerobatic Champion and National Aviation Hall of Fame member, Patty Wagstaff. Immediately following Wagstaff’s commitment to perform, show coordinators themed the 2014 event “Women in Aviation”.

Featured women in aviation will include the AirShow’s Grand Marshal, Truckee local Sandy Wiederkehr. Her extensive aviation background includes being a Retired Flying Tiger/Fed Ex captain, holding helicopter and glider ratings and logging hundreds, if not thousands, of skydiving jumps. AirShow speaker forums and vendor booths will feature local women aviation clubs and women aviation authors such as Jeane Slone, author of “She Flew Bombers”. Highlighted aerobatic performers for this year include Dan Buchannan; Jon Melby; Kent Pietsch, Patty Wagstaff and the RedStar Formation Team.

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