Posted 2:38 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Camp Curry

As part of their continuing saga of last year's vacation (to be continued, if David plays his cards right, until next year's vacation) the Fleck y Breen griped about Camp Curry. In particular:

The whole thing is raised up about 2 feet off the ground, but is only about eight inches away from its neighbor tents...The canvas walls offer very little privacy; everything that happens in the neighboring tents sounds like it's happening at our very elbows, as, in fact, it is.

Ha! This is an utter calumny, as demonstrated in this photo from, er, 1995. Not 2006.

Camp Curry,
Yosemite, June 1995

None of these was our cabin, but it is typical of their spacing at the time. It does look sort of Civil War-ish in the B&W photo, doesn't it? Actually I was trying to capture the impromptu stairstep waterfall above. It had snowed quite a bit that winter, and was just melting in June. Tioga Pass was still closed.

To tell the truth, I was pleasantly surprised by the accommodations. There were actual flush toilets (not in the cabins, but in other buildings) and there wasn't an inch of standing sewage on the floor, so that was better than many campgrounds I've been to (which is why I don't go camping, as a rule).

Even Niles, who is most definitely an indoor boyfriend (always bathing his contacts and flossing his teeth and steam-cleaning his pores and god knows what-all) doesn't remember the bathrooms with horror, but instead bitches about the cold. It was quite cold, and the narrow twin bunks did not permit snuggling together for warmth.

This is one of those pictures I was sure would turn out all Anselly Adamsish, and it, um, didn't. Next time!

For really cool photographs, see Carel Struycken's Spherical Panoramas. Requires Quicktime or DevalVR (whatever that is). Now, when he says "spherical", he does not mean "cylindrical". That is, you can not only do a 360 degree pan, you can pan to zenith and nadir as well. Nadir -- where you'd expect to find a tripod or something. But it's not there! How dey do dat?

Carel Struycken was the tall guy who played Mr. Homn, Lwaxana Troi's manservant, in Star Trek:TNG. Actor, composer, photographer -- pretty interesting guy. Apparently "discovered" walking down the street. (No information on whether he was singing, "Doo wah diddy, diddy dum, diddy doo.") Check out the Trek-themed spherical panoramas here.

UPDATE: Whoa! Coincidence city! Who should appear tonight on Men in Black but Carel Struycken. (He was the friend of the tiny alien in the little old man suit, the one who kept the galaxy on his cat's collar. Whatever the hell that was all about.)

Via Lileks.

Labels: California, Foto Friday