What's New in July and August, 1999
Independence Day
Fire works is held in every place on July 4. The family decided to enjoy a fire work in the beautiful beach named Half Moon Bay. On the day, the family went to San Francisco first and went to south along with Pacific sea coast toward Half Moon Bay. This photograph is taken on the cliff just before Half Moon Bay. Rough cliff and blue sky up there, a sandy beach to spread under and blue sea... it is a typical shore coast of northern California. A supper was taken at the old seafood restaurant "The Anchorage Restaurant". They enjoyed seafood cooking like Fisherman's Bowl. After the dinner, they enjoyed the fire work spectacle as sitting on a sandy beach.
Summer School
The summer vacation of American school is long, but almost all terms in the vacation there are lessons that called as "summer school". Junior High has outdoor lessons such as canoe and training camp so that Haruka enjoyed much, on the contrary almost all lessons of High School are inhouse lessons. Takeshi were able to receive a lesson of art which he was good at. This photo was taken at the presentation of the lesson results with his works.
Ladies' Tennis Tournament
One of the major tennis tournament "Bank of the West Classic" has been held at the court of Stanford University. Because the ticket was very cheap, 20 dallars for the final, the family watched the final match of Williams vs Davenport. This photo caught the serve of Williams. The ball can be seen at the upper right corner.
Summer Jazz Concert
Jazz was born in USA. Stanford Shopping Center held the outdoor jazz concert at the plaza. Audience brought chairs with long sleeve jackets, because they knew it was becoming cold with the sunset. Toru and Junko were not equipped, so that they couldn't keep hearing the music.
Grand Circle and Las Vegas
There is an artificial lake called Lake Powell in Utah state. A circle of diameter 200 km with setting the lake as the center includes many national parks in it. This area is called as "Grand Circle". The family drove round the half of this area by the reantal car rented at Las Vegas in this summer vacation. This photo was taken on the first day they rented the car at the place just entering the desert area. The scenery which is unable to be seen in Japan begins from now on.
It was Zion national park that they visited first. Zion can be said as "Red-brown Yosemite" in short. Though there is a difference that Yosemite was cut by a glacier but Zion was cut by a river, similar and sublime scenery can be enjoyed in Zion in different color(In Zion, the color of the paved road was also red-brown.). But they resigned to go to the place such as Angels Landing or Observation Point where they could see the wonderful scenary like the one from Glacier Point at Yosemite(See this page), because it took many hours by walking on the trail. This photo shows the 3 men of Yamasaki family were walking on the trail called "Narrows". This trail existed in the river and the width of the river was narrower in the inner part, finally 6 m width with a rock wall of 300 m height approximately. As it took several hours to reach there, they turned back after 15 minutes walk. Anyway, they met with a deer eating grass at this trail.
They visited Bryce Canyon National Park next. There was splendid again. It couldn't be represented what the canyon looked like at first time they saw the canyon. A guide book said " Many Spires" but it didn't represent the real image. As a physical description, there were infinite number of big stalagmites, though the representation of the impression might be "splendid palace in the south east Asia". Under the moonlight, it could be seen like a ruins. This photograph was taken on the trail to go down and up the canyon. The rock like E.T. is a well-known rock called "Thor's Hammer". This trail showed rocks and holes of such an interesting shape and trees that highly rised among the rocks.
Actually 2 hours from the port in Lake Powell, the tour boat arrived at the Rainbow Bridge. The ranger told that the river which previously had flown making a detour for the left side, flew straight after all and made the hole. Though we hardly instantly believe it, the ranger's polite explanation made us convinced. If such explanation is performed at the park, Japanese people also respect the nature. There was no trash there. Anyway, the guide book says "Although the fare for the boat tour to the rainbow bridge is high, you ride it by no means, because the cruise itself is very good attraction." But, as the scenery from the boat was similar to that of neiborhood in this area, 2-hour tour was enough to be bored. On the way back, almost all passengers took a nap. For the person who isn't interested distinctly in Rainbow Bridge, it may be futile in time and money.
The family visited Monument Valley to stop by a little. They were impressed by the unique scenary of the buttes that rose here and there of a wide wilderness, although it was already well-known as the scenery in the western movie. Then they run on unpaved road in the valley while raising a cloud of dust, with a real feeling " I am in the Western America" coming up. They stayed at Goolding's Lodge where Director John Ford usually stayed in the term making films. The scenary from the lodge was excellent, especially the black butes in the dawn gave a strong impression. Anyway, Monument Valley isn't a national park, is a Navajo tribal park and managed by them. Though there was 1-hour time difference between Arizona state where Monument Valley located and Utah atate where Zion and Bryce Canyon located, they didn't need to change the time because Navajo tribal park adopted day light saving time.
This visit to Grand Canyon was the 2nd visit for Toru, but it was impressive again. It was splendid. Though they couldn't recognise intuitively the sublime excessive scenery at first, they could understand it when they realized Colorado River as the real river. This photograph was taken at Lipan Point of South Rim putting Takeshi and Haruka on the cliff. Colorado River can be seen at the center and 1/3 from the bottom as a white area flowing from back to front, hides behind a rock peak once, and becomes visible again as another white horizontal line at the lower left. The height of the point from the river is 1500 m approximately. The history of 2 billion years of the earth can be seen as a layer in the rock wall that is on the other side which is 10 km far from this point. Though it is said that the scenary of Grand Canyon is not so impressive in daytime, all parts were in shadow like a monochrome painting and even details were well visible. Of course, stereoscopic effect in the burning and the sunset got surely colorful, but the contrast was too high and details were unvisible. Anyway, they met with a beautiful hammingbird here.
This photo was taken at well-known Yavapai Point. Bright Angel Canyon can be seen from back to front in the center of this photo. The magnificent scenary which can not be caught by the camera was spread in front.
They spent 3 days in Las Vegas at the last. Las Vegas was made thanks to the Hoover dam to have made Colorado River stop. It is the artificial city suddenly appeared in the desert. Though it is well-known with gaming, recently there are many fun places for the family and they enjoyed whole day in the play garden of the hotel Circus Circus. Even in the hotel New York New York, where they stayed, the roller coaster ran around the buildings looked like a miniature city of New York, giving a roaring sound with a shout of joy of guests. Actually New York New York is not a hotel but a city. Along the Strip(Las Vegas Boulvard), same type of hotels like Paris and Venetian were under construction. However, the night is fun for Las Vegas after all. When they walked the Strip at night, there were many free shows everywhere. At the Mirage hotel, we enjoyed the explosion show setting up this waterfall for a volcano that is copied for this photograph. No.1 show was the fountain show of hotel Bellagio. It was graceful and cool. Then the last night they enjoyed the Lans Burton magic show at the theater in hotel Monte Carlo.