Last Day, Bishop, Home...

We awoke Sunday morning (as all of us hope to do (awakening, not a coment on the place) in Bishop... In the Owens Valley, east of the Serra Nevada... There was thankfully no smoke in evidence... No sirens were heard... an internet search suggested that the Fish fire was nearing containment, and was not now a threat...   Ducks were swimming in Bishop Creek... A good morning. I showered, made coffee in the room, checked email... The ladies arose, showered, packed... Off to a motel breakfast, then, packed the truck, Dad's truck, still with Florida plates, and headed north...  We made a short diversion up Hwy 6 to photograph a road side sign seen the day before, then, north on 395... Up Sherwin Grade towards Mammoth through Long Valley caldera, along the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada... We saw a burned out semi trailer... A mile or so later saw a pile of debris, likely the cargo of said trailer... Possibly the place last night's north bound fire trucks were headed... On to Mono Lake... Lee Vining... We visited the National Forest Service interpretive center, new, since my last visit 4 years ago...  We visit the tufa towers off Hwy 120...  Tina and I visited 35 years ago with a geography field class from Cal... We met in that class... T., Steph and I joined a docent tour, looked a tufa towers... Watched gulls and hawks...  Leaving Lee Vining, we decided that it was sadly too early for lunch at the Mobil gas station... And headed up the Lee Vining Creek towards Tioga Pass and Yosemite... We were waved through the entrance station, thanks to our annual pass... Stopped Tuolumne Meadows, drove through the park... A classic Sunday drive, out of the park near Crain Flat... Down the mountain through Groveland, Big Oak Flat, down Old Priest Grade (the stage coach road... Steep, curvy, scary, my road of choice...) Of course, half way down we encountered an incident... A car, up the hill (down would have been really bad, up was just bad) with fire crews, an ambulance... Based on this trip's experience, what would you expect... Down to Hwy 49, along Lake Don Pedro, Through the gold camps, Jacksonville, Chinese Camp...   He have cell phone and data again... Connected, at least occasionally... Looking for lunch... There is a deli in Oakdale, but closed on Sunday... Other options are closed as well...  Once in Oakdale, we tried La Costa Taqueria... Taco truck style food, from a stand... So good... I had tongue, head, and Al Pastor... The ladies made more conventional choices... All was good... Then home to cats, laundry, and responsibilities... Work tomorrow (for Tina, work started this evening). At home, checking email... There is a comment on my blog... Saying in part, I had more information on the fire than others... This concerns me, but doesn't surprise me... And suggests a weakness in the web model of information delivery... Google (The lovely Tina works for Google) depends on others to create news, that they can then identify, and cite when you search a topic... Like a fire near Big Pine...  If no one, or organizations writes about it, or blogs about it, or reports the event does not exist... We among the witnesses of the accident posted something...  We saw the fire response headed south, the smoke cloud rising... We smelled the smoke, saw ash, We listened to the radio, found a local station, which passed on local, reports... We had smart phones, and occasional connectivity, and accessed the CAL-Fire site and gained some good information, but more importantly I blogged about it... And it showed up on someone's search... And someone found my report...  The Internet requires someone to witness and create a report, for Google and Yahoo and such to find and index, for others to find when they search...  Much like a tree falling in a forest... If not reported, does it exist? Randy