The frugal travels of a vagabond

Yosemite is the most stunning and unique place I've visited in all my travels (despite the significant recent fire damage); I wish I were younger and more mobile since I've only seen a tiny fraction of the park and hiking is the only means to see it

317 ft Vernal Fall is a torrent in late spring frequently drenching hikers; with the minimal snowpack in 2021 this is about the lowest water flow you'll see here

In this view from Glacier Point, Half Dome is at far left with the Liberty Cap and (barely visible) Nevada Fall just right of center; at 7214 feet (3200 ft directly above Curry Village), it's a spectacular view and can be reached by car

I'm at the top of Nevada Fall which (like Vernal Fall further down) lies on the Merced River; this had been one of CA's driest years on record so, many waterfalls, like Yosemite and Bridalveil, were barely a trickle

California ground squirrels are the most frequently seen animal here; others saw a bobcat 10 minutes before I passed them on the trail and a black bear near the base of Yosemite Falls the day before

It had snowed a couple of days prior to my visit with snow and ice still evident in the higher elevations and in shady spots; I had decided just the night before to visit so was lucky to find lodging in Curry Village

I stayed in Curry Village in this unheated tent with temperatures in the 20s the first night with no cell service or wifi; even in the off-season the tent was $400 for the 3 nights since there is very limited lodging inside the park

A guardrail at the top of Nevada Fall allows you to look over the edge straight down 594 feet to the base; after my visit I read the book Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite which details stories about the hundreds of people who have died in the park

Nevada Fall; most of the 5+ million annual visitors see only the 7 sq mi of Yosemite Valley (the park is 1187 sq mi); the park began requiring reservations to enter during peak periods (May 1-Sept 30) starting in 2020

The Steller jay is common in the park and is the only crested jay west of the Rocky Mountains; Lee says we took this trail when we hiked to the top of Half Dome in July 2000 but my memory is so poor that I didn't remember our route

Emerald Pool lies at the top of Vernal Fall with the smooth 20 degree slope surrounding it called the Silver Apron; despite warning signs, overheated hikers sometimes cool off here with 3 people swept over the falls on July 19, 2011 alone

The granite dome Liberty Cap rises 1700 ft from the top of Nevada Fall (on the right) to a peak elevation of 7080 ft; from Curry Village the hike was 9+ miles to Nevada Fall with 2200 ft of elevation gain

The most direct route to Vernal Fall was closed due to trail maintenance so I had to take the longer route on the John Muir Trail; lots of construction takes place throughout the valley between Labor Day and the first heavy snowfall

Looking downriver from the top of Nevada Fall; President Lincoln designated a forest reserve here in 1864 before John Muir succeeded in designating it a national park in 1890; in 1984 it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site

The Duke Homestead was built in 1852 by Washington Duke, on a 300 acre farm; the Union Army looted it during the Civil War leaving the family with little so they shifted from tobacco farming to tobacco processing, introducing cigarettes in 1881

This is a reconstruction of the first tobacco factory founded by Washington Duke in April 1865; the Duke children all worked here where they manufactured smoking tobacco

In 1839, bright leaf tobacco was discovered by a slave at a farm north of Durham; he fell asleep while watching a curing fire and then tossed charred logs on the dying embers which created a sudden drying heat, resulting in a bright yellow tobacco

Tobacco seeds are very small with about 300,000 in each ounce; the visitor center here features the Tobacco Museum, with exhibits about tobacco farming, processing and the history of tobacco

The Tobacco Museum features the world's largest (284) collection of spittoons (bought from a CT gentleman); this ironstone spittoon was made in England in July 1883

Liggett and Myers (this pack is from 1955) is the world's 4th largest tobacco company and headquartered in Durham; in 1911, a Supreme Court decision found the American Tobacco Co violated the Sherman Antitrust Act so Liggett and Myers was spun off

Cigarette machines were ubiquitous in the middle decades of the 1900s; it wasn't until 1964 that the US Surgeon General said - Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the US to warrant appropriate remedial action

This kitchen was an 1860 addition to Washington Duke's original 1852 house; in 1931 a Duke descendant donated the house to Duke University which gave it to the state of NC in 1974

First published in 1828, Lydia Child's The American Frugal Housewife was a very popular 19th-century manual for homemakers (would Artelia Duke have owned one?); interesting recipes and advice on housekeeping are detailed in no-nonsense prose

Duke founded the American Tobacco Co in 1890 and is best known for the introduction of modern cigarette manufacturing and marketing and his financial gift to Trinity College which became Duke University

The original American Tobacco Company logo (as shown in this early 1900s cast) featured Chief Powhatan; a 1911 Supreme Court ruling divided American Tobacco (ATC) into 4 companies: ATC, Liggett + Myers, Lorillard and R.J. Reynolds

Reynolds moved to Winston-Salem in 1874 to start his own tobacco company eventually becoming the wealthiest person in North Carolina; in 1913, Reynolds developed a great innovation: the packaged cigarette

The American Tobacco Co used this Bag Jack from 1932 until 1977 to manufacture bags of Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco; before the invention of this machine the work would have typically been done by young Black boys

Genuine Durham smoking tobacco tin c. 1910; cigarette smoking is responsible for 480,000+ deaths per year in the US, including 41,000+ deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure

This Liberty Bell replica was made by RJ Reynolds employees and is made of tobacco; it weighs 300+ lbs and the tobacco could have been used to make 180,000 cigarettes

James Duke was an early marketing expert creating consumer demand for his specific brands rather than tobacco in general; on average, smokers die 10 years earlier than nonsmokers

This tobacco curing barn dates from around 1870 and is originally from a farm in northern Durham County; the hand-harvest tobacco leaves were hung here for a week and cured from a stone furnace at 180 degree temperatures

After curing, the tobacco leaves were very dry and brittle; they were brought to the packhouse to be sorted based on their quality (size, color, texture, insect damage, etc)

This is the third tobacco factory (1869) Washington Duke built after rapidly out outgrowing the first two; the Dukes used this factory until 1874 when they moved to a facility in downtown Durham

The plaza and fountain in front of the Legion of Honor is the western terminus of the 3389 mile Lincoln Highway, the first improved road for automobiles across America (the eastern terminus is NYC's Times Square)

Eiffel Tower, Georges Seurat, ca. 1889; the Eiffel Tower, the great symbol of industrial modernity that was built for the 1889 Exposition Universelle, wasn't quite finished when this painting was completed (it just fades into the sky)

Water Lilies, Claude Monet, ca. 1914-17; the Legion of Honor was the gift of Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, wife of the sugar magnate and thoroughbred racehorse owner/breeder Adolph B. Spreckels

The Three Shades, Auguste Rodin, 1898; originally intended to be atop Rodin's Gates of Hell; this never completed project was Rodin's answer to Ghiberti's massive Gates of Paradise (1425-1452) for the Baptistry in Florence

Joris de Caullery, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1632; this sitter was a militiaman (gentleman soldier) from The Hague, who had a long and distinguished naval career, including service during the Dutch maritime wars with England and the Baltic States

The scene on the front of this colossal krater (ca. 330 BC) captures the climatic moment in the Trojan War narrated in Homer's Iliad when Iris, the gods' winged messenger, urges the mourning Greek hero Achilles to return to the fray

Portrait of a Gentleman in White, Frans Hals, ca. 1637; this Dutch Golden Age portrait artist painted faces that were not idealized and were clearly distinguishable, with their personalities revealed in a variety of poses and facial expressions

Peasant Girl with Sheep, Julien Dupre, ca. 1895; the Legion of Honor is seen in the Alfred Hitchcock movie Vertigo (1958) when Scottie (played by James Stewart) follows Madeleine Elster (played by Kim Novak) to the museum

Sunflowers along the Seine, Gustave Caillebotte, ca. 1885-86; Caillebotte was a model for his friend Auguste Renoir's 1881 painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party; he stopped exhibiting at 34, instead gardening and building and racing yachts

View of Rome: The Bridge and Castel Sant'Angelo with the Cupola of St. Peter's, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1826-27; by painting outdoors and focusing on the element of light, Corot heavily influenced later Impressionists

At the Milliner's, Eduoard Manet, 1881; Manet's frank depictions of modern women, often in informal moments, astonished a French public accustomed to female models as mythological or historical characters

Peapods and Insects, Jan van Kessel II, ca. 1650; fun fact - Levi Strauss, a Bavarian immigrant, came to San Francisco in the 1850’s and quickly saw a business opportunity for creating must-needed clothing for the gold rush miners

Sailboats on the Seine at Petit-Gennevilliers, Claude Monet, 1874; it has been suggested that this picture is the canvas seen on the easel in Eduoard Manet's famous Monet Painting in his Studio Boat

Isabella and the Pot of Basil, William Holman Hunt, 1868; this work, depicting a scene from John Keats's poem Isabella, or the Pot of Basil, shows the heroine caressing the basil pot in which she had buried the severed head of her murdered lover Lorenzo

Mme Clementine Valensi Stora, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1870; this piece depicts a young Jewish woman in Algerian costume and is not typical of Renoir's work; Stora called it horrible and the painting was once owned by Claude Monet

Portrait of Charles de Verninac, Eugene Delacroix, ca. 1826; the Legion of Honor appears in the 1993 miniseries Tales of the City, based on the first of the Tales of the City series of novels by Armistead Maupin

The Tribute Money, Peter Paul Rubens, ca. 1610-15; Rubens tended to paint mythical and biblical themes, but wasn’t the only artist to render The Tribute Money; Masaccio and Titian did their own (better known) versions in 1427 and 1516, respectively

The Marriage of Tobias and Sarah, Jan Steen, ca. 1673; a 17th century take on an Old Testament story in which Sarah has been married 7 times previously and all 7 husbands died on their wedding nights

Flowers in a Vase, Henri Fantin-Latour, 1882; the Legion of Honor was modeled after the Palais de la Légion d’Honneur in Paris, one of the distinguished 18th-century landmarks on the left bank of the Seine

The Russian Bride's Attire, Konstantin Makovsky, 1889; despite being only 7 sq mi, SF has poor public transit within the city as most routes are designed only to get people into downtown; most intersections are 4 way stops making it safer for pedestrians

Flowers in a Silver Vase, Willem van Aelst, 1663; I'm just drawn to the precision and attention to detail in these still life paintings; this artist was from Delft which is a charming and very interesting Dutch town

Mary Queen of Scots, Albert Carrier-Belleuse, ca. 1860-69; built to commemorate Californian soldiers who died in World War I, the Legion of Honor is a beautiful Beaux-arts building with an impressive collection of 4,000 yrs of ancient and European art

The Merry Company, Dierk Hals, 1626; younger brother to Frans Hals, the artist was a noted Dutch Golden Age painter of merry company scenes, festivals and ballroom scenes; he was born in Haarlem, one of my favorite Dutch towns

The Grand Canal, Venice, Claude Monet, 1908; Alma Spreckels created the Book of Gold in which the names of 3600+ Californians who died in WW1 are inscribed; the book was dedicated to the Gold Star mothers

Victor Hugo, Auguste Rodin, 1883; most of the Rodin's here were acquired directly from the sculptor's studio, making it one of the precious few collections anywhere of casts made during the artist's lifetime

The 1924 Spreckels Organ was designed to blend into the museum's structure with its 4,500 pipes not visible; the ceiling of the gallery is canvas so that the organ can be heard throughout the gallery and museum with concerts every Saturday at 4pm

Alma Spreckels started collecting Rodin sculptures after meeting him in Paris in 1914; part of the museum's founding collection, the Rodin's grew to more than 100 by the 1940s

Favrile Shade, ca. 1910; the New-York Historical Society's Tiffany Lamp Collection is regarded as one of the world’s largest and most encyclopedic

Daffodil Hanging Shade, ca. 1900-06; Clara Driscoll, head of the Women’s Glass Cutting Department from 1892 to 1909, has recently been revealed as the designer of many of the firm’s leaded glass shades

Oriental Poppy Shade, ca. 1910-13; Clara Driscoll’s weekly salary of $35 was on par with that of Tiffany Studio’s male designers, a reflection of Louis Comfort Tiffany's regard for her abilities

Snowball Shade, ca. 1900-06; the lamps in this exhibition reflected the prodigious talent of designers and artisans who worked in anonymity to fulfill Tiffany’s aesthetic vision

Laburnum Shade, ca. 1901-06; you can now get Covid face masks in some of the Tiffany shade designs from the New-York Historical Society's website

Nasturtium Hanging Shade, ca. 1900-06; the Morse Museum of Art in Winter Park, FL houses the world's most comprehensive collection of the works of Louis Comfort Tiffany, including the Tiffany Chapel he designed for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair

Grape Hanging Shade, ca. 1900-06; the New-York Historical Society rents out the Gallery of Tiffany Lamps space which can accommodate up to 350 guests with a glass staircase connecting the two levels

Snowball Hanging Shade, ca. 1900-06; Clara Driscoll was hired by Louis Comfort Tiffany to work at Tiffany Glass Company (later known as Tiffany Studios) in 1888 where she would work for most of the next 20 years

Fifteenth Century Base (ca. 1906-10) with Empire Shade (ca. 1910-13); I especially enjoyed seeing unique shades such as this one that departed from what we consider the traditional floral Tiffany shade

Mushroom Base (ca. 1900-02) with Lotus, Pagoda Shade (ca. 1900-04); in Boston is the Frederick Ayer Mansion, one of three surviving examples of Tiffany interiors, and the only surviving building also possessing exterior mosaics designed by Tiffany

Turtleback Lantern (ca. 1900-06); artisans made the irregularly shaped turtlebacks, a Tiffany Studios invention, by pressing glass into molds; the thick, iridescent tiles were then incorporated into various products to dramatic effect

Roman Base (ca. 1906-10) with Rose Shade (ca. 1910-13); Clara Driscoll was one of the highest-paid women of her time, earning $10,000 per year (the year is not mentioned but I assume this was close to when she left in 1909)

Roman Base (ca. 1906-10) with Colonial Shade (ca. 1906-10); around 1910, Tiffany Studios scaled back its production of nature-themed shades and introduced more historicizing models such as the Colonial

Library Standard Base with Favrile Glass Balls (ca. 1900-06) with Daffodil Shade (ca. 1900-06); believing that women possessed greater sensitivity to color than men, Tiffany relied on them to select glass for leaded shades with naturalistic designs

Wisteria Table Lamp (ca. 1901); one of Tiffany Studios most popular models, the Wisteria was priced at $400 in 1906 (about $12,000 today!), placing it among the firm's most costly lamps

Peony Shade (ca. 1900-04); engaged or married women were not allowed to work at the company so Clara Driscoll quit when she got married but her husband died 3 years later; her second fiance mysteriously disappeared

Tulip Shade (ca. 1906-10); several companies mimicked the Tiffany lamp style in the 1920s with cheaper, lesser quality models; in the past 30 to 40 years, forgeries have hit the market that can fool collectors and experts alike

Cattail, Pond Lily Base (ca. 1900-04) with Arrowhead Shade (ca. 1904); workers in the Corona factory soldered together shades over a wooden mold incised with the pattern; they pinned the foil-edged glass segments in place, then bonded them together

Apple Blossom Hanging Shade (ca. 1900-06); here's a link to a book on Tiffany lamps https://shop.nyhistory.org/collections/louis-c-tiffany/products/the-lamps-of-tiffany-studios-nature-illuminated?variant=25019050760

Hammered Cushion Base with Dragonfly Shade (both ca. 1900-06); Clara Driscoll ingenuously conceived of using a metal filigree overlay to render the delicate insect wings in her Dragonfly designs

Good Shepherd with Landscape, 1909; this was designed for the chapel of Stony Wold, a charitable sanatorium in the Adirondacks that provided the wilderness cure for underprivileged women suffering from tuberculosis

Seal Lamp with Turtleback Tiles (ca. 1900-06); in 1889 at the Paris Exposition, Tiffany was said to have been overwhelmed by the glass work of Émile Gallé, French Art Nouveau artisan and one of my favorites

Bookmark Shade (ca. 1906-10); this is the only known Bookmark shade which was probably commissioned for a book collector's library; the shade design pays homage to 15th and 16th century printers through roundels depicting their marks

Water Lily, Twisted Stem Base (ca. 1900-06) with Old English Shade (ca. 1910-13); reminiscent of medieval stained glass, many of these historicizing shades paralleled desk set designs and were intended to outfit a gentleman's library

Woodbine Hanging Shade (ca. 1900-06); in 1881 Tiffany did the interior design of the 25-room, 11,500 sq ft Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut, which is now open as a museum

Water Lily, Twisted Stem Base (ca. 1900-06) with Poinsettia Shade (ca. 1906-10); Louis Comfort Tiffany was the first design director at his family company, Tiffany + Co., founded by his father Charles Lewis Tiffany

The Headgates of the Augusta Canal (1880s) were devised to harness the water power of the Savannah River to drive mills, to provide transportation of goods, and to provide a municipal water supply; it was a pretty area for walking, biking and kayaking

In 1867, Morehouse College, the only all-male, historically Black undergraduate institution, was founded here in the basement of Springfield Baptist Church; the school moved to Atlanta in 1879

This is the boyhood home of future President Woodrow Wilson; his father was pastor at the First Presbyterian Church across the street; Wilson was president of Princeton University, governor of NJ and founded the League of Nations

In a career that lasted 50+ years, James Brown was one of the first ten inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at ceremonies in New York City on January 23, 1986; he's been called the Godfather of Soul

The city of Augusta, population 200,000, is the second largest in Georgia (the metro area has 600,000 residents); the city was established in 1736 and named after Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha (1719–1772), mother of the British monarch George III

Founded in 1932, the for-profit Augusta National Golf Club is famous for hosting the Masters Tournament (this was as close as I could get); the club didn't admit its first Black member until 1990 and first female members until 2012

Riverwalk Augusta is a city park along the Savannah River in downtown Augusta that is alongside and on top of Augusta's levee; it was the nicest feature in what seemed to be a largely deserted downtown area

The 17-story Lamar Building, built in 1918, is the tallest building in Augusta; a penthouse level was added in 1976, designed by I. M. Pei, that presaged the glass pyramid he designed for The Louvre in Paris

The Butt (dedicated to Major Archibald Butt, born in Augusta who died on the Titanic) Memorial Bridge was erected in 1914 and dedicated by President Taft, a friend of Butt's; it was the first memorial erected to remember the Titanic disaster

Founded in 1937, the large Augusta Museum of History is located in one of the many historic textile mill buildings (most, unfortunately, are still abandoned); rated #4 by TripAdvisor of best things to do here (#1 was the Masters)

Anthony Bristol attended this elementary school when growing up here; along with University Hospital, the Medical District of Augusta employs 25,000+ people (and was where Anthony's father worked)

This was the boyhood home of Joseph Lamar who was best friends with his next door neighbor Woodrow Wilson; although a Democrat, he was appointed to the US Supreme Court by Republican President Taft in 1911

Springfield Baptist Church, considered the oldest Black church in America, was established in 1774 with this brick building dating to 1844; during the antebellum years, it had 1,000+ members and was the largest congregation of any Baptist church in GA

In addition to Brown, famous people from Augusta include Amy Grant, Hulk Hogan, Butterfly McQueen, Jasper Johns, Ben Bernanke, Bobby Jones, Judy Woodruff and Laurence Fishburne

Augusta is located about halfway up the 301-mile long Savannah River on the fall line; forming most of the border between GA and SC, the river has the fourth-highest toxic discharge in the country, according to a 2009 report by Environment America

Built in 1900, the Sacred Heart Cultural Center was once a Roman Catholic Church before it closed in 1971 when most of its congregation moved to the suburbs; it was one of the most architecturally attractive buildings here

This attractive amphitheater overlooks the Savannah River and the large houses across the border in SC; it is part of Riverwalk Augusta on which you'll find the Morris Museum of Art, an excellent museum focused on the South