Half Dome, which appears in man of Ansel Adams pictures from Yosemite, has a large area on top. I was sitting up there once having lunch, a couple of friends having become engaged while standing out on that "egg tooth" while I photographed it.

Anyway, I'm leaning against a little ledge, enjoying a sandwich and short snooze, and found myself very popular. There was a group of 8 Japanese tourists (in my experience most tourists off the highway in Yosemite were not American) which hung around and hung around.

I watched them a bit, shut my eyes some more, and relaxed. I was content. Opened them, the Japanese were still there. Ate an orange, still there. I was beginning to wonder what was going on, it had been 20 minutes or so, and re-shut my eyes.

Along came Ranger Rick. He spoke very quietly so as to not disturb me, scared the hell out of me. After I became fully conscious Ol' Rick pointed out that I was sitting on the EXACT spot from which Ansel Adams had taken a picture of the moon with a tree in the foreground. I looked around, and remembered the photo. The tree was dead, but still there.

The Japanese tourists wanted to take a picture from the spot but none of them spoke English.

I moved.

Arf