Ramona Epic #32: Cahuilla Mountain (Part 1)

(GPS: N33 35.785 W116 46.830)

In the next flew blogs I will be covering my hike up Cahuilla Mountain. The hike to Juan Diego's home and murder did not take that long. After coming back to the trailhead, I knew I had more than enough time to follow the trail to the top of Mt. Cahuilla. The elevation gain was not that dramatic. I'm talking of just about a 1000+ feet of elevation from the trailhead. When one thinks of a mountain hike this is usually not what they are thinking. It is listed on the Hundred Peaks Section Peak List, so take that for what it is worth.

I just enjoyed it since it was in an area I had never been to, and it was relaxing all the same. The downside was the day was very overcast to give it that gloomy look. As I stated in the last blog, this was probably for the better since it added the mood to what I was trying to portray regarding the death of Juan Diego. Still, it would have been nice to have had the sun out.

I am presenting this as part of the Ramona series because it connects episode #31 with #33 that will come after this hike. It gives you more understanding of the terrain that Juan Diego and his wife lived at. Other than that, it was just a fun hike. So, take it whatever way you want.

Back to the trailhead...in the previous entries on the Juan Diego home and murder, the hike continues off to the right. This time I would be heading up the mountain to the left of the sign.

After getting some elevation I looked back at the road I had gone on in the previous entries. I was on both roads you see, but to get to where I was last time you head down the road that looks like an "s".That is Mt. San Jacinto which I covered sometime back for this series. So, that is where the fictional story took place, but the historical mountain that the incident the Ramona story was based on was this one.This is looking into the direction that I had been at earlier. It is close to where I ended up in the previous entries at Juan Diego Flats.
Looking back to the cars at the trailhead. Mt. San Jacinto is in the distance.This begins the long part of the trail where you can see far out in front of you.It goes around like this and just keeps going. Nothing too difficult though, it just takes the time to do it.I will continue this one next time.

Ramona Epic #32: Cahuilla Mountain (Youtube Version)

Ramona Epic #31: The Murder of Juan "Alessandro" Diego (Part 2)

(N33 35.655 W116 48.145)

In the previous blog I showed a road that continued to the final destination. In reality, it was less than five minutes to go down the road and take a left to this:

At this point, far enough away from civilization, just to the left of the above picture is this.You can click the picture (or, right click and open in a new window) to see that it says:

JUAN DIEGO FLATS
In this valley a conflict between the culture of the Indian and the White Man resulted in the death of Juan Diego (Alessandro in the play Romona [Sic]) by the hands of Sam Temple.
Billy Holcomb Chapter
E. Clampus Vitus
May 1979

The above is just looking into the open field near the monument.

What happened here is Juan Diego returned home from San Jacinto with the wrong horse. Apparently, having one of his mental spells, left his pony at a stable in San Jacinto, and then took a gray work horse back home. Unfortunately, this horse belonged to Sam Temple. Temple was a rough man that had been in fights before, and had a temper, especially when drunk. So, the very next morning, March 24, 1883, Temple went the 16 miles up into Juan Diego Flats. He got his horse back, but then killed Juan Diego with his guns.

Sam Temple claimed that it was self-defense and that Juan Diego confronted him with a knife. Juan's wife was not allowed to testify against Temple. As pointed out in the article I will link below, while technically an Indian could testify in court against whites, in practice for that time it was not allowed. So, Temple was able to get away with murder.

Helen Hunt Jackson did know of this event and wrote an article about it called, "Justifiable Homicide in Southern California". Eventually, the outrage of this historical event is what led her to use it in her fictional setting with the names of the people changed to the characters in her book that was published the very next year.

As I began the last blog, I really enjoy going into backcountry areas to find these types of tributes to the past. The area has probably not changed very much since the time of Juan Diego and his wife living there. The day I went the clouds were out to make it overcast. Due to the way schedules work out I had already committed myself to come here on the day I did it. So, I was sort of disappointed I did not have a sunny day. Then after thinking about it and looking back at what I was trying to do for this series, maybe having a gloomy day was for the best in how this worked out.

The Murder of Juan "Alessandro" Diego (Youtube Version)

The background music for this one is called Wounded by Incompetech.com.

The Killing of Juan Diego: From Murder to Mythology by Phil Brigandi and John W. Robinson (The best article about the history of this event from The Journal of San Diego History)

Ramona Epic #31: The Murder of Juan "Alessandro" Diego (Part 1)

(GPS: N33 35.755 W116 48.095)

When I created the Youtube channel for Ramona a year ago today I knew it would take me a year to be able to show something about this particular adventure. I had almost all the fieldwork done for the series, and it was just a matter of preparing everything at the computer. In order to do this series the way I wanted to present it, I knew that some of my favorite parts of this series would not come until about now.

If you have read some of my blog, you will know that my real favorite places are the ones where you go into the backcountry where few people go, and find something unique. Whether it is some human artifact remains or just something really beautiful to look at, I enjoy those times more than anything else I cover on this blog.

This was one of those times. I kind of knew what to expect based on an article I have (I will link it below) and a book or two. The hiking part of it was not that difficult relative to what I normally do, in fact I considered it quite easy, but the drive to get to the trailhead was a rough and bumpy ride. On this day, my brother drove me to the other side of Cahuilla Mountain seen below:

The above picture is taken near Anza, CA. Almost everything you will see in the next few blogs took place on the other side of that mountain. The picture below is very close to the trailhead. We hiked to two different areas from here. While you do see a vehicle in the distance, I would not suggest driving on these roads unless you know exactly where you are going and what your vehicle is capable of.For example, while hiking along the road we were taking I saw drops and turns that would be very dramatic for many cars.The hike was rather easy on the way because we dropped down some elevation, not much, but it would take a little more work coming back than getting here. After about 45 minutes or so, we came to the following:In the above picture, just ahead and around the corner on the left, was the final destination for the first hike. That will be in the next blog.

The whole idea of coming out here was to explore the location that was the inspiration for the murder of Alessandro in Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona book. In this area, on the day of March 24, 1883, Juan Diego was murdered by Sam Temple in the area you are seeing. Like the fictional story, Juan Diego was an Indian (a Cahuilla Indian) that had mental lapses that would cause him to do very irrational things. He was a likeable person to everything that knew him, but they also knew he was a little nutty. Like Alessandro in the novel, he worked as a sheep shearer and other jobs for the locals. This area is named after him in that it is called Juan Diego Flats.

In the above picture, there is a short side road off to the right that goes uphill some and then stops. It was here I investigated this area for what looked like human activity at some point in the past. I am at this spot in this next picture, and it also is looking in the direction of what I will show in the next blog. Now whether Juan Diego and his wife lived right here at their adobe I do not know. The little map in the article makes it look like I would have been really close; the map is not totally to scale, but it would make sense. Then just turning around I had this behind me; far in the background is where the hike started from.
So the remains and foundations of something are still here. What it was exactly that was here I do not know. The bigger picture that I just wanted to experience on this day is to see the area of where Juan Diego and his wife lived and where he was murdered. I will continue this in the next blog.

The Murder of Juan "Alessandro" Diego (Youtube Version)

The Killing of Juan Diego: From Murder to Mythology by Phil Brigandi and John W. Robinson (The best article about the history of this event from The Journal of San Diego History)

Ramona Epic #30: The Murder of Alessandro

Happy Halloween! The time has come for the final tragedy of Ramona and Alessandro. When I was planning this series out over a year ago I knew today was going to be the day this video would come up. In my mind, since the time I started this series, there has been a countdown until this day. So here we are...

Check RamonaEpic Youtube channel for video.

In the book, Chapter 24 starts:

"THERE was no real healing for Alessandro. His hurts had gone too
deep. His passionate heart, ever secretly brooding on the wrongs
he had borne, the hopeless outlook for his people in the future, and
most of all on the probable destitution and suffering in store for
Ramona, consumed itself as by hidden fires. Speech, complaint,
active antagonism, might have saved him; but all these were
foreign to his self-contained, reticent, repressed nature. Slowly, so
slowly that Ramona could not tell on what hour or what day her
terrible fears first changed to an even more terrible certainty, his
brain gave way, and the thing, in dread of which he had cried out
the morning they left San Pasquale, came upon him. Strangely
enough, and mercifully, now that it had really come, he did not
know it. He knew that he suddenly came to his consciousness
sometimes, and discovered himself in strange and unexplained
situations; had no recollection of what had happened for an
interval of time, longer or shorter. But he thought it was only a sort
of sickness; he did not know that during those intervals his acts
were the acts of a madman; never violent, aggressive, or harmful
to any one; never destructive. It was piteous to see how in these
intervals his delusions were always shaped by the bitterest
experiences of his life."

In the book, Alessandro returns home to Ramona with the wrong horse. He left his own horse in Jim Farrar's corral down below the mountain. Ramona questions him about this right away, and Alessandro replies that it was a mistake due to his illness. He further reasons they (Farrar and others) would see that he took the wrong horse and not think he was intentionally stealing the horse. It was too late to return the horse so he intended to do it in the morning.

Unfortunately, that is not how Jim Farrar reasoned about this. Alessandro is awakened by dogs barking, runs out the house to see what the problem is, some shots are fired, and Ramona comes out just in time to see Alessandro drop to the ground dead. Ramona calmly holds him realizing there is nothing she could do.

One thing to point out, in the play it makes sense to have a bunch of people around observing the murder and a posse that quickly goes after Farrar. That did not happen like that in the book. Ramona is all alone after the murder takes place.

In a daze, she then decides to hike during the night to the Indian village of Cahuilla. In the village of Cahuilla, she and Alessandro had friends that would help them. I should note that at this point of the story Alessandro and Ramona do have another child which is called "Ramona" at the end of the book.

When I get back to this series in a week or two I will have a few blogs that cover the real historical incident that Helen Hunt Jackson based this on.

Halloween Monsters and Strangeness 2011

I thought I would review everything I did in the past two weeks and use this blog as the hub to link to everything. I realized last year that it would be foolish to try to outdo myself this year due to everything else I have going on. So, I had a few ideas and then revived some oldies. Speaking of which...

Some years back I covered the outdoor locations of Boris Karloff's The Mummy which was filmed at Red Rock Canyon. One thing I did not get quite right was the funeral procession that takes place on a cliff edge.

Unfortunately, when I went there this last time I forgot to bring the above picture with me. So, what I have is close, but not as fine-tuned as I would like. The deal is the above picture (and maybe mine too) is an optical illusion. It looks like the background is combined with the ramp area they are walking to make it look like they are on a cliff edge. The reality is there are two separate areas that have blended in together when you take a picture like this.Time to do a re-cap of my Halloween series for this year and provide the links:

1)Alien Murder at Corriganville!?!?!: this was a follow-up to something I discovered a few years ago while I was editing my Fort Apache video. It had to do with the tv show Bones having a few scenes at Corriganville that I thought was strange enough for this Halloween season. This just goes to show you that, although it is rare, sometimes modern tv shows and movies end up at the old classic locations.

a)Alien Murder at Corriganville!?!?! Blogs

b)Alien Murder at Corriganville?! (Youtube Version)

2)The Bridge to Nowhere: here I did a video for an area I had been to years ago. In fact, it was one of the original locations I used for my first Halloween series. The hike is rather easy (for me at least), but the trick is you have to cross the East Fork River at least six to maybe a dozen times to get to the final destination.

a)The Bridge to Nowhere Blogs (from 2006!)

b)The Bridge to Nowhere (Youtube Version)

One thing I wanted to mention here is that I experienced a lot more trash this time around on the ground doing this hike. This bothers me. If for some reason you are in the area or doing this hike please consider bringing a trash bag with you to pack some of it out. It is a popular hike, this sort of thing is to be expected there, but it still troubled me to see so much trash out there.

3)Ancient Monsters: this was a bunch of blogs that took up most of the series this year. Dinosaurs are fascinating to most people, and with the new dino exhibit at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum I thought it would be a good idea to include this one this year.

a)Ancient Monsters Blogs

b)I did five videos for this that are on youtube. They are linked in each blog, or go down to the very bottom of this blog and click my Halloween video collection to find them.

4)The Mummy at Red Rock Canyon: of course, I have covered this before on a previous Halloween series. It was just time to create a new video for this one to replace the old lower quality one that was on the old youtube channel.

a)The Mummy at Red Rock Canyon Blogs (note: this blog is included with that so don't get confused)

b)The Mummy at Red Rock Canyon (Youtube Version)


Finally, I thought I would link to my various October blogs where I had at least something a little strange for Halloween up from previous years:

October 2006

October 2008

October 2009

October 2010 (after clicking this one check out the blog archive on right side for the rest of the links. Not all the blogs fit on one page the way I have it set up...there were too many of them)

All my Halloween themed videos can be found on one of these:

The Silence of Halloween Locations (Youtube Version)

Ancient Monsters: Sea Creatures

To wrap this up I thought I would mention the two big sea dinosaurs they have at the museum. Both are hanging from the ceiling and you might have seen glimpses of them in the first blog I did for this because they are in the first room.

One is Plotosaurus which was around about 66 million years ago:The other one has a very long neck! It is a Plesiosaur called Morenosaurus. It too lived around 67-65 million year ago.

Ancient Monsters: Sea Creatures (Youtube Version)

Some external links:

Plotosaurus (Wikipedia Article)

Morenosarus (or Muraenosaurus) (Wikipedia Article)

L.A. Natural History Museum

On the day I did this I must have spent a few hours exploring and taking videos/pictures of all that I saw in the dino exhibit. I then spent an addition hour quickly going through the rest of the museum. I still felt there was more I could have spent additional time on. Even in the dino exhibit I felt I rushed at some points because I did not read signs they had out. There was much more I could have shown on here as well. So, at some point I will go back there, and if you are ever in Los Angeles I would suggest you do to.

The title of the song used in the video is Shamanistic from Incompetech.com

Ancient Monsters: Air Creatures

I am just going to cover two creatures in this one, but in the video I show a few more of the airborne dinosaurs. Not everyone I show could fly, but scientists classify them together much like they classify ostrich and penguins as birds even though they do not fly.

The first one is a creature I have always been curious about. It is one that has been quite controversial as to what it actually is. It is known as Archaeopteryx:Living somewhere between 150-146 million years ago, it is theorized that it primarily used its wings to glide from trees and not fly like we think of modern birds doing. It was one of the first dinosaurs to have feathers.Right of Archaepteryx is the Velociraptor which lived somewhere between 75-65 million years ago. Got to love those claws:The Velociraptor is well known from being portrayed in the movie Jurassic Park. However, one thing they lacked in the movie that they had while they existed was feathers. However, we do know they were fierce fighting creatures like that movie! Check out the link down below for more on that. Here there are in the exhibit side by side with another bird-like dinosaur.

In the video I also show a few others like the popular Pteranodon.

Ancient Monsters: Air Creatures (Youtube Version)

Two links:

Archaeopterxy (Wikipedia Article)

Velociraptor (Wikipedia Article)

Velociraptor vs. Protoceratops (Fossils Captured in Combat!)

The title of the music used is called Spacial Winds by Incompetech.com.

Ancient Monsters: Stegosaurus and Allosaurus

After the T-Rex area one can turn around and encounter two other dinosaurs. One is Stegosaurus from the late Jurassic period: 155-150 million years ago:

Right next to Stegosaurus is Allosaurus that lived at the same time:From above:In the video I show a few other things. One is this exhibit about dinosaur sounds and Corythosaurus and Parasaurolophus. I mentioned last time no one knows what dinosaurs sounded like, but scientists think they have some ideas about these two creatures. This has to do with the way the "horns" on their heads were shaped. Watch the video for the computer simulation at the end about this.
Ancient Monsters: Stegosaurus and Allosaurus (Youtube Version)

A few external links:

Stegosaurus (Wikipedia Article)

Allosaurus (Wikipedia Article)

Corythosaurus (Wikipedia Article)

Parasaurolophus (Wikipedia Article)

The L.A. Natural History Museum

The titles of the music used in the video are called Aftermath and Unnatural Situation from Incompetech.com.

Ancient Monsters: T-Rex

The next part of the exhibit is the main hall where the T-Rex's and a few other dinosaurs are. Let me hit some of the highlights in this blog. I continue it in the next one.

The first one you see is that of Camptosaurus. This dinosaur lived in the late Jurassic period. Somewhere around 160-145 million years ago. Right next to the above dinosaur is Carnotaurus. He has bull-like horns on top of his head. Carnotaurus lived in the late Cretaceous about 75 million years ago.The above two are cool, but the dinosaur I was very curious about was the Tyrannosaurus Rex fossils in the exhibit. They have a bunch, but the main one I wanted to focus on is the one they call "Thomas". He is the star of the whole exhibit and is one of the most complete T-Rex fossils in existence. Here is his skull: A different angle through the glass case they have the skull in.What it looks like they did is they keep the skull separate from the rest of his body for this exhibit. So, what you see in the next picture is a fossilized model attached the real fossilized body.They have a few T-Rex's in the middle of the main exhibit hall to show you the sizes of them compared to the ages they think they were. It goes from about two years of age to roughly around 17 years of age when it comes to "Thomas". This one is supposed to be around 14 years old.This is "Thomas" standing over the one that is supposed to be around two years old:Another view of "Thomas". He was found in Montana and lived roughly around 67-65 million years ago.

Ancient Monsters: T-Rex (Youtube Version)

A few links for you. There are enough books out there on dinosaurs that I should not do this. However, if you want a quick reference then these Wikipedia articles should get you started:

Camptosaurus (Wikipedia Article)

Carnotaurus (Wikipedia Article)

Tyrannosaurus Rex (Wikipedia Article)

The L.A. Natural History Museum

I put this in my video notes, but I should do it here too:

1)Most of the dates I give are very broad based on a few local library and online sources. I just wanted to get the periods they lived right. So, if you are a hardcore dinosaur person, and I am not as precise as you would like, then sorry. ;)

2)No one knows what these creatures actually sounded like. The sounds are just used for artistic effect.

The titles of the music used are Deep Noise, Blue Sizzle, and Interloper from Incompetch.com songs.

Ancient Monsters: Triceratops and Mamenchisaurus

This blog begins a series of blogs about my most recent visit to the L.A. Natural History Museum. It had probably been a good 15 years since I was last there. What brought me back is the new dinosaur exhibit they opened during the summer.

Since we are getting close to the day when little monsters will be wandering around at night I thought now would be a good idea to share this. Even though these creatures are not the traditional ones you think about during Halloween, I am considering this part of this years Halloween Monsters and Strangeness series.

One thing that I remember about this new exhibit is that it opened on the weekend of July 16, and that was when the infamous Carmageddon situation regarding the closing of part of the 405 freeway. Everyone was told to stay home, and nothing really happened that weekend. However, I remember seeing people on the news say that whoever thought of opening this new exhibit probably did not think it through. As it was, it did not really matter as many people showed up there. I did not go because I did not want to get stuck on the freeway. ;) So, I went at a later time.

As soon as you enter the new exhibit you get to see a favorite dinosaur of many: Triceratops. Roughly around 68-65 million years ago this creature was running around. With this particular reconstruction you are seeing four different animal specimens combined into one. It is very rare to get a complete animal fossil set. So, what you see at this exhibit is usually either a few real fossils combined with a model, a lot of real fossils combined with model, or just a model itself just to illustrate what the dinosaur would have looked like. They have signs that indicate which parts of the dinosaur are the original real fossils and which are just part of a reconstructed model.
This right leg and foot were found on a dig in southeastern Montana. The skull was also found at the same dig and is part of the same animal. The other fossils you see that were used to make up this composite were found at three other spots in either southeastern Montana or northeastern Wyoming.Another look at the Triceratops (aka the three-horned face). This creature would have been living just east of the Rockies in a warm area that would have had lots of plants to eat.Now if you look at the above picture there is a tall and long necked dinosaur in the background. This is Mamenchisaurus. This one lived around 160-145 million years ago. It was a plant eater, and fossils of this animal are known to be found in China.This particular fossil specimen was the hardest to get into a picture or video of because it is just so long. Check out that neck:

Ancient Monsters: Triceratops and Mamenchisaurus (Youtube Version)

As I do this I will list a few links, but as you would guess there is so much out there on dinosaurs that I really do not think I have to do this. When I was preparing the videos for this one I just spent some time at a local library along with what they had at the museum.

Triceratops (Wiki Article)

Mamenchisaurus (Wiki Article)

The Los Angeles Natural History Museum (Official Site)

For this series I referred to a couple of sources at the library along with a few things online, but my basic reference was the book Dinofile by Richard Moody.

The title of the music used is the video is Invariance from Incompetech.com.

Ramona Epic #29: Eyes of the Sky is Dead!

What started in the last video in the story is confirmed in this one. Another tragedy for Ramona and Alessandro...

Check out RamonaEpic Youtube for video.

It seems liked we just blessed Eyes of the Sky. The book explains further that the problem is the doctor could have, but did not travel the distance to help their daughter.

Alessandro has been really tortured about all of this. The death of the members of his family, the wandering from one place to another without a permanent home, and the death of his daughter has started to cause him to lose it mentally.

Ramona Epic #28: Alessandro!

During this scene the mic was going in and out on one of the actors, but you should be able to follow what is happening:

Check RamonaEpic Youtube channel for video.

To sum up, something is wrong with Eyes in the Sky and Alessandro gets told about the man harassing his wife. The next video should be up by tomorrow on this.

Alien Murder at Corriganville!?!?! (Corriganville Series)

Well, here we are again at that time of the year where I live, that the days start to get darker earlier, strange monsters start to appear, and the locations start to get spooky looking. Usually, I try to spend the whole month of October reading Halloween stories, and watching a few old and new Halloween themed movies. Due to the overall crazyness of my life right now I am just now getting into my Halloween mood. I have two weeks for the fun and I intend to use them.

In the past, if all goes well in October, I like to put up my version of Halloween fun. Normally, the locations are not really scary, but just a little unusual or weird. I think last year was the highpoint of me doing this, and I realized it would be very difficult to outdo what I did last year. Also, I knew last year that October was going to be a VERY CRITICAL part of my presentation of my Ramona series which will still be going on as I do this.

So, what I am doing this time around is adding some new things, but also reviving some of my old classics. There are a couple that I am doing that are just videos with no need for a new blog since I did them some years back. So, if you care about those then check my video channels for the next two weeks, but I should have a summary blog up around the day before Halloween with links to everything I have done for this year. In any case, I am going to refer to this series with the tag of Halloween Monsters and Strangeness 2011. It won't be too traditional, but I think you will see it all fits.

In this blog I going into more detail over something I discovered a few years ago during the time I was editing my Fort Apache video. At that time, the tv show Bones had an episode called The X in the File that I noticed had the Fort Apache portion of Corriganville in the episode. I do not really watch this tv show, but was intrigued that a modern tv show would use this location. So, not too long ago, I decided to go back and figure out what they did.

I will link my original blog about this at the bottom, but the reason I am using this one as part of this years Halloween series is because the investigators appear to have found a dead alien! Then they think it could have been murdered!

At the start they show one of the investigators come around from the northern side (which I noted in the previous blog on this). He greets a police officer near these rocks.Something like this:As the two investigators try to figure out what happened to this "murdered alien" a lady shows up with her shotgun telling them they are trespassing on her property. The police officer tells her to put the gun down since it is official law enforcement business.My picture is not exact, but you should be able to see most of the same rocks.The camera shows a different angle.Close enough for our purposes. The "murdered alien" would have been have been lying over the bottom rock.Later on in the episode they come back to this rock formation and give you a different look:These are those rocks. I always remember that rock to the left because it reminds me of a tatooed side-face on the rock.This episode was in the season 5 of Bones. So, if you are curious about this episode then you need to watch it as a re-run on tv, find the dvd of this episode, or purchase it from Amazon down below. Note the amazon preview trailer linked below shows up some of footage of the same area when some guys encounter the "alien body" at night for the first time.

Alien Murder at Corriganville (Youtube Version)

Previous blog on this X in the File episode

IMDB reference to this episode (check out the picture they have)

At this time you can also find the episode preview and purchase it to watch here on Amazon.com.