Category Archives: Vistas

Lombok

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Not long ago I saw the first 15 minutes or so of Hercules in New York, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first movie. I soon decided that I didn’t need to see any more, for the usual reasons (life’s too short, who’s going to give me those 91 minutes back?, etc.) In the age of YouTube, watching all of a bad movie isn’t necessary anyway, because you can watch the likes of this.

If you’re interested in a fittingly puerile review of the movie, there’s always this.

According to the imdb, the movie was made in 1969, released in early 1970. I wonder if anyone watching the movie in the theater had any inkling that the muscleman on the screen would ever be, say, the governor of a major U.S. state. Of course they didn’t.

Lombok was an interesting place. Drier than Bali, but still fairly green. This view near the town of Kuta, on the south coast of the island, shows the greenery.

We arrived on July 31, 1994, and stayed a few days. One of the persistent clichés about the island was that it’s “not as spoiled” as Bali, which wasn’t remotely spoiled, as in ruined by its popularity. Bali shrugs her lovely shoulders and the visitors pass through.

Still, that sentiment was in guidebook print, and I heard people talk that way, including one woman who was persuaded that the further east you traveled in the Lesser Sunda – Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, and so on. — the better. I couldn’t say for sure, since we didn’t make it any further east than Lombok. But maybe she was just romanticizing poverty.

High Cliff Graffiti

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On the northeastern shore of Lake Winnebago–the largest inland lake in Wisconsin–is High Cliff State Park, whose name ought to be a clue that it offers vistas of the lake. But it’s more than any old cliff. The Wisconsin DNR says that “the park gets its name from the limestone cliff of the Niagara Escarpment, which parallels the eastern shore of Lake Winnebago.”

It wasn’t the first time on this trip we’d seen the escarpment. County Road B in up the Door Peninsula has views of cliffs. According to Door County Coastal Byway, “Door County’s Green Bay side has the true escarpment, with exposed dolomite rock 200-250 feet high. At the base of these rock faces are remnants of the chunks of stone that fall from the cliffs to form ‘talus.’ ”

I wouldn’t know talus if I stubbed my toe on it, but the cliffs were evident, especially at George K. Pinney County Park, just off County Road B. At High Cliff State Park, the vantage is from on top of the cliffs, though trees block the view in some places. Maybe that’s why a wooden observation tower rises above the trees.

A plaque on the tower says, “THIS TOWER is dedicated to WILLIAM M. WRIGHT, spirited leader and longtime friend of High Cliff State Park. Built in 1984 with private funds from Kimberly-Clark Foundation Inc. and High Cliff State Park Association Inc.”

The plaque doesn’t tell you how many steps it takes to get to the top. An unusually helpful graffito at the bottom tells you that it’s 64 all together.

And it is. Eight flights of eight steps each. As you ascend, the helpful graffiti continues all of the way up.

Until you reach the top. You’re rewarded for climbing 64 steps with a broad view of northern Lake Winnebago, which isn’t so large than you can’t see the opposite shore, where Appleton, Neenah, and the other Fox Cities are located.

Table Rock Lake Sunset

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Those formerly eager dam-builders, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, built Table Rock Lake near Branson in the 1950s to control flooding by the White River. Since then the lake has also done its part to attract visitors to Branson. It’s a fine lake.

We spent the afternoon of November 2 on the lake, aboard the showboat Branson Belle, which wrapped up its 4 pm cruise just as the light was disappearing in the west.