Louie, Take a Look at This!

by Luis Fuerte

  508 Santa Barbara Island: Huell traveled to rugged Santa Barbara Island off California’s coast to explore its history and experience the island with a ranger who lives there alone. There were narrow trails above sharp drops to the sea. Scary.

  509 Under California: Huell went to Fresno to see the incredible labyrinth of tunnels, rooms, and vines at the Underground Gardens of Baldassare Forestiere, then walked through the two thousand-foot Burro Schmidt Tunnel in the Mojave Desert, which took a miner fifty years to dig.

  510 Kelp: Huell went offshore into the Pacific from San Diego to Monterey to explore the great kelp forests off the California coast—he was shown how it grows, how it’s harvested, and how it’s used in many of the foods we eat.

  511 On Stage: Huell visited and heard the Spreckels Organ in Balboa Park, the world’s largest outdoor organ, and went to Laguna Beach to see the Pageant of the Masters, the spectacular show of famous artworks brought to life by people posing exactly as in the artworks. It was a treat to see the ‘re-creations.’

  512 Keeping Cool: Huell tried to keep cool in the hot Coachella Valley. He visited the old “desert submarine” of Indio and then went to Palm Springs to enjoy the cool of a lush oasis. This was one visit among many to the desert he loved, and where he lived later in his life.

  1995

  601 Weed Patch: Huell visited a camp for migrant workers that had its start during the Dust Bowl era during the Depression, when the Okies fled to California and its promise of a better life. He talked to people who experienced life back then and to Latinos who live there now.

  602 Huts and Hangars: Huell toured the huge blimp hangar at the Marine Corps station at Tustin and got a little nervous in the two hundred-foot-high rafters; then he traveled to the Seabee Naval Museum at Port Hueneme to get a taste of the history of the naval builders; and ended the trip with a visit to the Marine Corps Base Camp at Pendleton to check out an old quonset hut.

  603 Olives and Berries: Huell explored the olive orchards of the San Joaquin Valley and then visited the old Graber Olive Company in Ontario to see the processing methods; next he went to Knott’s Berry Farm to learn how the amusement park grew from a simple beginning of great home cooking. I still visit Graber’s every year to say hello and to buy their tasty olives.

  604 Important Places: Huell traveled to Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego, to see a camp where, in the 1970s, thousands of Vietnamese refugees lived in a tent city; then he visited the Sherman Indian High School in Riverside and see a school that has educated Native Americans for almost a century.

  605 Hidden Gold: Huell dug deep and visited the La Brea Tar Pits to see the creatures that died there and have been preserved in the oily goo for thousands of years; then he went to the Presidio of San Diego to see the excavation of the first European settlement in California.

  606 Life in Death Valley: Huell discovered the living wonders of Death Valley, such as the prehistoric pup fish that have survived for thousands of years; and he walked among the wildflowers that thrive in the valley, despite its harsh climate.

  607 Scotty’s Castle: Huell returned to Death Valley, this time to tour the castle and look into the life of Walter Scott, the colorful man for whom the famous castle was named.

  608 Center of California: Huell searched for the geographic center of California, traveling to various locations where local groups claimed that their spot is the true center of the state. He found the real one. Huell also visited an area on old Highway 99 that is planted with palms and pines, marking the divide between Northern and Southern California.

  609 Oil: Huell visited the vast Midway-Sunset Oil Field in Kern County, the largest producing field in the lower forty-eight states; he saw an old wooden derrick, the last of its kind; and he learned about the Lakeview gusher that once spewed millions of gallons of oil for eighteen straight months.

  610 California Zephyr: Huell traveled on the train that ran from Chicago to Oakland from 1949 to ’70; Huell loved trains, so on the long trip he had fun visiting with and talking to oldtimers who worked on and traveled on the original Zephyr.

  611 Folsom Prison: Huell toured Folsom State Prison, which houses some of the state’s toughest prisoners; he saw Folsom’s first death row and visited the seldom-seen graveyard where generations of prisoners were laid to rest. I don’t think I have ever been as anxious on a California’s Gold shoot as I was on this one.

  612 McCloud: Huell visited the historic lumber and railroad town at the foot of Mt. Shasta; rode the rails through a forest on the famous McCloud Railway; then visited the local swimming hole before touring the old town. This area was one of Huell’s favorites to visit, and it seems we were there often.

  1996

  701 Lighthouse: Huell took a helicopter trip to visit the century-old abandoned St. George Reef Lighthouse located eight miles off the coast of Crescent City; he toured the old relic and marveled that it has withstood the most violent seas. This was one of my favorite shoots, and I shot it as if it were a film.

  702 California Pools: Huell profiled famous swimming pools, beginning at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, then the LA Memorial Coliseum swimming pool built for the 1932 Olympics, then to the Neptune Pool at Hearst Castle. This “wet” tour ended at two pools in San Francisco that are now gone: the Fleishacker Pool and Sutro Baths.

  703 California Firsts: Huell learned the story of the “real” first discovery of gold in California, in Placerita Canyon; then he looked at the spot of the first oil drilling; and he finished with the discovery of a location where an innovation in the history of electricity took place.

  704 Mare Island: Huell toured the historic Mare Island Naval Shipyard, which had served the nation for 142 years but was slated to be closed; he visited with people who helped build battleships up to nuclear subs through the years; and finally he visited a sailor’s graveyard and the first naval chapel on the West Coast.

  Huell in his beloved Yosemite.

  705 Suisun Bay: Huell toured the great mothballed fleet of hundreds of navy ships at Suisun Bay. He marveled at the assortment of ships that are kept there in reserve—everything from tankers to cruisers, many of them historic.

  706 Yosemite Fire Fall: Huell journeyed to the top of Glacier Point to see the spot from which red-hot coals were once pushed off the side to create a glowing “waterfall” rushing downto the valley below. Huell visited with the couple who ran the nightly show for forty-two years until it ended in 1969.

  707 Neat Houses: Huell traveled to Sacramento to visit the former Governor’s Mansion, which was used from 1903 to ’67. Kathleen Brown took Huell on a tour of the house; and then he headed east to the Sierra foothills to visit a sharply contrasting rustic log cabin built by miners.

  708 Dry Lake Bed: Huell visited the old Muroc Dry Lake bed, now the home of Edwards Air Force Base, to see a gathering of race cars and the oldtimers who once raced on the lake bed before the Air Force made it off-limits.

  709 Camels and Bison: Huell traveled to Catalina Island to see a herd of bison that started out fourteen strong, brought over to be used in a silent movie; then trekked to Fort Tejon State Historic Park to see where camels were introduced by the Army in the 1850s to see if they could be used as effective transportation. It turns out they couldn’t.

  710 San Juan Bautista: Huell visited the historic town of San Juan Bautista, which was for many years a center of commerce and meetings of people from all walks of life. He also visited the town’s mission, which was founded in 1787 and is still used as a parish church.

  711 Santa Rosa Island: Huell explored Santa Rosa Island, one of the Channel Islands, and investigated its rich history from the time of the Chumash through a visit by Cabrillo to its current use as a working cattle ranch run by two brothers. Huell accompanied a real cattle drive to a waiting boat.

  712 Japanese Tea Garden: Huell traveled to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco to walk through its authentic Japanese Tea Garden, which has been a lovely setting for more than one hundred years. Huell e
njoyed the flowering cherry trees and new discoveries along its paths and bridges. He jumped from one thing to another without telling me, and following him around, tested me. The show, however, came out fine.

  1997

  801 Quicksilver: Huell visited the New Almaden Mine, the first mining community in California, established in 1845. Located in the Santa Clara Valley near San Jose, the mercury mine proved to the richest mine of any kind ever in California.

  802 Railcars: Huell traveled to the annual US National Handcar Race at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento and watched the contestants pump away to the finish. Then he traveled to McCloud Railway to ride along in motorized “speeders” that are used to inspect the railroad tracks. Did we do trains!

  803 Rocks in Water: Huell went out on Lake Tahoe and climbed Emerald Rock, the only island on the lake; then he went to Humboldt Bay to see the massive concrete interlocking shapes that protect the bay from harsh seas; finally, he traveled to the Mojave Desert and discovered strange assortments of rocks, far from the water today but they were actually fish traps made by Native Americans when long ago there was lake water there.

  804 Mt. San Jacinto: Huell took us up the steep rise of the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which climbs from the desert floor to Mt. San Jacinto, more than ten thousand feet high; then back to the base of the mountain to explore the thirteen-mile tunnel that was dug during the 1930s to bring Colorado River water to Southern California.

  805 Wooden Boats: Huell returned to Lake Tahoe to attend the Annual Concours d’ Elegance, which celebrates the beautiful wooden boats that have plied the waters of the lake since the 1920s. He enjoyed a ride on one of these speedsters on the beautiful waters of the Sierra lake.

  806 Slab City: Huell went to the Coachella Valley to see Salvation Mountain, artist Leonard Knight’s colorful monument of sculpture, trees, flowers, and the American flag built into a mountainside; then he went down the road to visit Slab City, a community of some three thousand people, many of them colorful characters, who live rent free and very independently on an abandoned Marine base.

  807 Paradise: Huell explored the town of Paradise in Butte County for the annual Gold Nugget Days Celebration, which commemorates the discovery of a fifty-four-pound gold nugget that was pulled out of the earth in nearby Dogtown; visited the spot where the huge nugget was found; and then toured the Gold Nugget Museum, which houses memorabilia from the gold mining period.

  808 Mule Days: Huell joined the Mule Days Celebration in Bishop, on the east side of the Sierra Nevada. The weeklong fête recognizes the role mules played in the old mining days, when they hauled materials and ore for the miners.

  809 Wind: Huell went to the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank to see a movie wind machine in action; then he went to Caltech in Pasadena to see the ten-foot wind tunnel that’s been used to test everything from cars to airplanes; finally, he journeyed to Point Reyes, to feel the real wind at the windiest place in California.

  810 Bits and Pieces: All of the segments in this show came about from chance discoveries along our travels. Huell visited an ostrich farm in Buellton; he had a lot of fun stumbling onto a flowering field of marigolds not far from Ventura; he toured a historic two-story outhouse in San Juan Batista; and he explored a cactus farm operation in the Salinas Valley.

  811 Vandenberg: Huell visited Vandenberg Air Force Base on the coast near the town of Lompoc. As he toured the rocket launching site, he discovered that the base has played an important part in the development and use of rockets and boosters for both military programs and civilian satellite launches.

  812 Snow and Ice: Huell went to the Sierra Nevada in winter to investigate the history of ice harvesting from frozen mountain lakes—the source of ice before refrigeration; then he traveled from Sacramento to Reno to see the last of the snow-shed tunnels that were built to shield the rails from the great mountain snows. I remember this as the coldest shoot we did. Brrrrrr.

  1998

  901 San Miguel Island: Huell traveled to San Miguel Island with a group that re-created the landing in 1542 of the Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo; he also had a pleasant and insightful visit with a woman who lived on the island with her parents in the 1930s and ’40s.

  902 Coloma: Huell visited Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park to see the place where, in 1848, James Marshall picked up the gold nugget that started the California Gold Rush. He visited with a living-history group that celebrates the times of the miners, wearing exact replicas of the clothing of the era.

  903 Blue Angels: Huell traveled to El Centro to visit with the famous Blue Angels Navy Aerobatic Team, which has been thrilling spectators for almost seventy years. He accepted the invitation of a lifetime to fly in an F/A-18 Hornet jet and experienced the team’s flying maneuvers. After he got back on solid ground, he promptly threw up. Good timing, I’d say.

  904 Guadalupe: Huell explored the picturesque and quaint town of Guadalupe, not far from the coast. He toured the town, admiring its old-time look, talked with townspeople who’d been there for generations, and went out into lettuce and celery fields to experience the harvest. Finally, Huell visited the spectacular, windswept Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes.

  905 Delta Queen: Huell traveled 1,500 miles to the Mississippi River to ride on the Delta Queen, a boat that plies the river in grand style. Its connection to California is that it was built in the 1920s and sailed the Sacramento River until 1947, when it was shipped east via the Panama Canal to ride on the Big River.

  906 China Clipper: Huell went to San Francisco’s Treasure Island to visit the home of the old China Clippers, luxurious “flying boats” that flew from the City by the Bay to the Far East beginning in the mid-1930s, but lasting for only five years.

  907 San Luis Obispo Chinatown: Huell visited the historic Chinese community in San Luis Obispo that was settled by immigrants who built the railroads and worked in the fields. Huell was treated to a lion dance put on by Chinese students at the nearby university.

  908 See’s Candies: Huell traveled to San Francisco to visit one of the earliest See’s stores. He talked with customers about the candies they liked and asked why they were loyal to See’s Candies, and he sampled a few. Then he returned to Los Angeles to tour the factory that makes all those delicious varieties. He ate candy throughout the shoot, and was as happy as I’d ever seen him.

  With the big trucks.

  909 Big Things in the Desert: Huell went to the desert near Palm Springs to see the giant windmills at one of the largest wind farms in the world; then he traveled farther into the desert to see the US Borox Boron Mine near the town of Boron and to show you the immense trucks that haul the boron out of a large hole in the desert; finally, he trekked to Goldstone in a remote part of the Mojave, where he inspected and climbed atop one of the Deep Space Network’s huge antennas. The little boy in Huell had the time of his life on those shoots.

  910 Citrus Gold: Huell talked with a collector who’s an expert on the thousands of colorful labels that were once affixed to orange crates. Then he traveled to UC Riverside to view and walk through the orchards where the university conducts research on the thousands of citrus trees it grows.

  911 Arrowhead Springs: Huell trekked to the famous natural “arrowhead” landmark on the side of a mountain in the San Bernardino Mountains. Then he visited the old Arrowhead Springs Hotel, which was a playground for Hollywood stars in the 1940s and ’50s; finally, he toured the many hot mineral springs that drew the stars and continue to spew hot water.

  912 Shasta Dam: Huell explored Shasta Dam, which holds back Shasta Lake. He marveled at the size of the structure and how it was built over a period of seven years starting in 1938. He talked with old-timers who were involved in the construction of the huge dam, whose spillway is three times higher than that of Niagara Falls. The dam was impressive.

  1999

  1001 Salt: Huell traveled to the salt ponds near San Francisco to see how salt is made through the evaporation process. He toured Ca
rgill’s facility, which makes 300,000 tons of salt a year from the ponds.

  1002 Hidden Alcatraz: Huell toured the famous island and its infamous prison, which housed the most dangerous of the state’s convicts. He discovered its earlier history as a prison for Southern privateers during the Civil War and learned that the old structures were covered when the newer prison was built atop them. He also toured the dark and musty catacombs beneath the prison.

  1003 Kaiser Shipyard: Huell discovered the important role that the Kaiser Shipyard played during WWII: building hundreds of ships. He talked with people who worked in the shipyard then, including some “Rosie the Riveters” women. He visited the SS Red Oak Victory, which was built there and preserved by the city of Richmond.

  1004 San Onofre Beach: Huell visited San Onofre, whose legendary waves attract surfers from near and far. He talked with older surfers from the San Onofre Surfing Club who have honed their skills off that beach for decades, and he spoke with surfers who ride longboards.

  1005 Things That Come Back: Huell visited the site of the ancient Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Salt Lake. Farmers dried it up in the 1930s, but now and then during wet winters it comes back in a smaller form. Huell enjoyed a canoe ride in the now-and-then mini-lake. He also went to the site of Sutter’s Mill to check out the story of a woman named Jenny Wimmer, the person who took the nugget that James Marshall found and tested it to prove that it was indeed gold.