18 replies to this topic

[Vic Harder]

I live in a part of town known as Florin. Before the war it was largely populated by Japanese immigrants who grew strawberries. Sadly most never came back from internment. A few had their land looked after but not nearly enough.

 

Very sad time in our history. 

 

I grew up in Richmond, BC.  MANY of my ethnic background (Mennonite) had profited at the expense of the Japanese when they were interned, as their land was available for cheap in the whole lower mainland.  Ironic, since the Mennonites themselves were also interred during the war.  

 

We so easily see the enemy as "them".... when often it is "us".

 

Peace,

 

Vic

[Wandering Sagebrush]

Another great TR.  I may have to visit that Fountain of Youth.

 

Manzanar, as are the other internment camps, is a stark reminder of a very sad time in our nation’s history.  We can not allow that to happen again.  Thank you for that reminder.

[ski3pin]

<snip>

Manzanar should be on everyones list. I was impressed with the exhibits. I was sobering looking at the long list of people who stayed there.  I got the chills looking at a smaller list, Internees who joined the Army. I saw the name Frank Sakata Jr. who I worked with at Tillie Lewis Foods cannery in Stockton CA. 

 

Yes Bill, we were very impressed with the exhibits also. NPS has done a remarkable job with the displays, reconstructions, and narrative. Excellent work by the National Park Service.

[ntsqd]

Even though we've only stayed there once I feel like an ambassador for Benton Hot Springs. I encourage like minded folks to book a visit. We stayed in #5, next time I hope to try #2, but would be perfectly content to stay at #5 again. Not nearly enough of an exhibitionist to want to try #11.....

 

There are two places that I've visited in recent history that I had a really hard time with. Manzanar and the 9/11 Memorial. Strongly suggest visiting both, even though both - for different reasons - should make you pretty uncomfortable.

 

Some day I hope to catch the gymkhana staged on the Manzanar airport strip. Having been to the drags at Inyokern and the LSR racing at El Mirage I'm guessing that its a similar experience.

[dr.tucson]

Ski- This report has the photos loading the fastest they ever have in one of your contributions.  Did you do something different?  Typically I've finished reading and the photos are far from finished loading.

I certainly appreciate your reports and have gotten inspiration and thoughts for my own explorations from them.

The internment sites in Arizona have been pretty sanitized and or obliterated.

Thanks

[takesiteasy]

More places to check out. I do wish that some hot springs were closer to home. Thanks for the report!

[Smokecreek1]

Good trip Ski, enjoyed your TR.  You know your trip to Manzanar made me remember when I was a kid growing up in Sonoma, California. Part of my family job was to walk down a couple of times every week to Matzeama's  local corn field/store during the harvest time and get a bag of corn for dinner.  What makes this story so interesting is from what my dad told me, that while the family was interned during the war, the town took care of his farm and unlike so many other places, returned it to the family after the war. 

 

If anyone ever gets up to Tule Lake on the Ca/Oregon border there are the remains of the Tule Lake  Internment camp. BLM was working on trying to protect, fence and sign parts of it when I retired so not sure how much was completed; I know there are some signs along Ca 139 there pointing out its location.  As a side several of the original buildings were still in the area-they had been used as living quarters for farm workers, and the plan was to move them to the camps location, don't know if that ever got done.

 

Smoke

[Foy]

More places to check out. I do wish that some hot springs were closer to home. Thanks for the report!

I'd done it before but forgot the outcome (geezerdom slowly creeping in).  Raleigh, NC to Benton, CA is 2,600 miles via any of 3 really terrible routes. Think I need to incorporate some wandering on the way to and from and just make a month out of it. Not sure I can again take the sight of heading westbound out of KC on I-70 and seeing the sign "Denver 608".

Ski and The Lady are truly inspirational. Hopefully the tourism boards in both CA and NV routinely fork over commissions for their posted trip reports!

Foy

[longhorn1]

Another interesting trip. Geology is always an interesting topic and after our trip to Utah we are looking forward to more adventures. Thanks for sharing. jd