Section Sixty-five Sequoia in Yosemite; Casinos in Desert City-融贯中西网站

From San Francisco to Yosemite National Park

Start off from San Francisco to the east and drive 320 km and you can get to the prestigious Yosemite National Park. On the way you can see tracts of meadowland, boundless wheat land and orchards crisscrossed by straight lines. Those who study English know that there is a special word “ranch”, which most often applies to livestock-raising operations in Mexico, the Western United States and Western Canada, though there are ranches in other areas. Ranches generally consist of large areas, but may be of nearly any size. It seemed no weeds, only one kind of grass. During the middle of April, the ranches were stretches of green colors, which moistened our eyes. We saw crowds of livestock, such as black herd of cattle and white flock of sheep.

Entering mountainous region meant reaching Yosemite National Park. Our coach drove into primary forests, gurgling water in the valley and we went up against the current and the coach climbed. Say something about the translation of the proper word Yosemite, which was originally put into Chines according to the English pronunciation“约塞米蒂”, which was still used in the satellite map. Later a certain master of translation used “优胜美地” instead of “约塞米蒂”,which takes both sound and meaning into account and was accepted by the Chinese all over the world. Translations considering both sound and meaning become more and more, such as可口可乐（Coca Cola），香波（shampoo），托福（TOEFL），粉丝（fans），赛百味（Subway）and etc.

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Position of Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park has an area of 3,080.74 km², and the number of travelers coming every year is 3,700,000. When the coach got to the heart of the Park we got out and what shocked us most was straight and towering redwood trees on the mountain slopes and valleys, whose academic name is sequoia. According to textual research, there is one tree having a history of 1800 years, one being 90 m high, and another one’s trunk having 10 m perimeter. Standing under such big trees, I felt myself too tiny. It is said that redwood trees grow so fast that you can’t imagine. Their survival ratio is very high. Because their barks are very thick, they have the strong power to resist insect damage and to prevent fire. Therefore they are generally accepted as one of the most valuable tree species. The redwood trees in North America have strong natural updating ability, and on the ground after the trees being felled 5 to 10 times seedling sprout. Furthermore, the roots of the sprout tillers are vigorous. North America’s redwood trees are among the plants whose photosynthetic efficiency is highest in the nature. Accordingly they grow particularly fast. Even if they are under 1% of full exposure to the sunlight, they can grow well, indicating that they are able to endure no light.

redwood trees

The mountains of Yosemite are covered with snow all the year around and snow water is flowing downstream through all kinds of ditches, forming falls, grand and magnificent. Watched from all angles, Yosemite looks like a fairyland, large woods reaching to the sky, high mountain and flowing water, rugged giant rocks and steep cliffs carved by glaciers and sparkling lakes, making you have such a feeling as if you are living in the land of idyllic beauty. Here you can see the largest chunk of granite in the world, namely El Captain.

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El Captain

From the bottom of the valley to the top of El Captain, it is 1,100 m, incomparably steep. There is almost no crack for rock climbers to use. Smooth rock wall, and dangerously steepness is a severe challenge for professional rock climbers. It is said that it will take them 3 to 4 days to climb to the top, hard to imagine how much physical strength will be used up and how to deal with eating, drinking and relieving the bowels.

It was a pity that we stayed in Yosemite for a very short time, glancing over so beautiful a scenic spot too hurriedly. If we had been able to pitch a camp and stay here for a few days, how wonderful it would have been! On the same day we had to arrive at Los Angeles so we set out on the journey, not able to indulge in pleasures.

Big Casino Las Vegas

From Los Angeles to the east by north, we passed the vast Mojave Desert, about 270 miles (440 km), and arrived at the famous city of Las Vegas, a big casino in the state of Nevada.

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Las Vegas the biggest city of Nevada

What has puzzled me most is that California close to the Pacific, there is a desert, a part of Mojave Desert, which crosses the southeast part of California, the northwest part of Arizona, the south part of Utah and Nevada, extending from the mountain range in Nevada to Colorado Plateau, covering 57,000 km². The deserts in China are mostly located in the inland, far away from the Pacific. I believe that the western Pacific is not powerful and if it was like the eastern Pacific and had a number of typhoons in summer, brought in a lot of rains, there would be no such large deserts in the vast region.

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From A to I all the region belongs to Mojave Desert

However, the Mojave Desert is not a barren land, a lot of lands look like an oasis, and there are a lot of desert plants on the flat ground, but on the slope of mountain there is no life sign, therefore people call it semi-desert, where you can see pasture cattle. Water is short after all and the typical desert plant camel thorns can be seen everywhere. Its sands are somewhat coarse and covered by desert plants, I estimate sand storms cannot be formed. What attracts people’s sight is the Joshua Tree, some of which are high, like green trees. The desert plants like Joshua Trees are full of thorns, which can decrease the evaporation.

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This Joshua Tree is so high!

Las Vegas comes from Spanish, meaning “fertile pasture” because Las Vegas is the only oasis having spring water with desert or semi desert around it. Having spring water, it has gradually become a post station and a transfer station of the railway.

Las Vegas opened in 1905, when the gold mine was discovered in Nevada, and large quantities of gold diggers streamed in. Las Vegas began to be prosperous. Just as those mining towns and cities in the west of the US, when mineral deposits were used up, they would be given up. In Jan.1, 1910, all the casinos and whorehouses were closed. During the Great Depression in 1931, the congress of Nevada State passed a motion that the gambling was legal in order to overcome economic difficulties, so that Las Vegas became a city of casinos and began to grow up rapidly. The gambling industry has become the main pillar of the economy in Las Vegas. Casinos were gold panning bowls, capital alligators from all parts of the US came to invest into building casinos, even rich and powerful people from Japan, princes of Arabian countries, and famous actors also came. In 1990, China Town was also completed in Las Vegas, and became the gathering place for Asian Americans. I saw a lot of employees looking like our compatriots were dealing the cards in casinos.

Las Vegas is the city developed most rapidly in America. The Las Vegas Strip in the city center is incomparably flourishing. Nine of the ten biggest resort hotels in the world are operated here, the largest among which, MGM Grand, has 5,034 guest rooms. On the two sides of the Strip there are the Statue of Liberty in New York, Eiffel Tower in Paris, oases in deserts, skyscrapers, sculptures of all kinds of gods and etc. Behind those modellings stand beautiful and luxurious casino hotels. Every building is completed with the care and precision of a sculptor, showing its being extraordinarily prosperous and bustling.

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A corner of Las Vegas Strip

All the hotels of Las Vegas have casinos and Stratosphere Hotel we stayed in also has casinos. Stratosphere Tower is 350.2 meters high, the highest building in the region of the western bank of Mississippi River, higher than Eiffel Tower, and Seattle’s television tower. On its top there is a viewing layer, where you can take a full view of the whole casino city. Because we had lodging cards of the hotel we could went to the top by elevator without charge. We looked around, lamps of a myriad families and other units extending so far that we could not see in the distance.

Entertainments are open in Las Vegas and we enjoyed a song and dance performance in a theater, which was sure to be forbidden in China. On the stage, scores of white girls with naked bodies, only genitals covered with narrow straps, sang and danced, making sensualists’ eyes fully occupied. On their heads and backs were fixed a lot of ornaments, adorned with brilliant jewels and pearls. However, the whole performance seemed serious, the audience remained orderly, and were satisfied with warm applause. Before the entry the audience were told not to take photos and videos.