Archive for September, 2017

The abbot of the Holy Vajrasana Temple, Zhaxi Zhuoma, took her brother, Glenn Welker, to visit the Manzanar Relocation Center located on the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Owens Valley near Independence, California. Declared a National Historic Site in 1992, this was the location of the most widely known of ten concentration camps established by the United States government where over 110,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed and forced to live during World War II from 1942-1945. ...

Probably the last trip to the Sierras for 2017 was a journey of many contrasts. It started in the remains of the fire ravaged forest left from the South Fork wildfire that burned around 7,000 acres east of Wawona and the Yosemite National Park during much of August. The Yosemite Valley was still very hazy from the smoke. Smokey conditions were even a problem at the temple during this period. Since this was the end of summer, the waterfalls were ...