From William Selby’s Rediscovering the Golden State – An autobiographical synopsis –Let me introduce myself. I am a California water drop. I condensed from billions of water vapor molecules in the air above the North Pacific Ocean to become embedded in the clouds that evolved into a large storm system. Through alternating ups and downs, and freeze and thaw cycles, I was carried in a rotating middle latitude wave cyclone as it drifted southeast and toward California. As the storm swept across the Golden State, I was forced to rise higher over the mountains and I grew as a giant ice crystal until I fell as a fluffy-turned-heavy snowflake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. After weeks of resting in the snowpack just above 9,000’ elevation, I emerged in the spring thaw, melting into Yosemite’s subalpine ecosystems. I flowed down the slopes under the force of gravity and merged with similar water drops until we accumulated into rivulets that merged into tributary streams that finally joined the Merced River. The river, swelling with spring’s snowmelt, cut through spectacular mountain canyons and valleys and tumbled over waterfalls. After flowing west through Yosemite Valley, I finally glided through the gentler-sloping foothill country and into the Central Valley. (more)