Saturday 1/28/17

What ever happened to the blog?

When last this blog was blogged, we were leaving Portland after our prolonged Thanksgiving visit and heading for Palo Alto to stay with friends while attending to doctor appointments and other odds and ends.  I expected that during the “going to ground” period after the holidays maybe I wouldn’t blog at all. Then interesting things started happening. Then so many interesting things continued to happen that there was no time (or motivation) to blog about them. But enough is enough. What follows is the lollapalooza of blogs, including a whirlwind summary of our two months on the ground and a description of our first adventures now that we're back on the road. If it’s too much for you, just look at the pictures.

Our unique RV karma has continued.

While Kate sat innocently at a stoplight in Hayward in December, the rig was rear-ended by a car.  The damage wasn’t terrible, but it was too severe just to let it go; we had to get it fixed. The only body shop in the entire Bay Area that could work on an 11-foot-tall vehicle was in San Leandro, and they were unable to do the work until January. We finally left the rig with Moeller Brothers Auto Body January 10, expecting to be on the road in three days’ time.  Ten days later (January 20) we finally were able to reclaim the rig. We packed it up and hit the road. Or so we thought. Sixty-five miles out of town, traveling at night, we noticed a problem. Something was wrong with the lock in the rear doors that had just been repaired, making it impossible to securely lock up the rig. We had to turn back. We considered blocking the doors to the body shop and sleeping there all night, but their yard was locked.

So we stayed the night across the street and showed up promptly at opening time the next morning.  Within 15 minutes it was discovered that part of the door lock had been installed upside down -- the problem was corrected instantly. At last we were on the road again.

But I’m ahead of myself.

Since we’re homeless, we stayed with friends in Palo Alto in December and again (unexpectedly) in January.  We’re really lucky to have enough friends who can tolerate our invasion of their space, and who have room for us.  Some of the highlights:

Laura took me to lunch on my first day in Palo Alto (Kate was in SoCal for a few days).

 Selfie -- can you tell?

We stayed in John and Angela’s guest cottage in Palo Alto for several days – really nice.

John and Angela 

at home

John and Angela imitating old people 

reading newspapers at breakfast.

John completing a miraculous, 

undetectable repair to a broken candle

Kelly and John graciously offered up their guest room to us on the spur of the moment.

John and Kelly

 John and Kelly and our other good friends Mid and Cheryl live on the same cul de sac in Palo Alto. The light in John and Kelly's window appears promptly at 5:00 pm daily to announce that cocktails are now being served to all comers.

Mid and Cheryl took us in for longer than they ever could have imagined while we waited for the latest in a lengthening series of rig repairs.

Mid and Cheryl

 Many happy evenings were spent with Mid and Cheryl, imitating old people watching TV. “Did he say fart?” 

“No, tart. He said she’s a tart.”

“Who’s that actor who’s not Robert De Niro?”

 There was a big surprise party to celebrate Cheryl’s 70^th

Paul and Tessa hosted the surprise party and provided us with a place to stay. Now that he's retired, Paul thinks he is Santa Claus. Tessa doesn't think so.

I did a few evenings helping prepare and serve dinner at the WeHope homeless shelter in East Palo Alto, were I’m a regular volunteer when not traveling. My boss at the shelter, Miss Joyce, tells me no one is irreplaceable. I don’t believe her, humble though I am.

Kate and I visited with our Palo Alto neighbors Bob and Barbara. Bob has made the natural career move from hematologist to country fiddle player. Barbara is switching from therapist to African drummer.

Palo Alto has one and only one trailer park – Buena Vista Mobile Home Park. I’ve been working for years with a large group of supporters to prevent eviction of the low income, mostly Hispanic residents. It’s looking like success may be just around the corner. Fingers crossed.

We attended Buena Vista’s annual Posada in December.

Winter and Gerry invited us for a nice dinner and drinks. Winter has been the indefatigable leader of the efforts to save Buena Vista. Winter insisted on being photographed this way for the blog. It’s not my fault.

 Winter, Kate, Gerry

I was able to use one of my season tickets to see the Stanford Women’s Basketball team in action (I’ve had the tickets for 24 years and counting). I saw friends Nancy, Dave & Marian, and Bill at the game.

Bill is a renowned neonatologist, basketball fan extraordinaire, and a good friend for three decades.

Dave, Marian, and Nancy. Basketball has made for some lasting friendships -- and a lot of Final Fours.

There was time for another traditional Palo Alto activity (new tradition) – attending an anti-Trump rally.

Between visits to Palo Alto we spent a wonderful month at Laura and Mia’s cabin at Camp Connell in the Sierra. Laura, Mia, and Aaliyah joined us on a weekend before Christmas and again on Christmas weekend.

 Mia found a Christmas tree in their own back yard. Literally.

Rio the dog stayed with us for a week in the mountains while the girls were busy at their jobs.  I can’t figure out why Laura and Mia think we spoil him.

Mia and Aaliyah arrived at the cabin again just before Christmas, bearing 30 pounds of crab, freshly caught at Half Moon Bay. That's a lot of crab.

All the pots and all the burners were required, and it still took a LONG time to cook, clean, and crack them.

Or so I was told. I surveyed the situation and went to bed.

 All hands were on deck, including Mia’s 

cousin Adrian, for Christmas prime rib dinner. 

The snow came just in time for a white Christmas.

Kate, Mia, Molten Sky, Rio (cabin in background)

After Christmas Peggy, our friend since college days, came to visit us at the cabin. Our longtime friend Judith visited too, but alas, we didn’t get a photo of her.

When in the mountains we're regular visitors at the Camp Connell General Store.

Presiding over the store is Donna, who has been owner and manager for 20 years.

Donna may be one of the few female general store owner-managers who is also licensed and bonded plumber. She’s the ideal person to run the general store/de facto community center in a town so small that the store is the only business establishment. 

Everyone knows Donna, and Donna knows everyone. Whenever we have a problem while in Camp Connell, Kate and I look at each other and say "Better ask Donna what to do." Sadly (for us), Donna has sold the store and may be moving away from the mountains soon. She has a good excuse: "I deserve to have a life before I die."

A regular at the store is Ray, 89. Born in Oakland, he lived in the Bay Area where he was an official with Boy Scouts of America. Twenty-seven years ago he retired and moved to Camp Connell. On the first day in his new mountain home he sat on the porch, opened the newspaper, and commenced to relax. His wife looked pained. "Honey, is there a problem?"  “Yes. I wish you'd find something to do to get your butt off the porch." The next day he started volunteering at Big Trees State Park, where he served as a docent for twenty years.

Ray's wardrobe draws on his large 

collection of "message" t-shirts

Years later when Ray's wife died, his son suggested that Ray sell his cabin in Camp Connell and get an apartment in the city, where the son lived. Ray said "Son, when I leave this mountain it will be one of two ways, and you can help with either one. I'll leave in a wheelchair and you can push it, or I'll leave in a pine box and you can help carry it.”

Ray arrives at the bar in the general store every day at about 11:30, orders one glass of red wine, soaks up the local gossip (and the wine), and heads back home. He says the wine is medicinal.

At the general store one day we shared the counter with two young, stubble-bearded guys who had worked at tree removal all morning and were now settled in to drink beer at 11 am, and at noon, and at 1:00.... While Kate and I were splitting a sandwich for lunch, we overheard one of them being asked if he had spent time in the Army. "No, I planned to go but I went to prison instead."

Finally back on the road in late January, we headed for Joshua Tree National Park to camp, and to the Palm Springs area to visit Kate’s cousin Dirk and his wife Marti.

Dirk and Marti live in Bermuda Dunes, near Palm Springs. This was partly another blast from the past for me, because many years ago my father bought - and then later sold - a residential lot at Bermuda Dunes Country Club, before the club even existed. This was my first time to visit here and see what might have been.....

Dirk and Marti

Dirk and Marti were terrific hosts to us for several days – it’s quite nice to have ham and eggs served up with a smile every morning, and a personal tour guide to drive around the area pointing out local attractions. The visit also was a time for Kate and Dirk to talk about family history and share photographs of days gone by.

Kate and Marti in Palm Springs, seated with the statue of Lucy Ricardo, aka Lucille Ball. 

Long a celebrity retreat, Palm Springs' street signs and public buildings include the names Bob Hope, Dwight Eisenhower, Fred Waring, and Sonny Bono. Sunnylands, located at the corner of Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope Drives, was built and owned for decades by Walter Annenberg (TV Guide publisher) and his wife Leonore. The Annenbergs hosted many celebrities there, including Queen Elizabeth and all U.S. presidents from Eisenhower to Obama. Rumors have circulated for years that the Obamas plan to live permanently in the Palm Springs area once their girls are on their own. Barack and Michelle were visiting in town when we were, but we didn't bump into them. Their loss.....

It’s not often you can see palm trees 

and snowy peaks in one glance…..

The family visit with Dirk and Marti gave me new insight into Kate’s origins. Cousin Dirk has an inherited characteristic that he finds annoying – a finger that’s become bent and fixed in position; he can’t straighten it out. 

He mentioned casually that he’s thinking of having it cut off because he finds it hard to grip a golf club. This is an 80-year-old man who drops in for dialysis treatments three times a week. Kate, by the way, is the person who once urged me to stop malingering and go to work when I had acute appendicitis. Now I have context. The entire family has a distinctive disregard for pain and suffering. Equal opportunity, though. It's disregard for the pain and suffering of themselves as well as of others.

While in the area, Kate and I camped at Joshua Tree National Park. It’s getting old to say it at this point, but like all the national parks we’ve visited, it’s a place of stunning beauty.  Among our other activities in the park, we hiked one day with Sarah Jane, the “education ranger.”  It was at the tail end of some really terrible weather, so we were the only people signed up for the hike. 

Our job was to help Sarah Jane observe the emersion of new leaves and buds on various designated plants in order to record signs of early spring.  

It’s part of an international, long-term study to document the extent to which plants may be leafing and blooming “too early,” before the animals and insects who depend on them emerge from their winter quarters to eat them, or pollinate them, or whatever. If they’re not in sync, there can be enormous die-offs of the animal species dependent on the timing of the plant life cycle. 

Specific plants in the park are tagged for repeated observation and data collection, which data feeds into a large study including information on species from the U.S. and other countries.

Sarah Jane herself was yet another interesting person met on our travels. She finished college wanting to be a ranger, but since preference is given to veterans for ranger jobs it was impossible to qualify. So she joined the Peace Corps for two years. Peace Corps volunteers are given preferred status for a year after completing their hitch. If they’re lucky they can get a slot as a ranger. Sarah Jane was lucky.

On one of our days at the Park we hiked with our friend Veronique from Switzerland. Veronique is a therapist in Geneva; her husband Andre is a psychoanalyst. It happened that they were vacationing in Palm Desert while we were in the area, so we were able to lunch with them and to hike with Veronique. We took two separate hikes – about nine miles altogether – and they were fantastic. Not only was the scenery terrific, the hikes were mostly FLAT. I could actually keep up most of the time. Here are some of the photos:

Veronique and Kate

Next: Camping and visiting with friends and relatives in the San Diego area, then more camping and visiting in and around my home town of Pasadena, then points east and south.

8,140 miles so far.....