MOM AT 90

This past May, we flew to Indianapolis to join my sibs and extended family in celebrating Mom’s 90th birthday.  Actually, her birthday was in April, but some of the family couldn’t make it then, so we settled on Mother’s Day as a suitable alternative.  I won’t repeat here my health woes that cropped up, covered in my previous post, other than to relate a funny episode.  When Loni called the paramedics for me, it was about 5:00 am.  Mom was asleep in her room with the door closed, and my nephew and his wife were asleep in another room, also with the door closed.  My niece was on the downstairs couch.  The paramedics made a bit of noise when they tromped in;  there were four of them, and they were there at least twenty minutes before hauling me out.  During that time, only my niece woke up.  We asked her to tell everyone what had happened when they woke up.  She went back to bed.

Fast forward to the hospital, and it’s now about 9:00 am, and they’ve finished with their tests and are mostly observing me in preparation for discharge.  We call the house to let them know what’s happening, and Mom answers.  I told her that everything was OK, and that we’d be home when my sister was able to pick us up.  There’s a long silence, and she says, “Who is this speaking?”  Mom, it’s me, your #1 son.  She got a little confused and asked where I was.  At the hospital, Mom.  Then she said that she thought we were upstairs in our room still asleep.  Apparently my niece was still sleeping and hadn’t told anyone.  Mom had gotten up, fetched and read her newspaper, and wanted to get breakfast underway and was wondering why no one was up.  Amazing that they all slept through the paramedic ruckus.

Anyway, it’s Mom’s 90th, and we were all to gather at a nearby restaurant where they had a separate room for us.  Mom looked great!  We had a small centerpiece cake (in the background, with the “90” candles on top) surrounded by a several dozen cupcakes of assorted flavors.  I thought that was a great idea, as everyone could choose his/her own flavor and it eliminated the cutting routine.  I can only vouch for mine, but it was delicious.

Mom got to blow out the candles on the mini-cake, then take it home for the next day.  I made sure I got a bite.

Presents were brought up in party bags and Mom had a ball going through them and reading the cards that went with.

I took some video, but can’t figure out how to reduce the file size so that I can upload it to uTube.  It’s almost a gigabyte, so would take forever on my lousy connection.  I might post it later.

After the party, we all repaired to my sister, Susy’s place, and had a good gabfest into the evening.  The collage below is of some of my nieces, nephews, their spouses, and children.  I didn’t get the camera on all of them, so it’s not the complete set.

OK, Mom.  Keep ‘em coming.  100 should be no sweat!

THE LONG ROAD BACK

Yeah, this is mostly a travel blog, but also a life account as well.  The title refers not to any trip we made, but rather to my extended, rocky, and still-unfinished journey back to health.  So, bail out now if you were expecting a travelogue.

Sometime during our trip back to California from D.C. in June of last year, my nose started running almost constantly.  I never felt congested, but boy was I going through boxes of tissue.  Otherwise, I felt fine.  In the early Fall, I started a dry cough as well, and by Winter I was having head congestion, lots of mucous, and more coughing.  In January, both head and chest congestion, and now wet coughing, so I started a ten day course of antibiotics, which had no effect.  In February, I tried some Clariton-D, which greatly helped the chest congestion, but had some side effects.  In March, I switched to the generic antihistamine, Ceterizine Hydrochoride, which initially was effective in controlling nighttime congestion, and also allowed the Clariton side effects to fade out.  But the CH was a short-lived remedy, and night nasal congestion became severe, waking and keeping me up.  The wet cough worsened.  I was a mess!  But the worst was yet to come.

On March 8, Loni and I set out on our usual morning constitutional.  I didn’t get far.  I started having difficulty breathing and began gasping.  We made it home, but sitting for a while didn’t help any.  Off to my G.P., who’s right here in town, thank goodness.  I looked and sounded sufficiently bad that they rushed me right in.  He promptly put me on a nebulizer  and that started opening things up and I was breathing o.k. in about ten minutes.  Tentative diagnosis was some sort of adult sudden-onset allergic reaction.  He prescribed a rescue inhaler to use several times a day (Xopenex), which I started using that afternoon. 

The inhaler seemed to be working fine.  I met with a pulmonary specialist and went through the pulmonary function tests, which showed things mostly within normal ranges, even though I still didn’t feel normal.  Cue the ominous music.

On April 3, just before midnight, I began having severe breathing difficulty despite taking two doses of the Xopenex in quick succession.  I woke Loni, and managed to get out that we needed to get to the E.R. right away.  I’m barely sucking air despite great laboring.  We threw on clothes and took off to Santa Monica Hospital, which is now part of the UCLA system, and is the nearest E.R.  All I could do was collapse in a chair while Loni urged the intake clerk into action.  As with most E.R.’s, the place had plenty of patients, but none were making quite the death rattle sounds that were coming out of me.  Even so, it was another ten minutes before I saw anyone.  First thing the nurse did was to take my pulse ox level.  That shot her out of her chair and off to find the chief attending.

A little background.  Normal pulse ox is about 98% or better.  Impaired breathing begins at about 95%.  Respiratory failure is below 90%.

I was at 77% and falling.  Not good.

The doc immediately put me on a course of nebulizer; no effect; then a second course along with a steroid drip.  In the background I could hear him alerting a team to prepare for intubation.  Oh, crap.  Hey, I’ve seen enough ER on t.v. to know that’s not a good thing.  At this point, however, I didn’t care.  Fortunately, the second round of nebulizer and the steroids starting to reverse the numbers, and my ox levels began to rise, albeit slowly over the next two hours. 

Unfortunately, one of the dangers of these symptoms is that I might have thrown a clot, so CT scans are necessary to rule it out.  Now, I had more than my lifetime’s share of radiation back in the cancer days, so I wasn’t too happy about this, but they were insistent.  The scans came back all clear, and I was discharged in the morning with prescriptions for more inhalers and a nebulizer solution for if/when I felt things closing down.  The discharge diagnosis was chronic asthmatic bronchitis.  Okayyy, if you say so.

A follow-up the next week with my GP and he prescribed a twice-daily powder inhaler, Advair 250/50.  Anyone who watches the evening national news undoubtedly has seen ads for this stuff.  So, I begin taking it.  Yee gods is it expensive.  The “list price” that allegedly is charged to my insurance is about $300 per month, but I doubt they pay that much.  Once I started using this stuff, I could lay off the rescue inhalers unless needed for a crisis.  Not sure what crisis dictates the inhaler and which calls for the nebulizer.  So far, I haven’t had to use either since starting the Advair.  Out of the woods?  Not by a long shot.

Unfortunately, despite all these drugs, the nose continued to run, and the night congestion got progressively worse until both sides began to stop up again, preventing sleep.  In late April the pulmonary doc prescribed some HCl nasal spray, but it didn’t seem to have any beneficial effect, and I quit using it after a few days.  I was getting exhausted from sleep deprivation.

Timing is everything.  It’s now May, and on the 7th we boarded Southwest to fly to Indianapolis for Mom’s 90th birthday, which already has happened, but to celebrate it with my sibs and other family on Mother’s Day.  Flying with a congested head is not the brightest thing in the world, but whattya gonna do?  Well, hurt, for one thing.  The pressure in my head was horrible, especially on descent.  I couldn’t clear my head for two hours after landing, and couldn’t hear virtually a thing that whole time.  Totally plugged.  Sleeping wasn’t any better, maybe 2 hours a night at best.  Still, on Saturday the 11th, we held Mom’s party at a local restaurant and everyone had a great time, so I’m glad we went.  I’ll blog about that separately.  That night, I actually fell asleep for several hours, waking at 3:00.  I wasn’t able to fall back to sleep, as I couldn’t breathe properly.

Then, all weirdness broke loose.  At about 5 AM, I felt like my chest and abdomen were roiling, churning.  My body temperature seemed to fluctuate from hot to cold.  I was alternately throwing covers off and on, and felt I had to constantly keep moving around.  I got a welling sensation, like rising blood pressure, in my chest and head and started thrashing about.  I tried to stand but was disoriented and collapsed back on the bed. My legs and arms started trembling and shaking, and a muscle just below my left clavicle started pulsing rapidly and was startlingly visible to Loni.  Then all my chest muscles started quivering like I was freezing.  Loni went to call the paramedics.  In about ten minutes, the EMT’s arrive in two large trucks, lay me out in the living room and hook me up to monitors, taking vitals.  Blood pressure was way up there.  The shaking begins to diminish, but they haul me off to the ER for bloodwork and observation.  Loni took this shot with the iPhone of me in the back of the ambulance while she rode up front.

Once we got there I was pretty much settled down, but feeling exhausted.  Again, they wanted to do CT scans for clots, but I explained my history and the recent scans.  The ER doc wasn’t happy, ran some more tests, and said that an elevated D-dimer (say what?) reading indicated the need for a scan for clots.  I agreed on one condition:  that in addition to the chest scan that they also do one of my head to find out what might be going on with the congestion.  He agreed.

Well, the chest scan, of course, was negative, but the head scan had the doc shaking his head.  He was in his mid-forties, not a rookie, and he said he’d never seen a worse case of sinusitis in his career.  Apparently mine was massive, in every possible cavity through out.  His discharge diagnosis was acute sinusitis, and he prescribed a ten-day dose of a broad-spectrum “super” antibiotic, Augmentin, and use of the nasal spray, Nasonex.

I started the antibiotics, and tried the Nasonex, but the latter didn’t seem to do anything, so I discontinued after a couple of days.  What I didn’t know then, and not until recently, and which nobody bothered to tell me, was that these nasal sprays were not intended for quick-acting relief, but took one to three weeks (!) or so to kick in.  What we have here is a failure to communicate.

I still wasn’t sleeping, and indeed had a return of the shaking symptoms the next couple of nights, although much more subdued.  I’m feeling generally lousy, fatigued, and slightly nauseous.  This will be a fun flight back home.  Arriving back in L.A., I had the same severe head congestion upon landing and went deaf again for an hour or so.  I went off to my doc and got a prescription for sleeping pills, Lunestra for a few days (not covered by insurance), then Ambien.  These both do a fine job of knocking me out, but I feel lousy the following day.  My doc decided to double the original ten-day course of Augmentin, so that continued, much to my distress.  He did opine that my travails in Indy sounded like the classic symptoms of a panic attack.  Oh, swell.  The good news is, an attack won’t kill you.  The bad news is that, while one is going on, you feel you’re gonna die.

The Augmentin, being a broad-spectrum antibiotic, doesn’t discriminate between the bad bugs and the good.  The end result was that it destroyed all the flora in my gut, and made digestion a very painful process.  I felt terrible pressure in my stomach almost constantly.  I ended up on the floor, curled into a ball, many times over the 20-day course of these pills, and for several weeks thereafter.  On June 1, I took my last one, and went back to see my GP.  He asked how long I had lasted on the Augmentin.  I was puzzled, but said I did the whole 20 days.  He was surprised, and said I was his only patient who had ever stayed the course.  I wish I hadn’t.

Because, guess what?  They had absolutely no effect on my sinusitis. They only made me more miserable. Time for surgery.

I contacted my ENT who took out half my thyroid several years ago, and he managed to book me in fairly quickly for a July 12 operation.  However, this would be a computer-aided surgery that would require another CAT scan to “map things out.”  That would have to be preceded by a round of steroids to reduce inflammation and allow the CAT to get a good view.  All this took up the rest of June.  In early July, I had to go another five days of steroids leading up to the operation, again to reduce swelling.

The big day arrives and we get up at 0-dark:thirty and schlep on over to the new outpatient surgical center across from Santa Monica Hospital.  A very nice, modern facility for operations not expected to require an overnight stay.  Fine by me.  My last hospital stay with the screaming roommate was enough for a lifetime. 

I did the usual prep nonsense, donning the impossible-to-close paper gown, getting fitted with a lunchroom-lady hair cap, and meeting a host of nurses and docs taking vitals and getting me to sign my life away on various forms.  The most interesting of these folks was my gas-passer, who’s nametag, I kid you not, bore the moniker “Ace.”  Now, are you gonna trust a doc who calls himself “Ace?”  I made sure he’d gotten plenty of sleep, knew how thin I was for his dosage calculations, and generally tried to make sure he was focused.  My ENT popped in just as they were giving me something to calm down (a bit of panic setting in?), smiling that “not a care in the world” grin of his, and pretty soon we were wheeling off to the O.R.  There we encountered half a dozen personnel, some of whom were trying to fix a piece of equipment.  Say, what?  I didn’t have long to worry, as someone turned a valve and I faded away to the longest sleep I’d had in many months.  Intubated at last.

So, what did they do?  Glad you asked.  Image guided endoscopic:

Left and right total ethmoidectomy;  right middle meatal  and left maxillary antrostomies with removal of soft tissue;  left and right sphenoid sinusotomy;  left and right frontal sinusotomy; and bilateral inferior turbinate reduction.

Whew!  Basically, they roto-rootered the impacted material in every sinus cavity, vacuumed out the debris, and enlarged the drainage passages.  After that, I should have been truly hollow-headed.  Alas, the surgical process itself causes bleeding and swelling which quickly puts one back in the “stuffed head” situation all over again.  And, it can take eight weeks for the swelling to subside.  Fortunately, I didn’t incur any facial swelling or bruising, so not much was visible from outside.  The sinus contents were reviewed by the pathologist and the final diagnosis was “chronic sinusitis, allergic type.”  Not quite sure what to make of the “allergic” designation.  To what??

As I write this, I am seven weeks post-surgery.  I’d like to say I feel a lot better, but I don’t.  Still lots of thick discharge, and at night my nasal tissues swell up on one (good nights) or both (bad) sides, impairing breathing, and preventing sleep.  After several months of relying on Ambien, I’m trying to wean off the stuff as I feel lousy the day after, and the sleep never seems restorative, just being comatose.  But it’s tough to quit.  Without the pill I get very little sleep.  Twice-daily saline washes provide only temporary (an hour or so) relief. 

Where to from here?  Wish I knew.  If the Nasonex doesn’t come through, we’ll have to see about seeing an allergist to determine the root cause (if, indeed, it is allergy-based).  Maybe more (ugh) antibiotics.  It’s all pretty discouraging at this point.  I had envisioned the surgery as the cure-all; now it looks like it’s only a first step.  Looks like there are a few more curves in the road back.

AND THE FANS WENT WILD

January 1, 2013.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Well, we’re three for three.  Explanation later.  For the first time in forty years we didn’t sit around in our pajamas and watch the Rose Parade on New Year’s morning.  We left Mom to do that while we took off just before it started to make our way to Pasadena to watch the Rose Bowl in person.  I can’t tell you what tickets cost to this thing.  Literally.  I choke violently every time I think about it. This meant we did get up early in order to bathe, eat, and get everything ready to go by 7:30.  We figured that the quietest time on the freeways and around the Rose Bowl would be while the parade was going on from 8 to 10 o’clock.  We were right.  It was clear sailing all the way across L.A. from the west side, and the anticipated jam-up at the Bowl was non-existent.  We cruised right in.  We probably could have slept in a while longer but, as you see, I got a few winks after we parked.  Tip:  secure camera from spouse before dozing off.  Although it has its faults, our new Prius V has an incredibly spacious back seat, with split reclining (goes a lot further than I had it in this pic).

We sat in the car and read most of the time while waiting for game time, but did wander about to take in the usual tailgating nonsense.  Then we joined the mob-queue at the gates, enduring the exhortations of the Jesus bunch trying to mass convert the great unwashed.  There were lots more than these two, some with bullhorns.  I sometimes envy the evangelicals.  It must be enormously comforting to be so confident that everyone who disagrees with you (a) is wrong and condemned to hell, and (b) should have to endure your ranting in public spaces.  But, I digress.

Once in, we were treated to the usual massed-milling-about of the Incomparable LSJU “marching” Band.  And, blow me down, they actually did get into some sort of formation;  just don’t ask me what it was. 

But, what about that dancing thing that vaguely resembles a “tree,” you say?  Well, listen up, fans.  Starting in 1891, when Stanford beat Cal in the first Big Game, as was only fitting, the local Bay Area scribes used one of Stanford’s colors to refer to the team as the Cardinal (“Cardinal Triumphs O’er Blue and Gold”).  For reasons that remain obscure, the informal use of “Indian” as a team identifier gradually crept in until it was officially adopted in 1930.  Over the years, the informal depiction of the Indian on sweatshirts, etc. became truly offensive, as shown here. 

In 1972, in response to a petition by a group of Native American students, the Indian mascot and name were banished.  General moniker confusion reigned, but the color cardinal was the designated “official” appellation.  There was a move to reinstate the Indian as the school mascot in 1975. The debate was put to vote along with new suggestions demonstrating the eclectic range of student views about the school’s questionable founder: Robber Barons, Sequoias, Trees, Cardinals, Railroaders, Spikes, and Huns. In 1978, the griffin was proposed.  None of the suggestions were accepted.  Finally, in 1981, President Donald Kennedy, an otherwise wise and charming fellow and one of Loni’s favorite bio profs, ended the sturm und drang by  proclaiming “Cardinal” henceforth to be the exclusive symbol:  "While various other mascots have been suggested and then allowed to wither, the color has continued to serve us well, as it has for 90 years. It is a rich and vivid metaphor for the very pulse of life."  Bosh.  It’s stupid and we all know it.  So what about that tree?

Officially, there is no Stanford mascot.  There’s only the color.  Unofficially?  Ah, enter the Band.  The "Tree," which underneath is a member of the Stanford Band, selected by the Band in fevered competition, is representative of El Palo Alto, the Redwood tree which is the logo of the city of Palo Alto, Stanford’s home.  The tree supposedly still exists by the railroad bridge beside San Francisquito Creek – it is the site where early explorers first camped when settling the area.  Every year, a new “Tree” student is chosen, and that student is responsible for designing and making his/her own version of the Tree, for better or worse.  I think the four above are particularly dreadful, but that’s just me.  What is undisputed is that the Tree is the coolest mascot in the country.  Ignore those nattering national polls whose voters every year vote it the worst.  Pedestrian, plebian, proles, all of them!

Oh, yeah, the game.  Stanford and Wisconsin were pretty evenly matched, and it wasn’t pretty, but the Cardinal pulled it out with a 20-14 win (that’s the final on the scoreboard below, although the clock shows 20 minutes.  And three for three?  Well, in the “modern era,” which is, of course, defined by my lifespan, Stanford has won the Rose Bowl only three times, and each time we’ve been there:  1971, 1972, and 2013.  I can cheerfully report that the 1971 ticket cost $8.00. 

And the fans did, indeed, go wild!

45 YEARS? 45 YEARS!

October 4-6, 2012

Oye.  Nothing puts you into a funk faster than realizing another “milestone” reunion is upon you.  What’s alarming is that they seem to be coming around faster and faster.  Slow down!  This time it was my 45th Stanford reunion.  Gads.  Surely it was just a little while ago that I was racing across Quad, late (again) for class?  Oh.  Right.  That was my kids, and the younger is getting close to his tenth.  As you see, I’m still sporting that old-man beard as Loni and I relax in front of MemAud.  That fountain sure wasn’t there 45 years ago, along with a lot of other infrastructure changes.  On the whole, despite a lot of new buildings and reconfiguring roads, Stanford has done a very nice job of retaining the beauty of the campus and its view sightlines.  Considering the money they’ve had to work with, they ought to have.

This reunion followed the script from the many we have attended in the past.  Classes gather for lunches at their year’s tent (don’t know why I’m looking so gloomy, it wasn’t bad at all; that’s Chuck and Alice with me).  We attend “Classes Without Quizzes” on a wide spectrum of topics.  I always pick things from disciplines I never had much to do with as an undergrad, mostly the science and engineering stuff.  Loni goes her own way to whatever strikes her fancy.  One of the classes I attended was in the “Project Realization” facility.  There’s a complete woodworking shop, metal working, plastics, laser cutters, 3-D printers, etc.  Just about everything needed for a student to build whatever he/she can design.  Very cool.  There are panel presentations and guest speakers in MemAud, which are always interesting.

Another nifty class I attended was the virtual reality lab.  Here we got to put on these big goggles and “stroll” about one of several environments.  The one shown is some plaza in Spain.  The wall projection is just so that those waiting their turn can see what the wearer is seeing as he/she stumbles about the room;  what you see through the goggles is much better.  The guide has to keep stopping the wearer from walking into someone or a wall, as they think they are striding about the plaza.  The effect was pretty good, but certainly far from lifelike.

Our favorite event each reunion is the colossally overpriced “Dinner On The Quad.”  This year they seemed more challenged than usual in getting reasonably warm food to the table.  Since they’ve been doing this every year for decades, you’d think they’d have it down pat by now.  Even so, the setting is beautiful, and we wouldn’t miss it.  I met Chuck my freshman year, we were fraternity brothers the next three.  Alice trained with Loni as a med tech, and right after I met her we introduced them to each other.  First date was a double with us at Dodger Stadium.  They married within months and, 40+ years later, we’re still all together.

Reunion weekend is always on a football game weekend.  This year the opponent was Arizona and the game turned out to be a doozy.  Stanford came from way behind to tie it at 48 (!) all just before regulation ran out, then won it in overtime.  We really had written them off in this one, and it was a very exciting finish.  Now, if we hadn’t been absolutely jobbed at Notre Dame, we would have had an undefeated season.  Ah, well.  There would be glory yet to come.

Afterwards, we gathered back at the class tents area where we were surrounded by the incomparable zanies, if not musicians, of the Band.  Click on that link for a UTube video I took of the nonsense, including the dancing tree, which this year (it changes every year, depending upon the imagination of the student who plays the part and makes the costume) seemed particularly weird.  Both of our boys played in the Band when they were here, so we forgive just about anything the group does.  As at all our reunions, we had a great time.  This October, it’s Loni’s turn.  Can’t wait.  The game will be against UCLA, so a sure sellout.  Let’s hope the celebration is the same.

LEE & KELLY GET MARRIED

September 8-9, 2012

A little history.  I’ve known Lee since my freshman year in high school.  We dated the same girl (his first wife), engaged in, well, I’ll call them hijinks in retrospect, but at least one of them landed us in the police station, became Delta Chi fraternity brothers at Stanford, took the LSAT together (his idea, not mine), both chased crooks for Uncle Sam in our early careers, and have stayed good buds all these decades. While I continued as a miserable (as in mental state, not competence, thank you) lawyer, Lee abandoned that nonsense early on for tens of thousands of days of skiing and mountain biking.  You wouldn’t know it from the follicle-challenged old geezer in the photo, but he was a wild youth (heck, wild younger man, middle-aged man, and old fart as well).  Known throughout the Tahoe Basin ski crowd as “Uncle Lee,” this derelict of the wanton life was headed for no good end when he was incredibly blessed by a chance meeting with Kelly.  It must be true that no libertine life goes unrewarded.  Kelly is a peach.  Now, what she saw in Lee . . . Anyway, after a couple of years of living in sin, they finally tied the knot at Kelly’s their home in Carson City.

We got there the day before and joined Lee, Kelly, Lee’s brother Gene, and sis-in-law Candy, for a day in Virginia City, which is a pretty rockin’ place if Western and bluegrass is your thing.  Well, so it is!  I forget which of the many saloons this was, but we had a good time hooting and hollering with the best of them.

Wedding Day found us all mostly sober and ready to go.  Lee’s been a landscaping guy for many years as his summer job, and his gardens were blooming away.  The dining tent was set up in the side yard amidst the flowerbeds.  That’s brother Gene on the right.

The ceremony started with a wedding processional played on the kazoos that had been passed out beforehand to all the guests.  I have video of this, but haven’t figured out yet how to edit out a snippet to upload.  If I figure it out, I’ll insert it here later.  The weather was beautiful, the bride and groom radiated happiness, and a good time was had by all, even the tux-garbed family pooch.  Loni’s talking to Bruce V., Lee’s next-door neighbor from our high school days.  Motown ties endure.  That was one good cake!

A long, happy life together for you both!

MOST VALUABLE ANTIQUES

August, 2012.    “Remember, the most valuable antiques are dear old friends.”  -- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

What could be smarter than to go to Modesto in August?  It cools off to the 90’s around midnight, after all.  Shorts, tropical shirt, and sandals and you’re packed.  Of course, it helps to be there with old friends from high school.  We used to do this every 4 or 5 years, but Father Time is giving us more motivation and it’s becoming an annual get-together.  Bob and Consuela again were the best of hosts and I can’t imagine a better venue than their back porch and yard.  Who knew JB could grill?

Stan Wilson, our English teacher for two years who gave us all valuable tools we used throughout our lives, was able to make it at age 89.  Sadly, as I write this in 2013, his health is failing.  We hope to see him again this summer.  If not, we know he appreciated the late-life affection we poured on him after “rediscovering” him in 2011.

The food keeps getting better and better each year, but this one will be hard to top.  What’s with the yellow lenses, Lee?  The better to see the grub?

Getting a group picture is always a challenge with point-and-shoot cameras, even with a decent one like my S-95.  With just a single flash, it’s impossible to get the right exposure on the near and far faces.  Good onya, gang.  Hope we’re all back this year!

  Oh, yeah.  Don’t worry P-B.

  What happens in Motown, stays in Motown.

:>)

HIGH FA-SCOOTIN’

August,2012.     We belong to the main scooter club in the area, the Los Angeles Scooter Group, which has hundreds of members and runs three or four organized rides a month.  All skill levels and sizes of scooters are included, so the rides are varied in order to accommodate the differences.  A splinter group sprang up last year called, embarrassingly, the Adventurists.  It’s for more experienced riders who want more difficult routes (read, curves and hills).  Scoots have to be at least 150cc in order to keep up, 250cc if you’re going to ride two-up, like we do often.  One of the early rides was to start out by our house, so we invited everyone over for a pre-ride danish, donuts, and coffee knosh.  I’m sure the neighbors were thrilled.  While Loni and I did KP duty, our ride leader, Justin, read out a few “rules of the road” for group riding.

Our destination for the day was the Santa Monica Mountains, which are loaded with squirrely roads, but specifically The Rock Store, perhaps the most famous of all biker hangouts.  What better spot for a load of scooterists?  It resides along Mulholland Highway, and you can see its squiggles on the map below.

You can see an area labeled “Victory Jon Photography on the map, at a particularly hairy turn called “The Snake.”  He sits there every weekend and photographs everything that passes by, then posts every day’s pics and offers to sell a high-res copy for way too much money.  The best I can do is to link to a shot of us passing by his lens.  This link might disappear after some time passes, so don’t blame me if it doesn’t work.  We did a little sightseeing along the way, had a brew at the Rock, and mounted up for the ride home.  A fun day.

Later in August, Loni bagged out but I went alone with the group on a huge rally held each year in the south bay area, called Swerve ‘n Curve.  A south bay club hosts this one, and we just join in.  Our contingent met up at one of L.A.’s icons.  I think my lime jacket is getting a little faded.  Time to get a new one.

This year the ralley was gigantic, almost too big.  Well over 200 scoots, which can be a nightmare for other motorists as the group tries to stay together through city streets.

 

After a lot of horn-honking, red-light running, and assorted fist-waving, we made it down through the beach communities to the Palos Verdes Peninsula where there were less lights and a lot more scenery along the ocean.  A rest stop shot gives you an idea of the number of bikes, but there’s even more behind me from where I’m taking this picture.  The cliffs overlooking the ocean are just to the left, where you can see those two little figures.

The end-of-ride destination was some rich bloke’s house there on the peninsula.  Very nice of him to host the party.  They had a band, drinks & nibbles, and a poolside lawn area where we could mingle about.  I love his neon scoot! And, all riders are welcome on this one.

MORE CATCH-UP; MOM & CAMP 2012

July, 2012.    Still trying to blog the rest of 2012.  I’ve always been a world-class procrastinator, but this is pretty ridiculous.  Mom comes out from Indianapolis every July to go with us for a week up to camp at Fallen Leaf Lake.  She’s always glad to escape the Indiana heat and humidity, and is not above gloating about our coastal weather to her friends back home.  Note the 68 degrees shown in the lower right of the clock.  Mom was 89 in this photo.  She’s been dying that hair for at least 50 years, and the beauticians marvel at how fine and soft it still is.  You got the genes, Mom!

July, of course, means the 4th and our local parade for which most of the town turns out.  It’s virtually the same from year-to-year, but no one cares.  They do draw some excellent bands, including one of the Marine Corps units, always a favorite.

Camp is always a highlight of our year.  We’ve been doing it now for 31 years.  While it’s all familiar, it’s never the same.  For us, it’s a great opportunity to share our cabin (2 bedroom) for a week with a rotating cast of family and friends.  This year, John and Meghan joined us.  It was the first time in many years that John was able to come up, and it was Meghan’s first.

Unfortunately, poor Meghan, despite her brave front, was really suffering from a flu-like bug that laid her low for the first few days, fever, congestion, the whole works.  The rest of us were lucky to escape unscathed.  She was able to enjoy some hiking and boating the second half of the week, so it wasn’t a total loss.  The kayaking is on Fallen Leaf.  The hike is on the way to Grass Lake.  The smiley faces are in front of Lake Winnemucca.   

John and I did the more strenuous hike without the gals.  This year that was a trek to Lake Jabu.  It’s an all-day affair, and the route of choice is to caravan up to Echo Lakes, about a half hour away.  We then pay our money to ride the launch from the eastern base of the lower lake to the western far side of the upper, including threading the “Jungle Cruise” portion between the two lakes (called Dartmouth Cove, for no explicable reason) where we watch for animatronic hippos.  Once at the far end, we hike up to Lake Aloha, which lies in the Desolation Wilderness.  It’s always interesting to see whether it’s been a good winter or a mild one.  Aloha is very shallow, and in the summer following poor snow years it’s more of a collection of rock islands surrounded by scant water.  This year, however, it was  fairly full, but not as good as in the best years. 

We follow Aloha’s northeast shore for a while until we hit the magic turnoff point, where we’re supposed to turn right and clamber up a steep shale face to reach Jabu, which is perched on the very top.  This turn is completely unmarked, and depending on who’s leading the hike, varies from year to year.  This year, we blew it big time, and turned off way too late.  This resulted in a lot of lateral rock hopping along the slope as we tried to find the right “saddle” above which lay Jabu.  There were as many opinions as hikers, but we did finally find it.d  The views are great in both directions:  looking across the lake at the peaks behind Aloha (Pyramid left?  Agassiz right?), and then over the cliff back towards Fallen Leaf in the distance.

We skipped Games Day, which is great for families with kids, in order to spend the day driving to Carson Pass and taking our favorite hike to Lake Winnemucca.  Since you start at the top of the pass, the trail is mostly flat or gently rolling all the way to the lake.  Mom even did this one into her early 80’s.  Puffing and protesting, of course, but she did it.  This year was pretty decent for wildflowers, although not the huge displays of the best years.  We ate lunch on the big rocks around the lake.

You can’t beat sharing Camp with family.  This was a very good year.  Except for the beard.

WHEN YOU’RE HOT, YOU’RE HOT!

June 22-28

Friday-Saturday.  We took US 60 almost entirely from Grove to that crossword puzzle favorite, Enid, OK.  The road was much better on the stomach than yesterday’s drive and the scenery through northwest Oklahoma is certainly pleasant enough.  This wasn’t a high-mileage day so we just took it easy.

Not a lot to choose from in Enid, but the High Point RV Park was adequate.  I had to park cockeyed as there were a lot of depressions to avoid if we wanted to be level.  It had power for the A/C (the heat is steadily rising as we motor west), and good cable with ESPN so I can watch the Euro Cup final tomorrow between Spain and Italy.  Unfortunately, the wifi signal at our site is the pits, so I have to wander down to a hotspot and sit out in the heat if I want to get on.  The place isn’t much to look at, but the trees provide some shade.  Loni, of course, worked her magic in the kitchen.  Enid is the home of the Railroad Museum of Oklahoma, but on Saturday we just wanted to flop.  It was too hot to be walking around outside looking at rolling stock, no matter how interesting it might be.  Besides, the Euro Cup final should have been a corker.  Too bad Italy was a no-show.  Spain, 4-0.

Sunday.  Once again trying to avoid the interstates, we stayed on US 60 all the way from Enid to Amarillo.  Although the skies were clear, the wind was blowing to beat the band.  Although I certainly could feel it, and had to correct-steer a lot, our relatively low profile compared to the SOB’s kept it from being a white-knuckle affair, despite the meager road shoulder.

Once we got to Amarillo we stayed at an old favorite, Fort Amarillo RV Resort at the western edge of the city.  The evening forecast didn’t auger well, but we’d be in the rig the whole time and the cab air cools well.  We won’t suffer until we have to get out.  These temps will look cool to us in just a short while.

Monday.  We got up extra early to get a start on the drive before the sun did its work, not so much for us but rather so that the engine could have some relatively cool air for a while.  We don’t have a Scan Gauge, but we’ve never seen any problem on the rig’s gauges vis-à-vis overheating.  This portal is always a welcome sight, as New Mexico is one of our favorite states to drive through.  After leaving Amarillo, we just hunkered down on I-40 to make time.  Besides, it’s views aren’t shabby.

Doesn’t look like much in the above picture, but the vistas soon are pretty impressive and you know you’re in “the West.”

In Albuquerque, as we did on the way east, we stayed at the American RV Park to the west of town.  In fact, we got the same site as before.  The temps are really climbing, but they have a very nice pool which we made good use of for a couple of hours.  We looked like prunes getting out, but it was worth it.  Loni’s finishing up her biography of Andrew Jackson, American Lion, while I perused less weighty matter.

Tuesday.  I forgot to set my alarm clock for Mountain Time, so got up at 5:44 instead of 6:44.  Needless to say, we got a nice, early start for what we had planned to be a stop in Holbrook, AZ.  But we got there before noon, so decided to keep on going to Flagstaff.  We stayed again at the KOA, which is OK, but a challenge to get level in.  Had to abandon the first site they assigned us.  The second was almost as bad, but we got level “enough.”  It had been a fairly long driving day, so I was willing to settle.  To add insult, this KOA uses Tengo as its internet provider, which I hate.  I’ve had nothing but bad times with Tengo, from awkward logging in to crappy connectivity at various parks throughout the country.

Wednesday.  Fairly short run today to the Avi Resort, our “go to” stop on almost all of our outbound and return excursions in this direction.  Again, nothing to look at, but it does have a multiplex theatre and a decent dining room.  But the temps!!

By our thermometer, we’re at 112!  You better believe we made a beeline for the theatre and the restaurant until the sun went down.  Didn’t cool off much.  I don’t think the A/C ever got us lower that the mid-80’s, but that felt just fine.

Thursday.  Straight shot into L.A.  Oh, god, we’re home.  Let’s turn back.