President's Day Weekend (or "Doing the City")

Instead of flying home for a quick turnaround, Darlene came to see me, arriving Wednesday night.  Years since she had once lived on Travis Airforce Base, she wanted to see how it had changed in 43 y......er...a few years ago.

Darlene doesn't travel well so it takes a day or so for her to catch up after flying.  With that, she pretty much laid up in the bed Thursday while I worked.  Friday turned out to be a wet and drizzling day so we pretty much went shopping, did a winery/olive tour and changed hotels.  Stopping off at the Jacuzzi Winery and Olive farms, we had fun tasting dipping oils and a moderate amount of wine tasting.

Saturday proved to not much better weather wise and eventually wound up in Old Sacramento for a nice dinner after the kind folks at Travis AFB deemed Darlene a threat to national security and wouldn't let us on the base.  Actually security, as you might imagine, is pretty strict these days and since we had no sponsor to vouch for us they told us to hit the road.

Sunday, we could see Mt Diablo from our hotel room in Suisun City so we did the city, the whole ball of wax....bridge, downtown, trolley cars, cheap camera shops, Ghiradelli, Fisherman's Wharf, Lomard and pretty much the whole nine yards.

It was Chinese New Year so we thought we'd see what that was all about.  Driving up Pacific, we see this guy in the middle of the street pointing at us and yelling something.  As we got a little closer, I rolled the window down, I found out he was a street person engaged in free enterprise.  "Mike", it seems, found street parking signs for people, held back cars while they parked and insinuated he would watch over the cars while we did China Town.  Unspoken, it was a GREAT idea to tip Mike so that the car would not be broken in to while we were out.  It was worth the five bucks.

Monday, Darlene and I had a great time traveling over to South Lake Tahoe.  The place recently had a huge snow and snow machines had left banks of the white stuff so deep we couldn't really get out and take pictures along the way.  However, we did get out near the lake and play around.

Putting her back on the plane Tuesday morning, I hated to see her go because we had such a great holiday weekend.





 
 
 

  

The Golden Gate Experience

Last weekend, I figured on going down to San Francisco and spend the day taking a few artsy pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge from places I had not been before.  Looking on the map, I found Baker Beach so after 30 minutes of trying to find a place to park, I bundled up my tripod and backpack full of camera and lenses and ambled off down the beach toward the bridge.

As soon as I got down to the water's edge, I put my pack down and changed the lens on my Nikon to a 18-55 kit zoom lens, the widest angle piece of glass I owned.  There were people walking up and down the beach, some with dogs, a couple of people pushing baby carriages with sand tires and the usual day at the beach folks. Complacent in my surroundings, I busied myself with camera settings and attaching the tripod.
 
These days, I purposely choose manual settings on my camera (control freak that I am), adjusting light, ISO, shutter speeds, etc. I fired off a few frames then dropped the camera down to see how they were looking and then I noticed....yep, right there in all his glory......a nekid man (we Southerners say it like that) sauntering down the beach.  I'm a big boy or old man, however you want to look at it, so I can take all that in stride very well.  Pondering the idea of a naked guy on the beach made me to look around and in doing so, I realized there probably were maybe a dozen or so folks in the same state of dress.  Off up against the hill there was a congregation of people of whom some seemed to be in the nude and as I approached the rocks nearer to the bridge, realized there were a couple more laid out on the rocks.

I thought I would like to climb out on the rocks where a couple of dozen people were for a different shot of the bridge. On my approach, I came face to face with an older man just sitting there wearing nothing but a hat, shades and a smile.  Young teen girls were passing in front of him undeterred.  Me? I'm thinking that I've discovered at least one source of lesbianism.  If I were a young female and came up on such a sight, I would either have to gouge my eyes out with a stick or I would be turned off of the idea of men forever.

On returning back to the hotel later that evening, I Googled "nude beach San Francisco" and found that there are several beaches like this in California and at least four in the Bay area.

Yep, I think I may have discovered a source of lesbianism.

Feeling Guilty...........um....almost

With all the horrid weather in sweeping across much of the country, I feel just a little guilty as I find myself wintering in northern California's Sonoma County,  Well....some...yeah, some.


I'm hearing stories about -27 °F in Oklahoma, waist deep snow in New York and hard freezes in Louisiana.  That's just terrible!

So, with all the weather friends and family are experiencing let me apologize for enjoying myself and let me feel dirty for having to drive through miles of vineyards and rolling hills on the way to work each day.

However, I feel like I've paid my dues.  It hasn't been that long that I've flown into blizzards in Detroit and let sleet bounce off my head in Grand Rapids but for the sake of those still fighting it, I'm sorry.

Yeah, that's it.  I'm sorry.  Can we all feel better now?

Me, the motorcyle "wrench"

In the motorcycle world, there are those who are fair weather riders.  Some won't ride when it's too hot, too cold, raining or the wind is blowing from the wrong direction.  Of these, I am not counted.  I ride, simply because I have the bike and do not want to be one of those people who have a Harley sitting in the garage gathering dust.  There are people out there who can tear down a motorcycle, put it back together then get on and ride it.  They're called Wrenches. 

I've rebuilt and replaced starters, fluid changes and way back in the day, replaced tires.  So when Boudreaux's rear tire had become pretty slick, I decided to do it myself.  I've done it before and shouldn't be that big of a deal, right? Heh!

Previously, I had bought a Metzeler rear tire and tube online and it had been sitting next in a corner since before Christmas.  Saturday morning I decided it was high time I mounted it, so I enlisted the aid of my brother-in-law, Gary, to oversee my project.  While he was on the way over, I jacked the bike up, removed the side bags and had almost removed the wheel before he got there.  With a little effort, we completely release the wheel from the frame and went about the task of taking the tire off the rim.  We were so proud of ourselves for having the old tire off the rim within 20 minutes and no skinned knuckles.

Now for mounting the new one.  I unpacked the tube to discover it was the wrong type and just would not work.  Rats!  It is a mail order tube I needed one right then so a trip into town to the Harley shop for a much more expensive one.

Once home, we went about the chore of mounting the new tire and tube.  Between the two of us, we fought that spoked rim all over the garage floor, the driveway and back again. We got the tire half way on and tried to stuff the tube in but it sounds much easier than done.  We even went inside to watch a YouTube video on the art and process of tire changing.  Somewhere in the process, I got the bright idea of lubricating the tire so it would slip in easier.  Well, it slipped in alright. Somehow we slipped the whole rim into the tire completely with both sides inside the tire lips.  Darlene encouraged us by asking how much I had saved by buying the tire online and doing it myself.

By now, we're both tired and disgusted.  It's now 4:30 PM and we've wasted four hours and not any closer to having it completed than we did just after taking it off the bike.  Completely dejected, we decided the best thing to do would be to take it to a shop, admit defeat and pay someone with the right equipment to do it for us.  Gary will undoubtedly take it to a shop for me, explain it's not his and belongs to his idiot brother-in-law and some time in the future Darlene will remind me about the incident when I decide to make my own repairs again.

Sometimes, you just need a professional to do things and not be a Renaissance man.  Admitted, I'm not much of a wrench.

Great Weekend in Central California

While I've spent quite a bit of time in the Los Angeles area and extreme northern California, my visits to the central part of the state has been sparse.  I've had a couple of brief weekends in San Francisco but never have had a chance to explore from the bay area.

With that in mind, I made plans to leave early Saturday morning in the direction of Yosemite National Park.  I've always wanted to go there since I was a barefoot kid reading about it from the pages lent from the bookmobile that would come by weekly in the summers in a very rural Louisiana.  Most people I knew had little if any knowledge of places like this and for years pronounced the name phonetically "Yose-Might" until I eventually heard it pronounced on TV.  Arggghh.......what a goober.

When I finally arrived, it was all that I thought it would be and more, although many of the areas were closed for the winter but I had a chance to see many of the sights I had seen pictures of.  Hopefully, I will be able to revisit in a warmer season when the leaves are bright and more wildlife shows itself.  Even though the bears were hibernating, I did manage to see several deer and a Red Wolf or a large Coyote.

When I arrived into the Yosemite valley, I could see the Half Dome, Yosemite Falls, Bridalveil Fall and El Capitan to name a few.

By noon, the sun had changed the lighting, eliminating much of the dramatic shadows and lured more visitors into the park.  That was my cue to head back to the Sonoma Valley.

Sunday morning, my rear was sore from a lot of riding from the day before so I stayed in to watch church online and eventually get out to turn in my car and get another....hey...it was dirty.  Well, that's not the real reason.  The rental agency gives free rentals for a certain amount of rentals and not days rented.  Anyway, after exchanging my car, I putted around Half Moon Bay and checked out the coast before heading back to the hotel.

Monday morning, I started out early in the direction of Carmel By The Sea.  I admit it was a gracious little spot on the shore and is a popular destination but it compared nothing to Hawaii and Maui in particular.

It was a great weekend but that many hours riding eats up a lot of gas.  Even though it was a company rental, the excursion fuel costs always goes on my ticket and in California, it isn't exactly cheap.  Maybe walking would be better, anyway.

Sonoma County

Having the week off between Christmas and New Years was one thing but the fact that the company had no place to send me for another week was wonderful but when they finally did call telling me to head out to Sonoma, California.........that was just plain icing on the cake.

While Sonoma rests in a valley and there are vineyards everywhere, the rolling hills are beautiful as well and never fail to impress.

I haven't had a chance to explore Northern California much but there's a three day weekend coming up and I plan to exhaust it to the complete end.

The birds sang, "Keawakapu, Keawakapu."

A light breeze blew across the parking lot and birds chirped as I stepped out at the grocery store here at home. The air was thick, humid and the skies were loaded with intermittent dark clouds contrasting the spots of blue and somehow, just for a brief moment, I could believe the birds were now singing, "Keawakapu, Keawakapu." (It would help to have spent some time in or near Kihei, Maui, HI)

Somewhere south of me the same sweet smell like that of the Puunene Sugar Mill on Maui filled the air but instead of the waves crashing on the south shore with Haleakela peaking through the clouds my world was substituted with the busy Airline Highway and Spanish Moss hanging from the Live Oak trees.

Soon, maybe soon my friends.

Frosty Morning In Dutchtown

It was 27°F and freezing here in south Louisiana this morning and thought I'd ride just for the heck of it. I'm on vacation this week and have few plans so I left Darlene and Devin (grandson) all huddled up under their covers. 27°F on a Harley with 50 mph winds makes the chill factor rather formidable.

Partially as a personal statement to the neighborhood, partially to the guy with the garage queen Harley a few doors down but mostly to give the 12 year old grandson some stories to tell his kids about me when I'm dead and gone, I fired Boudreaux up this morning for a run into town to the do-nut shop and just a few sights along one of the bayous.

I have to admit it was brisk for people like us who do not see a lot of cold weather but it was not overwhelming. It took a while before the tires stopped accentuating every crack in the road and the engine warmed enough that the choke wasn't necessary.

It really was pretty seeing the glistening grass and trees trying to shake off the very heavy frost while the crisp air made the heavy humid sky look like smoke. Egrets along the way were not quick to take flight as I and a few commuters passed and it seemed as if the world was at peace.

It was a nice ride but the family at home was expecting the cinnamon rolls and the folks along the bayous had been sufficiently disturbed.

Merry Christmas

Just another waterfall

Taken at Wallace Falls State Park, Goldbar, Washington. I wish I could add sound.


Nikon D60, f/22, 20 sec., ISO 100, 46mm on a Nikkor 18-55 AF-S, Manual Exposure

Mustang Sally

A while back there was a discussion about top motorcycle and car songs. Someone threw out Born To Be Wild (Steppenwolf), I Feel Good (James Brown) and a few more. Growing up in the 50s & 60s, I got my fill of them all on KNOE AM radio 540 out of Monroe, Louisiana and loved them all. I still love Otis Redding's Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay.

Anyway, back to the tale. The question got me thinking back to 1999, when I had some modicum of success and was completely pumped with excitement I was on my way back into Baton Rouge and had cut through St Gabriel on highway 30. Still excited over a personal victory, I slipped in a disc of oldies but goodies and had Wilson Pickett cranked to the max, singing Mustang Sally. With the windows down, a long straight road ahead of me and the pedal to the metal (I was driving a 4 door Honda), my mind was violently jerked back into reality when I looked up to see an Iberville Parish deputy lighting up my rear view mirrors with the blue light specials. Officer Friendly noted that I was doing 77 in a 55 mph zone.

That experience cost me 125 dollars that I didn't need to spend nor could really afford. So, I guess I can say that success and rock & roll combined can be expensive if you're not careful. Also, I'm ever grateful that my wife didn't give me excessive grief for the experience.

Too many cars, too many people

...and not enough daylight.

Here it is in mid December with another 3 months to go before we see spring in most places. I can see how people in über urban areas could become depressed and go postal. It seems like the sun rarely shines and day after day, it's traffic congestion in Biblical proportions. Psychiatrists should flourish in these days. It's not even officially winter yet and I'm already wanting springtime.

I'm so ready for a weekend home with lots of family around, eating gumbo, cornbread and potato salad.

Today could be a good day. The frozen scrambled eggs for breakfast in the hotel were almost believable this morning. It's a sign.

Santa stays at the Hampton

Ho, ho, ho!


I now know where Santa stays when he and Mrs. Clause travel. This morning I had the pleasure of having breakfast in the same room with Santa at the Hampton Inn in Lynnwood, Washington.

You should have heard the conversation between him and the kids as he tried to explain the whereabouts of his reindeer. Fancy footwork (double talk) there, Santa.

Party's over

I love my holidays and hate missing them but those days are far from relaxing. By the time you scurry to and fro from one set of relatives/in-laws/friends to another, you've exhausted yourself and left yourself feeling guilty that you didn't have enough quality time with each of them.

In my 5 days of holiday rush, I managed to sleep in my own bed twice, put over 500 miles on the car and feel as if I'm worn to a frazzle. I have sleep deprivation, gout and tight pants to show for it.

This morning, I woke at 2:00 AM, drove myself to the New Orleans airport for a 6:15 AM flight and prepared myself for what may be just a short visit to Seattle.

So, even though I'm yearning for more time at home, I'm finding airports, cardboard sandwiches, weak coffee, hotels and rental cars are my best way to fit back into that slot of normalcy. As strange as it may be, waiting in the airport is a relief.

Thanksgiving 2010

It certainly seems that current events have had a field day with the American lexicon as of late. Since the ballyhoo over airport screening, X-ray machines and the never ending argument over the effectiveness of our security, words like pat-down, touching my junk, etc. are now part of every day language. It seems like that was the topic each time the subject of flying home for the holidays came up in recent weeks.

Well, I for one opted for the X-Ray machine in lieu of the pat-down. So when I arrived at the Seattle airport early Wednesday morning, the TSA agents were ready for me and the throngs of passengers boarding up for a long weekend off at far away places. My first encounter was a young slender black woman who took my boarding pass and passport (I think sometimes I present the passport to give the appearance of a sophisticated traveler which I really am not) at the beginning of security screening. She gave me a once over, looked at the boarding pass and stuck a jeweler's loupe in her eye socket and bent down within an inch or so of the passport to find irregularities that might prove me to be some kind of terrorist. Satisfied that I was a legitimate traveler and my not be a threat to society, she handed the papers back and thanked me.

Next came the line where we all began to remove our shotguns, swords, money, chain-saws, shoes and explosives from our pockets along with the ritualistic removing-your-laptop-from-your-briefcase maneuver and deposit them in a Rubbermaid like bin. As we slid the containers that held the afore-mentioned objects along the stainless steel table and rollers , a middle aged woman met me with a toothy grin and inquired as to where I was going on holiday. I went along with it and gushed out like Gomer Pyle that I'd be flying into New Orleans. I viewed that as a pre-screening to (1) find out if I was nervous talking about my destination and (2) to loosen me up for the next part. She played her part and I played mine and we both grinned.

Recently, the news in Seattle seemed to harp on it several times a day about the new X-ray scanning devices that had been installed. As my bags rolled through the X-ray machines, I stepped up to the walk through into the assume-the-position screening machine. After being questioned if I had any remaining objects (or dignity) in my pockets, the TSA guy motioned for me to come all the way in, place my feet on the yellow rectangles about 12 inches apart and to hold my hands above my head with my thumbs and fore fingers of one hand touching the same of the other. I stood there for a second or two and was instructed to turn and face him while he waited a minute or so until the geek had looked at my junk from a remote location. The radio squawked something and I was permitted to collect my junk.....er....belongings in the Rubbermaid bins and move on to the gates.

To some, even in my family, that is a small price to pay for security but I figure there's plenty of ways to create havoc, even with the very expensive technology. I also figure some former politicians and bureaucrats probably have made tons of millions recommending we do all these things. If we get off our politically correct high horse and start profiling like we should, we would be more effective and have a lot more cash left over to do the things that are really important. It isn't 8 year old girls, blue haired Presbyterian ladies or some hip-hop kid with his underwear showing who is trying to kill us. It isn't the frequent flier with enough sky-miles to go around the earth 3 times nor is it the gray haired businessman in the Brooks Brothers suit that's trying to kill us. We just need to wake up and look around.

Anyway, enough of my rant about security or the lack of it. I am happy to be home with people I love where we can gather together, eat too much and talk loudly on the day designated as the official Thanksgiving day. I'm happy that we can hug necks, kiss babies and strengthen the bonds that causes us to go through hell and high water just to do this once or twice per year.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Bleh...........Seattle

Bleh !.........This was another miserable Pacific wet coast weekend. I tried getting out Saturday in search of waterfalls but park after park were closed to cars and I did not feel obsessed enough to walk as much as 3 miles through the woods in the low thirties temperature to be attacked by Sasquatch or a bear. After traveling east on I-90 for about 40 miles, the sun blinked out for a while but didn't last long.

Sunday was even worse. 32° with a mix of rain and snow. I have no idea why anyone would want to live in this mess, especially in the winter. The only people out today seemed to be dog people, running behind them with a plastic bag picking up poop. Even the birds hated it.

It must better in the summer because there's a lot of people here that love it.

Bleh!

In Search of Bigfoot

I went out in search of Bigfoot today, even though it was rainy-ish. It was the type of wet that you could see falling but not enough to make the puddles splatter.

After online church this morning I drove up into the edge of the Cascades and got out to negotiate slippery rocks, mud and the off and on rain to see God's creation. Not only me but several others too. It sure seems like people up here should be dead of pneumonia as much as they get out in this mess without umbrellas. But, to their credit, they seem for the most part in great physical shape (as a whole).

This place reminds me of the settings for the old movie, Harry and the Hendersons where a family hits a Bigfoot/Sasquatch when returning from a camping trip.

So, here's some pictures of waterfalls I took today. I had to give it up early because part of the cheap tripod I had fell apart and fell into the creek but I did get these and that's a whole 'nother story.






OK, that's all folks!

Vancouver, B.C., ...eh?

Another weekend in the Pacific wet coast. Since Canada is just a hundred miles north of Lynnwood, WA where I'm staying, I hit the I-5 to check out Vancouver British Columbia, Canada.

After what seemed like half of forever getting out of the Seattle metroplex, I eventually began to skirt along the edge of the Cascade mountains, seeing little villages nestled beside small clear lakes and vineyards.

Getting into Canada was a snap. A Canadian border patrol agent of mid east origin asked me if I had any alcohol, tobacco or firearms. He also asked if I had been communicating with anyone over the internet. "No, sir." After adjusting my GPS and rental car settings to metric units, I was then on my way.

It took a little getting used to seeing my speedometer registering 100 and not going all that fast and speed limit signs posting 60 inside neighborhoods but after a while it didn't matter.

I found that the fall colors were still intact but the grass all over the place was still a verdant green. One traditional thing I saw was the logs floating on the Fraser River. It never occurred to me that they still used that method to get them to the sawmills.

Downtown Vancouver was a blend of old town and high rise buildings. Just like any other city, there was the usual collection of oddities, bums sleeping on grates and tourists snapping pictures. Vancouver has a thriving Asian population that expands well out of the traditional Chinatown.

Stopping at an ATM, I wondered if I could get Canadian money with my card, but that was a piece of cake. The bank was more than happy to charge me $1.50 for the experience. Incidentally, with the devaluing of the US dollar, the exchange rate is only a cent or two difference. I remember when it was as much as 1:1.75. Not wanting to return with unused foreign cash, I would later remember to spend all my Canadian money with the exception of a couple of quarters and a Loonie.

I listened to Canadian politics on the radio but didn't seem near as heated as our own. The radio also reminded me that long lines back into the US was inevitable and should expect waiting times as much as an hour. Heading east along the river in intermittent rain, I eventually decide to turn back south toward one of the crossings and face the long wait which only turned out to be 45 minutes. I have to say, security on the American side (cameras, electronic sensors, etc.) scrutinizes you a little more than the Canadians.

Even though it is anther country, the appearance and experience might as well have been another city in the state of Washington.