Summer Vacations 2009

I have finally plowed through my collection of summer vacation photos...what a project that was!  If you click on the title, or right here, you can go to the over-flowing high-resolution gallery.

It began in May with the previously-blogged trip to Orlando.  From there we flew to Philadelphia to visit an old friend of mine...the best part of the trip for me.  This had been a spontaneous add-on while I was booking the flight to Orlando, since several of the connecting flights were through Philly...I figured, hey, let's go say "Hi" to Angie!!  She and Dan were awesome hosts.  Any weight I had lost while sweating in Florida was made up for by her delicious cooking.

             Down on South Street.

While in Philly, we paid our respects to the Liberty Bell (what a zoo that is), Ben Franklin and Betsy Ross.  We missed out on a tour of Independence Hall but we did Ride the Ducks!  And with all due respect to New Jersey, Brendan's most vivid childhood memory of that state will be the hippo, "It pooped!!" in the water right in front of us at the Camden Aquarium. (Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs" has a segment with Mike Rowe cleaning said poo from the hippo tank.)  On our last day we visited the Please Touch Museum, an awesome place for kids.

We weren't home even a week from Philly and it was off to Denver, driving this time.  A friend of Kirsteen's from Scotland, Jackie, that she hadn't seen in years, was attending a conference there.  It's also where Kirsteen grew up (Boulder) and she has family there...so this vacation was a no-brainer.  Kirsteen's cousin Chris and his wife Cheryl offered all of us (even Jackie) to stay at their home just a block off City Park.  They too were awesome hosts, complete with two new black kittens...one of which, Lucky, was very tolerant of Brendan and kept all of us company at night.

Oh yeah, we got interrupted by the Vice President:  We're driving across City Park in Denver, just about to make the last turn to Chris and Cheryl's neighborhood...but there's cops everywhere (!) directing all traffic to turn around.  So I detour through the park to cross the main road further south...no go!!  We call up Cheryl on the cell phone, "Hey, is your neighborhood in lockdown?"  And then it was all gone.  Turns out Joe Biden had just given a speech at the Science and Nature Museum and we ran into his motorcade.

Kolob Canyons Overlook - Zion National Park

In late July we did another multi-way trip, first driving to Cedar City for a four-night stay at a bed and breakfast while enjoying plays at the Utah Shakespearean Festival.  Then we went down to Zion for a couple of days, touring most of the park by car or shuttle-bus.  Kirsteen out-hiked me on the Virgin River Trail.  Brendan and I had hung back figuring we'd catch up to Kirsteen later...nope, we gave up after a mile.  From there we drove to Santa Barbara to visit Grandpa and "Grandma Rosary" (Rosemarie).

The Parowan Gap Petroglyphs

In early September I took off on my own for two days of exploration.  I camped overnight on Pinal Mountain near Globe; I'd always been curious what was up there, kinda nice actually.  The next day I headed for Cherry Creek Canyon in the Sierra Anchas.  It's a rough 35-mile, sometimes four-wheel drive which I probably shouldn't have been doing alone...especially with summer monsoons following and then catching up to me a few miles from the top end of the canyon.

I bailed on camping out in the deluge and headed toward home, passing the leading edge of the storm as it rolled off the southern escarpment of the mountains.  More than one bolt of lightning blasted the forest floor with nary a startle before thunder exploded.  I was glad to be inside a vehicle, but not too sure about testing the Faraday-cage principle.  Down below and finally ahead of the show with dusk setting in, I had to park and take in one of the most spectacular lightning displays I've ever seen.

In the first week of fall we flew up to Calgary to visit my family, including my young niece, Rachelle.  We took the kids to the Calgary Zoo one day; I still think it is one of the best.  Next day, we visit the iconic Heritage Park, a recreation of Calgary in the 1880s and a place of many memories; from squashing coins on the railroad tracks to the blooming of a teenage romance.  Unfortunately, Brendan got horribly sick with a high fever and spent the second half of the trip sedentary and snuggling in various laps.

Brendan and Rachelle's brother, Quaid, ham it up at the zoo; then it's the hunt for the fattest of the prairie dogs.

A railroad push-car is set up in the round house at Heritage Park.

The Saint Mary Park Cafe

I was just emailing an old friend and recalling this story of my past that I'd written down many years ago.  I've done it as a personal parody set to Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie...please keep the music and his redneck accent in mind while reading this.  I had a lot of fun with it and it makes for an easy post.  Enjoy.

You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café.
You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café.
Drive on by, it's next to Glacier Park,
Just a half a block from the turnoff.
You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café.

And on that day...in the evening of that day...we arrived at the border. Canada, the Great White North...but it was pretty green. So we got to the border...we pull up to the window...and we show the man in the window our drivers' licenses...he didn't want our birth certificates. He asked where we was going and who we was going to see and for how long...and if we had any guns, or alcohol, or tobacco. All we had was beer....he let us keep the beer. But he kept our ID's and said, "Son, pull over into one of the bays marked with numbers...then both of you go upstairs."

There was no one else there...we was all alone in the numbered bays.  Then we went up the stairs and the officer there...he was just a kid, said "Sit down until we call you." The sign on the door said we was not allowed to leave without permission. So a few minutes later the kid officer calls my name...and we go to his office and he asks me the same questions the guy downstairs just asked me and a few more questions the other guy must have forgot. It was all pretty serious...I figured they was just being careful for terrorists...given some flack that the president was givin' Canada...so I was perfectly willin' to co-operate, of course, and things was going well until the kid officer looked at me and asked, "Son, have you ever been convicted of a crime?"

"Well...yes, sir. I have."

So I told him the story of how when I was a kid, me and a friend had stolen 27 cases of empty beer bottles out of a garage and for which we got 32 dollars and 40 cents for the deposit money...most of which we spent on video games...but that we had been seen, and got busted for this most embarrassin' of crimes. Then he said, "Son, go back out there and take a seat."

So I went back out...but all the seats was taken now. A group of Amish-looking folk...with beards and bonnets, most dressed in black, but not all, and speaking something like German...had filled up the place. And so I stood...and waited. And then one of the Amish-looking folk got his name called...and another moved from the seat next to Kirsteen. And so I sat down...and waited.

And then another officer called my name. He was older and friendlier than the kid...but he was still pretty serious. He asked if I could prove I had been a legal reseedent when I had committed my crime. I figured then that they wasn't gonna mind lettin' me in...me being one of them when I committed my embarrassin' crime. I said I coultn't prove it but seein' as my Dad was a Canadian cit-i-zen and had just died in Calgary (which is why we was visitin'), and that my family all lived in Canada, and I could tell them when and where I emma-grate-ed, I figured they'd believe me.

And they did believe me. But then the man said “Son, I can’t let you in! Officially, you ain’t been allowed in since you left!” Well, good riddance ta you too!! Only I di’n’t say that. I said, “Huh, you only let me back in like ten or twelve times since I did leave!” He said he would see what he could do, but since it was already evening (they keep their sun out a long time up there) he couldn’t do anything until the next morning anyway.

So there we was. The criminal and his wife. Sitting on the road. Right next to the Great White North (but it was pretty green). There wasn't much point to stayin', so we headed back to the Saint Mary Park Cafe and had a Montana Steak dinner that just couldn't be beat....got the cheapest expensive hotel room we could...and drove back to the border at 9 o'clock the next morning.

You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café (excepting Mary).
You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café.
Drive on by, it's next to Glacier Park,
Just a half a block from the turnoff.
You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café.

They recognized me this time...me bein' a known criminal and all. But they was still friendly and they was even eager to doc-u-ment my arrival. I almost felt like a celeberty...until they asked me for 200 bucks and said I had to leave in nine days...even though cause of them I was only gonna be there eight days. Turn’d out the trouble was the president was havin’ a party up where we was going…doing the G8, must be some ski thing, them Canadians are weird.

Anyways...even though they let me in, they said I had to apply for a pardon for my most embarrassing of crimes and the privilege of vistin' the country in which I livin' when I stole the 27 cases of empty beer bottles worth $32.40 in deposit refunds. But to apply for a pardon, I had to write to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in order to get a copy of that piece of paper that he was holdin'...the piece of paper that documented my most embarrassing of crimes (except maybe for litterin'). But the RCMP had to have my fingerprints, and 38 bucks, to prove who I was, even though they already had my fingerprints, so they should know who I was. So I paid a detective man to come and take my fingerprints...and I sent them my fingerprints, and three months later I had a copy of that piece of paper documenting by most embarrassing of crimes...only this one didn't explain about the 27 cases of empty beer bottles worth $32.40 in deposit refunds. This one said, "Break and Enter" which was fine by me...sure was better than litterin'.

Then I had to go to the po-lice in Tucson...to get a letter provin' that I had been a fine upstandin' citizen of the community I had been livin' in since leavin' the country where I committed my crime. They said I was and I only had to pay them three bucks. Then I sent all that stuff, the record documentin' my embarrassin' crime, the letter provin' I was now a cit-i-zen of good-conduct, and a personal letter askin' that I be pardoned for my embarrassin' crime, to some egency up in Ottawa.

A year—and—a—half (!!) later, I get a letter telling me they is pro-cessing my pardon. Yikes, it took ‘em that long just to open the envelope!! I guess that’s the hard part for them…cause I finally got my pardon a few weeks later.

You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café (excepting Mary).
You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café.
Drive on by, it's next to Glacier Park,
Just a half a block from the turnoff.
You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café.

Asking for Some Good Vibrations

As you might imagine, much of my life is scheduled around medical appointments.  Coming up are a couple I dread more than most...scans to see what my cancer is doing.  On Thursday I get an MRI of my brain, the semi-annual check to see if anything has shown up there.  Then a PET scan on Monday to measure the activity levels of my various tumors.  We're hoping this new medication has knocked them down a bit, especially the tumor in my leg, otherwise we might have to explore other options.

I couldn't care much less about the procedures themselves.  The people are friendly and the facilities impressive.  That part of it is a bit like a social outing, it's nice to get out of the house for a bit.  An MRI is really noisy and it takes about a half-hour, but sometimes they give you headphones with the radio playing.  I'm not particularly claustrophobic but it is a bit creepy if you open your eyes, so I just nap my way through it and can be quite relaxed by the end.  A PET scan is purposely relaxing...as they inject you with radioactive sugar and have you nap (again with radio) for an hour before the scan itself, which takes like five minutes...it's nothing.

But that's when the anxiety really sets in.  What might they find this time?  Or not find?  The best news I've ever gotten is stability.  Only one time did I ever have a true premonition of bad news...a dream that maybe I'll tell you about another time.  In general, it seems that how much I freak myself out, or not, has little bearing on the news I get.  Sometimes I expect the worst but get a reprieve instead.  The last time I got bad news and was taken by surprise.  I don't know what to think this time.  Be complacent, set myself up for disappointment, or prepare for grief that may not come this time?  More than anything, I suppose, I just don't want to think about it at all.  How's that working out for you, Eric?

More Photos from the Dragoon Mountains

Friend and fellow blogger Dean Ketelsen critiqued me for not having linked to larger, more appealing images in my story about Wandering in the Western Stronghold.  I knew he was right, but the collection of images is an older one in my archive and would require going back to the original scans.  So that's what I've been doing today, and the Western Stronghold blog entry has now been (mostly) updated to link to wallpaper-ish sized images.  But if that isn't enough, you can get to my highest-resolution pics in this gallery, but I don't have any captions there (click all the way through each image for the best one).

The bonus for you in this exercize is that I dredged up a few more images of the Dragoon Mountains from my archive.  Many of them are from a stormy day in November 2000, often the best time of year to visit.  Spring can be nice too, but you don't get the colors.

Council Rocks above, and the little pillar that I think of as a wise elder below.

Cliffs and crags in West Stronghold Canyon.

A magnificent sycamore...no shortage of them around here.

Whitehouse Ruin.

The pictogaphs at Council Rocks.

Rain-filled grinding holes at Council Rocks.

View from the shelter of Council Rocks.

Recent homes have been built near Knob Hill...truth be known, I'm more envious of the homeowners than upset about the development.

 

A 4-wheel drive road leads to a basin behind Sheeps Head.

As good as snow-laden tree branches, the sotol yucca holds an autumn surprise for your unsuspecting friends...a good shake releases a spray of seeds! (The stalks also make excellent walking sticks.)  The cute little cactus next door is no bigger than my thumb.