Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Graduation & River Trips

We had a fantastic trip to California. We got to meet Carl's roomates, their families, and Tory's family, and lots of Carl's friends and instructors. What a pleasure to meet such a fun and genuine group of people. After SLO, we got a wild ride down the Kings River.

Our first night in SLO, we hung out at the Farmer's Market, watching Carl and his roomies promote themselves - you can see pictures of their efforts on their website: http://www.bikeusa05.com/
Then it was hanging around their place (which I failed to get pictures of). Real estate in SLO is ridiculous, so to be affordable these guys have been living in a two bedroom duplex for the last three years - one room is the shared bedroom, then other is the shared living space. They've done great with the limited space they have - a testimount to their friendship. We thought it would be easiest if we just set up our tent outside to sleep, to stay out of their way and enjoy the fresh air. A true sign that we are now old, we failed to remember what it's like in a college town at the end of finals week. Pure chaos in the streets. OK, that's an exaggeration, but it was quite loud out there - lots of drunken yelling, people peering into our tent, etc. So finally at about 2:00 AM, we moved our stuff inside and crashed on the floor of the living room.

Next day, we hiked up to Bishop's Peak - which gave us a great view of SLO and the ocean:
Bishops Peak, SLO

Carl was then off to take his last final, and Keith and I drove out to the coast, and up and through scenic See Canyon. That evening, Orb's parents showed up at the house, and we all cooked up a bunch of food for the graduates, and sat around and chatted - talking about organic farming, naturopathic remedies, and parasites in SE Asia (naturally our upcoming trip is fodder for conversation, so we get plenty of advice on dangers, remedies, etc.). Our most interesting to date is to eat a good size chunk of ginger each day to keep the system rolling.

More visiting throughout the night, then the rest of Orb's family showed up (two brothers, one nephew, a sister, and a significant other), all of who were also going to be staying in this tiny place. So the rent payers of the place were forced to sleep out in the garage as the family members took over the inside. I got a better night sleep that night as I claimed a very comfortable couch for myself.

The next day was graduation day, but Carl had decided not to walk, so we took the morning and went out to the coast and did some spectacular sea kayaking out of Shell Beach, CA. We risked the breakers, and explored caves, "surfed" the waves, watched seals, and befriended birds. A great time, and beautiful scenery. Keith was the only one to capsize and did it in a rather hairy part of one of the caves. Needless to say, I was the timid one and chickened out on some of the caves as the mixture of crashing surf and sharp rocks, and lack of deft kayak skills did not appeal to me as much.

Back at the house we tried to help repair a window which fell victim to a flying lotion bottle, then got cleaned up and headed to campus to watch Tory graduate in the smaller, more "intimate" ceremony. Sitting in the stands, watching all his Physics compatriots living it up in their black garbs, you could tell Carl was wishing he was down with them. There were lots of empty seats, so we encouraged him to go down and sit with them anyway - it didn't take much encouragement....
Which one doesn't belong?
Can you find Carl in the above picture?

He proceeded to fill out his information card and actually walked! Onstage and everything, no one blinked an eye. The folks sitting behind us said something like, "Typical for a physics student..." referring to the lack of formal garb. It was great. And I think the Dean got a kick out of it as well.
Carl Graduates from CalPoly

That night was spent visiting with Tory and her awesome family, eating lots of good food. And the next day we drove out to the country to celebrate some more at Kyle's parents beautiful new home, with more good food and nice visiting. A final farewell to these guys as the shove off to embark on their journey.

From there Keith and I took off to the Kings River to meet up with Elizabeth at her summer place of employment: http://www.whitewatervoyages.com/rivers/kingsriver.html
For a small fee, some quality beer, and a couple stints doing dishes, we got two trips down the river, lots of good meals, and met some more quality people.
The Best Guides on the Kings River
Our guides and hosts for the weekend.

The river was running extremely high and fast this weekend because of all the snow California got this past winter coupled with the fact that they were experiencing their first truly hot days - so snow was melting fast, making for a fast run, and lots of big water.

Elizabeth has been guiding for three years now, and I have to say I was very impressed with her skill and command of the river. Confident, and she knew exactly how to get us into the biggest water and in the safest way. However, we did fall under the "family and friend" curse. We flipped. Everyone in the boat out, and the boat upside down. This was only the second time this happened to her, and it happend on a relatively small rapid. At any rate it happened in a good spot as there was a long stretch of calm water to get the raft turned upright and get us all back in. She handled it beautifully and we didn't need assistance from any of the other boats.
The second day, we all stayed in, but one of the other boats in our group had a bad spill and lost some of the riders, including the guide. Those left in the boat were shellshocked and frozen in place, with no one taking charge. So Elizabeth went to the rescue and guided us over to them to assist in cleaning up the "carnage" and get the other raft to shore - again she handled it in a very calm, collected manner - taking charge of the situation. If any of you ever raft with Whitewater Voyages, ask for Liz to be your guide!
Here are some good pics of us on the river:
RG 1
Horn of Plenty 1
Racoon Gulch 2

Thursday, June 09, 2005

To Cali for Vacation!

We woke to an unwelcome alarm this AM at 5:30. I have gotten pretty used to the swing shift schedule where I vaguely hear Keith's alarm go off around 6:00 each morning, but can smile to myself and fall back into neverland knowing I can sleep in as long as my body wants....which has been about 9:00 lately. Not this morning. Today I had to drag myself out of bed bright and early as we had a plane to catch out of PDX at 10:30. We are heading to the sun to finally visit Carl at CalPoly in San Luis Obispo (SLO) - this is our last chance to do so, as this is his graduation weekend!

We had an uneventful trip to Portland and on through to San Jose, landing down a bit early. Then we hit the rental car line. Apparently we didn't get some special, one time deal. Dollar Rental has got to be giving cheap cars out to everyone because the line was LONG and SLOW. As we were in no hurry, we went with it, and did not get irritated.....About 45 minutes later at the counter, I eavesdrop on the lady next to me (OK, so I've been eavesdropping and people watching since I entered the airport....it's one of my downfalls, OK?). She was inquiring about the size of her car. When she was told it would be smaller than a Geo and without power steering, I thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head. As she proceeded to agree to pay for an upgrade, I asked the lady helping me if that is how small our car was going to be. She looked at me, gave me a half-nod and a knowing-winking kind of smile. Not knowing what to make of that, I shrugged it off as we weren't too concerned about the car and as Keith pointed out, "it'll get good gas mileage at least".

However, my rental car attendant (what do you call them anyway?) continued to act very suspicious and at one point gave me that smile again, only this time putting the top of her pen just above her upper lip (just under the nose). Well that did it. I was then convinced I had a big booger hanging from my nose, and finally understood why she was acting so weird. So I slyly brushed my hand against my nose a couple times with no results. As she finished up the paperwork, she leaned in real close and said, "Don't tell those other people, but I got you a real nice car - a Dodge Stratus." (aka, not a roller skate on wheels). I have no idea why she did that for us....just caught her at the right time I suppose....

So now we sit in mid-size rental car luxury driving south on 101 through Salinas and beyond towards SLO. Passing lots of pretty valleys, agriculture, and hunched over migrant workers. Looking down the fields as we pass by is almost like watching a flip book as the images appear briefly at the end of each row. We had a nice lunch in Gonzales, which distinctly reminded me of Mexico - the houses, restaurants, everything written in Spanish. And now pushing onwards to the graduation festivities in SLO....

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Biking Across the USA!!

No, not us. My brother Carl, and his wacky roomates are undertaking this adventure on June 18 - where they will shove off from Seattle making their way towards New York.

Check out their website:

http://www.bikeusa05.com/

Sunday, June 05, 2005

Summer 2005 - The summer of the deck....


This is how our deck used to look. The Dough Boy pool provided us lots of good times and refreshing afternoons, despite the maintenance it required. However, when we made the decision to sell the house, we started to discover just how old the pool was and found several posts that were completely rusted out. We decided it would make the house easier to sell if we took it out, and revamped the deck. Big job, we know. We've already been asked more than once, "If you're selling the house, why would you go through so much trouble?" Maybe we're just crazy, or naive, but we're willing to put in a little sweat equity for what we hope will be an easier sell this summer. We'll see.

So the first step was to empty the pool. We just put a hose in, and sent it down the hill into the woods to add to our neighbors stream. I think it took a good 3 days to completely empty. This really was the point of no return already as once you empty a vinyl pool, you have to replace the whole liner. As part of our decision to get rid of the pool, we thought we'd make it easier on ourselves to offer the pool for free to anyone willing to take it out themselves. With it they'd get the filter, heater and pump. It turned out to be easier to remove than we expected and the gentleman who got it, while he didn't end up with a pool (the supports were all rusted through), he ended up with some nice equipment for minimal effort.
So there it is. The pool is gone. Now how in the world are we going to fill in this crater!! I swear it looks bigger with the pool out. Daunting job ahead of us...what have we done....

Destruction


The destruction phase had to be done carefully as we are cheap and are trying to restore and reuse all of the wood that we can. That means lots of careful pulling up of boards (of which Keith's parents were a HUGE help) and lots of nail pulling. Do you know what muscles you use to pull nails out of boards? I do, because they were all sore! All right, so I'm a bit out of shape as well....

Filling the Hole


We thought we were going to have to bring in fill dirt to level out the area, but it turned out we had enough on the banks to level it all out. One of Keith's co-workers was generous enough to come drive his tractor around and flatten things out for us. He did a great job! And Keith was quite impressed with the rig....do you call tractors 'rigs'??

Reconstructing


So now we're caught up to today. This weekend we spent cleaning and painting the supports, and starting to frame the underneath of the deck. We made good progress yesterday as we had good weather. Today however, we got nailed with thunderstorms and cold. So we did what we could this AM, adding the cross beams to what you see above. Now the area is a clay-mud-ladden mess, so we headed indoors.

Saturday, June 04, 2005

Pretty Dog!!


Each year as summer approaches, Gracie is looking her finest with her long, golden soft hair. However, it does start to get a little "clumpy" at this time as we are not diligent dog groomers. More importantly, however, is the excessive panting that begins to take place as the mercury rises, and Gracie (brilliant dog that she is) plops herself on the hot pavement or the hot deck and bakes away in misery. Last year, she had her own personal 20' x40' pool to cool herself off in periodically. This year, much to her chagrin, she must find relief in the cheap, blue plastic pool that leaks and that she can barely even fit in (she's big boned, OK?), as we have successfully torn out our pool (and deck for that matter). So what do we do to help her out, (and to get out of having to brush her regularly)? Well, see below, and you shall be enlightened.....

Pretty Dog??