Oahu – Day 1

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Got up at 0500 to go wait for the airport shuttle.

We were dropped near the middle of the terminal which left us with a very long walk, to the right, to the Hawaiian Air Lines checkin area. None of the kiosks worked which required everyone heading to Hawaii to get in a Conga Line so we could check our bags. Some folks were bummed about having to get in such a long line but they didn’t consider that even had the kiosks worked, they would have still been required to join the line to check their bags. Surprisingly, the line moved along quickly. To dispel the growing feeling of being left behind, an HAL agent spent a lot of time walking up and down the line assuring everyone that the plane would not leave without us. I’m thinking, “Really! Pretty much everyone in line constituted the entire passenger list for FLIGHT 25 so, of course, they were going to wait.”

I was a bit concerned about the weight of our two big bags because Diane insisted on packing them. We were both surprised that both were accepted as being on or under the limit so we didn’t have to pay the $200 I was expecting. One came in at 52.5 lbs, the other was 49.2. Yippee! I think we both said that out loud causing the ticket agent to wonder what kind of people she was letting on the plane.

We got to the gate just in time to board. Diane got us seats just behind the kitchen and toilet section that separated common folks from 1st class folks. Since there were no seats directly in front of us we had about 4 feet of leg room. Plus, the toilet was right in front of us, next to the section that contained our food, How handy is that?

It was a 5.5 hour flight crossing two time zones. Since I forgot to get our iPads from the front pocket of a checked suitcase, we had to use our phones to read our books. It worked OK. We read a little and actually nodded off a couple of times. Since Diane wore her mask the entire time we were on the plane she was equipped with a perfect sleep aid:

We landed safely at 11:16 am local in Honolulu. As it was with Portland, where we had to walk 1-2 miles to get to the departure gate, in Honolulu it was easily that far, or further, to the baggage claim. We walked, rested, walked, rested, walked, etc., until we finally arrived at carousel 7 and noticed right away that it wasn’t running. After all that travel, and resting, we beat our luggage to the carousel. Then we waited a while. And a little longer. It was the typical “wait for your luggage” moment. Whoever flies knows this.

Our suitcases finally made it around the last corner (I was at the end of the conveyor belt where it disappeared into the wall). Had I not snagged them in time it would have been another aggravating 5 minutes until they reappeared. With them in tow, we shuffled off out of the terminal, across a street, to a shuttle bus that looked suspiciously like one headed for some sort of rental car place. Luckily, it was. Turn out that Honolulu, like Las Vegas, and maybe many other airports, have a garage facility dedicated totally to rental car folks.

Diane had already reserved a vehicle so all we had to do was find the Budget Car folks. We did and walked right up to an agent and was issued keys to a new Chevy Malibu after agreeing to pay for an incredible amount of money for insurance. It’s Hawaii so it’s OK. I suppose we could have not rented a car and paid for an Uber every time we wanted to go somewhere but that would never have worked. We plan to go everywhere on this island. We lived here from 1986 to 1989, and have had short visits since, but we’ve got 2 weeks to see it all.

We drove to the Grand Waikikiian in the Hilton Hawaiian Village, where Waikiki resides. We parked out front while checking in to our room. When the lady checking us in discovered we had a car her eyes got big as she exclaimed, “Do you know how much it costs to park here?” I said, “No” because I didn’t. She said, “$65 a day for a total of over $900 for your two weeks!” I said, “No one told us” and she said “did anyone ask?” I said “Let me go get the boss” and went to get Diane involved. I was all ready to pull that chain but clearer heads prevailed when she said parking at the Hale Koa lot was more reasonable and the walk wasn’t much further. So, we decided to do that.

I left Diane at the hotel while I arranged for parking the car. I got a lot of walking in getting this all done. Something like 4 miles. But, I got a pass for 30 days for only $120. That’s like stealing for parking only a couple blocks from Waikiki.

Then we went to dinner at Fresco, a nearby Italian restaurant. The food was great, we had a terrific view of the Hilton Lagoon, and we could hear the music from a luau going on in the park.

Fortunately I didn’t spill anything. Diane, however, spilled her water. It was OK. Our waiter had a mop.

We walked back to our hotel, took a shower called it a night. It wasn’t even 8 pm, but our bodies tell us it’s 10 pm so went to bed.

Jerrie Fell Down and went BOOM!

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I’ve been missing in action for just a little less than one month. To me, in my old age, it was just mere minutes. But, in my defense, I’ve been pretty busy during those missing hours. Looking back, however, there’s lots of evidence supporting Diane’s firm belief that I’m a victim of dementia. I know that’s her belief because she points it out every time she quizzes me about something I was apparently supposed to remember. Regarding that, while in the midst of living through those events, and/or discussions it wasn’t made clear to me that it would be necessary to provide accurate answers about details.

Since I’m not much of a detail person I had to struggle through many awkward moments in an attempt to live up to expectations with accurate data. Because of that I did my best to fill my blanks with the best stuff I could make up in a hurry. I’ve done that so often that my reality is blurred with a lot of fake information. The longer I pretend, the more real it becomes.

Considering all that I think perhaps that living in a fantasy world might not be all that bad. I’m so good at it that I’m seriously considering a run for Congress in 2024. Maybe I’ll go for President. There’s considerable proof that anyone can run for, and win, political office without understanding anything about what’s expected. Credentials? Who needs real ones when you can just make up what sounds good at the time. Education? Same thing. All you need is money. Lots of it.

Something that may, or may not, influences voters is that I’m not aligning with a particular party. I mean, c’mon. Why are they called parties, anyway? Doing that kind of defines the kind of activity one might expect of those who affiliate with them. Instead, I’m not affiliating with any organization that is defined as a party. I’m just running for office. There’s another thing that causes me to go “hmmm.” Why do candidates “run” for office? Why don’t they just calmly walk for an office at a brisk pace? How about “vying” for office? Or “competing”?

If anyone wants to help with my campaign all you need to do is write my name in for any position of any ballot anywhere. Don’t send money. I don’t want to feel like I’m obligated to do something for somebody.

This morning was pretty exciting at our house when I tripped over the dog and crashed into the door on Diane’s shoe closet. If I hadn’t been carrying a glass of water and my iPad I could have probably protected myself a little better but being burdened as I was I had to stop my forward momentum with my face and right shoulder. Doing that wasn’t a conscious act as it happened faster than little brain could considered an alternate outcome. So, from about 3 feet from the door I began my descent into the door.

The first contact with the door was made with the outer corner of my right eyebrow, then the frame of my glasses, then my right shoulder. The noise was loud enough to wake up everyone in the house, even in the basement. It was quite astounding.

The door stopped my forward progress making a descent to the floor inevitable. The first thing that happened was gravity took over and I dropped vertically to my knees while my face slid down the door. Then I automatically tipped back and to my right causing my right hand to hit the floor first, then my left, and I rolled onto my back, still holding half a glass of water.

There was a lot of scurrying and exclamation as people tried to discover what all the racket was. Gilligan arrived first, then Diane, then Jeff. Someone took the glass of water from my hands but I don’t know who wound up with the iPad. Then I just laid there waiting to discover what was going to hurt the most. Oddly, there was very little pain involved and nothing broke. After a short period of fending off attempts to get me off the floor, I was able to attain a vertical position on my own. Then we went to Diane’s other house so Jeff and I could work on installing a new garage door opener. I was allowed to participate with the understanding that I would not be allowed on a ladder.

As the day progressed pains in my shoulder, wrists, and knees manifested as a reminder that I probably should have turned on the light before venturing into the dark end where the dog waited.

Now I must limp to my bed and prepare for tomorrow’s chores. We have to finish the garage door opener, then Diane and I have to pack our suitcases. We’re going on a trip.

Season Greetings and Happy Birthday Diane

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It’s been two months since my last post so I feel compelled to report that any any information you’ve seen about my demise is incorrect. I was going to say “it’s a lie” but that just sounded a bit harsh in my head. I’m actually fine. Diane isn’t totally sure about that but I think I’m OK.

I’m currently sitting next to my favorite wife, staring through a double pane, rain-splattered window at the stormy Pacific Ocean. Sounds a bit dreary, doesn’t it, but it’s really not. The ocean is Diane’s Happy Place, rain or shine. And, since today is her last day of her 75th year here on earth, she gets to do whatever she wants. Yes, today is her birthday, but it isn’t official until 8:08 pm so she’s going to lounge peacefully in the waning hours of #75. She’ll probably be amazed that I remember the minute she was born because she’s pretty sure I’m losing my mind. But, 8:08 was the hull number of the first ship I was assigned to – USS Dennis J. Buckley DD-808.

Next on the today’s list is lunch at Norma’s in downtown Seaside. We’re staying at the Tides, an airbnb studio condo. We’ve passed by it many times on our trips to the ocean so it wasn’t a surprise find. It’s been here a long time. Yesterday when we arrived it was revealed to us that although it’s evident many upgrades have been done to our unit, none of them included the addition of a refrigerator large enough to hold enough food for multiple days. It’s a tiny little thing suitable for a dorm room and it doesn’t have a freezer. Also, when we could not get any hot water from the taps we learned from the office that it was “luck of the draw” (his words) about who got the hot water first. We were told that the folks in the room next to us got it first by filling their tub for the ir child to play in. Made me go “hmmmm” a couple of times. After waiting an hour or so, and running the hot water tap for about 5 minutes, we had hot water.

When we first took our seats in front of our assigned windows there were quite a few folks out walking their dogs. All of them were chasing balls thrown by their humans. It was fun to watch. By “quite a few” I really mean 7 or 8 and none of them were close to each other, avoiding the chance of someone picking up the wrong ball..

Also on the beach, some with dogs, were joggers. I’ve never been one of those so I find it hard to relate to the joy of running. I’m OK being a slug, just sitting here watching them trot up and down the beach in the rain. We’ll enjoy part of that thrill when we leave our room and face the rain on our walk to the car. Diane was happy to learn that I brought my raincoat without being reminded.

The past couple of months have been eventful which is part of the reason why I’ve been idle. The other part is because I couldn’t seem to conjure up enough motivation to sit down and do this.

I know there is a lot to share, but none of it is readily available at this moment, so I’m quitting and will do some studying before starting a new post.

Cheers to you all.

Red Rock Canyon & Donny

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Just a little bit west of Las Vegas is a place everyone should visit if you’re ever in the area. This National Conservatory (not a park) is beautiful and can be accessed with your Old Age National Park Pass (OANPP) and a couple of bucks. But, you need to make a reservation because they monitor the number of vehicles allowed every hour. It’s a busy place and the road is one way all the way. it’s probably 13 miles long. I know that’s true because I looked on the map they gave us.. There are stops all along the route to view things.

Here’s a little bit of what we saw …

We also saw Donny Osmond. He put on an exceptional 90 minute show that we both loved.

Palm Springs to Las Vegas

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I’m going back a couple of days for this one because I wanted to make all my photos available. As most of you know, I seem to have a problem getting them from my phone to my computer sometimes. But, they’re all there now, so I can catch up.

We left Palm Springs yesterday, two days before our scheduled departure. I’m not sure why we did that, but we did. One of the last things we did before packing up was spend most of Tuesday at the pool. First time we did that and it was very pleasant. People in PS are very nice and no one laughed at my chicken legs and farmer’s tan.

Wednesday morning we packed everything into our suitcases, and all the remaining stuff in the bags we collected during our many shopping trips for one thing and another. Then I hurked all it down to the vehicle, one bag at a time. That isn’t true, of course. I took two items at a time so I could walk straight. With only one heavy item to carry, I tended to walk in circles to keep my balance. So I started with that overweight suitcase and the next one down in size. When packing, I moved all the heavy stuff from #1 and put them in #2 to even things up a little. After I got the suitcases loaded I started on the bags, of which there were many. Diane was a huge help by moving all the bags from the 2nd floor and staged them at the bottom of the stairs. No elevator, remember? It was not easy for her to make those trips up and down and I really appreciated her help.

On our way north, we passed through the little town of Joshua Tree on Highway 62. As we headed up into the mountains I kept getting these annoying flash flood warnings. Never got any of those before so I wasn’t overly alarmed. There were clouds scattered around, but being from Oregon they don’t scare me at all. Shortly before getting to Yucca Valley we were peppered with some rain which was nice, actually. We like rain. It’s refreshing. Clears the air.

As the rain got heavier, before we got to town, we learned that rain in this part of the world also clears the streets and we learned what those warnings were all about.

In Yucca Valley we only saw two (2) storm drains on the main street and they were working just fine. Being the only two, however, didn’t help clear the massive amount of water rushing in from all the streets that didn’t have drains. The result was that pretty much every intersection through town was flooded over the sidewalks in most cases.

Some small cars, whose drivers took the chance of navigating through the water didn’t make it and stood all alone in the rushing water. There was really no danger because the water was probably 6-10″ deep at the most and wasn’t getting inside the cars. Being in the Toyota 4-Runner, we weren’t in peril. Diane did a great job of plowing through the water, keeping a safe distance, and letting the locals with their jacked up trucks fly through the deep stuff which is probably how they get the bottom of their rigs cleaned off.

Finally we got through the worst of it and turned left from Highway 62 onto Highway 247, or Old Woman Springs Road, according to my map. That’s the name of the Highway 247 all the way to Lucerne Valley where all the dairy products sold at Safeways the world over come from even though there’s not a cow in sight.

Anyway, in Lucerne Valley Old Woman Springs Road continues west, but Highway 247 heads north toward Barstow. Consequently, Highway 247 became Barstow Road just like that. I suspect it’s called Barstow Road because that’s where it goes, io Barstow, where intersects I-15 which originates in San Diego, CA and heads for Las Vegas, our destination. So, we turned right and headed that direction. Exit 239 on Highway 237 was fun:

An interesting thing about I-15 is that southbound drivers exit the freeway right across the street from the old CPO Club at 32nd Street Naval Base in San Diego. The last time we were down there the old club was a place to eat an excellent, and cheap, buffet lunch. Pretty awesome.

The drive took about 4.5 hours and we only had to stop once to empty our bladders. Other than the excitement in Yucca Valley, it was an uneventful trip.

That’s it for the trip. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about our visit with Donny Osmond, and our visit to Red Rock Canyon.

Now I must sleep because Diane turned all the lights off. It’s 2330.

More Dinosaurs

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When I added the dino photos yesterday it was apparent that guessing what I was photographing doesn’t work well. My screen was dimmed to the point where I couldn’t see anything because the sun was so bright. A little fiddling with Settings revealed that I actually had the ability to brighten my screen display thereby allowing me to actually see what I was shooting. So, for Jasper, here’s a better one of he big guy, and a couple extra just for fun:

The photo with the red vehicle is the one we’re using. I took this to give a little perspective to the metal sculptures.

Dinosaurs

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Along one of the streets Palm Springs is a very large lot that hosts a display of about 17 dinosaurs made out of metal. Knowing that there are some little people in our family who really like those things. So, this is for them, and for everyone else who find joy in these critters. All I have are photos for this. No narrative.

That’s it.

Joshua Tree National Park

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Today I got up at 0500 so I could excitedly anticipate our pending visit to Joshua Tree National Park. There are three entrances to the park from Highway 62 on the north side, and another on the south side from I-10. Since we wanted to see the village of Joshua Tree. Also, the Marine Base at 29 Palms was a place we wanted to go because we like to visit any military base we can. So, we drove west on I-10 then headed up Highway 62 to Joshua Tree where we stopped at an iHop for breakfast. After ordering our food it took almost an hour for them to produce our food, but we were talking the entire time and didn’t complain. Because of our good nature, the wait staff was pretty amazed that we didn’t throw a hissy-fit about the wait, but we were busy talking about “stuff” and didn’t really notice. For our good nature, they gave us the coffee for free. We thought that was quite nice even though we were more than happy to just go with the flow. It’s Sunday, after all, and everyone showed up at iHop for lunch after church. They were really busy.

After we finished eating, we continued east to 29 Palms where we turned north on Adobe Rd for access to the MAGTFTC/MCAGCC, the largest Marine Base in the US. I don’t know what the acronym MAGTFTC/MCAGCC means so if you’re curious you’ll have to look it up. I can help a little because I’m pretty sure the MC stands for Marine Corps. Oh, never mind, I’ll tell you: MARINE AIR GROUND TASK FORCE TRAINING COMMAND and MARINE CORPS AIR GROUND COMBAT CENTER. I had to look it up.

We drove around on the base looking at the really nice base housing, comparing it to the base housing we lived in for many years. That was 33 years ago so things were bound to change. It was fun to check it out.

When we drove off the base we continued straight south into the State Park. The change in the landscape was amazing. The rock structures were fascinating. The Joshua trees turned into a forest that filled all the open space between huge piles of rocks that appeared to have been strewn haphazardly by a giant.

Instead of trying to explain it, I’ll just show you …

Split Rock
Diane at Split Rock with a heavenly light shining on her.

Regarding that last photo … the sun was incredibly bright and I was not able to see what the camera was looking at so it was pure luck that any of them had substance. This one, with a light apparently shining on Diane, caused her a bit of concern wondering what it means. Is it a warning? Is it protection? I have a good feeling about it like God’s shining his light on one of his special people. Or, it’s the Star Trek trying to beam her up, but they missed.

I think you get the idea. That last photo was taken at a location that overlooks the valley in which Palm Springs is snuggled. It’s right below Mt. San Jacinto, elevation 10,833 feet, the mountain on the right.

After viewing this, we went back to our abode. It was a really good day. We got another stamp in our National Parks Passport book.

Thriftyness and Sunnylands

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Yesterday we took some time off because all this running around is very tiring and we’re pretty sure I caught COVID somewhere along the line. I think it was on Dinah Shore Blvd. I was really hard to tolerate. Well, not everyone thought I had COVID but it was unanimous that I was hard to tolerate. I admit it, OK, but it was some sort of California illness that made me that way. Even though I was in terrible shape I did my best to keep it to myself and went with Diane to a most amazing thrift store. It was called Collector’s Corner. Very unassuming on the outside but inside it was pretty amazing. It was a little like going to Nordstroms but with wider aisles. And, surprisingly, the prices were very reasonable. Mind boggling.

See what I mean? Amazing. The china cabinet in the first pic was on sale for $75. Neck ties and belts for $2, and silverware. I didn’t look at the prices because all I could think about was how excited Cliff would be to search through them.

The only thing we purchased was a $2 leather belt, oddly from Nordstroms, for Diane. Then we went ‘home’.

Once we regained the safety of our rented room we turned on the news and discovered that there was a Haboob lurking around the Salton Sea and it was slowly heading north, DIRECTLY AT US!

As we watched the news, the evening turned dark, and we experienced our first Haboob ever right off our deck.. That’s a dust storm blowing in quite hard. It was an interesting sight as it blew through the trees by our room, obscuring the swale beyond, and mountains beyond the swale. Normally they are very prominent throughout the day. It was very interesting. The only other time we’ve heard about Haboobs was from Julie when one filled her swimming pool in Phoenix. Because of that we always thought Haboobs only happened in Arizona.

So much for Haboobs …

Today we drove to Sunnylands which is located on Bob Hope Blvd. It’s also on Frank Sinatra Blvd, and a couple of other streets. Getting to our assigned vehicle required that we wipe the dust off the bannisters so Diane could use them. Then we discovered a dirty vehicle. I tried to capture it in a photo but it’s deceiving.

See? It was shiny all over just a few hours previously. Now we’ll have to find a car wash as soon as the dust goes away. Although the Haboob has pretty much gone away, there’s still lots of dust in the air.

See. There are mountains behind that haze of dust.

Braving the local freeways in a very dirty car wasn’t difficult because most of the other vehicles were also dirty. So, we wandered over to Sunnylands for the tours that Diane arranged for us. To avoid embarrassment, she parked as far from the venue entrance as she could.

Sunnylands is an enormous estate that was built in the middle of 900 acres of desert in Rancho Mirage. The 25,000 square foot single level home, surrounded by a private 9-hole golf course and 15 man ma,de lakes sites on 200 of those 900 acres. This link will tell you more than I can remember so you need to read it. What did stick in my mind is that all of the trees and plants on the estate were planted because there was literally nothing but sand when the builders started working on it. It took 3 years to complete and is well worth a look.

We took a little tram driven by Noah who was very knowledgeable about the estate. He drove us all the way around the property and gave us all the history. It was very interesting. You should go there.

These are the only palm trees on the estate.

This estate has been used as the west coast Camp David where many presidents came to relax over the years. All of them were pampered and fed as long as they sat at their assigned seat denoted by a card with their name on it.

This display of silver caught my eye because of the name cards …

Guess why …

That’s it for today.

I have no idea what’s going on tomorrow.

What’s in Indio?

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Beyond Van Gogh is here for a while, at the Empire Polo Club. We were going to go to this in Portland previously, then Diane learned that it was going to be in Indio during our trip to this part of the world. So, plans were changed to visit that venue here. Never been to a polo club before. Just seen them on TV and in the movies. Seems like a complicated chore for horses, dodging all those long handled croquet mallets, and banging into the other horses. We didn’t get to see any of that, of course, because the Van Gogh event took precedence. It was set up inside an enormous building that is apparently used for polo matches when it rains. Which isn’t very often.

When we first entered the building we encountered a series of small billboard like displays that gave the history about Vincent Van Gogh as well as some short letters that he wrote to his brother Theo and their co-owned dog Buster. Sadly, Buster liked Theo best which is why Vincent never painted a picture of him.

I did my best to read every one of them because they were actually interesting. There was no mention of Buster on any of those letters so I don’t think that’s true about him being co-owned by the brothers. I’ll bet they didn’t even have a dog. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I just made that up.

After zig zagging through the gallery of Vincents life we exited through a doorway into the larger room where the magic happened. As the users said, the display is on a 37 minute loop. There was no set time as to how long viewers could stay watching the display but the fact that mentioning the 37 minute loop planted the seed that after 37 minutes it was time to leave.

The swirling display changed constantly for 37 minutes so it was difficult to keep our eyes moving in such a manner that allowed us to see everything. There was some danger that we’d have to sit through the display again to ensure we didn’t miss anything. You may have noticed that Vincent painted numerous pictures of himself. That because, as a struggling artist, he couldn’t afford to pay models to sit for him. So, he painted what was available to him.

Seeing all these works by Van Gogh was mesmerizing and very calming as soothing music was played for the duration of the show. Starry Starry Nite, played in a subtle minor key by a bunch of stringed instruments, was prominent, but you had to listen hard to catch the melody.

There were a total of three 2-butt benches scattered around the vertical displays and about minute 26 we were fortunate enough to be near one when it was vacated. So we sat for a while. Then a lady stood lurking near us making Diane nervous. It was evident that she was just waiting for an opportunity to replace us on that treasured resting place. So, at minute 39 we relinquished it and moved on to the last stop, the gift shop. The only things we got were a refrigerator magnet and a wall hanging of Starry Starry Night. Where it will eventually hang is currently unknown but we’re pretty sure the magnet will find a place on the refrigerator.

Leaving the building we were funneled around the side of the building which was next to one of the many polo fields in the area. They take their polo seriously in Palm Springs. There are numerous fields like this all around the city – easily hundreds of acres of them.

After Van Gogh it was time for lunch so we randomly chose Sloan’s to satisfy that need. The food was excellent as was the service. We were pleased with our choice.

Then, we went ‘home’ to our desert oasis. That’s actually true because the name of the resort at which we’re staying is the Desert Oasis.

Friday we have tickets to Sunnyland, one of the many mansions in the area. We both will take a tram tour of the grounds and Diane will get the full meal-deal of a guided visit inside. While she’s doing that I get to watch a movie.

Hope all is well on the home front, and wherever you might be. Stay safe.