Tag Archives: photography

Day 35 – Diane Shopped, I Didn’t

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Today was another lazy one. For me. Diane left the park to do more shopping, and I stayed back to watch football. She insisted, and I know why. I shop a lot faster than she does and when I’m done, I follow her around. She’s not a fan of hovering. So, we’re both just fine with her shopping, and me not shopping.

I watched the U of Oregon beat Michigan State yesterday then this morning I got to watch UCLA get beat by Penn State. I’m kinda following the Pac 12 deserters to see how they fare in the Big 10. So far they seem to be doing pretty good. Oregon 5-0 on the season so far and were ranked 6th in the nation. They should improve on the next reset.

I’m sure all of you are hanging on my every word about this, aren’t you? I can’t help myself once something gets in my head. So, sorry about that.

The past week here in the park has been extremely foggy every morning. Too foggy to see across the bay and sometimes too foggy to see the sailboats anchored just offshore. Really thick stuff. It was clearing off in the afternoons leaving us with very pleasant evenings, except for the last two days. To make it worse, the fog seems to help funnel noise all the way across the bay right into our RV. Somewhere over there is someone over there with a drum set and a very loud bass guitar. I don’t think one person plays both of them and there may even be other instruments involved, but we can’t hear them. All we hear is the drums and the bass. They play late into the night, too. A real bummer when trying to go to sleep. Eventually, they stop. I just pretend it’s like tinnitus and I can almost ignore it. Almost. Not quite totally.

At this moment, the time is 1820 on this Saturday evening so, if you’re a Oregon Beaver fan, you know I’m watching them play Colorado State. 4th quarter just started and Beavs are up 21-10. So far so good. I’ve been watching the game on what I thought was a failing Dish receiver because the channels were stuttering and stopping for long periods of time. Made it difficult to keep track of things. So, instead of calling Dish, I unplugged everything and reset the receiver 3 times, just like I would have if I’d made that call. On the last reboot, I took Max for a walk. When we got back it was working just fine. So now I’m not sure if the reboots took care of the problem, or if all I had to do was take Max for a walk. Or maybe it was a combination of both, and they had to be done in the right sequence. Life is so full of mysteries that I’m prone to go with the latter solution. Doing that makes me wonder just what force of nature keeps track of things like that. How are decisions made? Does this entity have favorites? Does prayer help? You know, the standard questions one must ask when dealing with the unknown.

Diane and I are ready to move on down the road. Our visit to Fiddler’s Cove is the longest we’ve ever spent in one spot in the RV. We both find it interesting how easy it is to acclimate to this kind of new reality. The projected noise helps with that desire. Two days and a nitenite left. We leave on Tuesday morning.

Now I’m going to see about getting photos in a spot where I can use them for you enjoy.

I took this one while crossing the Coronado Bay Bridge. That’s downtown San Diego.

For fun, here’s a photo from 2014 of our cat Breezie. She loves Tillamook yogurt.

This is me getting a root canal in 2014.

That should do it for now.

Seventeenth Day – Point Loma

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This Cabrillo National Monument is located on Point Loma, one of the most iconic pieces of real estate for anyone who served in the Navy and sailed in or out of San Diego. Point Loma is the last land we saw when leaving port, and the first we saw when returning home. It’s an emotional thing. Some cruises when we returned, we’d get here too soon and would have to stand off Point Loma until daylight. Coming home had to be in the light of day. Sitting a mile offshore all night, sometimes, was tough knowing liberty was right there in front of us.

That’s the monument and behind it, in the distance, is Coronado which is located at the north end of the Silver Strand that begins at Imperial Beach.

This shows a little more of the Silver Strand. That spear sticking up is, I think, a yucca plant. I lined it up as best I could to point at the location of the RV park where we are currently living. If you can blow up the photo a little, you’ll actually see some multi-storied buildings.

Just north of the city of Coronado is, oddly enough, North Island Naval Air Station. It’s a large base and pretty handy for keeping track of aircraft for the aircraft carriers that tie up there on the bay side of the island. We’ve seen as many as 4 carriers tied up there. Today there are only 2 of them. I don’t know if they have changed home ports, or if they are working somewhere in the mid-east. While we were at the monument, 4 or 6 fighter jets took off from the airfield giving us a little more taste of the sound of freedom. Diane loves the jets. She swoons sometimes.

Max liked them, too …

A more somber aspect of Point Loma is the National Cemetery. It covers many, many acres of this prime real estate and the residents are heroes.

After leaving Point Loma Diane drove us to the Ocean Beach Dog Park where we spent a shaky few minutes watching Max run free amidst many strange dogs, totally ignoring us, wondering if he’s decided to just take off and not return. He wouldn’t come to me because I had the leash, but he finally found Diane and went to her. Good for him. Because of his good choice to stick with us I took him on an extra-long walk once we returned ‘home’.

Now, going back to Max’s dog fight, one of my injuries turned into an interesting profile of a swan. Or a long-necked duck. Either way, it’s an interesting shape for a scab, don’t you think.

For supper today we had pot roast that has been stewing in the crock pot pretty much all day. Diane assembled it before we left on our rare trip into the more populated areas of the San Diego area, and it kept cooking until 5 pm when she deemed it was done. Since I didn’t cook it, I thought it was way better than what I could have turned out. Delicious.

Diane has been waiting patiently for some of the ships across the harbor to be pulled away from their piers so they could hurry out to sea and today her vigilance paid off. Though watching them depart from Point Loma is better, it wasn’t until we were crossing the Bay Bridge that I spied the first ship out beyond the jetties. Better than nothing. Then, when we got ‘home’ she watch a couple of orange tugs launch 3 more ships and send then on their way, one every hour. Made her day.

Now I will quit. “Dancing With The Stars” is on. See you tomorrow.

Thirteenth Day – The Dish is Fixed!

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It’s been a good day. We went shopping at a Walmart Super Store for some food to replace what seems to have gone missing over the past few days. Then we went back to Camper World to get a new Wally because I was convinced that the old one took a beating in all the heat it suffered.

Once home I carted all the new food inside and Diane, like a magician, found places for all of it to reside. A couple of the items she got was some dead chicken pieces and a bag of frozen stir-fry veggies. While she lounged around on the patio with Max, I cooked all that stuff for lunch, and it was OK because that’s my job. I’m the cook. She cleans. I love the tradeoff. So does she. Thankfully it was good. She said so.

After eating all that dead chicken Max thought, it would be nice if he got to go for a walk because he had to stay home and guard the RV from intruders. He’s good at that because he’s such a scary little guy. Having said that, I’d bet he didn’t bark even one time while we were gone because he was asleep. I’m going to install a camera and see if that’s true.

Once we returned from the walk Diane gave me permission to install the new Wally and see if our life without TV was going to change. Before calling the designated number to activate the new Wally, I hooked it all up, paired the new remote to Wally, and it started going through its paces without me having to do much of anything as it moved through the process. All I had to do as wait for the que to dial the number and finish it. The end result proved to be the solution to our on-going dilemma we’ve experienced on this trip. Everything worked perfectly. We’ll never have to leave the RV at all except to get food. Life is good.

As the sun started going down Diane pried herself out of her patio chair and did a few loads of laundry so now we have clean towels, and I have my underwear back. I was running low. Tomorrow it will be sheets and some other stuff that doesn’t concern me.

Just as we were fixing to sequester ourselves in the RV to watch TV, we saw some interesting boats in the middle of the bay moving slowly with blinking red and amber lights. Diane said she’d seen then earlier zooming to the south in a line, going like the wind. This time they were heading back to the north. As we watched them, we became aware of small green and red lights bobbing in the water, moving very slowly toward us.

In the bay next to the RV park is a large docking facility for some really fancy boats. It’s owned by the Navy Yacht Club San Diego that has use of buildings in the park. I know that’s true because I’ve seen the signs.

As the lights moved around the bay, steadily moving north, the smaller lights migrated into the space between the bay and the docked yachts and the RV park. It wasn’t long before everyone in the park was standing/sitting along the edge of the water watching what was going on. As the sun set, the lights were easier to see.

Considering where we are, in very close proximity to base and beach where advanced Navy Seal training is conducted, I presumed the small lights in the bay were tethered to swimmers making their way from the southern end of San Diego Bay (Imperial Beach) back to the base from which they embarked. My presumption was adopted as truth by all the people surrounding me, that we were watching future Navy Seals at work. It appeared their objective was to transit that small space between us and the moored yachts without lights, in the dark. I have to admit that it was only Diane and me standing behind our RV, but many others were drawn to the drama taking place in new technology. There were no bubbles that would indicate a swimmer so they must have been using either rebreathers or some sort of technology that allows the escort boats to wirelessly send them oxygen via the tethered lights. They came toward us then moved away but always moved north to circumnavigate the docked yachts. It seemed they were doing this for our benefit, but in truth, it was probably Special Forces testing fancy stuff. I think everyone agreed that this was far better than listening to them firing weapons all up and down the beach for hours before quiet time – 10 pm.

I’m convinced I’m right, as is Diane. It was a display of Seals at Work. Amazing.

In case you’re wondering, my arm still hurts, and I took the bandages off to relieve pain from the swelling. It’s not bad but removing the bandages helped my attitude. Diane read the paperwork sent home with me from the hospital and learned that I’ve been advised to see my primary care doctor in a week for follow-up. So, I guess we’ll either have to fly home next week, or head home now since it took us a week to get here. That decision will be made tomorrow.

Good night.

Eleventeenth Day – Relaxing in Space #45

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Today we did pretty much nothing. That’s right, nothing. Well, nothing other than eat every once in a while, walk Max, try to make the Dish system work, visit with neighbors, and walk Max. Eating was sporadic, walking Max three times was mandatory (he insists), and visiting with neighbors just happens.

Then, there was all the gunfire going on up and down Coronado Beach for 5 hours, 4-9 pm. Everyone knows it’s the Navy Seal training, so I just look at it as the sound of freedom. The weapons being used were semi-automatic but I’m not sure of caliber. I’ll ask my new friend, Ray, a retired Gunners Mate Chief from Arkansas, who just happens to be driving an almost exact replica of our RV. Yes, he and his wife and 3 dogs also has a Holiday Rambler Neptune XL, but his is a 2008. He and I had a nice visit and will we’ll be getting together again. Fun guy. Much younger, be he’s a fellow chief so we understand each other.

The last walk of the day for Max was just as it was getting dark. The RV Park is situated on the water side of a housing area where houses are no doubt very expensive even though most of them do not have a water view. At the end of the park the asphalt turns to and brush, a good place to walk a dog. There’s a path through the brush that goes toward the homes and circles back around to the park, but going that direction, at that time, had us walking directly toward the gunfire. We couldn’t see what was going on because of housing and sand dunes, but we could definitely hear them. Max didn’t want to have anything to do with going that direction and made it clear he wanted to walk aways from the noise. I let him choose the direction and he led me right back to the RV which was about 1/2 a mile away. That tells me a little about what he may have been subjected to while running the streets in California before we got him. He was not a happy camper out there.

Back at the RV we watched a documentary on 9/11 that showed us a great deal about what happened before, during, and after the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. Both Diane and I remember that day vividly, as I’m sure most of you do also.

Today was much cooler than yesterday. The next few days are supposed to cool even further. It’s nice to not having your clothes stick to you all the time and to have the A/C units running nonstop to cool things down. It was nice on our ears. We don’t know how long the cooling spell will last, but it’s OK. Today was beautiful and comfortable. We’ll take it that way any day.

Seems like there was something else I wanted to share but all I can think of is that Diane pointed out that I misspelled “presidential” on my last entry so once this is done, I’ll correct that.

Be safe.

To the Beach & Back

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Here I am, sitting in my recliner, Max hanging out between my legs, watching an NCAA Men’s playoff game (Clemson vs. Alabama) while Diane watches a recorded episode of The Bachelor. Living the dream.

In case you missed it, Kelsey (sp) won and got a humungus ring. Also, Alabama won the game. I don’t know who they play next. The game I watched before that one was UCONN vs. Illinois. Quite an amazing game. When the score was tied 23-23 UCONN went on a 30-0 run which kinda sealed it for them.

Now I’m compelled to lean into the goofy side of my brain. You may stop reading at any time and use your time in a more constructive way. I won’t mind at all.

Recently, Diane and I, and Max, spent a few days at Cape Lookout State Park near Tillamook where we didn’t even take one walk on the beach as a complete family. Max and I got out because he made it very clear that if I didn’t take him out he was going to crap in the trailer. That would not have made Diane happy. The weather was crappy so it really wouldn’t have been upset. But, we walked on the beach numerous times to avoid an unwanted nature call on the couch. He’s never done that but sometimes it’s difficult to deny physical needs that are ignored for too long. So, we walked and played.

The tide was out most of the times we walked making the beach appear to be enormous.

I tried to get him to run in the waves, and he did for about 30 seconds before dragging me back to the high tide mark that was littered with thousands of dead velella. They were odiferous and Max found them to be very appealing to his sensitive nose.

Left to his own devices he did his best to roll his little body in the sweet perfume of dead sea creatures but I won that tussle. He still needed a bath which he got when we returned to the trailer.

Those things were everywhere amongst the rocks.

To make the trip a little more enjoyable, we came upon some waterfalls that dribbled themselves onto the beach. They were very pretty and I did my best to get Max under them be he wasn’t having any of that.

Instead of choosing to rinse under one of the waterfalls he wandered toward the incoming tide, climbed on a rock and was promptly washed off into a roiling spin bath. I wish I had had some soap with me. I would have taken a photo but didn’t want to take a chance of dropping my phone into the water. Just trust me when I say he was thoroughly soaked when I managed to get him back to dry ground.

RV Troubles & Other Stuff

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I just realized, like just now, really, that I’m on the verge of failing my 2024 resolution already. And it’s only the 8th! I suspect that some of you might disagree with the “on the verge” claim and, instead, believe I’ve already exceeded the self-imposed timeframe for failure. For those of you on that side I submit that whatever rule I imposed is subjective meaning that I can change it any time I want. So, I’m still OK here.

It’s cold out there. Wet, too. Because of that double whammy it’s an adventure to take Max for a walk. My raincoat actually keeps me dry but Max’s raincoat is more like a sponge. I think it’s more of a coat to keep him warm instead of dry. But, that’s all he has. Considering the weather, I think Diane should do a little shopping and get something that’s a little more waterproof for the little guy. Don’t you? Maybe after she reads this, she’ll do it.

It might be a good idea to get him one that serves as a life jacket, too, because the creek out back is getting pretty high, almost to the point of overflowing into the yard. Keeping Max dry is our problem, not Max’s. He likes the water and doesn’t care how high it gets.

It’ll go back to normal eventually. Thankfully, he hasn’t fallen in while it’s running this high and fast. He’s not afraid of it but he respects the potential disastrous results should he venture in for a swim. I’ve had talks with him about that and I think he gets it. If he falls in my only recourse would be to make a beeline to the point where Milton Creek joins the Columbia River. That’s only a couple of miles away. If I miss him there then he’s getting a trip all the way to Astoria, another 60 miles. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to be dog-paddling that far. So, he keeps his distance.

We were going to make a trip to the coast later this week to watch the King Tides, and maybe see a couple of whales on their way south, but the rain, and the forecast for more rain isn’t encouraging. I know, we’re Oregonians and we love the rain. That’s true. But we don’t have to go out a play in it like we did when we were 7. Did I mention that it’s cold, too?

We’ve been dealing with RV woes for the past couple of months, trying to get new weather stripping around the slides and seal up a couple of leaky spots that annoy us. Nothing catastrophic, just annoying. I took the RV to a local dealer who recently moved to St. Helens from Gresham (I think) and explained what I was hoping to accomplish, and they gave me a quote for “about $700” which I thought wasn’t too bad. Labor’s the biggie at $159/hr. After they had it for about a week I was called and told the job is done and I could go get it.

I was happy to do that because there’s a huge mattress in the garage that needs to go back in it so we can park the truck inside. When I got there, I paid the bill, then I went to get in and take it home. First, however, I checked the items I had address to see how it was done and discovered that, gee, it wasn’t done. I know, should have checked first, right? True, but I’ve had other items fixed by them since they moved in and trusted them.

The Reader’s Digest version is that they addressed all the issues but didn’t finish any of them. The bill was over $900. I received assurance that all the discrepancies I pointed out while serving as their QC guy would be fixed at no additional cost to me.

Another week goes by and I get another call to come get the rig because the work was done. I paid them a visit and let them know I was going to check it out. The maintenance supervisor went with me. I checked all the items I’d previously address and found that it still hadn’t been addressed and the main leak in the driver’s area was worse than ever.

Another week trickles by and I get another call to come check it out and find that the leaks have stopped, the floor was dry, but the gasket around the main slide was still in the “partially fixed” stage. The same stage it was in the first time I was called to claim my finished rig. I personally pointed it out to them 3 times what I figured should be done and was obviously ignored. The lead tech acknowledged the failure on their part claiming that the guy he had working on it was focused on the leaks, not the gaskets. I believe he might finally understand that Jerrie isn’t pleased as he headed for the exit.

That’s where I left this mess last week sometime and I’m waiting for them to call me again to report completion. Diane told me to be stern and “don’t pay them another dime” or else she’ll go talk with them and it won’t be pretty. So, to keep from having to scrape up some bail money for her, I need to follow this to the end all by myself.

Looking forward to the next phone call reporting completion of this project.

This is the rig, you may recall, that we took on that Utah trip, pulling a big Silverado. It worked great but I decided during that trip that I’m getting too old to drive something this big.

So, not long after returning home we bought a replacement that we can tow behind the Silverado. Makes more sense, right?

Now, on another note, did you know that the front glass on an iMac is held in place by magnets and that the LCD screen is secured with only 8 teeny, tiny, little screws.

I’ve always wondered what the insides of this thing looked like.