Christmas Letter

You would think that after a full year of independent living, not being dependent on any job, I would have had plenty of time to get out my second ever "Christmas Letter" or maybe some cards. But no. For some reason I am much further behind this year than last when I was gone on my grand Holiday Tour for the whole month of December visiting both Marilyn's and my families. At one time or another while I was in Ohio and West Virginia, all of my children and their spouses showed up, which made it a great family visit as well.

Since I was going to be gone for so long, I drove across country, taking the scenic route that meandered through Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, ...

I started back on January 6th and having decided to take my chances with snow, drove as straight as I could back across the country. The only place I had any snow issue was in Colorado, Friday evening, just after the Continental Divide. After driving downhill for about two miles, I took the first exit I could in the hopes of letting the snow plows do their thing for better driving the next day. I had forgotten that it was ski season. The lobby was packed and everyone I spoke with in the rather long line to check in had reservations. I did get a room, a quite nice room, in point of fact. With a rush of relief that swept all of the adrenaline fed anxiety right out of my system, I slept very well, even without my memory foam pillow, which I had left in the car. (I mention this because sleeping well allowed me to get an early start the next day, when it was just nine degrees. My memory foam pillow was as hard as a rock. It thawed well though as I was able to use it the next night.)

The early start also allowed me to really make distance the next day, all the way to Ely, Nevada. I was even there early but decided to stop anyway, after all, gambling is legal in Nevada and was available right in my Hotel/Casino. The room would have been inexpensive except for the gambling. As it was, I also got to bed early that night as well. This again allowed me to get up early. In fact, I drove by Reno too early to stop and decided to drive all the way home. (After my gambling experience in Ely, I'm sure my not stopping in Reno saved me a lot of money.)


Then there was the commemorative ski trip with my daughter Andrea. She had me post-holing up a steep cliff just to see the sunset. She had me on skis dawn to dusk and then after another half day of skiing to catch all of the trails, she had me back out on snowshoes to go out on a couple trails that were closed.

Next came the Pacific Crest Trail hike preparation. Other than my house looking like a food warehouse for a while and preparing what seemed like an endless supply of chicken jerky, my part wasn't all that much. Andrea and Neil, the actual hikers stopped by and taste tested my sample batch of chicken jerky, taking the sample with them across country to finish their training in West Virginia with my parents. There they helped reinstall some electric fencing that had been substantially removed during the logging a couple years before to allow my parents' 22 goats the illusion of greater freedom and walked.

Then when they once again returned to Pacifica to finish their packing, we walked. Finally, all of their planning came together. They had all of their packages ready with instructions on when to ship them to where using what service and they were ready to start. I had the distinct pleasure of being able to deliver them to the trail head at the U.S.-Mexican border on April 30th. In the brief time we were actually at the border, we had three separate, friendly, border patrol agents come up to speak with us and check us out. Then, they were off and so was I. As I was still in the car, my speed was considerably greater.

As they reached the Los Angeles National Forest in May, they were able to take a day or two away from the trail with Andrea's sister Elisha and her husband Ryan. Since the hiking on the PCT burns up to 5,000 calories a day and they carried only 3,000 calories, Elisha met them with some prepared food in what looked to be a decorated bottled beer six-pack container. She called it a Mackey Meal.

I also got a chance to play Trail Angel a couple weeks later at Tehachapi. Our first stop was for some food they could eat right away. We must have hit every "all you can eat" place in Tehachapi and Mojave, after they got cleaned up. In the relatively short time that we were there, we also managed to see a movie, "Up," and I made a couple extra trips to the trail head to pick up and drop off hikers. Believe me, dropping off is better. It's amazing what eight days of no water for bathing while walking through a dusty dessert can do to body odors. At least the hikers get used to it. (You can read about most of their hiking experience at: http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?trailname=9044. You can also see their SPOT recorded progress at: PCT Progress.)

Then it was my time to rush to get ready as I had an opportunity to ride with my parents to Alaska. After my successful car trip across the U.S., I decided that this time I would ride my motorcycle. To see if I could even go the distance, I rode down to visit Elisha and Ryan in Pasadena a couple of times. While that didn't prepare me to do it day after day for five or six days, I was convinced that this additional 1,600 miles of riding after barely riding twice that in the previous ten years would be enough. (Since I made it back, it must have been. If you want to read a little more on my riding my motorcycle, I've posted a Toastmaster speech I gave on it at: http://doingsomething-aboutit.blogspot.com/2009/11/why-do-i-do-it.html. )

On one of my visits to Elisha and Ryan, they took me to Huntington Gardens. Of course I had to take a lot of pictures, some of which are posted here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2008189&id=1288023430&l=6df59e2daf

They also visited here and once again hiking was involved. While I'm jumping ahead chronologically, this is the best place to put my last visit to Pasadena. It seems that hiking has become a tradition in our visits with each other. In my last visit just before Thanksgiving, they took me on a walking tour of downtown L.A. With the reputation L.A. has about their use of cars, this was certainly a unique experience that I'll treasure. Elisha, the person who avoided all musical instruments growing up has decided to learn something about the violin. She has also continued in her CalTech Choir. I'm hoping to catch one of her concerts.

My son Sean and his wife Amanda made it to my house just before I left. They were only going to stay in New York for a certain length of time and that time was up. Even though I only saw them for a week or so before I left, it's been great having them around since I've gotten back. Amanda is going to school for her teaching credential. Sean is taking after his "old man" in being gainfully unemployed.

But back to the Alaska trip. Counting my motorcycle miles, the total trip covered over 16,000 miles. There were spectacular scenes throughout, even the long ride through Canada after the Rockies. The large fields of yellow canola oil plants intermixed with alfalfa fields were truly spectacular in this stretch. (It's given me something to mull over as to whether or not I really want to ride my motorcycle around North America. I'm leaning toward yes but it really requires a lot of other things to come together as well. From this Alaska run, I do know that I want to have specific plans, and reservations, in place.)

We saw Mount Rushmore, Glacier National Park, Banff National Park, Lake Louise, Hyder Alaska, Denali National Park, lots of glaciers, all of which were spectacular. My sisters, Gail and Joy, joined us in Juneau for about ten days. In fact, they flew out of Fairbanks and we drove out the weekend before Sarah Palin's resignation picnic in Fairbanks. We were in Fairbanks three nights, before and after Denali and after the Arctic Circle. Yes, we were on the road made famous by the Ice Road Truckers. We didn't get a stone chip until we were within a couple miles of being off of the gravel portion, just when we thought we had it made. We had looked into renting a car for the trip but surprise surprise, none were available.

A few of the many pictures I took on this trip, which I've uploaded into albums on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012968&id=1288023430&l=12fe066478
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013233&id=1288023430&l=39d47500db
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013531&id=1288023430&l=422b56dd9e
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013730&id=1288023430&l=c578b7af2b
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013928&id=1288023430&l=7d6e848873
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013977&id=1288023430&l=43273174f5
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014346&id=1288023430&l=f7be62e8cf

I have lots of notes in my 2009 "At-A-Glance," but have only transcribed them, so far, into one story at: http://doingsomething-aboutit.blogspot.com/2009/10/camping-and-not-on-road-to-alaska.html.

After Alaska, most of my time has been spent seriously and non seriously looking for a job. The serious looking happens when I see something that I think might be interesting. The non serious looking is just to fill out my quota for unemployment, which is going to expire soon anyway. The real problem has been my own lack of direction, especially knowing my own desires, well that and the economy whose improvements still haven't reached us.


But all in all, it's been a truly great year, even with heartbreaking news that I haven't included in this "letter." In addition to all of the above, my first grandchild, Sophia Kalina Westbrook, arrived on December 1st at 8:24 AM PST, weighing 7 lbs. 9 oz. and 19 inches long. I've been able to hold her, feed her, and only once had to do a diaper change, so far. With all of these adults around so much to give her lots of attention, she will certainly have every opportunity to be spoiled. In point of fact, her Aunt Andrea made a special trip down to see her. Even her Great Aunt Joy stopped in for a visit. More pictures can be seen in an album I've uploaded to Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024292&id=1288023430&l=bda6c7b3c5.

I hope your holidays are great and wish everyone the best throughout the new year and beyond.

I didn't think I could do it.

Other than a blister, for which I acquired a one inch wide band-aid, I was remarkably pain free this morning. Of course the dose of Ibuprofen last night and again at 6:00 AM this morning might have had something to do with it. Even the blister didn't really hurt, I just didn't want it to get worse, or affect my skiing. While the location of the blister may have prevented me from skiing, it wasn't about to affect it. I'm just not that good.

Today we did all the blue, including redoing the blue we did yesterday. Since that only took until slightly after lunch, only because we decided to eat lunch at the Bjorn Loppet hut and that put us a good half an hour from the trail head, we decided to finish up by snowshoeing. It was only after my daughter talked me into this that she suggested we snowshoe one of the black diamond trails, Equipe. At the X-country center where we traded in our skis for snowshoes, we learned that the round trip of Equipe was three miles. Of course, there were some snowshoe only trails that we also had to go on.

See the pictures associated with this blog entry in my Kodak Gallery.

The first one was about a mile out and back. Fortunately we had someone else's snowshoeing tracks to follow. If there isn't a groomed ski trail, where the trail would have been is marked in some way thus far inscrutable to me. This snow shoe only trail started and ended right at the Equipe start, so we were quickly on the black diamond probably moving faster than if we had been on skis.

The scenery was worth it. At a far point we came upon one of the warming huts, very much like the one we ate lunch at. While I believe I could have skied this trail, I was glad to be on snowshoes.

We got back to a main cross trails at 4:10 PM, too early to stop and too late to do anything major. So, we decided to go as far as we could on yet another snowshoe only trail and turn around by 4:30 PM when the trails officially closed. (When we picked up the snowshoes, we learned that the rental place stayed open until 5:00 PM.) Again we followed someone else's snowshoe prints. This time they led to a beautiful stream and turned around. At this point we knew that they had gotten somewhat off trail but we didn't mind. It was a beautiful spot.

Tomorrow hopefully won't merit a blog entry. We are just heading home for me to find out if I have jury duty and my daughter to pick up my truck for her moving next month. I hope nothing exciting happens.

All out skiing

I miss Marilyn now in more ways. She always set a leisurely pace for my cross-country skiing. I carried the water and would always get to stop and let her drink. Even though I did that again today, my daughter rarely stopped. Further, with Marilyn I could count on maybe two hours in the morning and an hour in the afternoon before she was tired enough to hit the stores, restaurants or even the hotel room. Excluding breaks, we skied three hours before lunch and two and one half hours after lunch.

She would have probably had me ski more but the trails closed just 15 minutes after we got off of them.

It wouldn't have been too bad had we not had competing objectives. She wanted to maximize her exercise and I wanted the fun of downhill. She just added my objective to hers. This meant that we had to ski all of the green, easiest, trails because they were mostly flat and required the most work. She was also okay with going up hill although except for the short shallow downs, she walked back down.

The first major up slope trail we tried, was after I thought she was ready for some steeper downs and had her try one out. I don't know what happened, but she had a serious nose plant, which turned her off of steep downs. Fortunately there were some shorter shallow downs on the Bjorn Loppet trail. I had her practice first just starting and stopping, but going straight, for a few times. (I didn't go down every time she did, which helped separate her objective from mine just a bit.) Then I had her go down only stopping at the bottom. Then I had her snake down the slope. The next short shallow down had a turn in it. I have some pictures of her doing this in my Kodak Gallery album.

After lunch she laid out her ambitious plan to ski all of the green trails, which had us going from the Warming Hut as far to one side as possible and then back to the other side. When we were about to finish before 3:30 PM, she realized that we had missed a couple of short sections of green. Rather than just boringly retrace our glides, she suggested we make the Aspen Forest loop. We did. Finally she was tired and talking of exhaustion but we still had two trails to complete. Fortunately, one was truly on the most direct route from where we were to the trail head.

If we hadn't rented the ski equipment for two days, I don't think we would be skiing tomorrow. As it is, we may not be skiing long. We don't have that many trails we haven't been on that are open.