Fun in the Sun

                    Fun in the Sun


If you ask me, I think autumn is probably the nicest time to go.  Many of the tourists are gone, the weather (barring the occasional hurricane) is still beautiful and the majority of the kids are back in school.  The hotels have also lowered their rates by a substantial amount and most of the attractions and restaurants are still open.  All these items are definitely pluses.

Of course I’m talking about Myrtle Beach in case you might be still wondering. 

My wife and I drove down there recently for a few days to soak up the sun, look around at a few attractions that we might have missed in our many previous trips down there and to enjoy a few days away from the same old, same old of home life.  Yes, this is another “what we did on summer vacation” type of blog.  Follow along if you’re curious. 

Since Myrtle Beach is, per Mapquest, all of 700 miles away and 10 ½ driving hours down the road, we left early on our travel Sunday – around 6 am.  It’s dark then this time of year, late September, so we carefully made our way down the highway, following the light from our headlights and munching on a few doughnuts to satisfy our vacation sweet tooth.  I was smart and had borrowed a talking book from our local library the day before and we listened to it while driving. It’s amazing how the sound of a voice reading a book can make the miles melt away on those long road trips.  All the familiar waypoints were achieved and then were soon lost in our rear view mirror.  Marietta, Charleston, Bluefield, Wytheville, Pilot Rock, Winston-Salem and finally the long flat run across the Tidewater Plain to the Grand Strand.  It was a long day for two old birds like my better half and me, but the payoff was the sight of the wide Atlantic and our roomy ocean-view hotel room. 

We stayed at a place we’d vacationed at before, one of the many Best Western hotels, and a place we’d really enjoyed.  This particular trip was going to be for five nights.  We slept snugly Sunday night in our hotel room after the long day driving, listening to the quiet sounds of the ocean lapping on the sandy beach.

That Monday started out somewhat gray.  There was a hurricane, as you may recall, still sitting out at sea, northeast from our vantage point, and it was still affecting our weather a bit.  Luckily it was moving away from us and the proverbial Carolina blue sky would be returning later on in the afternoon.  We ate breakfast at the hotel and it was quite decent for hotel breakfasts with scrambled eggs, a variety of meats, breads, waffles, cereals, juices, coffee, etc.  We hit the place most mornings we were there and it was quite handy.  In the early afternoon that day we headed down to Myrtle Beach proper (we were staying in North Myrtle Beach), parked the car and wandered around a bit.  We noticed some subtle (and some not-so-subtle) damage around town from the near miss Myrtle Beach had suffered from the latest hurricane – some business sign and tree damage here and there along with some minor damage to some buildings.  We rode the new Ferris Wheel they’ve erected there which is called the Skywheel and which extends almost 200 feet up into the now plentiful sunshine.  The view from the top was quite extensive and we enjoyed taking many pictures from up there.  Then it was lunchtime on the boardwalk at one of the local eateries.  We also made time to shop at one of Myrtle Beach’s most venerable souvenir shops, the Gay Dolphin, where we helped support the local economy by getting the usual tee-shirts and a few other “must haves” from this multi-level institution on the main drag.  We returned to the hotel then and I did some metal detecting on the beach.  I’d looked forward to doing that for months, but was disappointed on how little I found out there.  The beach seemed mostly devoid of any metallic “treasures” this trip.  Not really sure why.  I know they groom the beaches at night with machinery, to pick up the trash, so most of the dropped “goodies” might have been already scooped up.  Supper was at a newer Mexican place.  Very hip and contemporary, but the food was nothing to write home about.

Tuesday I’d booked us on a boat tour on the Waccamaw River.  The boat we cruised on was of the pontoon variety, seated about 30 folks, two crewmen and a friendly Rottweiler dog named, appropriately, River!  We motored down the Waccamaw and through parts of the Intercoastal Waterway, seeing various examples of the local wildlife and plant life and enjoying a very pleasant boat ride through some very nice scenery.  The dog had obviously been on this trip many, many times and Judy enjoyed petting her as she walked up and down the boat checking out the passengers.  The river area we cruised in is home to a lot of ospreys and we saw many of their nests.  The majority of the birds themselves, however, had already flown south for the winter.  We did however, see one osprey flying around and the guide on the boat said it was probably from somewhere “up north” and was itself, heading south.  We looked hard for some alligators and did see a smallish one (six feet) from a distance swimming.  The day was picture perfect, blue skies and puffy cumulus clouds, as were all the following days we were in South Carolina.

Wednesday was our “trip to Charleston” day.  We ate breakfast at the hotel again not long after they opened at 6 a.m., then drove down the hundred-plus miles to Charleston for the first of two tours I had scheduled.  It was a horse-drawn carriage ride around downtown.  Our carriage carried about 10 of us and was pulled by two spotted horses named Yogi and Boo-boo!  They weren’t full draft horses but were bigger than just standard horses.  Our guide told us many stories about the city as we clip-clopped around.  It was quite interesting seeing the things she was talking about and hearing about the history of the area.  We also noticed evidence of some hurricane damage – a lot of construction going on at some of the residences and also some plywood sheets still on the windows that hadn’t been removed yet.  After that we drove to the Ft. Sumter pier and caught a ferry out to the island.  The fort and the pier are both U.S. National Parks.  We ambled around the old fort for a hour or so and checked out the little museum and the gift shop they had there.  Lots of history in those crumbly brick walls and old cannons and the great view from the top encompassed most of Charleston Harbor.  We were hot and thirsty when we returned to the ferry, so we bought some VERY welcome soft drinks for the run back to the mainland.  After returning back to North Myrtle Beach and our hotel, we ate at a local restaurant we remembered from a previous trip and it was just as good as we recalled.  (Remember the name “Hoskins” if you’re ever in the area.)  Fresh seafood was their specialty and, since it was kind of a local hangout but still serving lots of tourists, not too expensive!  Flounder for me and shrimp for Judy.  Yumm!  Myrtle Beach and South Carolina really showed their stuff today!

We had nothing formal planned for Thursday, so we woke a bit later than normal and had breakfast at a “real” restaurant for a change.  After eggs and pancakes and bacon we drove down to Broadway at the Beach – a big shopping/restaurant/entertainment complex some miles south of where we were staying.  We walked around there for a while, but it was REALLY hot that early afternoon, so we spent most of the time in the stores where the a/c was very welcome.  We ended up just getting some fudge and taffy to take home with us and then adjourned back to the coolness of the hotel.  We enjoyed watching some parasailors floating behind their towboat out in the ocean from our balcony.  And also some banana boat riders being bounced around on the Atlantic.  I hopped down to the hotel’s pool for a while, cooling off mainly, and then lay out in the sun to dry off.  And to get a bit sunburned as I discovered when I returned to our room!  Myrtle Beach is semi-tropical and the sun is quite strong there.  We had Sonic for a late lunch and when we returned to the hotel, we saw someone was setting up a flowered alter on the beach for a wedding!  We watched from the balcony as the ceremony progressed and when the minister finally pronounced the happy couple man and wife, everyone applauded and hollered including most of the folks staying at our hotel who’d been watching from their balconies!  It was a nice finish to a sweet week on the beach.  Supper was at the K&W Cafeteria, a local chain we’d been eating at since the mid-70’s.  Then we did some packing for tomorrow’s departure.

Friday was another early day for us.  Checking out in the humid semi-darkness of a beachside morning and back on the road again, north this time.  We listened to the rest of the talking book driving back and it was very instrumental in making the many miles go by quickly. 

Going to Myrtle Beach was a bit of a pilgrimage for us.  We’d started going there not long after we got married, in the mid-70’s, and probably had a dozen or more trips under our belts over the years.  We drove around one day this time and kept remembering places where we’d stayed, restaurants we’d eaten at, how this and that had changed, how much this sort of sleepy seaside town of 40-some years ago had grown and grown over the intervening years.  It was nice to see it again and to enjoy the welcoming of the people and of the place itself.    

North to Alaska!

                    North to Alaska!

The idea behind the recent journey my wife and I have just completed actually had its genesis about six months ago.  We were eating at a restaurant on Friday night, like we usually do. This time, along with some other friends, my ex-boss (we’re both retired) and his wife had joined us.  Larry and Sally, the aforementioned boss and wife were chitchatting with my wife and I and the subject of cruises came up.  He said that they were contemplating sailing again some time soon.  Since my wife and I were also thinking along those lines, I asked where in particular they might be going.  He said they were probably heading back to Alaska.  They had been there before, loved most everything about that region and felt like going back.  I said, half in jest and half in earnest, that we might be persuaded to head that way also if they didn’t mind us joining them.  We agreed that, if they did book a cruise up that way, they’d let us know and yes, they said they would of course enjoy our company. 

Not too long after that I received a call from Larry telling us that they had booked the cruise they’d been talking about for the upcoming summer.  Furthermore, their whole family would be accompanying them.  This would consist of six more people plus them and plus us.  There would be ten sitting at the dinner table onboard ship.  We got the information as to the ship name, where we would be cruising from and what date it would be leaving. 

We went to our travel agent that week and booked it.

Our ship would be the Coral Princess, out of Vancouver, British Columbia on June 10th.   We were going to Alaska!

So time passed, payments were made on the cruise and many pleasant hours were spent online studying the ship we would be on, the ports she would stop in while we were onboard and all other aspects of the upcoming cruise we could think of.  Plus buying some appropriate clothing and gear for the cruise.  We’d never cruised to a cold area before, always the warm Caribbean, so a different plan of attack had to be formulated.  New waterproof winter coats, of course, (it rains a lot in southeast Alaska) were bought along with some other warmer clothes to wear during the daytime both on the ship and at the ports.  Along with a new camera, some binoculars, and a few other this-and-thats.  Soon we were as well equipped as we could figure out we had to be and then it was the night before we were to leave home.

Once again, dear reader, if you don’t like travelogues, I’ll kindly say goodbye now, as that’s what the rest of this blog is.  Thanks for joining us this far and hopefully I’ll start blogging more in the upcoming days.  Adios!

So are we alone now?  Good.  Let’s get started!

As usual, Judy and I were pretty excited by this time and had a hard time getting any sleep at all.  Besides the fact that we had to be up and out our door by 3:30 am to drive to Columbus for our westbound flight.  There were many reasons why we usually flew out of Columbus, but the main one was that it was that the flights were cheaper and so was the parking.  Not sure exactly why, but Cleveland and Akron-Canton airports were usually more expensive.  So in the darkness of a too early Ohio day we grabbed some McDonalds and pointed the Toyota southward.  Please note that this travel day was NOT the day we would sail, but the day before - Friday.  We’ve heard so many horror stories about people missing their boats due to travel misadventures that we always traveled a day early and stayed at a hotel.  Then it’s usually a short cab ride to the docks.  Smart, eh?

Our first layover was in Los Angeles.  That’s a semi-long flight from Columbus, especially since our plane had a bit of an overabundance of infants.  Loud, crying infants.  Even one “opera singer in training” who liked to scream for the apparent joy of screaming, or so that’s what her sheepish parents said.  Los Angeles couldn’t come soon enough!  Finally we bid adieu to our younger flight companions, enjoyed (!?!?) the comforts (!?!?) of LAX and after some hours found ourselves on a Vancouver-bound flight.  That leg of the journey was a little shorter than the first and soon we found ourselves in beautiful British Columbia.

Our cab driver from the YVR airport to downtown was “interesting” to say the least.  He was a Sikh – I assumed this due to his turban and beard – and seemed to be on a quest to get us to our hotel in the shortest possible time.  I bravely muffled my moans of terror as he narrowly missed killing all of us multiple times during the journey downtown.  Judy was smiling the whole ride knowing the anguish I was going through. 

She was serene the whole trip, dammit!

Finally we arrived at our upscale downtown hotel.  I wanted to sort of live it up that night, so I used Priceline to get us a “4-star or better” place to stay.  It was called the Pinnacle Harbor Front and it was a hum-dinger!  Very nice.  After arrival, I walked on down to the building on the waterfront called Canada Place.  This would be where we would catch our ship tomorrow and was also a place where a geocache was hidden that I wanted to find.  It wasn’t a terribly long walk and soon I had the geocache in hand and British Columbia was in my geocaching logbook as a “new place”.  I wandered back to the hotel then, admiring this clean, cosmopolitan city.  I woke Judy from a nap and we enjoyed supper at a restaurant across the street.  Not long after we were catching some zzz’s as the previous night had been very short and our travels long.

Our breakfast Saturday morning was across the street again and before long we hailed a cab and traveled to the dock for embarkation.  We experienced long lines, but they moved along fairly rapidly and we were soon onboard the ship.  Our stateroom was clean and ready for us and we eagerly checked it out.  Our luggage wouldn’t arrive for some hours, so our unpacking was postponed until later that day.  We had an enjoyable lunch at the buffet on the Lido deck and chatted with our room steward soon afterward.  He would “take care” of us quite well for the upcoming week with made beds, a cleaned room and ice in our ‘fridge daily.  Nice guy.  By the way, Princess still puts a chocolate on your pillow every evening.  Carnival has apparently stopped this practice.  While we were in the room we happily checked out our own private balcony.  This was so very cool!  We’d never sailed in a balcony room before, but we’ll probably make sure to do so in the future.  We were amidships and on deck 10, so we had good views of the whole portside panorama.  We did some ship exploring then and enjoyed a sail-away drink as we watched Vancouver grow smaller and smaller in our wake.  Larry and Sally had arrived sometime after we came aboard. They had flown in the same day and we met for supper in “our” dining room.  Their kids and grandkids had elected to eat in the buffet rather than join us for more formal dining, so it was just the four of us plus six strangers at a 10-top table.  Supper was prime rib – excellent by the way – and the six strangers soon became shipboard friends.  Most of them were New Yorkers.  We went to the Princess Theater after eating to watch an impressionist comedian and to hear some ship info from our Cruise Director Lexi.  She was a stunning slim blond Aussie and we’d see her all over the ship during the coming week.  She was a true asset to our cruise.  As a note, this was Lexi’s last cruise for this contract.  She left the ship with us on completion of the cruise.  We stopped at the shipboard casino on the way back to our cabin and dropped a few dollars.  They allow smoking there and the smell was quite noticeable.  We hit the hay around eleven to a gently rocking bed and a quite enjoyable sleep.

Sunday was a sea day.  Our ship was traversing the southern part of the inland waterway system on its way to Ketchikan, Alaska.  This is a path for ships that keeps islands between the ship and the Pacific Ocean and provides a smoother waterway for them to travel.  After breakfast we attended a talk in the theater about the upcoming ports.  I’d read up on them online the previous months, so knew a lot of what Lexi was talking about.  The talk also was encouraging the passengers to purchase an upcoming cruise.  We’ve been cruising before and pretty much know how the system works.  There is always something that the cruise line would like you to buy and you have to decide whether you want to or not.  It’s just the way cruises work.  The cruise fares apparently are not enough to support the line, so they have to promote things onboard.  The shops, the casino, the drinks, future cruises, photos they take, what shops to buy stuff at the ports and on and on.  It is what it is and its up to you how you let it make you feel.  We know how it works and are able to pick and choose what we want to purchase.

On Sunday the sun popped out of the clouds in the early morning, so we grabbed some time on our balcony, which was fairly comfortable as long as we stayed out of the wind.  That night was our first formal dinner.  Larry and Sally were going to eat early, so Judy and I went later.  We put on our good duds and headed out.  We had a couple formal pictures taken of us by the onboard photographers and ate at another 10-top table with more strangers.  Most of them were Ohio folks (Cincinnati and Mansfield) along with three Aussies on a 24-day tour of Canada and Alaska.  We chatted a lot and enjoyed our dinners and our new friends.  We also got a kick out of watching our captain and cruise director fooling around by sneaking into the formal photos being taken of other cruisers and making funny faces.  They seemed to be having a ball!  The captain’s first name was Michele, but, being Italian, was pronounced Mik-kel-ay.  He and Lexi were around the ship a lot during the week. 

We went to the theater again and watched a production with the staff singers and dancers.  Pretty talented folks!  Not long afterward we were snug in our little cabin and fast asleep.

Monday was our first port, Ketchikan.  After a quick breakfast we were off the ship around 7:30.  Judy went souvenir shopping at a nearby shop as I walked down the waterfront about a half-mile to collect a geocache, our first for Alaska!  We’d worn our heavier jackets that morning and actually were a bit warm at times.  We found our duck tour and were pleased to see that Larry and Sally were also on that same tour.  The driver and commentator were funny and knew their stuff about their interesting hometown.  We were driven around and shown the sights, then down the ramp into the water.  We putted around the harbor for a while, seeing this and that.  Along the way we saw some eagles, which are very common around there and a few harbor seals.  After this tour we jumped on a shuttle bus which took us to the Creek Street area of Ketchikan.  This is the part of the town that was the “red light” district back in the gold rush days.  It even had a back entrance to the street called “married man’s trail”, where the aforementioned men would sneak in, take care of business then sneak out supposedly without their spouses knowing.  Supposedly.  At least that was the tale told nowadays.  The area now is an eclectic mix of souvenir shops and other crafty-kind of businesses.  One of the bordellos, Dolly’s House, has even been left very close to how it looked back “in the day” and you can tour it.  Very interesting! 

We returned to the ship soon after as it was leaving in the early afternoon.  The captain made an announcement for us to watch for the whales when the ship traveled through a particular stretch of water, but I didn’t see any at that time.  A number of folks did see some a bit later though. 

While we were at dinner, of course.  Bummer! 

Larry’s entire family joined us that evening and there were ten of us around the table.  His three young granddaughters were perfect ladies during our meal and would remain so for the rest of the cruise.  Judy and I later talked about what a nice family they were.  We attended another show in the theater then stopped for a while in a lounge to have a drink and listen to the singers and musicians performing there.  We were constantly amazed at the talented folks sailing with us!  Back in the cabin we could see another cruise ship sailing near us looking like a fabulous Christmas tree ornament all lit up in the deep Alaskan night. 

Tuesday was Juneau, the state capitol, and our time for whale watching!  The Coral docked around 8 am.  I walked to the buffet to grab a cup of coffee and bring back to the room to drink it.  On the way back I ran into Captain Michele in the elevator.  We chatted for a minute or two – a very nice gentleman.  Soon it was time to get off the boat and catch our whale-watching tour.  That day in the capitol city it was cold and somewhat rainy and windy.  We were wearing all we had brought with us and it was just barely enough.  Had a nice bus ride to where the whale-watching boat was waiting, listening to the lady bus driver and laughing at her stories and jokes.  The boat took 50 or maybe a bit more passengers on two decks.  The lower one was enclosed, warm and had a snack bar!  The upper was mostly exposed to the wind and the off-and-on again rain.  Guess which one we stayed on?  Soon we saw our first humpback whale while it was blowing (thar she blows I thought!).  Took scads of pictures, but was slow on the draw most of the time.  I did end up with a number of halfway decent pictures though, considering.  Some humpback whale facts: these whales would winter in the ocean near Hawaii, eating nothing, mating and losing about a third of their body weight.  When they returned to Alaskan waters in the summer they would eat 20 hours a day, approximately one million calories daily.  For being so huge, the throat on these giants is only the size of a basketball, so their food is small fish and krill.  We also observed eagles and sea lions.  The local scenery – the snow-covered mountain and evergreen-covered islands and teeming wildlife were very picturesque. 

We were back on the ship around 5 and supper was at 7 with the Baileys.  This was king crab night and it was wonderful!  The kitchen staff had even opened up each crab leg so no one had to crack them themselves, just pop the meat out and enjoy.  I introduced Larry to Fireball whiskey for our after-dinner drink, then we adjourned to the theater for a comedy magician who worked with a little white dog.  They put on quite a good show and he had a full house to see him.  The ship departed Juneau around 9 p.m.

Wednesday was Skagway, the jumping off point for the gold miners of the late 1890’s and our last real port where we would be able to exit the ship.  We were booked on a tour of the Yukon highway and the White Pass.  This was the trail the gold miners had to traverse to get to the gold fields in Dawson.  First up and over the White Pass (or Chilcoot Pass) and down to the Yukon River then a long way down to Dawson.  Canada would not let the prospectors in unless they had enough gear to survive there, so many of the men had to make 50 trips or more carrying the gear they would need on their backs.  Then they had to fell their own trees and build their own boat.  Those guys who made it were tough! 

We caught our small 24-passenger bus outside on the dock and soon were on the road with our driver.  He was a younger fellow and boy did he have stories to tell, some about the gold rush days and others about how things were thereabouts now.  He soon was driving upward and onward toward the White Pass.  He stopped a number of times for us to get out and take pictures of the stunning mountainous landscape.  We were required to bring our passports along with us, as this tour would enter Canada.  The formalities at the Canadian border were pretty much non-existent and we were then in the Yukon Territory of Canada.  Hurray, another province to color in on my maps!  Soon he turned around and headed for U.S. Customs.  The procedure for getting back into the United States was to stop at a drive-through window of the U.S. customs station, smile at the border guard and motor on our way.  Our guide says this is kind of normal, but occasionally they would actually enter the bus and check passports.  You just never knew.  Our driver dropped us off in town, which was actually about a half-mile from the ship.  Judy and I walked a bit then stopped at a bar and grill for some lunch.  Had three fish tacos (very good) and a local brew (Alaska Amber).  Pretty good!  We ambled on to the end of the main drag, bought some stuff then caught a shuttle bus to take us back to the ship.  Skagway was very interesting and just chock full of tourists.  There were I believe 4 ships in port that day!  10,000 to 12,000 people.  Wowser!  Called Larry around suppertime and they were waiting on some of their family to return to the ship, so Judy and I went by ourselves.  We sat at a 2-top.  The show that night after dinner was New Orleans-themed and was in the big lounge instead of the theater.  Great show!  Stopped in the casino after the show and was lucky enough to win some money on the roulette table!  Back to the cabin then and took a few pictures from the balcony.  It was around 11 and since we were getting pretty far north by then, there was still quite a bit of light out.  I took some very cool pictures of the mountains passing by in the northern twilight.  Very surrealistic.

Thursday would see us in Glacier Bay National Park.  We were blessed with absolutely perfect weather, sunny with some decorative cumulus clouds.  Chilly though… but that’s normal.  When we entered the bay, a small boat came alongside and three park rangers came aboard.  They would be there the entire time we were in the bay to talk about the park, the glaciers and the wildlife.  They used the loudspeakers, the television and were all over the ship talking to the cruisers and answering questions.  We cruised up to a very pretty glacier named Margery Glacier and spent some time there looking at it.  And it was very impressive – about 250 feet high, a mile wide and about 20 miles long.  We watched some ice fall – that’s called calving – and listened to the groans and booms as the giant ice river moved its 10 feet a day.  We also saw some wildlife along the shores of the bay – a trio of moose, a lone wolf and three bears – a mama and two cubs.  Plus eagles and seals of course.  And whales too!  We left the rangers off the ship on our way out of the bay.  We would be sailing in the open Gulf of Alaska tonight. 

The day had started to cloud up then and there was a mist in the air.  Weather changes quickly up there.  Supper tonight was lobster or Beef Wellington.  I also had escargot for an appetizer.  Didn’t care for them as much this time as I did some years ago when I first tried ‘em.  The show tonight was Motown based and had a lot of the old favorites performed.  Had another nightcap at one of the ship’s lounges and then went back to the cabin.  We were only getting about four hours of darkness in the evenings then, so the days seemed very, very long!  We received our written instructions for disembarkation today in our mailbox.  Hard to believe we only had one more day aboard our Coral Princess.

Friday we sailed up College Fjord, another gorgeous slice of Alaska.  We were up early thanks to the aforementioned lack of night.  While we were cruising the fjord we attended a cooking demonstration put on by the head chef and head maitre d’.  They cooked a few things and made a lot of jokes.  When they were done, they led us through a tour of the galley onboard.  Lots and lots of spotless stainless steel!  The galley is huge and I think I actually could have got lost in there!  Since the two main dining rooms are on separate decks, they even had an escalator in the galley to move from floor to floor.  Afterward we stopped by the photo shop and bought some pictures of us and a DVD of our voyage.  Got burgers and fries for lunch and that tasted pretty good.  We stopped at the big glacier at the head of the fjord and it was also very majestic.  Huge walls and lots of floating ice that had calved off the glacier.  The captain stopped the ship and we just drifted there quietly listening to the voice of the glacier as it boomed and groaned and rumbled.  It was creepy and spectacular all at once!  The captain spun the ship so both sides could see the glacier easily.  It was an incredible sight and a wonderful capper for the week’s cruise.  We had eaten supper earlier tonight as we all wanted to be finished so we could watch the glaciers.  The cooks and the servers had a parade through the dining room after the meal and it was very reminiscent of how Carnival does it every night.  We said our good-byes to the Baileys after dinner as they would be continuing their vacation the next morning by catching a train up to Denali National Park and we would be flying home.  It was nice having friends to share this voyage with.  To tell the truth, we were about ready to return home.  We were tiring of the fancy food and such.  We placed our homeward-bound suitcases out in the hall that evening and they disappeared soon afterward.  We docked at Whittier, Alaska around midnight. 

It was still light out.

Disembarkation in Whittier went quite smoothly.  Up early, last breakfast in the buffet then we grabbed our carry-ons and went to our disembarkation staging area, one of the main dining rooms.  Soon our group was called and we made our way off the ship for the last time.  We entered a large barn-like structure and saw all our luggage lined up on the floor.  We retrieved ours and then joined a long line of folks who were going to the Anchorage airport with us.  We eventually were loaded onto busses and headed off on the 65-mile trip to Anchorage.  We rode through the longest tunnel in North America when we were leaving Whittier.  It’s 2.7 miles long and only one lane.  They take turns traveling the tunnel northbound and southbound.  It was a bit creepy in the big tunnel, but soon we were out of it and on the beautiful Seward Highway heading to Anchorage.

The rest of the journey home was long flights and long waits in the airports for our next long flight.  Anchorage to San Francisco to Chicago to Columbus.  We eventually arrived home about 12:30 on Sunday afternoon. 

And napped most of the rest of the day.

A parting thought:
If you can, make time and save money for a trip to our beautiful 49th state.  It should be on everyone’s bucket list.  You’ll never regret it!

Vegas in the Fall

                      Vegas in the Fall

As some of my gentle readers might recall, I had bit of a health issue this past winter.  A heart attack to be specific, and some surgery – quad bypass - followed soon after.  Due to this interruption in my “normal” way of life, my wife and I had to cancel a cruise we had been planning.  I guess I could have possibly gone on it, but realistically it was way too soon after the surgery and my recovery would have still been ongoing.  I was weak and not yet done getting well.  It was not an ideal situation for a cruise.  So we canceled it and also canceled the airfare tickets for the flight, which was to take us to the cruise port.  Southwest Airlines is nice enough to allow you to use the money you spend on flights you have to cancel on other flights as long as they are booked within a year, so our deadline was around the end of November.  My wife and I discussed the options and decided to use the airfare money on a trip to Las Vegas in October.

Last week we used it and this blog is a bit of an account of that trip and a few things we did while we were there. 

Come along with us if you like.

We flew out of Cleveland this time instead of Columbus.  Better deal on the tickets.  We noted that Hopkins Airport still has a very awkward entrance to the ticketing counter from where the off-site parking shuttle busses drop you off.  Through an unheated plastic-sheet walled kind of entrance, then down an escalator, across a large area and back up another escalator to the ticket counters.  I’m hoping what’s there now is temporary as they seem to have been remodeling forever, but it just could just as likely be just poor design.  Our Southwest Airlines flight was comfortable and we were into Vegas early on a Sunday morning.  We used Uber from the airport for the first time and it worked quite well besides being noticeably less expensive than a taxi would have been (a little more than half as much).  We stayed on the strip this time at Bally’s.  I’d asked for hotel suggestions from an old friend and he suggested this one.  (Thanks Jim!)  Prices were higher than I’d have liked, but it was center strip and it was Vegas. 

My brother Chuck flew into town from where he lives in San Jose, California to join us.  It was great having him around to share this vacation.  He was scheduled for knee-replacement surgery the following week, so he was a bit anxious most of the time. 

(Side note: the surgery went fine and he’s happily convalescing now.)

I think I’ll break a bit with tradition here and not give you a day-by-day account of our time in Sin City, but just recall some of the highlights of our five days there.  Be assured that we did a lot of walking and wandering around the hotels and casinos along the strip, having the occasional adult beverage here and there, checking out the people everywhere and soaking up the unique abiance that only Las Vegas seems to be able to impart.  We saw an abundance of street performers who ran the gamut from a silver-painted gladiator to topless girls wanting to have their picture taken with you.  For a price of course.  (The girl’s tops were painted on.)  Then there were musicians of various accomplishments on all kinds of instruments.  And we must not forget the street people begging for money.  Not a huge amount of them, but there were there.

We took in a show one afternoon at Harrah’s just up the street from our place.  I ordered tickets from my netbook in the hotel room for the Mac King comedy/magic show for the three of us, but Mac was on hiatus for a while and we saw his replacement instead.  Quite a funny guy and we enjoyed ourselves. 

One day we took a ride on the “High Roller”.  This is a huge Ferris-type wheel that overlooks the strip.  It is 520 feet in diameter and advertises itself as the world’s tallest observation wheel.  It has 28 glass-enclosed cabins holding 40 people each.  Your ride lasts ½ hour for a full revolution.  We rode it in the late morning and there were only five of us in our pod so we had great views in all directions.  The sights of the city from the top of the wheel were remarkable and I snapped a ton of pictures from there.  Definitely a high point in our trip, literally and figuratively.

On Tuesday we took a break from the city and visited the Grand Canyon in nearby Arizona.  If you checked the distance from where we were to the canyon you would see it’s somewhere around 270 miles. 

We did it by bus. 

It was quite a long day as you might imagine.  We left Las Vegas around 7 a.m. and returned somewhere around 11 p.m.  About ten minutes into Arizona our bus’s air conditioning went kaput along with its wi/fi and we spent about 90 minutes at a roadside stop waiting for a replacement vehicle.  Lots of views of creosote bushes and raw rock mountains.  When we finally arrived at the Grand Canyon we were actually there for about three hours.  And the canyon was, as advertised, magnificent!  I’m sure you’ve seen pictures.  And, of course we took pictures also.  But none of them could or would ever do justice to the actuality of the place.  Gigantic, huge, gorgeous, incredible, breathtaking, colorful, awe-inspiring, deep, one-of-a-kind, and etc. and more etc.  Pick your favorite adjective(s) and describe away.  It was cooler there than in Vegas.  Higher altitude.  We wore sweatshirts and were comfortable, but it wouldn’t be much later in the year when it would be outright cold there.  The bus dropped us off at two places.  At the second one my brother and I walked to the trailhead of the Bright Angel Trail – the one you’ve seen the mules going up and down on.  You could see bits and pieces of the trail as it descended over a mile from where we stood.  There are NO railings on this trail, so yours truly only walked down the first hundred feet or so before my acrophobia started kicking in and I had to sit and relax for a bit.  I was quite happy when I was again back on the rim and had a sturdy railing to hang onto between me and all that thin air.  To put it in a nutshell, it was a long day in a bus seat, but the payoff was truly worth it. 

A side note.  Our bus held 24 young travelers from Ireland.  What a joy it was to hear them talk among themselves with their clear lilting Irish accents.  And more a fun-loving crowd you could never imagine.  Good companions for the day.  Felt like a real St. Paddy’s Day!

Monday was a rainy one in the city, which was a bit unusual for the area.  Judy did a bit of shopping while Chuck and I took a hike down Las Vegas Boulevard, hopping in and out of casinos and shops to stay dry until we reached the M & M store – one of our favorite places.  We bought some of the famous candies and made our way back to the front door of the store.  It was still raining pretty hard.  Chuck saw a bus stop in front of us and said he was going to check something out.  He walked out and hopped on the bus!  I was a bit startled by his action but I hurried up and joined him. 

Please note that we had no tickets. 

We both looked at the machine on the bus that dispensed the tickets.  We started reading the lengthy sign that described how to buy tickets with cash or credit card.  Did I mention that it was a lengthy sign?  The bus started moving.  We then heard a man next to us say, “there’s no checker on this bus.  I wouldn’t buy a ticket if I were you.”  So we stood and watched the city go by until we reached the next stop, which was ours, and then got off.  What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, right?  But now you know.  Two desperate men, trying to stay dry.  

On our last night in town the three of us rode one the city’s double-decker busses, called Deuces, uptown to Fremont Street, the old Las Vegas downtown.  “Glitter Gulch”.  This is old Vegas and always seems a bit more open and wilder than the Strip.  Lots more street entertainers of every ilk, the overhead canopy with its hourly light and music show and the casinos along here all seemed busier, louder and brighter.  They still serve free cocktails to the slot players there as we can all attest and the games all seemed loser and more congenial.  We had our pictures taken in front of a million dollars cash at the Horseshoe and then had a tasty prime rib dinner at the 3 Queens for a MUCH cheaper price than anything on the Strip. 

The three of us made a pact that the next trip to the city would be based in a downtown hotel.

The next day it was off to McCarran Airport via Uber again and our flights home.  And, as usual, the last sounds we heard from the city of Las Vegas were the ding-ding-dings of the slot machines on the concourses vacuuming up the last of the tourist dollars.

Some various Vegas thoughts:

I never did memorize the route to our hotel room after we got off the elevator on our floor at Bally’s.  It was first a right turn then another right turn then a left.  I always missed one of the turns.  Judy and Chuck laughed at me a lot.  And I was sober at least most of the time.

We ate noodle dishes for supper one night at the Paris Hotel at a noodle-dim sum-dumpling place.  Chuck said the food was very similar to what he had eaten in Southeast Asia, which he raved about.  Very tasty soup but way too much in the bowl for me.  Chuck ate his and half of mine.

Listening to a gaggle of women party away on the top level of a double-decker bus as night fell on the city and our magic carpet motored north.  Maybe they were locals dressed up for a night on the town.  Maybe they were from Dubuque or Amarillo or St. Louis kicking up their heels on a girl’s weekend out.  Or maybe just working girls heading out for the night after nipping the bottle a time or two. 

I think the act of people watching might have been the most enjoyable of pastimes there.  Between the tourists, the entertainers, the locals scurrying from and to their jobs, the drunken college kids, the outlandishly dressed folks whooping it up and the “working” girls it was a fever dream colorfully come to life.  I do believe I could have sat in a lawn chair and watched the river of people pass me by and been wholly satisfied with my trip.

Las Vegas is, in reality, more a state of mind than just a city.  The backdrops of the gigantic hotels, the casinos everywhere and the bustle of the throngs of humanity might only serve as stage settings for the never-ending story of Vegas which is performed daily up and down the strip and nightly on Fremont Street.  You will not get the hum and buzz and flash and vibe of this place anywhere else in the world - the exuberance, the emotional highs and physical thrills of this one-of-a-kind American city.  The possibilities are endless and dreams can and do come true here. 

Roll the dice, turn the card or pull the handle on the slot.  Riches wait just around the corner.



  

Pipes and Anniversaries

             Pipes and Anniversaries

I was out of work on this date 15 years ago.  I had spent almost twenty years working for a giant telecommunications company and had been “let go” just a short time earlier.  The company was in a turbulent period due to mergers, acquisitions and other corporate shenanigans and I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time with not enough “friends in high places” I guess.

I was marched out in early July, six months short of my twentieth anniversary, the naïve faithful employee no longer needed, and was diligently pursuing acquiring another position.  In English, gentle reader, that’s known as looking for a new job.

That day, my wife and I were on our way north on I-77 here in Ohio, me heading for an appointment with a “head hunter” in an eastern Cleveland suburb, my wife on a week’s-long vacation just riding along to keep me company.  The car radio was on a Cleveland station and we were listening to the Howard Stern program.  Howard was broadcasting from New York at that time.  I was only halfway listening to the program, concentrating more on the highway and the upcoming appointment, so I guess I missed his first mention of some sort of plane crashing into the World Trade Center.  But as Howard blithered on about this event, some part of my thought processes clicked and my attention shifted to the radio and I started listening more intently.  At first I though it was one of Howard’s humorous “bits”.  He was legendary for doing some outrageous stuff, and this kinda sounded like one of them.  He kept going on and on about the plane and how this was no accident and how we were now at war and other observations about the event.  I was listening more intently then when he reported that the second plane had hit and I realized that this wasn’t a bit.  This was real, and terrible things were happening just a few hundred miles to our east.  I flipped through the radio dial at that time and soon verified the terrible story was true.

We soon arrived at the suburban office where my interview was to take place.  My wife stayed in our car listening to the radio and I entered the building.  Most of the employees of this particular headhunter were gathered around a television in the lobby watching the events of that day unfold.  The details of what was happening were still a bit sketchy at that time, but the visuals on the television were appalling.  One lady broke away from the group, wiping her tears, to find out what I wanted and, after I told her about my appointment, she let me to another room and gathered my information.  She was a nice lady and I’m sure that the company tried to find me a new job in the weeks to follow, but right then her heart and mind really weren’t in synch with my quest for employment.  She wanted to be back in front of the TV with her fellow employees.  We parted cordially, she returning to the group around the television and I back to my car.

My wife mentioned on the drive home that she had seen an airplane acting strangely while I was in the building, making a quite odd-looking U-turn in the sky and changing from a westerly course to one back east.  We later learned that this was probably the airliner which not long after crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. 

We spent a lot of time in front of the television that day and a lot of the days to follow, watching history unfold in front of us. 

And now that day is 15 years in the past. 

The TV shows that are being broadcast today commemorating the event make it seem like it only happened yesterday.  Watching the towers get hit again and falling still crushes you like a blow to the gut.  Watching the horror of the day and how the first responders did their utmost to save lives still brings tears to the eyes and a lump in the throat.  It was a tough time.

Perhaps it’s not fitting that I follow up the previous thoughts with what follows, but the sadness of this anniversary is, at least for me, somewhat mitigated by a good thing that happened today. 

I got my bathtub back! 

Let me retrace a few steps and explain.

I live in an old house.  Over a hundred years old actually, and the ownership of an old building like this one always comes with problems.  It seems like there’s almost always something else that needs to be done to make our home more livable. I made a checklist some time ago and started working my way through it as time and money became available.  What did I do you might ask?  How about insulate the walls and attic – check.  Install new windows and doors – yep.  Put in a new furnace and water heater – yep.  Then how about repairing the slate roof and old chimney– check.  And on and on.  So the next item on our list was the water system.  We were still living with the century-old galvanized pipes laid down when the house was built.  Perhaps that was during the McKinley presidency?  Or perhaps William Howard Taft?  Somewhere around that time.  Our local water has a noticeable mineral content, so a lot of those solids ended up as deposits on the inside of our pipes.  Lots of lime and other minerals.  We were at a point where the water flow and pressure at our taps was pitiful and just replacing the fixtures wouldn’t fix the root problem. 

So we asked around and finally found a guy who did some outside plumbing.  He was a fellow employee from where I used to work before I retired and had a great reputation of being a good plumber and having reasonable rates. I invited him down to our place for a look-see and for him to work up a quote on what it would take.  After receiving his more-than-agreeable quote and giving him the go-ahead, he agreed to take on the task of removing all my old piping and replacing it with new CPVC and copper!  It took him a few trips to finish the job due to the inevitable this and that you always run into, but the last trip was today!  He completed the final hook up in my system this morning and that was to connect the new water supply to a new fixture in the old claw-foot tub in our bathroom.  Now it also has a magnificent water flow and super pressure, as do all the other taps in the house.

So another box is checked off on my almost never-ending checklist and another 9/11 anniversary is noted in the world.

So let me conclude today’s blog with this thought. 

Let us never forget 9/11/01 and what happened that dreadful day, but let us also remember that there WERE good things that happened then also – babies were born, people were married, trains arrived on time.  Good meals were cooked and eaten, children went back to school and good deeds were done.  Heroes ran into burning buildings too.

Ordinary people did good things that day, both mighty and mundane.

And fifteen years later a fellow got his pipes fixed on that anniversary and was thankful.



      

Six Months In

                      Six Months In

My wife and I were out eating breakfast today when the restaurant owner stopped by our table and asked how I was doing.  For a second I drew a blank as to what he was talking about, then it occurred to me what he was actually asking.  I had told him about my heart attack and bypass surgery a few months ago and I guess he was just following up.  He’s a good guy and was really concerned.  Or else he was just being a wise entrepreneur and putting the human touch on his return customers.  Either way, being asked this question is becoming a pretty common situation recently.  I don’t really mind, as a lot of people seem to know about my recent illness and are genuinely interested in my well being, but it’s not really something I particularly dwell on too much.  Some days actually go by without my thinking about it much at all.  Some days seeing my chest scar in the mirror while I’m shaving or brushing my teeth comes as a bit of a shock to me. 

Some days it’s like nothing ever happened at all.

But, of course it did, you know.  I did have a heart attack and I did have open-heart surgery.  They did cut into my leg and remove vessels that they used to repair my heart.  They did stop my heart and lungs for a period of time to make those repairs. 

They really, really, really did do all that stuff.  It was not a bad dream that melted away in the morning sunshine.

I guess I’ll never actually forget, much as I might like to. 

So the question still remains.  How am I?

How I usually answer that question is by saying I’m probably better than I was 6 and a half months ago.  Of course that also probably goes without saying.  Better blood flow to the heart equals better health all around, don’t ya know.  My stamina is better than before.  My thinking is probably clearer also.  I can physically do things now that maybe I couldn’t before and surely couldn’t do three months ago.  I walk every day and my wife and I are taking SilverSneakers classes at a local gym three times a week.  Plus all the normal grass cutting, weed whacking, house cleaning and other normal physical activities that need be done when you’re a homeowner.

And for being able to accomplish those things I am truly grateful.

I am still a bit numb in my lower left leg and on my chest where the doctors removed and rerouted veins and arteries to do their repair work and that’s probably the main residual you could point to from the surgery right this minute. My taste buds are also a bit “iffy” – some meals taste fine and others definitely don’t and there’s an unpleasant lingering aftertaste that seems to be new and might be an artifact of my illness.  I’ll have to explore that issue in more detail with my cardiologist.

And, of course, my old nemesis, my stomach issues never really went away.  They are still as active as ever and might even be indicative of full-blown IBS.  My family doctor and I are due to discuss this possibility soon.  Fixing the heart did not fix the stomach problems.  Dammit!

My family and I went on a road trip last month and I was happy to discover that I could handle being on the road and coping with all the stuff that came up like I did before.  I used this trip as a bit of a trial balloon as to my capabilities now and was relieved to see I was pretty much same-o, same-o. 

Hurray for that! 

I’m still a fan nowadays of an hour or so nap in the afternoon if there’s nothing much going on.  I don’t need it, mind you, but it is quite enjoyable.  I feel a bit guilty about it, too, but my cardiologist says it’s fine and not to worry, so I’m not fretting much about it.  I’m guessing an afternoon nap for folks my age might actually not be an odd occurrence, heart attack or not.

So, gentle reader, there it is in a nutshell.  How am I doing? 

Pretty darn good!  Considering…

Off to the Black Hills

                  Off to the Black Hills

So are you ready for another one of my road trip blogs?  I’m sure a lot of folks are more than likely groaning now and saying, “There he goes again.  Another road trip described in excruciating detail.  Ugh!”

If I just described your feelings my friend, please feel free to preserve your sanity and bid me adieu.  I’ll not be offended.  Different strokes and all that stuff.  I’ll meet ya on the other side with maybe something that’ll shiver your timbers.  Bye now…

So, are we all alone?  Just the half-dozen of my buds who are brave enough to plod onward through the upcoming purple prose?  If so, then lets get going!

I’ve tried recently to plan our road trips to see new things.  Sure, going to Myrtle Beach or Gettysburg or Niagara Falls is nice, but we’ve been there multiple times.  I can show you the tee shirts!  So this time I decided to head northwest and picked South Dakota as our destination.  Why there?  Well, there are a number of attractions near there that we’ve never seen.  I’m not exactly sure why.  I’m sure lots of you have already seen these places, either as a kid or maybe as an adult.

But we never have.  So I guess that’s reason enough, eh?

My son Tony’s last workday for the week was Monday, so we ventured out on a Tuesday morning.  As a long drive was expected, we left before seven am.  After a quick stop at our new local Dunkin’s Doughnut shop we headed off in generally the correct direction munching on sweet treats and sipping good hot coffee.  The miles passed by under our wheels while we spent most of the day chatting, paying tolls and enjoying (???) the scenery along America’s interstates, especially I-90 which we would see a LOT of.  Going through Chicago was, as usual, not entirely a picnic, but the traffic did keep moving and we soon left the skyline of the Windy City disappearing in our rear window.  Lunch was at a truck stop north of there and not half bad.  Eventually we reached our first stop of the journey at La Crosse, Wisconsin, directly on the Mississippi River.  Supper was at a nearby family restaurant and it is best not dwelled upon.  The beds felt good, however, after a long day on the road and we all slept well.

Wednesday we were again on the road a little after 7 am after a decent enough hotel breakfast.  We jumped on our friend I-90 and would be on it the entire day.  Lots of cornfields that day across all of southern Minnesota and some of eastern South Dakota.  We stopped for lunch just across the South Dakota line at a restaurant/bar/casino place.  Another meh meal, at least for me.  Tony seemed to be enjoying all the road food.  Good for him!  Casinos seemed to be as prevalent as the corn was in the east and cattle were in the west part of the state.  Obviously the laws there are a little different than good ol’ Ohio.  Stopped at the absolutely obligatory Wall Drug in Wall, SD.  Huge store with apparently anything you might want to buy and lots that you ended up looking at and saying, “Huh?”  We grabbed some fudge (shame on us) and a refrigerator magnet and were off for our last hour on the road.  Our home for the next four days was a hotel right off I-90 in Rapid City, South Dakota, the entrance to the Black Hills.  It ended up being a good place. 

The landscape from about the middle of South Dakota, actually just after you cross the Missouri River, changes from corn land with some trees to the beginnings of the Great Plains.  Rolling land and mile upon mile of grass swaying in the ever-present wind.  The prevalence of the wind was demonstrated by the many windmills we saw turning their 3-bladed fans and all facing west.  Lots of electricity being produced there.  If you looked closely you could see a tree or two here and there, but for the most part it was waving grasslands, windmills and the occasional cattle herd.

Supper was at a TGI Fridays next door to the hotel.  They screwed up my order for a ½ rack of ribs and delivered a full rack.  They were only going to charge me for the ½ one, but somehow they charged me zero instead.  So my dinner was free.  It was a nice introduction to our time in western South Dakota.

Thursday was our first “monument” day.  After a dandy hot hotel breakfast we drove to Mt. Rushmore.  It’s about a 25-mile trip and it goes through the nearby Black Hills.  They’re quite pretty and very different than the surrounding plains, with steep-sided hills and lots of evergreens growing everywhere.  Mt. Rushmore was very impressive, as I knew it would be.  And of course it looks exactly like the thousands of pictures of it you’ve seen all your life.  But somehow it’s much more impressive in real life.  We ogled the four presidents for a while then Tony and I decided to take the trail down to the monument itself.  It was a nice walk there and the view of the carvings was incredible closer up.  We continued on the trail down, down and down to the sculpture’s studio in the valley where we checked out the working sculpture in miniature and other artifacts pertaining to carving the faces.  Then it was up, up and up to the viewing area where we had started.  You can be assured I was huffing and puffing when finally got back up there.  Even Tony was winded!  We bought souvenirs (of course) then drove further into the Black Hills to see the Crazy Horse Monument.  The visitor’s center is quite a ways from the monument, so we took a number of telephoto shots of it from there.  Basically, all that has been carved is Crazy Horse’s head.  They’re working on his outstretched arm and hand right now.  I’m guessing it’ll be another easy hundred years before it’s finished.  You could pay for a bus ride closer and pay again for a trip up on his arm, but we chose not to.  The visitor’s center had a lot of things to see relating to the native Americans of the area and a good souvenir shop.  We lunched there and the meal was actually pretty good.  And the view out the window toward the monument was, well, monumental!

Supper was at a family place down the road from our hotel and was fine.  In that stretch of about a half-a-mile there were about six or seven casinos – little ones in about every strip mall.  LOTS of places to spend a buck.  Can’t imagine how they all stay in business. 

Friday was our “road trip within a road trip” day.  We jumped on good ol’ I-90 and headed west.  The interstate curves northward in Rapid City and doesn’t head back west again until it clears most of the northern part of the Black Hills.  Before long we crossed over the border into Wyoming and exited the interstate on the road that headed toward Devil’s Tower.  There was a longish line waiting to get into the National Park that surrounds the Tower, but soon we were through that.  My senior National Park pass got us all in free!  We were lucky to find a parking place there and soon I was walking up the trail to the Tower.  Judy and Tony were disinclined to join me, so I trod up by myself.  It was truly beautiful up there among the evergreens and the huge rocks that had fallen from the Tower over the centuries.  The path is paved and, after you had climbed up to the rubble area, it’s virtually flat as it circumnavigates the monument.  I walked about one third of the way around and enjoyed all the views and watching some folks and their kids scrambling among the big rocks.  You are allowed to climb among the fallen rocks all around the monument, but to scale the Tower itself you need a permit.  I saw no one attempting the face while I was there, but did see a couple ascending the trail with climbing ropes on their shoulders.  I shuddered thinking about the hundreds of feet of vertical face they would soon be climbing. 

Mountain climbing is definitely NOT my sport! 

We made a stop on our drive from the Tower to watch a band of playful prairie dogs just off the park road, then hit the big souvenir shop just outside the park’s gate for refreshments and keepsakes. 

Driving back to Rapid City we detoured again back into the Black Hills and visited Deadwood.  Yes, the real Deadwood.  I recalled fondly the HBO show with the same name and other things about the town such as this was where Wild Bill Hickock was dealt his “Aces and Eights” in the No. 10 saloon and was then shot in the back.  There are lots of Western stories about Deadwood – it’s a real Wild West town.  We stopped at a bar/casino/restaurant for lunch there at a spot across the street from the old No. 10 bar.  A brief rain shower wetted down the streets while we ate and a singer entertained us and told jokes.  After eating we walked a bit around the town.  I was disappointed that all I mostly saw were bars, casinos and souvenir shops.  Then I realized that in the 1800’s, discounting the souvenir shops, that is what was mainly there too!  Along with the occasional brothel!  I made a quick stop in one of the casinos and managed to make $20 in about 30 seconds.  The travel gods were smiling on us today. 

We drove back to Rapid City via Sturgis, the erstwhile motorcycle capital of the U. S.  As the big bike rally wouldn’t be for a number of weeks, it was then just a sleepy town with a preponderance of motorcycle shops and bars. 

We didn’t stop.

We drove through some more rain on the way back to the hotel.  Back in the plains you can see the storms coming and going a LONG way off!

Saturday was our last day in Rapid City.  We drove out to the nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base to look at the South Dakota Air and Space Museum that was located there.  It’s a very nice small museum with lots of displays concerning flight and how the state figured in it.  While there we took a short tour of a defunct MinuteMan II site.  As the site was on the base itself, we had to surrender our driver’s licenses for examination at the gatehouse before being allowed to enter.  We were given a very interesting tour of the base before arriving at the missile site.  Our guide was quite informative about what we were seeing and we got to go down into the silo and see the missile itself.  It was a dummy, of course.  All the MinuteMan II sites were emptied and destroyed soon after the S.A.L.T. treaties with the Russians, but this one was preserved as a tourist site.  It was a bit chilling reliving some old Cold War memories.

This evening we went to the movies back in Rapid City and saw the new “Ghostbusters” movie.  It was very funny and a good counterpoint to the old missile tour earlier in the day.

I won’t go into much of the following six days as we were visiting Judy’s sister and brother-in-law in Tulsa and really didn’t do much noteworthy.  Basically family stuff.  I will tell you a bit about the following Thursday though.  You might find it entertaining.

My brother and sister-in-law are both big fans of country music.  Harris, my brother-in-law was born in Montana and pretty much raised in Oklahoma.  Country music is undoubtedly in his blood.  Anyhow, we were asked months before the trip if we’d be interested in going to a country western concert while we were out there.  A group was coming that they really wanted to see.  I said fine and they purchased tickets for us.  The headliner was Vince Gill and the group was the Time Shifters.

And now, gentle reader, you need to be aware that I’m NOT a big fan of country music.  I kinda like bluegrass, however, with all the banjos and fiddles and I hoped the upcoming concert would include at least some of that. 

I should have known better.

The venue for the concert was the old Cain’s Ballroom in downtown Tulsa.  If you’re from there, you know all about it.  If not, Cain’s is a big, barn-like structure, open and cavernous inside.  The stage is on one end of the building and the floor is all wooden and, according to my brother-in-law Harris, has springs underneath to make it more enjoyable to dance on.  There are huge pictures of about 30 or more old country western singers hanging on the walls.

I recognized a few.  Make that two.  Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.

There were not any seats other than folding chairs pulled up to folding tables.  Oh and maybe some small bleachers along the wall.

There were LOTS of cowboy hats and cowboy boots, snap-fronted shirts and jeans.  There were hundreds of folks attending and it seemed that Harris and Lori knew most of them.  They were all REALLY looking forward to the show.

When the performers came out onto the stage, a large contingent of the audience left their seats and proceeded to stand in front of the stage. 

Blocking all view.

They remained there the entire show.  I think I saw a few cowboy hats bobbing above the crowd, but very little else of the performers. 

I couldn’t pick one out of a line-up today.

This group performed a type of country western music called “Western Swing”.  I guess everyone else knew that.  I didn’t.  Not that it would have made much difference.  I love my bro and sis-in-law and had promised to join them.  But…  But…
I guess, that after listening to the group, I have at least discovered the one variety of c/w music I pretty much don’t like the most.

Can you guess what it is?

So, while everyone else was clapping, and dancing, and ya-hooing at the appropriate spots, (I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how they knew when to holler) I was smiling my suffering smile and wishing the hands on my watch would move a bit faster. 

Way faster.

The group was, of course, persuaded to do two encore songs.  The crowd just loved them.

What can I say.  As I said, I love my bro and sis-in-law.  And if anyone questions that, I’ll tell them this story.  I have PROVED my affection!

So our sojourn in South Dakota and Oklahoma came to an end last Saturday when we returned to hearth and home.  And dog of course.  Barring only a tiny few occurrences, it was a good trip, a fun excursion for the family and a good couple of weeks away from home.

And I think the infusion of my favorite classic rock music on the way home has healed me of most of the wounds western swing had inflicted. 

I hope so…

Three Months In

                 Three Months In


It was a good morning this morning, perhaps even a great one.  The grass in the yard was that perfect shade of verdant green that shows up early in the springtime, holds for a month or so and gradually starts to dull out in early summer.  My dog Trixi and I were greeted on our daily walk by creamy white flower blossoms strewn all over our yard from the blooming dogwood next door.  I’m sure the dog paid no attention to them, but I thought it was a grand touch, icing on the cake of a springtime morning as it were.  The breeze was refreshing and the sky was a pellucid blue with those white puffballs of clouds decorating the atmosphere.  I know they’re called fair weather cumulus, but puffballs will suffice.  These observations occurred during my daily dog walk with Trixi and she was obviously enjoying herself, sniffing at interesting smells about every twenty feet, darting here and there on the end of her leash and generally acting glad to be alive.  Dogs are like that.  They live in the moment and think little about yesterday or tomorrow if at all. 

She was enjoying the perfect spring day and so was her master. 

For those inclined to check the calendar and to count days, today marks the third month anniversary of my open-heart surgery back in February.  How am I doing?  Actually pretty good.  I’m out every day walking the dog as you might have gathered from the first part of this blog, about three quarters of a mile.  I go to my cardiac rehabilitation three days a week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and huff and puff on the exercise machines.  I’m active around the house, am able to walk around the stores while shopping and am very close to being almost as fit as I was before I got sick.  There is still a bit of soreness in my left leg where they stripped veins, I still haven’t totally regained my stamina and I still enjoy an hour or so with my eyes closed in the afternoon to “recharge” the batteries.  My mood is usually happy although I can be a bit snappy from time to time.  Some say that comes from the surgical anesthesia and will gradually fade.

It could be a lot worse.

I’ve talked to friends and relatives who have gone through the same sort of procedures that I have gone through and got a lot of feedback.  Most of it has been quite positive.  Most have talked about actually feeling better than they had previous to their illness.  Most say their heart attacks, surgeries and recoveries have allowed them be much more appreciative of life than they were before, more able to see how wonderful it actually is.  I like to believe that’s where I’m heading and I think I’ve got a good shot at it.  A few folks I chatted with were not so fortunate and have never recovered back to their previous health, but they might have had much more damage to their heart than I did.

I was lucky. 

I’ve already talked about how thankful I was for all the good wishes from friends and relatives and the technical expertise of all the medical staff that took care of me in a previous blog, so I won’t go into that again.  But being able to walk around on a marvelous day like today, watching the dog frolic on the end of her leash, pain-free and able to dig the world around me just underscores how fortunate I am.

A bit of news that might be of interest: I’ve been asked to participate in a clinical trial of a drug.  I fit the patient profile the study was looking for by being a diabetic, having suffered a heart attack and gone through bypass surgery.  The drug they’re studying has been used for many years as a pain medication for rheumatoid arthritis patients.  Doctors have noticed a marked lessening of cardiac and vascular problems of those patients taking this medication as compared to the general population and are trying to determine if it was the drug or some other factor as the causative agent.  I’m in the pre-acceptance phase right now, having my blood checked for anything that might disqualify me and soon they’ll test me to make sure I can tolerate the drug.  Then, if all goes well, I’ll be issued the study pills and they will either be the medication or a placebo.  I’ll be checked frequently and my results will be added to the many other patients in the study to derive some more definitive answers.  Should be interesting.

It might even help me!

As I mentioned before, my cardiac rehab is going well.  I have finished visit 19 or 20 already and am well on my way to the goal of 36 visits.  The staff at the hospital where the rehab occurs takes very good care of us while we are there, monitoring our heart rhythms closely as we exercise along with our blood pressure (checked three times) and blood sugar (checked twice).  They want us to exert ourselves but not to exhaustion, so they constantly check how hard we are working on each machine we exercise on and back us off if it gets too strenuous.  Each visit starts with a thirty-minute lecture on various aspects of heart diseases, heart physiology, diet, smoking, medications and everything possible you could imagine about your heart.  It is quite the education.  Hopefully I’ll be more of an “expert” in my condition after these visits.

I guess the main takeaway from the previous three months and something to ponder on the ¼ year anniversary of my surgery is the fact that “life goes on”.  After the drama and hullabaloo of the illness and the pain and uproar of the recovery, things eventually go back to just about where they were before.  The trash still goes out on Tuesday nights, friends still drop by occasionally, you still get crank telephone calls, day follows day and all the old aches and pains you used to have you still have.  With maybe a couple more to enjoy.  But most stuff is same, same. 

And… maybe… that’s the best news of all.