Travels with The Rayman

Terminal Two at LAX needs my help.  And I’m not even that qualified, but I am confident I could help.  The problem?  There are about 4 charging places in the whole terminal (excuse me) inside the ropes.  Past the security where all ticketed travelers go to be bored to death.  There is one duty free shop which has basically perfume, liquor and cigarettes for sale.  Need a comb?  Forgetaboutit.  Need a toothbrush.  You won’t find one.  Need a stupid little bear that has a t-shirt that says “I luv LA”.  No problem.  Really people, who goes to the airport to buy perfume?  Apparently the answer is plenty or these shops would not exist.   Just not helpful to my way of thinking.

But back to the charging stations.  Great to be able to charge your phones…, all 16 of you.  And the rest of you?  You’re screwed.  Want to plug in your computer while you work?  Forget that idea.  Is not gonna happen at this terminal.

And what’s with the grey walls?  Had a sale at Home Depot?  Vibrant L.A. has grey walls everywhere.  The only bright spot is the Wolfgang Puck restaurant.  It’s walls pop with color.  And that’s where we stopped in for a margarita pizza.  Yummy.  And colorful.

So, my plan would be to wire the place for the 21st century.  Install workstations with desk and chairs.  Install electrical outlets on the floor next to seating so that people can plug in while moving on.  Open a drugstore with lots of travel items people might likely forget.  And drugs.  Advil, Aleve, ear plugs, fingernail files, clippers, cozy socks, mints, mouth products, eye glass cleaner aids, M&M’s, the peanuts variety.  Portable hair dryers,  You get the drift.

Maybe add a shoe store and accessories like scarves.  They are all the rage today.  Scarves for men and women.  And have a barbershop/hair salon with manicurists that can fix those faux fingernails.  Massage would be nice too.  Really, people.  Many people spend half the day in a place like this.  Give them something to do that also parts them with their money.  It’s American way after all.  How about a movie theatre?  Have 5 hours to kill?  Go in and catch a movie.  It could be a travel log.  Quaint, eh?  Anything of general interest.  The new Cosmos program.   Have programs that do suffer if people wander in at all times.

How about an ice cream store or a soda shop!!  Everyone loves ice cream.  With a candy counter.  That would be perfect.

How about a romper room for the kiddies?  Those poor children.  Bored as can be with nothing for them to do.  What were the airport people thinking?  Do like Apple stores do.  Have some computers on small tables with small chairs (bolted down!!)  A movie room with cartoons would be nice.  Charge admission by the half hour.  Parents would appreciate it.

I was going to say that many European airports are light years ahead of us until we landed at Heathrow.  Heathrow, not so much.  At least in the international terminal.  We spent most of our time at Heathrow this p.m. walking from point A to point B and standing in line to get through customs.  Now there is a process ripe for improving.  What does everyone do while in line?  Look at the agents working.  Wouldn’t it be great if the customs area had monitors with travel logs of the country running.  At least you might learn something.  They could be captioned so interested people could read about it.  Oops.  That wouldn’t work.  Too many languages.  Okay.  Just pictures with the official name of the spot. Followed by a map.  Matching maps could be available for the taking so if someone wanted to go to the highlighted place, they’d have a map to show the way.  Just saying.

Our ride on Virgin Atlantic was uneventful.  Plenty to do.  Food was okay.  Plenty to drink.  Plenty of people coughing and blowing their noses (an unhappy occurrence).  At the end of the flight we were not allowed to deplane because someone in “Upper Class” had a issue and the police were summoned and we all had to stay on board until the police “concluded their investigation.”  Pretty funny, really.  Did jewelry go missing?  That’s what we think happened.  In UPPER CLASS.  Too funny.  Lift up and away while lifting something off at the same time.  And the perps were the people that had enough whatever to quality to sit in the exclusive bedroom community of upper class.  Really, they had reclining beds.  What a hoot.

No problems in steerage.  What is this world coming to?

So, here we are in London, sort of.  Across the road the Heathrow catching up on our sleep so we can get up fresh in the morning and head to Heathrow to catch our plane to Spain.  Anticipation building.  Night night.

P.S.  After sleeping for hours and hours, we are now at Heathrow, Terminal 5.  What do the plebs do?  Harrods, Gucci, Prada…you name it.  This is a fabulous terminal but I can’t afford to buy anything.  Shoes, coats, purses, purses, purses.  Our flight is delayed but I’m cool because there is so much to do and see here.  What the heck is wrong with LAX?  Good grief.  So, will post this blog because Heathrow has 45 free minutes of wifi.  Yippee.

Before I go off to get dinner ready, I must record our crazy day.    The picture above was snapped last weekend in Yosemite and has no bearing whatsoever to the events described below.  Just wanted to share Yosemite Falls and Rayman with you all.

Yesterday was April 15th.  Besides being my “adopted” granddaughter’s birthday (she is now 2), it is known in the U.S. as tax day.  Or the day the chickens come home to roost.  So, this a.m. I got up and looked for an email from Turbo Tax informing me that our tax return had been sent.  I know you know where this is headed.  Turbo Tax did not file our return.  OMG.  How could that be?  Rayman and I readied our taxes in March and made arrangements for them to sent on 4/15 because WE OWED.  When I casually mentioned that we had not received a confirmation from Turbo Tax to the Rayman, well, at this point you may guess the answer from the choices below.  1.   Rayman said, “Oh, gee.  What a bummer.”  2.  Rayman said, “Whatever could have gone wrong?”  3.  Rayman said, “Don’t tell me that.  Our taxes are late.  Are you kidding me?  AAAAWWWWWWWWWWW.  4.  Rayman said, “Now that they are late, let’s just not pay them and see what happens.”   Answer is posted at the end of this blog.

So, as the Rayman came unglued, I tried my best to find out what had gone wrong.  All the payment info was there…that is, our routing number etc. for our checking account.  Yet when I queried their system, I could not verify payment.

After the dust settled, it was determined that the taxes had not been filed.  Nor paid.  Holy macaroni.  Calls were made, swords were fallen on.  Bottom line, we paid and filed today and will wait to see if we get fined.  And we can ask for a waiver of any fine.  OMG.

Next up, we had an appointment at the Apple store because our calendars (which are all suppose to match)…didn’t match.  The Cloud is failing us.  It must be them, not us.  We’re perfect.  See above to know that’s not true.

But I digress.

We hopped in the car and dashed to San Luis for our genius appointment.  The plan was that we would then go to the RV storage lot to do some work on TDH.  Actually, the top item on the list of things to do for the day was to go to the RV.  I squeezed in the appointment at the Apple store since we were in San Luis anyway.  Okay.  So, Napoleon (that was the genius’s name) fixed our calendars and didn’t really tell us how Rayman’s phone calendar did not match his iPad or my MacBook or my phone.  And my phone didn’t match my computer.  Etc, etc, etc.  But they are all matching at the moment.  If something goes wacky again, the Genius Bar will be visited because we did not learn what to do.  It is troublesome because we can’t afford to have our calendars missing information.  If we miss an appointment, people will think we’re too old to remember.  That may be true but that’s beside the point.

When we arrived at the Apple store, we got a great parking place.  Nice and shady.  What we didn’t know is that a bird call was sent out to all birds in the neighborhood to come and perch in the tree that was shading our car so that they could have a pooping party.  What a mess we found when we returned 15 minutes later.  So at this point, we drove the pooped-on car to the RV storage lot.  I got out to punch in the code of the gate and told Rayman I would walk to TDH.  When I got there, he was still in the car and he opened the window and said, “Get in.  We’re going.”   I said, “What?“   He said, “I forgot the keys to the coach.”  OMG.  I got in the car and we went shopping.   Shopping was not planned but shopping happened.  Chocolate at Trader Joe’s, Gravity Zero recliners for TDH, in red.  Dates, nuts, and asparagus.  It is amazing we could even see anything in the store because we kept shaking our heads in disbelief of the morning’s activities or lack thereof.  What a hoot.

So, perhaps we will try again tomorrow.

We are having a few friends over for dinner tonight.  I’m doing my famous fish tacos.  The halibut is marinating, the black bean and corn salad is made (although I had a heck of a time figuring out my new manual can opener.   It took about 10 minutes to crack the code)  While I was struggling with the can opener, Rayman went to the car wash to get all the bird poop off Priscilla the Prius.  When he returned he announced that he had gotten really upset at the gas station at someone that aced him out of a spot and he beeped the horn.  He was madder than a wet hen.  His day was not going well.

But I digress.

The dessert is bought.  Oh, I know,  I like to make dessert but with this group coming, I just had to drive with Rayman and Beau to Cambria to the Red Moose cookie company and buy some Naughty Rods for dessert.  Fabulous cookies and so fun to serve because of their provocative name.  The owner’s of the Red Moose cookie company report that their Naughty Rod cookies get called all kinds of names.  People call and ask, “Do you make those Nasty Rods?”  or “Do you bake those Dirty Cookies?”  etc.  The owner reports that they are a big hit for bachelorette parties.  People told them that cookie would never sell because of the name.  Truth is, they can’t keep up with the demand.

So, now off I go to take my shower.

Answer to quiz.  You know the answer!!

For as long as I’ve been driving highway 101 in California, I’ve seen two signs for Pinnacles National Park.  And for all those years, I have never deviated from the path I was on to take a side trip out to that park.  It’s an amazing phenomenon, isn’t it?  Right in your own back yard for your whole life, and you never take the time, plan the time to diverge.  It would be like living in New York and never visiting Niagara Falls.  Okay, maybe that’s a stretch.  I hear those falls are so spectacular, I’m sure no one in New York has not seen them except perhaps the intercity youth because their family doesn’t own a car.

But I digress.

And so it was that we planned a trip to Pinnacles.  And along with all the stuff that was crammed into the motorhome, there were ideas of what Pinnacles must be like crammed into my head.  Dusty, white, barren are three words that come to mind.  And boy was I wrong.

Pinnacles is located off 101 and there are two ways to get there.  One way and the way we took was through King City at the base of the Salinas Valley.  The other way is to go north from King City to Soledad, the city best known for the state prison that is there.  If you have an RV and you want to camp, your only choice is through King City.  Actually, if you are coming from the north, you get through the city of Hollister.  Look for Highway 25 and take it.  But if you take the route we took, as soon as you embark, you start climbing.  The park is actually about 1000 feet above sea level and in the spring it is green.  Flowers are blooming and the trees are leafed out.  Lots of oaks and conifers.  Also, lots of birds.  The famous condors reside here.  Have yet to see one.  The only thing I have seen is a lot of turkey vultures and a helicopter.  Oh, there are tweety birds but I don’t know enough to identify any of them.

I would avoid the place past May and and reconsider a visit in late September on.  But expect it to be golden.  Those green grasses dry to a golden color until the rains which generally start in late November.

One of the main draws here are the hiking trails.  And the Pinnacle rock formations are cool.  So, we took it upon ourselves to hike this morning.  The cave route was our chosen hike.  It was short but steep.  And once we got to the “caves” it became amazing.  Here are some pictures I snapped.   And, yes, there is a reservoir here.  Great place to stop for a drink of water and a snack.

So, as we were scrambling over and under the boulders that seemed to be tossed into place, it occurred to us that we were on the San Andreas fault.  OMG.  What if there was an earthquake?  We imagined what would happen.  First and foremost, we would be squished like bugs.  This would include our iPhones which were only good for picture taking and the flashlight app.  No signals here.  But the phone still tells the time and date.  How does that work?

But back to imagining a world without US.

Uncle Ralph is expecting us on Friday (today is Wednesday).  He would start calling.  Having heard there was a major quake in the area, he would be very concerned.  “Where the hell are they?  Why aren’t they answering?”  We, of course, would be laying under a massive amount of rocks reduced to the width of a paper napkin.  We would never return.  The RV would be in the park and everyone in the park would wonder what in the world to do with the RV.  Rayman thought maybe the rocks would shift just enough for us to get caught like James Franco did in that movie where he had to cut off his arm free himself.  Lovely, I replied.

Luckily none of that happened.  And it has probably never happened here but that did not dissuade of from conjuring up the worst possible scenarios.  But, you know what?  I bet everyone let’s these thoughts slip through when they visit here because you realize how really insignificant you really are when you come to a place like this.  Between those teutonic plates shifting and past volcanic activity, those immense boulders got tossed up like marbles.  Would have been impressive to hear it when it happened.

So, I would recommend all you people out there to get in your car or truck or RV or motorcycle and visit Pinnacles.  And don’t wait til you can’t walk.  It is an amazing place right here in our own back yard (for those of you that live in central California.)  A must-see park that became a park in 1908 when Theodore Roosevelt, our esteemed Republican president, had the foresight and determination to declare million of acres National Parks.  Oh, his party was furious with him.  All those place that were put off limits from drilling and digging etc.  I really admire him for what he did.  He went against his own party and did something he believed was right.  Oh, those were the days.  Of course, the guys in his party pulled their support and he had to run in a 3rd party, the Bull Moose party.  That split the vote and Woodrow Wilson won.  There may be some similarities then and now…now that I am thinking about it.  Heck, if he were alive today, the Koch brothers would be running ads accusing him of being an imperial president.  They would be backing some Tea Party type that thinks government is bad and worthless.  Maybe they would accuse him of having a tryst with Mr. Muir.  You just don’t know but it is certain interesting to imagine by overlaying today with yesteryear.

But I digress.

Teddy was quite the outdoorsman and at one point spent several nights under the protection of the Giant Sequoia trees of Yosemite with John Muir.  That must have been when he had the epiphany to listen to Muir and preserve this place along with a lot of other places.   How cool is that?

Lichen on the rocks.

Borrego Springs sits by itself in the desert.  You must be on your way there or you would never know of it.  Off the beaten path is a phrase the Chamber of Commerce would be smart to use to describe their little town.  It sits alone by itself and that is it’s charm, really.  That and he has no street lights and so the stars are spectacular.

The biggest employer in BS must be the state of California because there exists here a state park. http://www.abdsp.org/

The reason I write about it, dear reader, is that this is where we have been for the past week.  And the reason we are here is because our friends, Al and Charlie (Charlie is a she), live here.  And the reason they live here is because this is a great place to winter.  Spring and fall are okay too.  And they love riding their bicycles here.  But don’t be here in the summer.  Too darn hot.  It is desert.  Low desert and it gets hotter than a dickens.

But I digress.  Al and Charlie weren’t here because Al’s dad died and they had to go to Tucson before we got to see them.  However, our other friends, Jake and K.C. (K.C. is a she) were here with their 5th wheel to ride their bikes.  And many other friends of theirs were her riding their bikes too.  Not us.  We are too wimpy.  Way too wimpy.

We met the most interesting people.  Practically super-human.  There was Elizabeth.  She and her daughters rode their bikes from Chicago to Marin, CA.  She and her husband rode their bikes from Canada to Mexico following the Pacific ridge trail.  See a mountain, climb a mountain.  No problemo.

I interject some spanish because while they were all out riding, I was studying spanish on Rosetta Stone.  Bicicleta is spanish for bicycle.  FYI.

But I digress.

I also finished a book.  The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window.  And continued the book about Roger Ailes, the Republican operative who runs Fox (Faux) News.    All this reading while the bicyclists rode their bikes 40, 50, 80 miles a day.  Yes, you read that right.  They ride all over the place for hours on end.  And most of the rides involve big mountains.  BS is surrounded on three sides by mountains.  One of their rides involved going from almost sea level (BS) to 4000 feet in the space of 28 miles.  Now that is a climb.  Hell, I couldn’t even walk it.  And, the riders, none of them are spring chickens.  Most are in their 60s, I’d hazard a guess.

Now the thing is, these people need to have their heads examined.  Because what we learned anew is that bicycling is dangerous.  Jonathan’s brother got in an altercation with a truck and he was in rehab in Escondido dealing with a broken pelvis and other horrible things.  Then Marsha who lives here, fell and took a chunk out of her leg and incurred some “road rash”.  Ah, I didn’t just learn some spanish words.  I learned bicycle words.  They have a whole vocabulary that archeologists will find fascinating someday.  Phrases  like “I lost my cleat”, “I broke my clavicle”, “I got road rash”, “the geometrics”, “I need to go to the emergency room”, “he has a big engine”,”carbon”.  Yes, siree.  Our new friend Joe was forced off the road on the climb to 4000 feet to Julian (a cute little town), and ended up in the emergency room in Indio.  Broken ribs.  The only broken ribs I want to see are baby backs.  And lest I forget his wife, Donna, who ran for 1 1/2 hours while we hiked.  Me, I would have said, “Joe, you need me here sitting in the chair to answer your beck on call.”    Nope.  Not Donna.  She had to run.

And we met a fellow that got out of the Vietnam war by being too tall.  He is tall sitting down.  He is so tall he has to have his bicycles custom made.  By a guy whose name sounded like Mario Marshamelio.    And did I mention that all these people look like string beans?  Especially Mr. string bean, Dave!!

But I digress.  Again.

While we were here we played golf and took a hike.  We hiked 3 miles to see an oasis.  A real, live oasis.  The Palm Canyon hike was wonderful.  Had to scramble up one rock, but it was so cool.  Started out at the trail head with sand and rocks.  Half way up a stream appeared, then a water fall and the palm trees.  This is where the borregos (long horned sheep as pictured above) come to get water.  We didn’t see any that day.  But we did see a whole group of them a few years back when down to visit Al and Charlie.  We were so lucky that day.  A herd of them appeared at the top of a mountain and we watched them come down, down, down and they crossed the street and went to the golf course for fresh grass eating.  Here’s some pics.  These borregos are nothing to fool with.  The males cleared the way, and the females ran through as the males stood guard.  Quite a site to behold.  An unbelievable experience.

This is one of the males.

And below you will see the females as they rushed through.

But I digressed…Again

These bicyclists are so full of energy.  Not only do they do their rides.  But they also hike.  So, if biking isn’t planned, hiking is planned.  They must be masochistic.  Oh, I kid the riders.  Because I’m jealous.  I wish I had that much energy.  Don’t you?

Yesterday we took a hike after our breakfast hike with Jake and K.C.  They know another bicyclist couple from British Columbia and they know all about ants.  Would we like to take a little hike with them to learn about ants and things?  Sure!!  So we drove to their second home in BS and we hiked into the desert behind their house.  There we saw all kinds of insects that you don’t even know are there because they are so small.  Daniel had a high powered set of binocs and so did his wife, Helen.  We looked at the tiniest bee I’ve ever seen.  Beetles.  Tiny.  We saw a bee hive in the rocks.  And we watched a grasshopper molt.  We also learned about ants that hang from the top of their colony and do nothing but hold the nectar that their fellow ants collected.  They are called honey pot ants.  Good eating for us people, I suppose.

So, on the way back from our fascinating desert session, I asked Daniel where he was trained?  Essentially, he is self taught.  Just found BS intriguing and started learning about it.  A landscaper by profession, he’s been wintering in BS for years.  He and his wife, Helen, are skinny too.  And they are getting ready to go back to British Columbia.  By train.  They come down by train and somehow get to BS and live all winter by getting around by bicycle.  And they have one car in British Columbia but don’t really drive it.  Their son lives 3 day’s bike ride away.  They were more interesting than the ants, by far.  It is just amazing the people we met in BS.

We also played golf with a fellow that worked 37 years in Alaska.  He retired and moved to San Diego.  He was a hoot.  Loves to fly fish.  And that’s where I think I’ll leave this.  The Alaska guy likes to fly fish and so did too-tall-Dave.  And I think that is the next thing I want to do.  Stand in a stream and try to catch fish.  I won’t have to dodge cars to do it.  May hike though!!

Yes, now that we are out of the frozen north, a bit of a critique is in order.

What in the world were we thinking?  Of course, dear reader, this refrain is a fairly common one for us, isn’t it?  So.  What have we learned?  Here are some bullet points on the subject.  Better yet, let me steal a concept from my friend, Bill Maher.

NEW RULES

Do not go north in the winter.  There may an exception to the rule from time to time but the exception would involve another rule such as go only as far north as a day trip.  This is so that if the weather does not cooperative, you can hightail it home in short order.  In deference
to my ski loving spouse, he may go north to look for snow.  By himself.

Second new rule.  Only go south in the winter.  Generally speaking, it is always warmer the further south one goes.  This is a good rule.

Third new rule.  Check road conditions.  We traveled some horrible roads.  Rocky roads.  Bumpy roads.  Roads under construction.  Actually, there should be a list of roads to avoid.  Like 99.  It is a total mess.  Driving when raining didn’t help.

Fourth new rule.  Don’t drive in the rain.  Stop where you are and stay there.  Keeping this behemoth between the lines is hard when the sun is shining.  Of course, if our drought continues, this rule will have a very small impact.

Fifth new rule.  Don’t drive in a wind storm.  Driving an RV in wind is like bronco riding.  The freeway becomes the bull and you are the rider, hanging on for dear life.

Sixth new rule.  Travel with friends.  We saw so much of ourselves and no one else…it wasn’t healthy.  Interaction with others is preferable.  And with people we know, even better.  Tonight we will see friends in Gilroy and, boy, are we excited!!  Other people to talk to.  Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

Seventh new rule.  Go somewhere and stay there for awhile.  Yes, we stayed in Corvallis for a while, but that we because we were snowed in.  We almost lost our sanity, like in The Shining.  He, the twisted author, was snowed in as I recall.  Staying a different place every night is not a trip.  It’s a series of drives.

Eighth new rule.  Don’t get mad at your passenger when they yell, “Move over.”  The hardest job is that of the passenger.  The passenger gets a bird’s eye view of concrete walls, other trucks, steep embankments and the passenger lacks any control.  The only thing the passenger can do is scream.  It’s not personal.  Or perhaps the new rule should be to not look.  Blinders might be useful to keep the horse metaphor going here.

Ninth new rule.   Read all the other rules before starting to plan the next trip.  This rule is critical.  Nothing like a reminder sans the gory details.

Tenth new rule.  Get out and do stuff.  RVing can be sedentary.  It is imperative to get out and do things.  Golf, hike, swim, kyack, bicycle.  Wherever the road takes us, exercise must be an important component.  It is also a good way to deal with the frustrations of the road. And that was lacking in the frozen tundra.  In fact, we have ruled out Alaska.  Too damn cold even in summer.  We do want to learn how to fly fish, but it won’t involve any locations that don’t get above 65 in the dead of summer during the day.  Just not going to happen.

So, dear reader, you see.  We learned a few things on our first official trip.  And with any luck at all, we will remember to review this list.  You know about lists, don’t you?  Make the list.  Lose the list.  Misplace the list.  Forget to the refer to the list.  The list goes on and on!!