|
You frequently see ads and flyers from people who are looking
for a lost pet, but what happens when the pet is looking for his
lost owners? I mentioned previously that our dog, Pete, was
missing when we returned home Friday morning.
When M showed up at work this morning, Pete was sitting there on
the sidewalk in front of her office waiting on her. Never mind
that he had never been there before, eight miles away, across an
interstate highway and two four-lane roads, on the other side of
town. In fact, he hadn't been more than a few hundred yards away
from the house for a long time as best we know. Normally, if we
are gone and a thunderstorm comes, Pete heads down to my parents
house, just a couple of hundred yards down the road. This time
though, they were gone on vacation. He really wanted to be with
his family I suppose.
There is the possibility of divine intervention of course
(goodness knows M has earned it), but some folks have speculated
that it might have been a case of the nose knows. Perhaps there
is a smell that is peculiar to where M works (quite possible), or her car leaves a trail of some sort
(pixie dust?). I don't know
how he did it, but we're glad he found us! |
|
M traveled down to the city last Wednesday to take a work
related course, so we were able to share a couple of nice
evenings. In fact, Thursday evening, we went to eat fairly early
at an Asian restaurant with a hibachi section. After they took
our orders, a group of four was seated around the same grill,
and it turned out to be a couple celebrating a wedding
anniversary, with their college age son and a friend of his. We
introduced ourselves, and the wife asked if we minded waiting
for another couple to show up before the cooking started. We
agreed that there was no hurry. The other couple (the
wives were sisters) and their precious 4-year old boy eventually
arrived, and we all had a long fun evening eating and talking.
It felt like we were leaving old friends when it was time to go.
I wish seating people together (if they agree to) would catch on
in other kinds of restaurants.
We drove home Friday morning in rain, the remnants of the second
coming of Ivan the Terrible, not quite a hurricane this go
around, but plenty wet. Oh well, plenty of inside chores to do.
I had ordered a new waterbed mattress a few weeks back from the
internet to replace our old one (1990 vintage), which had some
slow leaks at a seam where patches didn't seem to work. We
decided to tackle that task today. After getting the old one
drained, I was wrestling it outside on the balcony to throw it
down on the patio below, when a big nest of wasps on the eave
overhead took offense and dive-bombed me. Having been swarmed
once before in my childhood, instinct took over, and I ran back
inside as fast as I could, swatting at my head and neck as I
took the stairs two at a time. M was right behind me, but
fortunately she wasn't the object of their interest.
When we finally got my hair, back, arms, and neck clear of the
little buggers, I was able to quit screaming. M found some meat
tenderizer and began dabbing it on the welts. There were at
least a dozen good stings, which have now moved on from that
intense feeling like injected fire to soreness. Several of the
attackers are still flying around in the house, near windows
mostly, trying to escape. The large nest outside has been
subjected to chemical attack, and I have to say I felt little
remorse as they fell twitching and shuddering to the floor. In
spite of the unwelcome interruption, we got the new mattress in
place and filled. Hopefully, this one will last for another 15
years.
Our dog, Pete, was not here when we returned from Houston Friday
morning. Since there was thunder that morning, which
absolutely terrifies him, we figured he ran to hide somewhere
and would show up eventually. But he is still gone, and the
neighbors haven't seen him. Our cat died suddenly a couple of
months ago, so we're really anxious now. Sometimes unwanted
things do seem to swarm on you. |
|
It was a little bit creepy flying back home from San Jose
yesterday, since it was 9/11 - three years after. Maybe that
explains why the plane was only half full...
The flight out on 9/4 was pleasant. M and I met up with T in the
terminal and began catching up on one another's lives, as old
friends usually do. When we arrived in San Jose, I set off for
the rental car bus while they waited on luggage. The good deal I
got on Yahoo Travel on a 4WD Jeep Cherokee from Dollar turned
out to be a bait and switch, since they had none available, but
I insisted that a minivan wouldn't be an equivalent. To their
credit, they finally gave up trying to convince me to take
something else and made a deal with their competitor in the next
booth, National, to give me the car I wanted for the price they
had promised me. Other than the waste of about a half
hour, I drove away happy. Sometimes stubbornness is a virtue.
With everyone and everything loaded in our vehicle, we drove to
Redwood City, one of the many suburbs within 30 miles of San
Jose that make up Silicon Valley, where daughter and son share a
house with two other graduate students. Coming from places where
the humidity is often oppressive in summer, the clear, dry air
was most welcome. We travelers were tired and jet-lagged, so
after a jaunt into Palo Alto for pizza and ice cream (not at the
same time) it was early to bed.
 On
Sunday, under a brilliant blue sky, we drove across the Golden
Gate to hike for several miles through
Muir Woods, just
north of San Francisco. When we made it back to the car in the
afternoon, we continued up the coast on highway 1 to
Point Reyes National
Seashore. This peninsula is on the other side of the
San Andreas Fault, but thankfully it didn't "fall into the
ocean" while we were driving on it. There was a nifty old
lighthouse out there, which could only be accessed by stairs
descending 30 stories. Some of the people ahead of us
might have been better off having not made the attempt if their
huffing and puffing was any indication.
As evening approached, we headed back south and stopped for
dinner at a little roadside restaurant in
Stinson Beach.
A live jazz trio was playing on the dining deck, so we savored
our wine and dinner of Pacific red snapper, in no hurry to
finish.
 As
darkness fell, the maître d' lit propane heaters set among the
tables to keep us diners warm in the rapidly cooling crisp dry
air. We eventually headed back through San Francisco and on to
Redwood City to sleep.
Since the kids both had must-do events during the week, it was
only the three of us when we headed off to Yosemite Monday
morning. Much to our delight and surprise, we managed to get a
great campsite in the valley. Even after Labor Day, all 400
sites are filled every night.
 After
surveying our provisions, we decided that the dry foods we
brought could stand a bit of an upgrade. As luck would have it,
the general store there in the valley had a small but superb
selection of steaks. We selected three thick ribeyes, three huge
baking potatoes, and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, and I
volunteered to do the cooking in the open pit. If you haven't
yet experienced this meal in the great outdoors, you haven't
fully lived. It's easy:
- Build a hot bed of wood coals (or charcoal if you're in a
hurry)
- Wrap potatoes in several layers of aluminum foil (stab
through with fork a few times for venting)
- Lay potatoes on coals for 30 minutes, turn over and cook
30 more minutes
- Pepper steaks on both sides and put on grill over the
coals when potatoes are almost done
- Grill 5 to 7 minutes per side, depending on heat, for a
nice juicy medium rare.
My only complaint was that when we toasted the beauty of our
surroundings, our many years of similar adventures together, and
T's birthday with our makeshift wine glasses (stainless steel
Sierra cups), there was only a dull clank rather than the ring
of crystal. I suppose you have to make a few sacrifices...
On Tuesday morning, we began the hike up to the top of Vernal
Falls, getting an early start to beat the crowd. The more well
known falls (Yosemite, Bridal Veil, etc.) were dry this time of
year. We could only imagine the deafening roar there must be in
the spring. Even though it was prohibited, some folks couldn't
resist swimming in the cold emerald pools and sliding down the
glacier-smooth rocks. (The little specks near the rock face in
the pool at the base of the fall in the picture above are
people) Quite a swimmin' hole.
 We
ended up having to change campsites every night, since we didn't
make reservations months in advance, but we travel light, so it
wasn't much bother. It took an hour from getting up each morning
to cook and eat breakfast, pack up the tent and sleeping bags,
and load the car. On Wednesday, we headed to the Mariposa Grove
near Wawona, where about 500 giant Sequoias somehow escaped the
lumberjacks a hundred years ago. These trees are amazing - the
oldest and largest living things on earth. The oldest of them
started growing about the time Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and
mistress to Julius Caesar.
From the grove in the southwest corner of Yosemite, we drove all
the way to Tuolumne Meadows near the eastern edge of the park, a
long and winding road indeed. We got a campsite since there were
now vacancies, set up camp, toured around a bit, and went to a
ranger campfire talk after dinner. All of the rangers we met in
the park had that sort of good nature that comes naturally to
those who love their job. Our campfire ranger, a thin woman
named Margaret, told of coming to Yosemite every summer with her
family when she was just a little girl, and now here she was,
still sharing her stories of encounters with bears and other
wild critters, adding just the right dose of nature-based
spiritual myth along the way.
After a backpacking trip in central Colorado in 2002 (with a
different friend), my hiking companion had given me a neat
compact LED headlamp, good for finding one's way in the dark. My
fellow campers this trip had made fun of it - until we needed to
get back to our campsite in the dark after the ranger program,
and the cheap flashlight T had brought suddenly went out. It
turns out the other serious hikers there had the little
headlamps as well. I had to restrain myself from waggling my
tongue at my tormentors.
On Thursday, we drove out the east side of the park to Mono
Lake. If you don't know the story of the
Los
Angeles Aqueduct and all the havoc it wreaked on the lakes
and rivers east of the Sierra Nevada range in the Owens Valley,
it is an interesting tale of greed, politics, and corruption.
Funny how those things seem to always go together.
The good news is that Mono
Lake, a beautiful and amazing ecosystem, has been saved from
being dried up as
Owens
Lake was in the early part of the 20th century. The LA
Department of Power and Water lost a court battle in 1994 and
had to reduce its thirst for diverting the water that feeds the
lake, after the level had dropped about 40 feet, exposing the
mineral formations called 'tufa'.
Since we were there on the eastern side of the Sierra, a trip
down the road to Mammoth, then to Bishop for lunch wasn't too
out of the way. When we made our way back into the park, we
checked on campsites at Tuolumne, and there was room clear over
on the western portal at Hodgson Meadow, so away we went. We
would be able to get a head start our return to the city.
We were on the road back to the city by 7:30 AM on Friday.
There's nothing quite as refreshing as a shower after a week of
camping, and by noon we were presentable. Son and
oldest daughter joined us for a tourist afternoon on the San
Francisco bayfront. Oldest daughter set a fast pace, but we had
time for a seafood lunch on Pier 39, with free chocolate samples
for desert at Ghirardelli. After driving back, we capped off the
day with dinner in Palo Alto and an evening walk around the
Stanford campus. As the pictures attest, there was never a cloud
in the sky the entire trip.
We had to leave for the airport at 3:30 AM, so it wasn't hard to
sleep on the 3 1/2 hour plane ride back to Houston. When we
dragged our baggage out the door to catch the parking shuttle,
the heat and humidity hit us so hard we had to stop and catch
our breath.
We'll be back...
* * * * * * * *
|
