Friday, January 13, 2017

Best Beans

A Bowl Of Beans...

Oh, how rich a bowl of beans can be!

We're don't talk often of foodie stuff here, so please cut us some slack and forgive us when we do.  Like tonight.

I am eating a Divine Bowl of Beans.  I learned how to make these beans 50 years ago in West Lafayette, Indiana.  I don't fix 'em very often...but when I do...Oh, My Gosh!  They are Beans To Live For!

They start out in the bulk section labeled as "Small White Beans."  And, yes, they look small and scrawny.  They simply don't Shout Out to You and announce themselves because, after all, they are SMALL White Beans.  Maybe if they were BIG White Beans, people would pay more attention to them.

The first thing you do before you cook up Small White Beans is to have a Bacon-A-Palooza.  Yep, it's counter intuitive.  Cook up a skillet full of bacon FIRST!  Cook the bacon LOW and SLOW and let it simmer under cover for a really long time.  Do not overheat your bacon.  Encourage your bacon to retain its fullest possible flavor.

By and by, after you have finished your bacon and set it aside to drain, THEN and ONLY then can you begin to deal with your beans.  The first and MOST important step is to sort them for rocks and foreign matter.  Gawd forbid that you would bite down on something that would cost you $3000 at the dentist!

We take SUPER, Extra Special Care in sorting, culling and inspecting our beans.  We put them them through a two-stage inspection so we can be absolutely certain SURE there is no foreign matter in the beans.

After washing the beans and blessing them, we put them into the electronic pressure cooker pot.  We add one can of low sodium chicken broth and then bring the fluid level to "8".  That roughly equates to a four to one ratio for the beans.  We also add two tablespoons of bacon grease.

Then we pressure cook the beans on high for 35 minutes. Meanwhile, we cut up the drained, cooked striped into 3/4 inch pieces.

By  and  by, the electronic pressure cooker finishes its job.  We let off the steam and then insert all the cooked bacon and pressure cook for another 15 minutes.

Then we offload the pressure cooker's contents into a real stove top cook pot and we're good to go.

THIS is now you make The BEST Beans of Your Life!

Monday, January 9, 2017

Intuition Saves Day



Intuition Rescues Another Bad Decision

Summary:  We should have been (and probably still would be) badly stuck in a muddy bar ditch on a lonely road we shouldn't have traveled.  Intuition once again saved the day.

Long Version:  We needed to run a brief errand to The Village of Oak Creek (VOC) to close out a dormant bank account with a whopping $47 in it.  We figured a rainy day was perfect for that errand.

Meanwhile, we decided to take a Carril prohibido, a Verbotene Autobahn....a route about which Susun says, "Just don't go there, John."

Well, I had a hunch the forbidden road had just been graded by the Yavapai County Blade and so it was.  In fact, the road was in such good condition, I began mentally composing a text message to Susun: "Well Road AWESOME--BEST EVER!"

Meanwhile, a couple of miles from VOC, it began to rain so hard, you couldn't see a trace of the iconic Red Rocks.  Everything was blotted out by the rain.  I didn't think much about it.  I ran my errand, got the $47 and then  returned toward Rimrock.

As I approached I-17, Ye Ol' Intuition grumpily mumbled, "We better stay on the pavement, Buckaroo."  But, no, I ignored the intuition because The Well Road had been in such good shape only mere minutes beforehand.  Meanwhile, I reasoned that the rain I experienced in Sedona never touched the Rimrock area and was an isolated cell perhaps spawned by a local vortex.

Sure enough, I turned right onto The Well Road and it was in fine shape.  Nary an issues whatsoever...until...

As I began to approach the Bar D Ranch intersection, I noticed the road getting slightly muddy but didn't think anything about it.  Hey, I still had fine traction and no mud was building up on our all-season tires.

And then...there's a special tight, blind curve well known to driver of The Well Road.  The curve sits in solid bedrock so you have to slow down to a crawl to safely navigate that curve.  If you pull too far to the right and someone's coming too fast, BAM...you know how that goes.

Anyway, I dutifully crawled over the bedrock and around the curve and then began the half-mile downhill past the Soda Springs Ranch road intersection down to the flats beside Montezuma Well National Monument.

And that's when Ye Ol' Intuition woke back up again and started shouting at me.  SLOW DOWN & LOOK, it shouted.  So, when it shouts like that, I obey.  Sure enough as I peered into the gray afternoon, I could see a small sedan buried nose deep in the bar ditch about a quarter mile ahead.  And meanwhile, I saw lots of lights and what looked like a possible vehicle pileup.

By that time, the surface conditions of The Well Road changed dramatically and I was in free fall mode on the hill.  Regular drivers of The Well Road know instantly what I  am talking about.

For the rest of you, here's a kinda of description of it.  All four of your tires become thickly coated with a sticky, clay gumbo and all your vehicles systems become totally useless.  Steering, braking, acceleration, you name it, you don't have it any more.  You are at the mercy of gravity.  All you can hope to do is to turn your front wheels fully in one direction or another and use them like friction devices.

So, that's what I was doing as I was surfing downhill, pretty well knowing I was going to slide into several other vehicles and make a great big wreck and THEN get stuck forever in the bar ditch.

And as I was sliding down that snotty, gawd-forsaken slick hill, I remember the cheater route to Soda Springs.  Even though I could see the cheater route looked like a world class mud bog, at least it was better than a car wreck.  And somehow I was able to lodge my front wheels into the deep ruts of the cheater route and then accelerate and fish tail down to Forest  Road #121 where I knew there would be some life-saving actual, real gravel.

Whew.  Sure enough, I surfed through the mud bog and slide slipped out on Road 121 and came to a stop with tires completely caked with 1-2 inches of the slickest mud you've ever seen.

And that's when I thanked my intuition and got out of the truck and decided I was calling that place home for awhile.

Meanwhile, I walked up to the scene on The Well Road.  The sedan was completed augured into the bar ditch.  But meanwhile two honest-to-gosh cowboys were working expertly and diligently to unstick the sedan.  

Frankly, I didn't give them a snowball's chance but they know what they were doing and expertly managed to unstick the sedan.

Meanwhile a tourist sedan cam around the slick corner and almost slid into the same bar ditch.  And then another pickup truck got into the mix so there were FIVE vehicles perched on the same, steep slick curve.  I smiled as I looked at my truck safely tucked far, far out of the way down on Road 121.  ANd, yes, I thanked my intuitioin yet once again.

Meanwhile, the young woman who had been in the sedan got out and we struck up a conversation.  Turns out she lives at the Bar D Ranch.  The second she got stuck she called the ranch for  help and her wrangler husband and the ranch owner rode to the rescue.  That's how I know they were real cowboys who knew precisely what to do.

Any how, while the cowboys were still there, they unstuck the tourist just for good measure and then they rode off into the muddy sunset.

Meanwhile, the guy in the other pickup turned out to be The Phantom Cowboy I've always wondered about.  As chance would have it we had a chance to swap talk, too.  I've seen him going back and forth on The Well Road for at least a millennia but never knew who he was.  Turns out he works for the Forest Service as a "horse exerciser!"  Seriously.

So, that was a real fun conversation.  Anyway, I told the cowboys and the horse exerciser I planed to stay put until The Well Road dried out.  They all kinda chuckled the polite way cowboys can do.  I knew what they were thinking, "Dries out, yeah right, buckaroo."

But I know The Well Road as well as anybody and I figured it was a very brief rain and since the road had been dry less than an hour beforehand, the rain water would get soaked into the clay and the clay would swell up like it always does and get tacky but not snotty.

So, I just  kicked back for 30 minutes and kept walking the road testing the slipperiness and waited until I felt like it was tacky enough to drive.

Then I found a little spot on Road 121 to drive in high speed circles on some non-muddy surface.  By doing several 360's, I was able to shed all the mud from the truck tires.

Meanwhile, I had scouted out The Well Road and figured out a way that I could drive in the wrong lane to "high side" the steeply sloped curve.   That part of the plan worked to perfection and I was able to avoid sliding into The Bar Ditch Of Oblivion by driving a blind curve high side at a high rate of speed.  But I had scouted it and was confident the plan would work and it did.

And once I got back on a firm surface, I speed up and threw all the remnant mud off the tires and came home and let out a HUGE WHEW!

Seriously, that was a close call and Ye Ol' Intuition saved the day once again!


Sunday, April 17, 2016

Some Sunday Stories

Yea, verily, we sallied forth this Sunny Sunday to find some fun stories.

First things first.  What's a Sunday Morning without a Bloody Mary?  I mean, really.

From the Kalamazoo newspaper comes this amazing quest: "Michigan's Best Bloody Mary."

If you thought you knew Bloody Marys, well, maybe you need to think again.  Those Michiganders REALLY get into the Sunday Spirit with some incredibly righteous Bloody Marys.

Here are the links to fully savor the story:



ENJOY!

Alright, let's move on to our next Big Find--Italians having a pasta fit over a French insult to a national dish.  But first, how the heck did we find THIS story?   Glad you asked.  One of our random points this morning was near Oswego, Illinois, and they do actually have a newspaper there.  So, we were reading about a young girl who won the Daughters of the American Revolution essay contest.  This year's theme was to compare and contract Christopher Columbus with Charles Lindberg.  I am not making this up.  That's pretty danged intriguing so I kept reading.  Turns out the DAR had partnered with the National Italian American Foundation for the essay contest.  So, I got to looking into the NIAF and that's where I found this delicious story.

Here is the direct link to the story:

http://qz.com/661055/when-the-french-try-to-beat-the-italians-at-italian-food-things-get-ugly/

And the NIAF Facebook where I found it the first place:

https://www.facebook.com/niaf.org

And, just in case you're super curious, here's the DAR Essay Contest Story:



What would a Spring Sunday Story Sortie be without a Morel Mushroom story...or two...or three?
We stumbled into a morel story in the Lansing, Michigan, newspaper.  That led us to the National Morel Mushroom Festival in Boyne City, Michigan.  And then that led us to all sorts of other fun stuff.  I guess you could say this tangent just kind of mushroomed into a life of its own.

Here's the original Lansing article that got us started:

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/travel/2016/04/14/5-rules-michigan-morel-hunters/83015086/

And then the Boyne City Festival gig:

http://bcmorelfestival.com/

And then to some hokey morel factoids:

http://bcmorelfestival.com/morel-factoids

And finally to some great morel eye candy:

http://bcmorelfestival.com/photos



So what's with this photo of a geeky lookin' guy?  Well, he's proof positive that you really CAN make a living doing podcasts.  Seriously.  We found this entertaining article in the Greensburg, Indiana, newspaper.   The guy shown here doesn't live anywhere remotely near Greensburg but, well, you'd have to understand Indiana rural newspapers...and that's too long a story to tell.

In the meantime, check it out:

http://www.greensburgdailynews.com/cnhi_network/lore-podcaster-scares-up-huge-audience/article_51becee0-d2d7-5dd5-b990-9d7b9cf02f71.html



Here's the map of random points that started all this stuff today.  We used Logansport, Indiana, as a starting point and asked for five random points within a 150 mile radius.

Thank for reading!









Monday, March 14, 2016

Fifty Year Kappa Sigma Reunion


Fifty years ago, the large group of young men you see in this photo were all hoping and working hard to become official "pledges" of Purdue's Chi Chapter of Kappa Sigma fraternity.  They were the best group of guys I have ever had the honor and privilege to be a part of.  We were united back then by our common bond to Kappa Sigma and to each other.  Those bonds have stayed tight for the past 50 years and will undoubtedly remain a defining part of who we were together back then and now.

All of the men in this group left Purdue and went on to illustrious and important careers and each of them created a Family that will carry their legacy forever into the future.  We all shared so many great times together back in the mid-60's  Oh, the stories we can tell (and often do)!

Many of us have kept in contact over the years.  Facebook, in particular has helped some of us stay in better contact. We can count a dozen of these men as our Facebook Friends and one of them, Roger Mayes, actually lives in Idaho Falls.  We visit with Roger often each year and deeply appreciate our Kappa Sigma Times together.

This fall of 2016 most of the 1966 Kappa Sigma Pledge Class will be coming together once again for a 50 year Reunion at Purdue in West Lafayette, Indiana.  Other Pledge Classes will join the gala festivities.  It promises to be a historic occasion the likes of which  happen only once in a life time. Reunion Organizer Frank Caputo has gone totally over the top in attending to every detail of this upcoming Special Time.

We would dearly love to attend this unique and memorable event.  However, we will not be attending.  Why?  How can this be?  Well, it's certainly has nothing to do with my Kappa Sigma Brothers.  I am a Life Member of the Kappa Sigma Alumni Association and will forever cherish my time with the men you see here.  We are Brothers for Life.

No, the fact that I won't be going to the Reunion has everything to do with my Home Town, Lafayette, Indiana.  I was born and raised in Lafayette.  It was a natural thing to cross The Wabash River to attend Purdue.  However, there are too many memories and places I don't want to see again there.   When my Mom died in December 2011, I faced arguably a series of the most difficult chores and trials of my life in dealing with her Internment and Estate.   It was easily the longest and most difficult six week time period of my Life.  Many of the events and dubious milestones of that  time period are already chronicled here on this blog.  I do not wish to rehash them in this post.

When I was finally able to break free from those times, I decided I was never going back to Lafayette again,  As my plane winged its way over Tippecanoe County heading West to Arizona, I breathed the deepest sign of relief I have ever felt.  I gave heartfelt Thanks to God that I had experienced my Last of Lafayette.

There's simply no way I am ever going back to that place...at least in this lifetime.

And so, as much as I Dearly wish I could visit with my Brothers you see here, I can't go back.  It would be far too painful for me and the mere thought to once again setting foot in Lafayette makes me very ill-at-ease.

Frank has been very insistent that I  attend this event and has become perturbed that I haven't replied to his entreaties.  Well, Frank, it's difficult for me to even address these realities.  I have had numerous nightmares even while trying to think of a way to explain.  I know Frank won't understand or accept any of what I have written here about  my Home Town.  And that's OK.  I am the one who has to walk in my shoes and live in my skin.

I really can't write any more about this than what I have here.  I'm sorry and I apologize.  Please at least attempt to understand.

Thank You.  God Bless Kappa Sigma and may God's Grace be with my Brothers Forever!

Sincerely, John Parsons  AEKDB


Monday, February 22, 2016

Wildcat Nights

Here is a post put up on Facebook the evening of February 21, 2016.  We moved it over here to the blog because we want to be able to keep the story accessible.  As you know, by and by, stories get lost in the Facebook vortex.  Facebook is all about "here and now."  A blog at least allows us to know when and where we put stuff.  We also included some of the comments made on the Facebook post.  

Many Thanks to Carmen Kotting, Richard McCallum, Thomas Olsen, Tim Egan, Jerry DeBaun, Marti Bridges, David Ehmke, Connie Gilmore, Rex Peters, David Irvine, Alice Buddeke Fairfield, Richard Hauser, Steve Snyder and Phyllis Webb for their "Likes" of the story.
-----------begin Facebook post--------------
Back when I worked for the U of A as Night Production Manager of "The Daily Wildcat," I worked with lots of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kids. Oh, how full of themselves they were. But there was this one young Mexican who made a compelling case to me that he was being discriminated against. We're talking 1980 here, folks. But this kid was A Bright Light and he was Shining Bright and, well, you'd have to know how it was in 1980.
I went to bat for that kid and I failed miserably and got my nose stuffed into a place where the sun don't shine. But that kid truly knew what I did for him and we bonded back then. He's long gone down that road that only shadows know. But, as we prepare to return to The Old Pueblo for the first true time in 36 years, these stories are swarming back.
Back then in early 1980, I was told FTF by the Old Man running The Daily Wildcat that they would NEVER allow a Mexican to have ANY position on Staff, Period. Case closed. Argument over. Go back to work.
Well, times must have changed. There's at least one Latina on Staff now and it's great to see her name on the roster! Makes me Super Happy!
Editor-in-chief -- Dominic Baciocco
Digital Managing Editor -- Brenna Bailey
News Editor -- Sam Gross
News Editor -- Lauren Renteria
Sports Editor -- Matt Wall
Sports Editor -- Ezra Amacher
Arts & Life Editor -- Alex Furrier
Arts & Life Editor -- Emma Jackson
Opinions Editor -- Graham Place
Science Editor -- Lizzie Hannah
Science Editor -- Bailey Bellavance
Photo Editor -- Tom Price
Asst. Photo Editor -- Sydney Richardson
Copy Chief -- Bridget Grobosky
Copy Chief -- Emily Hedges
I'm danged Proud of Those Days Long Ago. I stood up to The System. Yeah, I didn't make any difference but at least I knew enough to "Stand & Deliver!"
----------------------------------end of Facebook post--------------------
Commentary on Facebook post:

Peter Corbett:  "I know several UA grads. I wonder if they had any idea that went on. They would be so disillusioned."

Marti Bridges: "It never hurts to do the right thing."

John R. Parsons: "Peter, whoever might still be alive from those days would deny it and there would be no proof. Just my word against some guy long gone."

Steve Thompson: "I think you made a difference. Your friend knew what you did. Others saw you do it. You made an impression on those people. Maybe you did not accomplish the goal in that moment, but you started to erode barriers by being one of many who began to stand up. All change begins this way I think. Changing health care, changing prejudices, changing in favor of tolerance, changing in favor of the environment. Someone(s) have to begin it. and inspire others to begin in their own way. Thank you for beginning as you did."


Tuesday, July 21, 2015

BPR

Why do we have an deep and abiding fascination with the I-10 bridge failure?

Settle in for a long story.

Well, it dates back to our youthful days....all the way back to 1966, the year before that I-10 bridge was actually constructed.

We graduated from high school in June 1965 and immediately enrolled at Purdue for summer classes to get a jump start on what we thought was going to be an engineering career.  All throughout our freshman year at Purdue we eagerly sought leads and tips for a suitable engineering job the following summer.

One cold Indiana day in mid-January, we happened to be perusing the bulletin board at the Lafayette Post Office.  That's when we hit pay dirt.  There was a federal jobs notice that included all sorts of enticing seasonal positions throughout the Western States.

For whatever reason, the feds limited applications to only three potential positions.  Our top choice was the BPR.  Nope, that's not PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) that's B-P-R as in Bureau of Public Roads.  BPR long ago morphed into the Federal Highway Administration.  However, in the mid-1960's, the BPR was the go-to place to work for budding civil engineers.

I applied to the BPR immediately and was ecstatic when they sent me a notice of appointment a few weeks later.  I wound up working for BPR for three summers: 1966, 1967 and 1968.  In fact, I came with an eyelash of being a career BPR employee...but that's another story...and an even longer story to boot.

Here's how it worked:  The BPR actually paid my travel expenses from Indiana to San Francisco and then put me up in a hotel there.  I spent the first two weeks each summer working with the civil engineers at 450 Golden Gate Avenue...mostly doing "gopher" chores and listening to the wise old engineers tell stories.

Then I spent a week at the BPR's Treasure Island supply deport.  After that, I would be assigned to a field project.  Of course, the BPR paid all the travel expenses, etc.  It was a sweet plum job for sure.
My first summer was on a field survey crew running "rough line" for a new highway in the San Gabriel Mountains.  I lived that summer in nearby Azusa, California.

The second summer I was assigned to a road construction project from Mormon Lake to Clint's Well, Arizona.  The project office was in Happy Jack, Arizona, and I lived in a small cabin at Mormon Lake.

The third summer was on a road construction project at Carson Pass in the Sierra Nevada.  I lived in South Lake Tahoe that summer.

Each and every one of those summers is a long story unto itself.

Suffice to say I learned a great deal about all aspects of highway design and construction, especially the civil engineering aspects of bridges and culverts.

In fact, the civil engineers at San Francisco took a liking to me the first summer and they were all smiles when I returned the next two summers.  I learned more from those old guys in my three sessions that I could ever describe in a short blog post.

You have to realize that all engineering design back then was done by hand, the painstaking Old School way with primitive drafting tools, slide rules and pure human "smarts."  (Steve Jobs was 11 and Bill Gates 10 years old in 1966.)

There was a long-standing, generational tradition and hierarchy back then.  First, it was a totally male profession.  There were no females in the drafting room.  The secretaries never set foot in the drafting room.  It would have been a huge faux paus.  Second, there were no young people working in the drafting room.  The only young people allowed into the drafting room were people like me--young people being "exposed" to the inner sanctum...a hushed place where old men worked largely in silence.  Story-telling and socialization were only acceptable in the break room.

The old engineers trusted to design America's highways and bridges had spent their entire careers with the feds.  They were simply not allowed to begin to work up civil engineering plan sets until they were well into their careers and had many, many years of experience.  The idea of a young person being entrusted to create and draw plans would have been outright heresy, if not high treason.  It simply didn't happen.

These days, a young person can come right out of college and get a job on an engineering design team.  Back in those days designs were all done by very old men.  I met one engineer who had graduated from Purdue in 1922!  To me he was a living fossil but looking back he was only 66 or 67 years old.

All of the engineers I met told me stories about their careers and how hard it was to break into the design aspect of highways, especially bridges.  The old guys who designed bridges were held high esteem (if not awe) by their peers.  To be entrusted to design an actual bridge was the pinnacle of an engineer's career!

I learned a lot about bridges during those three summers--both from the actual engineers and from the field crews and contractors.  Both the design and construction of a bridge were really big deals, far more so that the mere design of a roadway.

One bridge engineer in particular took a liking to me and explained many of the nuances of bridge design.  I have long forgotten his name and he's probably long dead by now, too.  But his lessons have stuck with me over my lifetime.  Ever since those days, I have always looked at bridges with an entirely different eye and perspective.

I have actually gone far out of my way to look at old bridges.  Whenever I pass under or over a bridge bearing a pre-computer construction date, I smile inwardly and remember the incredibly meticulous detail those old guys put into their designs as they hunched over their drafting tables, pencils in hand.

So, to sum up this long story, I take is somewhat personally when someone casts aspersions on the structural integrity of a 1960's bridge.  By far the bulk of those bridges were designed far past minimum standards and overbuilt way past whatever you can imagine.

Concrete and steel were insanely cheap back then so those engineers really laid it on thick, so to speak.

Getting back to that I-10 bridge, I see nothing in the photos to indicate that the bridge itself failed due to some design problem or engineer issue or degradation of the construction materials.

What I see is very clearly a "channel migration" that took out the backfill behind the east abutment.  Pure and simple.

And now you know why I have such a deep and abiding interesting in "all things bridges" and highways in general.

Thanks for reading and Happy Trails!

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Blog is dormant

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell this blog went dormant long ago.  We've only put up 4 posts for the whole year so far.  We're doing all of our stuff on Facebook now.  We had a great ride on this blog---1,772 posts altogether.  That's pretty amazing.

We're not making any apologies for letting this blog go dormant.  We're very proud of our work and our track record here.  We did a lot of great writing that will stand the test of time.  Many of our posts are like fine wine--they will only get better as the years pass by.

We appreciate all the wonderful support given to us by our readers and many Friends who loved the blog so much.  We won't be letting the domain name go away and the blog will live forever.

Who knows?  Maybe one day, we will fire it back up and start writing up a storm like we once did.

Many Cheers!  jp

Monday, April 27, 2015

Great Monday

How many times have you ever heard anyone say "This was a Great Monday?"

Answer:  Not Many.  In fact, maybe not ever.

But for us today it was a hugely Great Monday.  Everything clicked.  Everything worked.  We Love It When A Monday Works!

We accomplished so much stuff today that it's hard to know where to begin. So, let's begin at the beginning and work our way through this Awesome Day.

(Disclaimer: We arrived back around noon last Thursday.  All the normal re-entry chores were done by "close of business" Friday.)

Okie, dokie...here we go...

We beat feet outta our house shortly after 7:30 AM.  We delivered "Seren" our 1995 Suzuki Sidekick Garage Queen to Sears for her annual checkup.  It's kinda like getting your HDL/LDL's checked, only different.

Then we waited at home until CableOne came and connected us back up to the internet.  They said they would be here "sometime between 8 AM and NOON."  Well, they pushed their envelope and showed up in the 11-ish range.

Meanwhile, we both occupied ourselves with productive tasks while waiting.  You don't need to know the details of our tasks,  Suffice to say they were very productive.  We were actually thankful The Cable Guy was late in his window.

After The Cable Guy verified we were Feng Shui, we headed back to Sears to pick up Seren.  The Sears Guy Mike told us the Bad News: "There's NOTHING WRONG with your vehicle!"

WHAT?  We were fully prepared to pay your typical $500 to fix whatever would be wrong with Clair's Garage Queen.  You simply have to assume a re-entry cost of $500 per vehicle.  It goes with the turf.  But today we copped a break.  No way, no how could we pay Sears any money.  They refused it.  They said Seren was in perfect condition through and through.

How good is is that?  VERY GOOD!

After our Sears visit, Clair and I each went our own ways in our own vehicles.  I drove the 1984 vintage Nissan.  Clair drove the 1995 Garage Queen.

Clair went out and did her thing today and I did as well.  We both gave each other glowing reviews of our Happy Monday.  Trust us, it's not every Monday that was Good as This Monday!

I haven't yet heard of all the details of Clair's Happy Monday but I am going to list my own Monday Successes.  Here they are:

Gave Seren her annual checkup.  Passed with flying colors.

Got connected to 50 MBPS internet

Checked all financial accounts.  All A-OK

Removed Snappy from State Farm Insurance.

Joined WORLD GYM for six months & paid-in-full via check.

Bought my annual Idaho Geezer Hunting & Fishing License for $11.75.

Bought a new hot rod $425 laptop from Sam's Club.

Worked out 30 minutes on the treadmill at World Gym during the  work day rush hour. Been off the treadmill since last year.  Picked right back up. Did 30 minutes with a 116 heart rate covering 1.5 miles on a Five degree incline.

Began reconnecting with our River City Friends.

Took a bunch of tree pictures.

Trip North Report - 2015

Pulling up alongside our little 1939 bungalow at 11:15 AM Thursday.
Home, Sweet Idahome once again.

Every migration is unique and comes with its own baggage, so to speak.

Our 2015 Trip North was no exception.  What started out as a mellow meander morphed into an all-day marathon before finishing at a pleasant pace on The Home Stretch.

Our first day's travel from Rimrock to The South Rim was a low speed, easy going, delightful 140 mile drive through Oak Creek Canyon, Flagstaff and the forest vistas of Highway 180.  We enjoyed a wonderful, long-overdue visit to Grand Canyon.

Our second day's travel kept on going and going and going until the odometer stopped spinning after 560 miles took us from The South Rim all the way through the Salt Lake City I-15 Gauntlet.  We normally never stay behind the wheel for 11 hours but one thing led to another.
The Wednesday weather gave us ample reminders (and incentive) to keep driving north. Mt. Nebo on horizon.
Finally, our third day was yet another leisure cruise of only 160 miles through the sweet farm fields of Eastern Idaho.  We pulled up to our little bungalow at 11:15 AM Thursday.  It was a perfect day for doing all the chores to begin settling back into our Idaho Season.

We changed our travel schedule Tuesday after realizing the weather would be "iffy" for Plan A.  Sure enough, on Sunday April 26 we awoke to a cold rain trying to turn into snow. It would have been a terrible day to travel home and then try to get everything here up and running again.

As it worked out, our 2015 Trip North was all about Perfect Timing.  In hindsight we couldn't have planned it better than it turned out by "winging it" with serendipity.

The total travel tally turned out to be less than we expected.

Fuel cost $170 and camp expenses were $37. Sharlot averaged 13.4 miles per gallon and easily held her own on I-15 when it really mattered.

Time was really running out on fixing Susun's phone Tuesday.
We beat the clock with 7 minutes to spare before closing
time at The Grand Canyon Library on The South Rim.
The only hiccup on the trip was the screen shattering experience of Sweetie Susun's cell phone.  As many readers remember, we bought her new smartphone on Thanksgiving Day 2014 during Wal-Mart's runup to the Black Friday Frenzy.  The phone was normally priced at $130 and we bought it for $30.  Since it was "such a deal" we bought two, figuring it would be cheaper than buying the extended warranty coverage.  We also reasoned that having a spare would put Susun back in action immediately rather than having to wait for a warranty phone to arrive.  Well, bingo! We sure gave thanks this week for our Thanksgiving Day decision.  Even though it took 3 hours Tuesday to get the spare phone functional, at least we had it on hand.

As of Sunday April 26, we are totally resettled into our Idahome.  The tasks that lie ahead are all the normal chores of homeowners everywhere.

This is our 7th time arriving north after a Snow Bird Season. Getting the house function again was the easiest it's ever been.  Some minor plumbing modifications made last summer made ALL the difference in restoring running water quickly without any "issues."  Both dormant vehicles started right up.  All systems were feng shui within four hours after our Thursday arrival.

The only hiccup has been internet.  It's a Bad News, Good News thing. The Bad  News is that we've been without internet for days.  The Good News is that we've been without internet for days.

Since we thought we'd be arriving April 26th, we scheduled CableOne internet installation for April 27th.  Well, the cable people flatly refused to change that set-in-stone installation date.  We quickly realized Thursday that the lack of internet would be a Good Thing.  We've been able to get all sorts of tasks and chores done and are way, way ahead of the re-entry game as a result.
We pulled into Utah's Willard Bay State Park as the Wednesday evening darkness descended on The Great Salt Lake.



No Internet, No Problem

Internet free since Tuesday,  April 21!

Well, it certainly hasn't been by choice...just circumstance.

What do we miss the most when we don't have internet?  Surprise:It's not Facebook or email.  Nope, not even close.

What we miss most is watching weather.  Being without internet really brought home how much we depend on watching upcoming weather patterns.  It's not just in our DNA..we actually plan our activities based on whatever weather may be in store.  (More on that later.)

The Next Big Thing we miss is research.  We truly reply on being able to ask a question and get an answer online.  Being internet free helped us realize just how dependent we have become on the research capabilities of cyberspace.   (More on that later.)

Third on the list of what we miss most is The World Of E-Commerce, including Craigs List, Banking, online shopping, etc.  Craigs List is truly a mainstay of our lives and we are quite literally lost without it.

Finally, we miss the news.  We enjoy being a voracious news reader.  Contrary to what someof our Facebook Friends may thing, the bulk of our time online is spent reading news and feature articles.  Luckily, we have home newspaper delivery here in Idaho Falls so that helped soften the total lack of online news.

Now about Facebook and email.  Both of those internet stalwarts are at the bottom of the list for what we miss most about being internet free.  Both are informative and entertaining, to be sure.  However, neither is essential to our daily "quality of life."

As you well know, Facebook can be (and often is) the quintessential "time waster."  Frankly, being Facebook-free the past few days has helped me get a lot of Real World Stuff done here at our Idahome.

Over the past couple of years, we've come to realize that very, VERY few of our inbox messages are truly important. In other words, they can wait.  It matters not that I check my email every day...or even every week for that matter.  In the social media whirled, email is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

So, why would be miss watching weather so much, especially right now?  Simple.  We're hoping to squeeze in a bicycle trip to The Grand Tetons and we have had no clue what the weather will be like there between now and April 30---the last day the Jenny Lake Road is open to bicycles only.  Also, we're already planning a Road Trip in early May.  We truly have an actual NEED to understanding Big Picture weather patterns for the next couple of weeks.

And let's take up that high-sounding word "research."  What on earth would we need to research?  Well, right now it's a very mundane but important-to-us topic:  a top rack for Marvie.

We left Annie and her awesome ladder rack in Arizona.  As you know, the ladder rack helped us carry our canoe hither and yon.  Marvie's not capable of carrying the canoe without a top rack. The Magic of The Internet would have long since helped me understand our options for such a rack.  Without the internet, all we can do is stand around the truck scratching our head and pondering the possibilities.

And so there you have it.

Monday, March 2, 2015

Flow & Eddy of Life

The March Lion Storm Event was a hoot to follow, cover and savor.  We loved every last little bit of it.  As the Last Day of the storm wound down to denouement, we sat in front of our laptop feeling sad.  And we cried.

Yes, we were sorry to see the storm go its way upon the land.  But we also had a personal epiphany.  This fine and fancy storm brought back so many memories and Happy Daze gone bye.  It brought back and rekindled memories we long forgot we had.  Oh, how we felt such a kindred spirit with this storm and all its kind and kin.

And then...when it was over...we finally had to look at ourself in the Mirror Of Life.

No, we can't partake of this kinda storm ever again in this lifetime (unless we are a pedestrian).  No, we can't ever kayak this type of storm water runoff ever again in this lifetime.  

Yes, those days are gone.  Long Gone Goodbye.

As we age we have our "issues" with what we can and cannot do.  In our mind's eye, we can do everything we once did.  In our Body's Reality, we can no longer do any of the Gonzo Stuff we once did.

Yes, those days are gone.  Long Gone Goodbye.

Tonight, I cried.  

As I sat here watching my Beloved World do its thing, I finally came face-to-face with the reality I will never be a part of that Wild West Verde River Runnin' Rodeo ever again.  Today was THE Day when that inevitable reality finally hit me square in the face.

As the realization of that reality finally sank deeply into my bones, I sobbed and sobbed in front of this laptop.  Oh, how I would love to be back in those Days of Yesteryore!  But the Bottom Line is this:  Age Takes Its Toll.  You are who you are at any point in your life.  If you try to be someone who is not who you are, unkind karma will come your way.

And so I cried tonight.  I shed tears of longing but also tears of rejoicing.  Yes, I can no longer do what I once did.  But I can be The Best I Can Be for The Future in Every Way!

And that is my Life Goal at 67 years of age--to be The Best I Can Be for all those Who I Love and All Those Who Love Me!

Thank You, Sweetie Susun, for Loving Me as Truly as You Do.  I LOVE YOU Always and All Ways!

It's been a Very Interesting Day.  Thank You for Reading.  Many Happy Cheers, jp

Friday, December 12, 2014

Pickin' Peaks

Flood waters on Indiana's Wabash River near Ft. Quiatenon in Tippecanoe County.
A so-called Atmospheric River brought copious rainfall to California the last couple of days. Thursday evening, December 11, I sat glued to my computer screen watching hydrographs of various Golden State rivers and streams.  Once again, I was in my element... "pickin' peaks."

Pickin' peaks as rivers rise is in my DNA and a cherished lifelong lifestyle.  It's part and parcel of who I am.  Last night was just another chapter in my thick book of Pickin' Peaks.  We had great success Thursday night and picked two peaks--peaks of the biggest rivers flowing during the Atmospheric River event.  We picked the peaks of both the Eel at Fort Seward and the Sacramento at Red Bluff.

As always, it was another exciting episode of one of our very favorite activities. So, how did we become "peak pickers"?  And why is pickin' peaks such a cherished lifelong lifestyle?  Well, we can sum up both questions with two simple words: Family History.

Pickin' Peaks is in our DNA because both my parents were born into Peak Pickin' Families and when I came along, I already had Peak Pickin' in my genes.  I was raised into the time-honored tradition of pickin' peaks.  My earliest memories as a tiny child are those of peak river and creek flows.  Whenever the Wabash River or Wildcat Creek were flooding, it was my parent's obligation and sacred duty to go bear witness to those events.

Mom and Dad and their family members, Dear Friends, Associates and total strangers would stand on the river or creek banks as close as they dared to the raging, roiling waters.  All eyes, minds and hearts were transfixed together by the surging chocolate flows.  Whenever anyone said anything, it was always about The Water.

"When will that river peak?  How high do you think it will go?  Why, I've never seen it this high before?  Can you believe how high this creek is today?  Oh, I bet it's peaking right now.  No, it's not, it's going higher, LOOK!  Can't you see that new high water mark?  Did you see that whole tree just go by?  LOOK, another tree is falling into the creek!  Oh, I hope it doesn't take our house.  Look at those cars over there halfway under water.  It's peaked!  It's peaked.  I see it. LOOK!  There's the high water mark already showing on the bank.  See, I put in a stick!"

My Mom always gripped my hand tighter than a vice during those times.  There was no chance I could have ever bolted away and disappeared in the flood waters.  Mom and Dad were totally mesmerized by flood waters.  They could never really get enough of floods.  They would often jump in an old 1950's four-door Chevy with "three-on-the-tree" and roar off to see some other creek jump its banks and molest farmland, roads, bridges and occasionally a house or two.

I can't even begin to imagine how many flooded roads and stranded bridges I saw as a child.  You see, early engineers were generally always smart enough to elevate their old, tressle-style bridges far, far, FAR above even the wildest possible flood.  Generally, however, the roads leading to those bridges would be deep, deep under water.

Sometimes, however, really big floods would creep ever closed to a stranded bridge.  That's when huge crowds would gather to watch in awe as the flood crept ever higher to caress the bridge bottom.  I can so clearly remember the palpable fear in those crowds.  But it was fear mixed with that human desire that somehow lives to see train wrecks and other disasters.

You see, that's where I got my peak pickin' DNA.  It goes way, way back and it's been part of my life since my life began.  I could no more walk away from peak pickin' than I could change my name and gender.  It's me.  It's who I am.  I hope that when I die, God will have a place for me to pick peaks for the rest of all eternity.

My Mom grew up on Wildcat Creek near Lafayette, Indiana.  Her Dad eeked out a meager living digging mussels from the muck of the creek bottom.  Her house was built on stilts and perched precariously beside the creek.  When the floods came, her family used a boat to get back and forth to the house. Mom knew the pulse of that Wildcat Creek at least as well as she knew her own heartbeat.  She met my Dad there on the banks of The Wildcat and they fell in love and made me part of their Family History.
The Wildcat in kinder, gentler times near Mom's old house.

From my earliest days, they both would patiently teach me how to watch a river or creek.  They would point out the tiny little nuances of what a river does or how a creek behaves.  I learned the annual life cycles of river and creeks almost before I began to walk.  I learned to actually feel the pulse of flowing water.  It was part and parcel of growing up.

And that's why I can sit rapt in front of a computer screen as I did last night, living and breathing my life with rivers far from home.  You see, all rivers and streams worldwide share common bonds and behaviors.  Yes, each has its own personality but all those long ribbons of life where water flows are brothers and sisters working together to make magic upon our planet.

It is always exciting and exhilarating to tackle the challenge of pickin' peaks on distant giant rivers.  The Eel's watershed above Fort Seward is over 2,000 square miles and the Sacto's is 8,900 square miles.  So, pickin' peaks on those two rivers was steppin' a little out of my normal comfort zone for such things.  But a river's a river..that much I know for sure.  And river's have watersheds and watersheds can be known and quantified.  And weather and rainfall can wreck their havoc but they can also be measured and known.

And with a little luck and a long life of pickin' peaks, it's still possible to point a finger and say, "YES!  That's IT!" just like I heard so many Old Timers say as I stood making Family History on The Banks of The Wabash River and Wildcat Creek.
The Wildcat showin' off grinding ice near my Mom's old house in Tippecanoe County, Indiana.

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Age


The recent passing of Colorado River Legend Martin Litton turning my thinking to "Age."

No matter what our age, we tend to see other people in three categories:
  1. Younger
  2. Our Age
  3. Older
It's been that way since we were a little kid. Maybe it's been that way for you, too, eh?  Remember in grade school when 8th graders seemed SO much older (and possibly wiser) than us?  Remember your freshman year in high school when Seniors seemed so mature?  Why we thought we'd never live long enough to become a Senior!

I will never forget my first real job away from home in 1966.  It was the summer of 1966 after my freshman year at Purdue.  I worked on a federal Bureau of Public Roads field survey crew in SOCAL's San Gabriel Mountains.  I lived in a cheap apartment in Azusa, California, with some of the other crew members.  Our crew boss was 23 years old.  At the time, I was a mere 18 years old.  I looked at that 23-year-old and thought he was like REALLY OLD!  I often wondered what it would be like to be 23.

That whole pattern has continued through my life.  Back in 1983 when I took my Mom and Dad on their one and only Colorado River trip through Grand Canyon, I thought my Dad seemed imposisbly old.  Heck, he was only 61 years old at the time.

When I met Martin Litton, Martin seemed like a genuine fossil.  And get this, Martin was 66 years old when I met him, a year younger than I am as I write this commentary.  I will never forget being in the editing booth with some SRP video technicians watching video of Martin rowing a dory in Grand Canyon.  All of us were marveling that such an Old Man could accomplish such a feat.  HA!

A few years back, I turned 60.  Frankly, I was feeling pretty low about passing the 60 milestone.  I had just taken a paid job as Director of The Eastern Idaho Retired & Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP).  I felt like a fossil.

Well, the average age of the roster of 700+ volunteers I managed was 74.  And there there hundreds of them in their 80's and a heck of a lot in their 90's.  The 80-somethings were fond of coming into my office to cast a wary eye on me.  I thought it was kind of odd that they would do that.

Finally, one of the 80-somethings said, "I didn't know they were going to hire a kid to do this job."  That guy's comment was a revelation to me.  He was looking at me the way I was probably looking at 40-somethings back then.  Suddenly, I didn't feel 60 any more.  It was quite a liberating moment.

It should go without saying that we are all whatever chronological age we are today and forever.  However, it should also be noted, that our own chronological age is just a number.  It is whatever lies in our Hearts and Spirits that matters.

Today, we are going to visit the Youngest almost-90-year-old Dear Friend we know.  For her, 90 is the new 70.  Heck, for her, 90 could be the "new 60."  She is not bound by the constraints of being almost 90.  Nope, she acts, talks, walks and lives like every moment of every day is fresh and full of fun just for her.

We know it's only a natural human tendency to assess people as being either younger or older than ourselves.  We know that will never go away.  We also know that most younger people look at me and think, "Gee, what an old guy."

But you know what?  We don't care what they think?  We don't spend a nano-second even considering their thoughts are about our age. Whenever we misbehaved while growing up, our parents would often deliver a stern admonishment to "ACT YOUR AGE!"  Well, we probably have never acted our age and don't plan on starting any day soon.

We may be 67 years of age but we feel totally free and entitled to act whatever age we may wish on any given day for any reason whatsoever!

And that's the way it is with AGE.

Friday, October 31, 2014

Five Years Ago Halloween

How our home looked before Halloween 2009.
It was five years ago today when a 12-year-old changed our lives. The young delinquent male broke out most of the windows of our straw house here in Rimrock.

When Dear Friend Brad W. arrived to assess the damage, it was a seen of bleak devastation.  Brad called me at my office in Idaho Falls that day to deliver the bad news.  I will never forget the feeling of listening to his calm voice recount the situation.  All I could keep saying was, "Well, everything happens for a positive purpose."  That's our mantra through thick and thin.

While Brad tried to stabilize the house, we hurriedly packed up and hit the road south, using some accrued vacation time from my position as Director of The Eastern Idaho Retired & Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP).

We sold our straw house and the land around it in 2006 to a developer.  He would only take the straw house if we carried a note for its portion of the purchase cost.  In 2009, he couldn't pay off the three-year note and voluntarily signed the house back to us without having to go into foreclosure.

Susun was heartsick when she heard the news.

We really didn't know what to do with the place since we had been living and working a full-time paid job since 2007 in Idaho Falls.  I managed a roster of well over 700 volunteers who served at far more than 100 organizations in a 19,000 square mile area of Eastern Idaho.  One of the highlights of my job was working with 16 Senior Center spread far and wide in some of the most beautiful country on earth.

As the mileposts ticked past on our way south, Susun and I debated what to do with the place.  Our first inclination was to dump it into arguably the weakest housing market in Arizona history.  As you recall, 2009 was the pits of the housing bust and the depths of the recession.

When we pulled up alongside the home we built with our own hands, a feeling of helplessness surged through our spirits.  Broken glass was strewn everywhere.  The land itself was an unbroken sea of huge tumbleweeds.  To say it was bleak was a colossal understatement.

We set up a small camping tent inside the house and unlimbered two camp chairs and tried to camp in the shell of what was once a happy home.  The day after we arrived, we went to Brad's Place for lunch.  When we returned, the 12-year-old had returned and broke out more windows and scatter large glass shards all over our tent, sleeping bags and chairs.

We stood staring at the scene in utter disbelief.

And thus began a chain of events that led us to where we are today--sitting in our Happy Home telling you a story about all these circumstances that began five years ago today.

Luckily for us (maybe not for him), the 12-year-old went on to bigger crimes and eventually got incarcerated in Arizona's Adobe Mountain juvenile facility.  At least the primary threat was rather quickly removed from our neighborhood.

Meanwhile, somehow the circumstances brought out The Best in both of us.  we worked feverishly day-in and day-out, non-stop everyday for almost two months.  In the process, we coined a new name for our place--2nd Chance Ranch.

Luckily, my employer figured out a creative way to keep me employed and paid so I didn't lose my job.  We took only two days off during that time--Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.

Looking back, the amount of work we had to do to this place was epic.  Frankly, five years later I look around and wonder where and how we got all that relentless energy.  Each day we both worked from sunup to sundown, often not even breaking for lunch.  Some sort of passionate zeal overtook our Spirits and we just worked.  Period.

My mantra during that time was "think like a 12-year-old."  We successfully armored-up our house so that any garden variety juvenile delinquent couldn't damage it.  Now if an criminal adult showed up with a cutting torch and a battering ram, that would be different. But we figured adult criminals would have bigger fish to fry than vandalizing a straw house.  So, we planned every move to thwart the mind of a 12-year-old.

Five years later, we are happy to say it has worked.  All of our armoring efforts truly paid off.  The place has been untouched, unharmed and intact each of the five times we have returned since those fateful days five years ago.

When we drove north after Christmas five years ago, we got caught in a blizzard at Nephi, Utah.  We holed up in the Safari Motel to ride it out and finally arrived back in Idaho Falls New Year's Eve 2009.

Meanwhile, there had been a sea change at my workplace and on the day we arrived back in River City we decided to retire from the job and become Snowbirds, keeping our straw house as a place to roost from November through April each year. Meanwhile, we began this blog the next day, January 1, 2010, to document the changes we knew would lie ahead in our lives.

As time has passed over the past five years, we can now look back and see the vandalism of our place as a blessing-in-disguise.  The event forced our hand, so to speak.  it forced us to "stand & deliver" for the things we cared about.  It forced us to make decisions that have turned out to be wonderful and life-changing.

We love our little Happy Home here cozied up next to Montezuma Well National Monument.

Indeed, everything happens for a positive purpose!

Happy Halloween 2014!
Here's what the place looks like now when we arrive after six months in Idaho.  We lock up the shutters even if we're driving only two miles to the Post Office.  The place is ALWAYS shuttered and locked if we are away for any reason.

For those who haven't seen the photo album of the construction of our straw house, here it is:

http://www.livesimplecaremuch.com/2010/11/straw-house-slide-show.html

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Until Next Time

It's always great to arrive at Bryce and always a little sad to leave.  But there will be a "next time" and we're already looking forward to it.

As we've mentioned, the NPS is closing Sunset Campground tomorrow-October 20 so, we its time to move down the road.  Sunday was our best day at Bryce for this visit.  Incredibly deep blue bird skies, no wind, temps in the low 60's.  We hit the trails early and there was no one on the Navajo switchbacks.

As we made our way down those finely tuned switchbacks, a solo hiker appeared.  She was a young Japanese woman with a sparkling smile.  Susun offered to take her photo with the woman's camera.  She was so delighted.  After Susun took her picture, the young woman gave Susun the most wonderful hug and held Susun's hands and beamed a hugely bright smile into Susun's face.  It was a perfect way to begin a perfect day on the Magical Mystery Tour of Bryce Canyon's fabled trails.

We made a short video about "going to Church" at Bryce.  It's too big a file to post from the Lodge lame Wifi.  We will post it when we get a faster connection.

After almost 5 hours in Hoodoo Heaven, we made our way back to camp for lunch.  Then we went to enjoy hot showers.  Yep, Bryce has that, too, and for only $2 a person.  Your two bucks buys eight minutes of wonderfully hot water.

After the showers, it was off to the Visitor Center to get the promised "small reward" for bagging benchmarks along the trails.  We were both delighted to see the so-called "small reward" was a great looking pin.

Now, we're at the Lodge for our last visit here.  Tomorrow, we'll pack up and pull out sometime by mid-morning.  It's been yet another great Bryce visit.


Saturday, October 18, 2014

Saturday's Bryce E Ticket Ride

Still trying to get the "knack" of which way to post photos from the Pleistocene WiFi connection here at Bryce Canyon Lodge.  We're talkin' S-L-O-W WiFi!  Today, we posted the pictures to Facebook instead of Google.  The jury's out on which posting method is best.  Here's the link to the album and you do not need to be a Facebooker to view the pictures.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.372385062924766.1073742044.100004598250156&type=1&l=5aed1abe1d

E Ticket


A family hams it up on their E Ticket ride along the Queens Garden Trail.
Who remembers The E Ticket Ride?  If you were a lucky kid, you actually got on an E Ticket Ride.  If you knew what an E Ticket Ride was, you always dreamed about them.  Long after E Tickets faded from the original Disneyland legacy, the phrase “An E Ticket Ride” has lived on.

To be sure, it may not be as prevalent in today's textual lingo as it once was.  But the legendary E Ticket Ride will forever occupy a spot in the Hearts and Spirits of those who knew them.

The Bryce Canyon National Park trails system is an E Ticket Ride.  Without doubt.  The Bryce trails are so fun, wanderful and downright exciting.  No matter how many times we may have climbed aboard the Bryce E Ticket Ride, we are just as exhilarated as the first time.

Most every National Park has at least one E Ticket Ride.  Some parks like Grand Canyon have a kaleidoscope of E Ticket Rides, maybe enough E Tickets to last a lifetime.

The Bryce E Ticket certainly isn't as epic as a Colorado River trip or The Rim To Rim or a couple of night's at Phantom.  However, what the Bryce E Ticket may lack in once-in-a-lifetime superlatives, it makes up for it by being easy to access and dependable and predictable every time.

When you lace up your boots and strap down your pack and hit the Bryce Trails, you are truly on an E Ticket ride that's unique in the National Park system.  No other National Park can boast a Hoodoo Wanderland.  No other National Park has such a compact, yet dramatic day hiking trails system suitable for E Ticket holders of all ages.  No matter which E Ticket Trail you chose to tread, you can be sure you will finish your hike with the same sense of excitement as those moments from yesteryear when you stepped of one of the original Disneyland E Ticket rides.

Many Thanks to those long gone Old Timers who laid out Bryce's spectacular trails.  Many Thanks to those NPS crews who have carefully maintained the trails over the decades of their existence.  Many Thanks to all those who keep Bryce Nice.


Here's the Wiki on E Tickets:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_ticket
Two benchmarks down--only one to go---the one in Peekaboo Loop.  Then Susun can go get her "small reward" from the NPS.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Bryce Is Nice

Bryce is Nice.  Bryce is cozy. Bryce is glamping. Bryce is world class day hiking.  Bryce is Ambiance @ The Old Lodge. We love Bryce. Bryce is home to us.

We fell under the spell of Bryce in 2001.  We've been enchanted by Bryce forever since.  We've been to Bryce so many times it feels just like home.  Afterall, it's only six hours away from our Arizona Home.

We got lucky this time. Mere seconds made the difference. We arrived at the Bryce Canyon National Park entrance station at 3 pm Thursday.  We beat feet for Sunset Campground.  There was only one campsite left that was suitable for our travel trailer.  We grabbed  it while the guy in the rig behind us could only roll his eyes.  He would have taken it if we hadn't.  It was that close. Pure luck.

Oh, Bryce!  As you may recall, we couldn't stay at Bryce this Spring when heading north.  Sunset Campground was closed so the NPS could put in a brand new Taj Mahal bathroom.  My, oh, my, what a great new facility.  A vertiable shining sanitation shrine!  Yes, it's heated and, yes, it has hot water.  The new addition makes Sunset Glampground even more appealing, especially for the $7.50 per night fee.

It only dipped down to 26 overnight and that's casual for our rig.  A little dose of heat from the forced air furnance and we're good to go.  We let the morning temps rally to the upper 40's before venturing off to The Whoo Hoodoos and Bryce's famous trails: Peekaboo Loop, The Hat Shop Queens Garden Wall Street, Tower Bridge, Navajo Trail and, of course, the legendary Fairyland Loop.

With three full days here we're hoping to get our sea legs back on Bryce's short, steep but super sweet trails.

We got lucky this time in more ways that one.  Get this: Sunset Campground closes for the season the morning we break camp and drive out of here October 20. Whew, Bryce by a whisker this Fall!

All of our equipment is behaving well.  We did have a delayed departure from Idaho Falls when we realized our trailer brake wasn't working.  Luckily, the Wizards at First Street Welding had us fixed up  right and proper and back on the road by 1 pm.  Twenty minutes later we were on the Snowbird Flyway heading south.

We really like the New Plan of driving only to Willard Bay the first day.  It's not much over three hours and it's a wonderful place to stay.  It's at I-15 Milepsot 357 on the very north end of the ever-daunting Salt Lake City metroplex gauntlet.  SLC's gauntlet ends right about Milepost 250 at Payson, Utah.  This year, we made the run through the gauntlet in a mere hour and forty-five minutes.

We had only one minor incident when we could not avoid a chunk of blown out tire.  There was no way to swerve to miss the hazard without risking losing control of the truck and trailer and/or hitting one of the vehicles flanking us in adjacent lanes.  So, we had to take the hit and hope for the best.

Luckily, the tire chunk didn't damage Annie (the Big Chevy C2500 pickup) but it flew up and left a real nice dent in the left front of the trailer trailer, complete with black tire marks.  Even though we were slightly bummed about this minor damage, we were very thankful the chunk didn't go under the trailer and wreck havoc with pipes, wiring and possibly even the innards of a wheel backing.  We'd much rather have a dent in the front that deal with serious destruction underneath.  Also, those tire chunks can cause a sudden blowout if they hit a trailer tire “just right.”  So, all-in-all, it was OK.

The SLC traffic was it's usual chaotic NASCAR-style, willy-nilly cacaphony of meyhem.  Basically, we get through it by staying in one lane, gripping the wheel with white knuckles and silently reciting “The Lord's Prayer” a few dozen times.  Once we are off I-15 at the Payson exit, we can exhale, inspect damage and walk around and relax for awhile.  It's always such a relief to get through that gauntlet.

After SLC everything else seems casual.  This year we hit The Sevier River Canyon at the peak of Fall Colors.  What an incredibly splendid spectacle!  We didn't stop in Panguitch as usual since both our intuitions were telling us to get to Bryce as fast as possible.  If we would have stopped in Panguitch we wouldn't be sitting in Sunset Campground this morning that's 100% for certain sure.

We're delighted to be back at Bryce.  We love this place...everything about it.

Thanks for reading!  Have a Great Friday and Many Happy Cheers, John & Susun.

(2 pm update) Bryce is Nice but Bryce is also jam packed with people today.  Turns out it's the Utah school system's Fall Break.  Our first hike on the Navajo Loop and Wall Street was kinda like going to an elementary school rowdy recess on a packed playground.  A ga-zillion kids scurrying helter-skelter every which way including loose.  It was actually kinda fun in a different sorta way.  We've been on those two trails when there's been nobody else there.  That's nice, too.  But it was fun to see all the kids being kids.  We've definitely never seen this many frenzied, free range kids at Bryce.

Turns out it's a good thing we walked from our campsite over to Sunset Point.  The parking lot was totally full and there were NO spaces whatsoever.  Chances are the crowds will thin out tomorrow as everyone heads home so they can attend church on Sunday.  At least that's our theory.

(3 pm update) Bryce Lodge is only a 15 minute walk from our campsite.  So we loaded up the laptop in our backpack and headed to the Land Of Free Wifi. Unfortunately, the Lodge's WiFi speed is really slow this afternoon.  Won't be able to post more then a few photos, if we're lucky.

After trying several tricks, we may have been able to get today's hiking photos posted:

https://plus.google.com/photos/117214000776076564030/albums/6071284785761236241?authkey=CI2ptYz_gvqiTQ