Those of you who have been following us for at least a year know that I was in Nepal a little less than a year ago visiting Kathmandu and trekking in the Himalayas, so I felt particularly saddened by the news of the recent earthquake in Nepal. Like most of you I felt so bad for these really good people, who had so little to start with and now have less – their whole world has been turned upside down – literally.
Additionally my personal concern was for the two wonderful people from there that I got to know very well by trekking with them for a week in the Himalayans – Dom, our guide and Kirin our porter (They are pictured on my Facebook homepage). They both lived in and around Kathmandu, Dom with a wife and two children, Kirin, is single. I emailed the travel agency in New York that booked our trip to ask if they had an email address for Dom, or any way to check on the status of both Dom and Kirin.
Everest Base Camp
I heard yesterday morning from the travel agency that Dom and his family are OK, but no word on Kirin yet. Although I knew that communicating with Nepal right now was difficult at best, I sent another email pleading with the travel agent to do everything she could to check on Kirin’s status.
The riots in Baltimore and the continuing California draught have pushed the Nepal story out of the headlines, but those still following it know that the death toll has risen above 5,000 as of this writing and could get to as much at 10,000 before it’s over. Tens of thousands of people are living in tents and are still without adequate food and water, as relief is slow or non-existent to many of the outlying villages.
If you’re so inclined, there are plenty of places to donate to this cause, I chose the one here on Facebook at, https://www.facebook.com/nepalearthquakesupport
Kirin
The quake that rocked the tallest mountain in the world devastated Everest Base Camp; two major avalanches over the last two years have killed at least 27 Sherpa guides. The climbing season, which just started, is now over for the year.
PS; I just received word from the travel agent this morning that Kirin is all right as well!! Happy for them both, but so heartbroken for all those Nepalese living this nightmare.
Now that the rainy season in Southern California (2 days in January, maybe just one this year due to the draught) is over, it’s time to hit the hiking trails. Spring’s first trek takes us back to Joshua Tree National Park and to Mecca Hills Painted Canyon and Ladder Canyon for the first time.
Patrick ‘Trail Boss’ Michael, my Nepal trekking buddy along with hiking novice, Marc ‘Swizzle Stick’ Webb, who stirs up all the neighborhood parties with his wit and enthusiasm make up our hiking trio. Patrick, the engineer and Marc, the salesman, invariably look at almost everything from two completely different perspectives. I felt like I was watching an episode of the ‘Odd Couple’ all weekend. The banter between them was constant and hilarious on virtually every subject.
Pat & Marc disagreeing about something
We leave Orange County, Friday morning in Patrick’s Avalanche truck, which is pulling a 25’ camper – so we’re not really roughing it this time by sleeping out under the stars. As Marc’s wife, Lisa says, “You guys are going glam-ping”. We arrive at Cottonwood Springs campsite inside Joshua Tree National Park around noon and set up camp, which entails winding out the awning on our camper, unfolding our chairs and cracking open a beer.
Lost Palms Oasis
Lost Palms Oasis
This hike was about an 8 mile round trip trek over a series of ridges and valleys and after reading the brochure’s description of this hike, below, we were very excited about the hike and having lunch at the oasis.
Large boulders, pools of water, intermittent streams, willow thickets and sandy beaches make this a delightful spot to pause.
That description of the oasis turns out to be a verbal mirage, as there were no pools of water, no streams, not even intermittently. There was sand, lots of sand, but no beaches – I think water is a requirement for a beach. We did find some moist ground in places, so perhaps it once was as the brochure described, but thanks to the California draught we ate our lunch in a dry riverbed. But the hike was not without its redeeming features.
Banana, bacon French toast
Those who think of deserts as just brown mountains and sand would have a hard time imagining all the beautiful flowers, robust plant and animal life and beautifully colored rocks that are abundant here. When we realize how the flora and fauna in the desert gets by with so little, we almost feel ashamed wolfing down our banana, bacon French toast and New York steaks, but not ashamed enough to eat lizards and cactus instead.
Back at our campsite, dinner cooked under a billion stars and wine enjoyed around the campfire was all the stage that ‘Felix’ and ‘Oscar’ needed to continue their discussion of things like Patrick’s list of ‘trailer cleanliness tips, campfire protocol and bathroom ‘Dos & Don’ts’ – no matter the rule, Marc managed to ignore them all.
Ladder Canyon
This was the more interesting hike of the two – much more interesting! However, while researching this new hiking destination, we found the following . . .
“The geological formations of Mecca Hills are among the most unusual of their kind in the world and were formed by the convergence of the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate along the San Andreas Fault, which is overdue for a large quake.”
Which is what?!! ‘Overdue for a large quake’! Well isn’t that special.
We also should have read this other not-so-subtle admonition about the hike . . .
“Wear proper clothing, have proper equipment and follow these hiking tips or you may pay with your life.”
‘Pay with my life?!! Wow, I guess we should have read those hiking tips!
So, if you’re reading this and it ends suddenly in mid-sentence, you’ll know that the hiking tips were more important than we thought or ‘the big one’ hit.
We set out with the hope that the tectonic plates in Ladder Canyon were feeling very comfortable just where they are. The canyon is so named because the walls of the canyon are so steep in places that ladders are needed to get up and down the trail.
The Trail to Nowhere
The hike is incredible; the canyon walls get to 50+ feet in height and as narrow in places as shoulder-width – not for the claustrophobic. Once through the canyon, we were supposed to continue the loop around through Painted Canyon, but we took the ‘Trail to Nowhere’ and had a view of Painted Canyon, but not a way to get down into it, so we ended up having to double back through Ladders Canyon to get home.
The day ends with another beautiful evening around the fire and another episode of the ‘Odd Couple’ discussing their opposing views on campfire flatulent etiquette.
This year I will hit a milestone birthday. I have frequent reminders that I’m getting older, mostly from my knees and memory. But these days the true test of whether one is on the “back nine” of life is dealing with technology. I have long prided myself in my interest in computers and anything the least bit geeky. I owe this to my long-time technology guru at work, Doug Clayton, who always assured me that pressing the “F10” button on the keyboard was NOT going to blow up Hong Kong. He encouraged me to experiment and right-click my way through most problems. I wish that I still lived near him – a man of endless patience who never once rolled his eyes at me or called me an ignorant slut. Although he certainly would have been justified on many occasions.
These days, I browse Best Buy like it’s a candy store. Honestly, I’d rather spend two hours there than at Nordstrom (unless it’s the Nordstrom Cafe with their delightful chocolate cake). I think for someone who started out with a black, rotary phone and a phone number that started with a noun (Twinbrook 23537), I’ve come pretty far. I have lived long enough to marvel through push-button phones, cordless phones, answering machines, cell phones the size of a shoe box and now the Apple watch. As for computers, much like the old TV sets, my first one at work had a 10 inch screen with bright green letters on a black background. I remember when, with more enthusiasm than talent, I hooked up our first DVR back in 1986 and it was a simple matter of connecting two coax cables. Now…well, there is a computer in everything, from my fitness band to the washing machine. And everything connects wirelessly. Even the TV is now called a “smart TV”. I don’t know exactly what that means but I know one thing, it’s a heck of a lot smarter than me.
Last week the intersection of technology and my ineptness crossed when, after 17 years with the same phone and internet company, I decided I’d had enough of their slow speeds and faulty phone lines. So on Friday a nice young man from the new company showed up at our doorstep ready to install everything I’d need to wisk me through the digital age. He said it would take about an hour. That was at 10 a.m. Apparently our home, which is only 15 years old, is the Parthenon of technology wiring. At 4 p.m. he finally finished, having had to cancel every other service call scheduled for that day. I peered over his shoulder (which I’m sure he just loved) to watch how he hooked everything up. When it was all up and running he left. Big mistake. I should have kidnapped him.
I spent the next two days uttering language that would make a sailor blush. Somewhere over those 17 years I lost count of how many devices I’d hooked up wirelessly until, one by one over the weekend, they stopped working – the printer, the wi-fi extender, both iPads and the cell phones. Don’t even get me started on that “smart TV”. If it’s so damn smart why can’t it hook itself up? Honestly, would it be that hard for it to detect that there is a new wireless router and think “Gee, the old router is no longer online and there is a new router. I think I’ll connect to that one.” I don’t think that’s asking too much of something that purports to call itself “smart”.
In any event, here I am a week later, and everything seems to be working. Of course, we all know that I’ve lulled myself into a false sense of security. I’m guessing that within the next week something will go down and I will have to call Tech Support in India where “Dave” will walk me through all the things I’ve already tried before transferring me to someone in Poughkeepsie. Some days that old black rotary phone looks pretty darn appealing.
P.S. For those of you who kindly commented, and related your own stories, on my blog about “Un-Fun Money”, we can now add “new garbagedisposal” to the list. It never ends.
With Suzanne’s well-written admonitions still echoing in our heads from last week, I thought the weighty topic of Los Angeles and professional football would be an appropriate blog subject as a break from our tax-dulled senses. Metaphorically speaking, if taxes and dying in San Francisco were a rodeo, this blog is the clown that jumps out of the barrel to distract the bull, maybe in this case to sling the bull.
Like many of you, I couldn’t care less whether LA ever gets a professional football team; I am a 49ers fan for life who wouldn’t drive to LA to see a game if I had a seat next to Kate Upton . . . OK, maybe then, but I wouldn’t be watching the game! I do, however, miss that 49ers-Rams ‘north-south’ rivalry and so have paid some attention to all the talk lately around various billionaires building space-age stadiums (paid for with our tax dollars – Oops, I was trying not to mention taxes) in various parts of the city to attract an NFL team. So why am I convinced that the country’s second largest media market, which once had two NFL teams, will not be getting another one anytime soon?
New L.A. stadium . . . in their dreams!
First, after USC’s Reggie Bush took a pay cut to go to the NFL a few years back, some would suggest that LA already has a professional football team, but that would be a cheap shot.
The main reason for no team in LA is the make up of the LA fan. I have observed three types; the first have luxury boxes and are notorious for ‘making an entrance’ sociably late to the game, wearing the latest fashions and then, after being seen, leaving early to avoid the congestion getting out of the parking lot. The limited time they are at the game is used for consuming their Beef Wellington hot dogs, truffle fries and Bombay Safire martinis. These are the fans that would root for their team to ‘kick a touchdown’.
The second type of fan are those that are not originally from Los Angeles, which is about 80% of the southern California population. The only time they go to a game is when their hometown team comes into town to play. Those from Chicago, for example, even though they left the ‘Windy City’ 20 years ago, would not give up rooting for ‘da Bears’ in favor of rooting for the ‘L.A. La De Dahs’. I personally was part of this group when Rams games were being played in Orange County; when the 49ers came to town, I’d go to the games and there would be a sea, make that a bay, of San Francisco red and gold covering the entire stadium. The NFL is concerned that these are the fans that would get beat up, by the third type of fan, in the parking lot after the game for wearing the visiting team’s colors.
Part of the ‘Raider Nation’ Gang
The third type of fan are the ones left over from the Oakland Raiders 12-year, forgot-to-pay-the-rent visit to Los Angeles. This group, who dressed like every game was Halloween, are not so much crowd members as they are ‘gang members’. With this group the NFL would be concerned that if an LA team lost a game or the refs made a bad call that these guys would riot in the streets and then go home and burn their own houses down. Game food for this gang is Beer Chicken, hold the chicken.
Miley’s ‘V’ for Victory
The other NFL franchise owners are another reason why LA will never have a team. They must approve any move to a new city by any other current team, so each team’s owner, always looking to get stadium up-grades (from city taxes – dang, there I go again!), threatens to move to LA – eventually their city acquiesces and the owners breathe a big sigh of relief that they don’t have to move their team, and themselves, to ‘the land of fruits and nuts’.
The NFL might also be concerned that a ‘Tinsel Town’ team might employ people like Miley Cyrus, the Kardashiansisters and Bruce Jenner as their cheerleaders.
L.A.’s new mascot?
In the true spirit of Los Angeles football, one potential owner already indicated his choice for a mascot when he said, “ The team mascot should be The White Broncos, to commemorate O.J. Simpson’s infamous police chase through the city.”
Well, here we are again. The week between Easter and taxes. I trust that you all enjoyed your holiday, whether it was Easter or Passover. As our dad used to say, “I hope the Easter bunny leaves all his eggs in a Ramos gin fizz.” I’m on a diet this week so I’m hoarding all my chocolate bunnies until I lose these last three pounds. Then I will dive into them like a six-year-old on crack, regain the three pounds, and the cycle will begin again. Those three pounds are as inevitable as next week’s “holiday” – Tax Day.
I’d feel a whole lot better about writing that check if I felt that my money was being managed by people who understood their fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers. A couple of years ago a book was published about tax waste which did nothing to bolster my confidence that public servants are shepherding our monies in any sort of rational way. Here’s just a few examples:
$30 million to help Pakistani Mango farmers: This was part of a four-year, $90 million effort to boost hiring and sales among Pakistani businesses. During a time, by the way, in which millions of American businesses were going under due to the recession.
$765,828 for pancakes: Generally, I’m all for ANYTHING to do with pancakes but in this instance federal funding went to the Anacostia Economic Development Corp to build an International House of Pancake franchise (and train its workers) in an “underserved community.” The underserved community, however, turned out to the a toney area of Washington D.C. – Columbia Heights, which is termed “one of Washington’s more desirable neighborhoods.”
$10 million for Pakistani “Sesame Street”: Again, giving money to Pakistan, where we have trouble distinguishing the good guys from the bad and a country that somehow missed the fact that Osama bin Laden was living within spitting distance of a Pakistani military base for years. Because, after funding the Pakistani Mango farmers, the government felt it needed to spend $10 million of our money remaking big bird and the other Sesame Street characters into a show called “SimSim Humara” for the Pakistani market.
So, you can see why I might be a bit wary about turning my money over to people who make drunken sailors look like pillars of the community. This confluence of bureaucratic incompetence and taxes came to the forefront for me this week. As you faithful readers will recall, my best friend from childhood, Leslie Sherman, died last November. Unfortunately, she died in San Francisco, which, as it turns out, is the worst place in America to die. Her family has been waiting more than FOUR months for the results of the autopsy. If you think that seems an excessively long time, you’re right. The average time it takes to complete an autopsy and secure a final Death Certificate in major U.S. cities is 60 days. Ellen Huet of Forbesdid an expose on the Medical Examiners office in S.F. which uncovered the fact that they were operating under “provisional accreditation”. In other words, they’re totally inept. As a result, the city has hired a new ME who hopefully can provide answers to the untold number of families awaiting autopsy results.
To compound matters, Leslie died without a will or other important documents in place. When we were kids she never cracked a book or crammed for an exam and still got straight “A’s”, graduating from high school and college with honors. Unfortunately, however, financial planning was not her strong suit. So her family is struggling to sell her two homes, close out bank accounts, and take care of all other financial issues without either a will or a completed Death Certificate.
So, why am I bringing this up today, on this bright Spring morning? Because there are some lessons to be learned from all this and really, as a public service, I’m going to point them out for you.
1. Do NOT, under any circumstances, die in San Francisco.
2. Get your financial house in order. Write your will or trust. I know, it’s hard to think about a world without you in it, but believe me, it’s the best gift you can give your heirs. Do whatever your personal situation dictates, especially if you’re single, whether it’s ensuring your bank accounts have a Payable on Death provision to your beneficiaries or that you complete Transfer on Death documents for your investments.
If you don’t do these things the government is more than willing to step in and claim your hard-earned cash. In which case, don’t blame me if your money ends up going to Pakistani mango farmers rather than your kids.
(As a refresher, as well as for those new to the blog, the links below are to the previous chapters of ‘The Tape’, an allegorical tale of searching, with cameo appearances from beyond from my dear departed friend, Don Klapperich
(May 2014) Chapter 3 ‘The Tape’ – A Visit with Chief Chuckwalla https://fromabirdseyeview.com/?p=2776
(July 2014) Chapter 4 ‘The Tape’ – Oh Where the Trap Door Leads https://fromabirdseyeview.com/?p=2807
Coachella Valley
Chief Chuckwalla, with moist eyes, seemed a million miles away as he continued to stare out into the valley, trying to decide exactly where to begin to tell this story.
He finally began, “Everyone knows the story of slavery in America’s south, the slave traders gabbing black men and women from Africa and bringing them to America to sell; the cruelty that took place on the plantations and the attendant racism. But few people know of the slavery that took place right here long before America was ever colonized. It began when the Spanish conquistador, Cortez defeated the Aztecs in the early 1500’s which allowed the Spanish to rule what is now Mexico and the southwestern part of the United States for the next 300 years. The Spanish not only took our land, but they enslaved the Inviatim people to work it for them. The Spanish rancheros were the predecessors to southern plantations. They told us that our gods and beliefs were all wrong, that Christianity was the only true religion. In fact they used the word ‘Cahuilla’ to describe our tribe – a word that means heathen. We were told that we would suffer if we didn’t convert. And they made us suffer.
(Don: Ahhh, don’t ya just love organized religion?”)
The chief continued, “Those who either refused to work on the rancheros or refused to convert to Christianity were beaten, blindfolded, tied up and dragged behind horses to this place and imprisoned. Many of them died here, including my great, great grandmother.
“So those were their remains in the cells?” I said.
Palkara
“No.” the chief replied, I could see he was struggling to get the story out. “My great, great grandfather, Palkara and their daughter, Meeka, managed to escape from this Hellhole. Several days after his escape, Palkara formed a posse and, now knowing the location of this secret underground prison, returned in the dead of night and attacked and killed the guards and freed hundreds of prisoners. Unfortunately he was killed in the attack. The Inviatim prisoners, who were released, moved south and established their village by what is now the Salton Sea, but at that time was a beautiful freshwater lake fed by the Colorado River.
“Meeka, who was only about 10 when she and her father escaped, grew to be a very independent and strong-willed woman, who was determined to find a way to get back at the Spanish for killing her mother and father. As she grew older, she would often returned to this place just to remind herself of what happened here and to keep her resolve for revenge. She ultimately decided that she was going to use this Hellhole to exact that revenge. She convinced a small but courageous group of Inviatim tribe members to join in her crusade.
Meeka
“It was in the late 1700s and the white man was now just starting to push the Spanish and Mexicans out and take over more and more of the southwest region. Most, if not all, of the Spaniards who took the Inviatim’s land and imprisoned and killed their people were now dead or gone. But Meeka’s desire for revenge needed to be quenched. She painstakingly found the names of those leaders responsible for imprisoning her people and killing her parents. She then located their children, or children’s children, many of whom were still living in the area and were now adults. Systematically, one by one, she kidnapped and imprisoned them here, locked the place up tighter than a drum and left them to die. It is their bones that remain down there now.”
I sat silently for a long time, in awe of the story I had just heard and finally said, “That is an amazing story; so what happened to Meeka?”
I think it’s fairly safe to assume we all like to spend money. Come on, admit it, when you think about things to buy you rarely think about a new vacuum cleaner or getting that pesky crown replaced on your back molar. Nope, in general we all fantasize about how we can spend money on “fun” stuff. Last fall on our long car trip home from our summer travels my husband and I dreamed about some of the fun things we’d like to purchase over the winter. My husband mentioned some ridiculous items – among them a Shelby Cobra. I’ve heard him ask for that car so often that I’m now like the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon – his lips move but all I hear is “wonk,wonk, wonk”. I, on the other hand, came up with some practical items – new furniture, season tickets to the theater, perhaps even a trip to Tahiti where I could ensconce myself in one of those swim-up bars and spend weeks writing a travel blog through the lens of too many Pina Coladas. Then reality set in and the spending of “un-fun” money began.
First up was a new washer and dryer. We had noticed over the summer that our clothes came out a lot less wrinkled when we were using someone else’s appliances. I hate it when my off-hand attitude toward domesticity rears up. How could I not have noticed that our washer and dryer were so obviously sub-par? Clearly there is some “housework gene” that I am missing. But since I’ve never liked being on the working end of an iron, I was all for buying a new “laundry suite”. That’s a term I learned at the appliance store, where I was faced with an overwhelming array of choices. It is astounding to learn the tasks these hunks of metal can perform – remove spots, steam clean, sanitize! I kept looking for a dryer that would fold and put the clothes away but I guess that’s a bit down the road. In any event, a couple thousand dollars later we were the proud parents of a new washer and dryer. Sad to say…I’m not sure that our clothes are any less wrinkled but I’m pretending that they are so I don’t feel like we wasted our money.
The next month my husband was doing a walk-around of the house and determined that we really couldn’t go one more winter without painting it. So we got a couple of estimates from painters. Clearly they assumed we wanted to paint the whole neighborhood. Wow – I know they have to caulk and power wash before they slap some paint on, but really, you could feed a small nation for what they charge. Four days and several thousand dollars later, more “un-fun” money had been spent. Unfortunately, once the house looked so snappy it became evident that much of our landscaping had given up the ghost during the blazing hot summer so more “un-fun” money was forked over to the landscapers.
In January one of my front tires mysteriously had a rather large piece of rubber torn out (I’m taking the Fifth). A trip down to those friendly people at Discount Tire resulted in an inspection that necessitated purchasing FOUR new tires. Tires, or generally anything having to do with car maintenance, is the height of “un-fun” money.
Finally, this week our dishwasher decided that nine years was long enough to do dishes. Jeez – I was “the dishwasher” growing up and I lasted 18 years. (Isn’t it funny how our parents “suddenly” decided to get dishwashers when we moved out?). Anyway, we found ourselves on another trip down to the appliance store – I’m thinking we may have to put their address in the “Frequently Visited”category on our nav system. I asked the salesman if that super-duper washing machine he sold us four months ago might also be put into service doing dishes. He was not amused. Thirty minutes later we were separated from more of our hard-earned “un-fun” money.
So, to summarize, we have a new washer, dryer, paint job, landscaping, tires and a dishwasher. Not a pina colada in sight. Oh well, my brother is better at writing about tropical bars anyway. I’ll just sit home and wait for the next thing to break down. Hopefully it won’t be me.
I had the occasion to travel to Apple Valley, CA for work last week; no, it was nothing like having to travel to the island of Kaua’i for work as I did a few years ago, but it was not without some redeeming qualities. An hour and a half’s drive away, bucolic-sounding Apple Valley is located at the southern end of the Mojave Desert at an elevation of nearly 3,000 feet and is considered ‘high desert’ – apples are no longer grown there. The historic ‘Route 66’ winds through the area, but the quiet, pot-holed streets and boarded up shops would indicate that very few are still ‘getting their kicks on Route 66’.
Interstate 15 now runs adjacent to Apple Valley and I rarely traverse it without thinking of Roy Rogers (It’s on the way to Vegas, so I’ve made the trip a few times!). In the late 40s and through out the 50s Roy was a staple in the movies and on TV and helped popularize the musical Western. Roy and wife, Dale Evans, who had long careers in movies and on TV, retired in the mid-80s to their ranch in Apple Valley, which was home to the first Roy RogersMuseum, which contained artifacts from his movies and TV show, including Roy’s horse, Trigger, who was stuffed and placed in the museum.
Andy Devine
Gabby Hayes
Most everyone in my generation idolized Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and got to know his many sidekicks who provided comic relief; Pat Brady, who drove a Jeep named ‘Nellybelle’, Andy Devine and George ‘Gabby’ Hayes, who both had voices that made you wince and faces for radio. We also became acquainted with Roy’s faithful German Shepard, Bullet. Rogers and his entourage appeared in over 100 films and had top rated radio and TV shows in the 40s and 50s.
Roy was born Leonard Slye (a name Hollywood had to change!) in Ohio and quit high school at 15 to work in the family shoe factory. The family moved to California during the Great Depression where Roy worked driving truck and picking fruit. He was always interested in singing and yodeling and worked with several bands over the years until he and a friend formed a group that became the ‘Sons of the Pioneers’ and ultimately signed a record deal. In 1935, Roy’s good looks landed him his first bit part in a Gene Autry movie. Three years later, when Autry was demanding more money (probably saving up to buy the California Angels!) the lead part was offered to Roy and he was on his way to becoming a matinee idol.
Roy always wore a white hat that never came off during a fight while he was knocking out the bad guys, in black hats, with one punch. Towards the end of each movie or tv/radio episode, after he’d righted all the wrongs, he would pick up his guitar and sing a song, often accompanied by Dale and his back-up group, The Sons of the Pioneers, whose songs can still be purchased on iTunes.
Dale was a story unto herself; born Francis Smith in Texas, she was married at 14 and divorced with a child at 16, yet continued to pursue her singing career. Her marriage to Roy, his second and her fourth, lasted 51 years, until his death. She wrote their theme song, Happy Trails.
He was dubbed, ‘King of the Cowboys’, she, ‘Queen of the West’.
Roy Rogers & Dale Evans
Roy died in 1998 and Dale three years later. They are now both interned at the Sunset Hills Memorial Park . . . in Apple Valley.
If you’re ever passing by Apple Valley and want to visit the museum . . . the original Roy Rogers museum was erected in 1967 in an old bowling alley in Apple Valley, it moved to a bigger building in neighboring Victorville in 1976. To draw more people it moved again to Branson, Missouri in 2003, but eventually shut down for good, due to lack of interest, in 2009.
The passing of an era . . . a very good era indeed for those of us who were fortunate enough to have lived in it. Thank you Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, for all the Happy Trails.
Brother Bob – In full Ice Bucket Challenge Regalia
Last August the world was taken captive by seemingly reasonable people everywhere dumping buckets of ice over their heads. The cause, of course, was the “Ice Bucket Challenge”, a fund-raising effort for ALS, sometimes referred to as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”. The “challenge” was that people either dumped a bucket of ice over their heads or donate $100 to the ALS Association. Once the bucket was overturned the participant then challenged three friends to the task. It was impossible to go on any social media account or turn on the TV without seeing someone dumping ice – from former Presidents to Oprah. You know it’s serious when Oprah does something. Not to mention that my brother and co-blogger, Bob, participated in the challenge and coerced his kids to take part as well. I have to admit, I was pretty skeptical of the whole endeavor. My feeling is that when something becomes “thething to do” it generally loses all serious intent. Plus, we’ve all read about charity fund-raisers that don’t result in many funds actually going to the charity. I figured that it was AUGUST, for Heaven’s sake, so people in most parts of the country were more than happy to bathe themselves in ice. I was not one of them.
And then something happened that hit very close to home – the husband of a dear friend was diagnosed with ALS in January. It has been devastating to them and to all of us that care about them. They are coming to grips with the effects of the disease and learning all they can about it. As it turns out, the ALS Association is a wonderful resource, providing not only guidance and support, but actually supplying wheelchairs and any other equipment that a family needs to accommodate the manifestations of the disease. So my friend was telling me the other day that the ALS Association volunteer mentioned that they had been able to purchase a lot of equipment to lend out because of money they got from the “Ice Bucket Challenge”. Suddenly, I felt a bit embarrassed that I had not dumped ice on my head. So being the nerd that I am, I set off to research whether the Phoenix Chapter of the ALS Association was unusual or whether “the Challenge” had done as much in other areas of the country as well.
As it turns out, those intrepid people at CNBC were thinking the same thing. Last month one of their reporters, Meg Tirrell, investigated whether the “Ice Bucket Challenge” had been a social media phenomenon or an effective fund-raiser. Turns out, it was both. The “Ice Bucket Challenge” actually raised $115 million for the ALS Association, compared to their annual budget of $60 million. How did they raise that much when so many people chose to dump ice? Because people both dumped and donated. Which should help to restore your faith in human kindness this Monday morning. And to cheer you up even further, it turns out that Phoenix was not the only area to benefit – it helped ALS Associations all over the country buy equipment, provide respite care programs, and maybe most importantly, it funded four research projects aimed at better understanding , and thus finding a cure, for what causes ALS. All four projects had been stopped due to a lack of research money.
There is no word yet as to whether the “Ice Bucket Challenge” is going to be an annual event or whether it was just a one-time phenomenon. Hopefully it will take place again in August and I can assure you, I will be dumping ice and donating with the best of them. And I’m also taking part in the “Defeat ALS” walk in October. Family and friends be warned – I’m going to hit you up for some of your hard-earned money when I strap on my walking shoes. And just to add a degree of difficulty to the walk, I’ll dump a bucket of frozen Margaritas over my head as I pass the finish line. I think that could catch on.
A couple of recent ‘Best Place to Live’ surveys reminded me of my business travel days when I crisscrossed the country and would often be asked where I was from. When I responded, “Southern California, Orange County”, I would hear things like, “Oh, a surfer dude”, (I’ve never surfed), or “Oh, is that why you wear those cool shades?” (I wear sunglasses BECAUSE IT’S SUNNY THERE!), or, “Aren’t you afraid that an earthquake is going to cast California into the Pacific Ocean?” (No). If the conversation continues, people feel compelled to remind me that, 1) there are too many people in southern California, 2) the traffic is unbearable, and 3) the air is unbreathable. Then, feeling the need to ‘throw me a bone’, they’d say, “But the weather’s nice” and then they’d remind me of the earthquakes again.
Last week in a California survey done by Movato Real Estate, I discovered that my city of residence for the last 38 years, Orange, was selected as California’s best city to live in. In fact, Orange County had seven of the top ten cities. If you’re interested in seeing the rest of the cities, here’s the link to the survey:
I hope everyone feels that they live in the ‘Best Place to Live’, but I wanted to confirm and perhaps help justify this elevated status for Orange County, so last Friday, February 27, I set out to help prove that it is, in fact, one of the very best places to live, in part due to its proximity to such a diversity of environments. Thus my journey began . . .
The Desert
pre-dawn at Desert Willow Golf Resort
Sunrise for a perfect day of golf
I woke up at 3:45 a.m. (The things I do for you readers!) and with an assortment of wardrobes in tow, I’m out the door at 4:05. It takes me 95 minutes to drive the 103 miles from Orange to the beautiful Desert Willows Golf Resort in Palm Desert – golf’s winter mecca. It feels like I’m in a whole different world, because I am. It’s 50 degree at 6:18 when the first sliver of sunlight appears over the Little San Bernardino Mountain range and softly lightens the Coachella Valley below. It will get to 77 degrees here today. I’m envious of the golfers that are teeing off at first light in perfect weather, but I have a full day ahead of me, so I order breakfast, read the paper, write some of this blog and then head to my next destination.
The Mountains
Photo taken from the sun deck
I cover the next 85 miles to Big Bear Mountain in 115 minutes and arrive at Snow Valley Ski Resort where the cloudless sky is deep azure blue. I’ve gone from an elevation of around 200 feet to around 7,000 feet in less than two hours. It will get down to 21 degrees here this evening. Bear Big Mountain provides great local skiing and snowboarding in the winter and great hiking trails in the summer. There was a storm last week and another one coming in this weekend, but I am fortunate to find a window where chains are not required to negotiate the assent on this winding mountain road. Once at Snow Valley, I step out of my car and take a deep breath and feel immediately exhilarated by a blast of fresh mountain air – this is air that no one has breathed before! I enjoy a cup of coffee as I hang out on the upper sun deck of the lodge watching the skiers on the mountain and wishing I were amongst them. I make a snowball, because I haven’t done that in years, and throw it at a nearby tree . . . and miss. While I’m in the neighborhood, I decide to head over to picturesque Lake Arrowhead – another 25 minutes and 14 miles. Back in ‘the day’, Lake Arrowhead was the mountain retreat for many Hollywood stars including, Shirley Temple, Tom Selleck, Patrick Swayze and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys (photo at right is one I took of Wilson’s former lake house) to name a few. Today Arrowhead Village it’s fairly quiet; it’s off season – no boats on the lake, no stars in sight! Time to head down off the mountain.
The Beach
Huntington Beach sunset
Huntington Beach pier
I drop from 7,000 feet to . . . zero – sea level, as I drive 87 miles in just under two hours from Lake Arrowhead to Huntington Beach. I could have gone to any number of great beaches in Orange County from Seal Beach to San Clemente, including tony Newport Beach or artsy Laguna Beach, but I wanted to visit my favorite beach restaurant, Dukes at Huntington Beach – ‘Surf City’. I find a place at the bar and watch surfers and street entertainers as the sun disappears slowly and beautifully into the Pacific Ocean. My day is complete – sunrise to sunset.
I do understand that proximity to the desert, mountains and beach is not everything, but it just adds to all the other factors that make Orange County a ‘best place to live’.
I make the 23-mile trek back home exhausted, but feeling great about completing the ‘trifecta’ – desert, mountains and ocean all in one day. Next time I’m thinking it should be the ‘Trifecta Triathlon’ – same venues only I play golf, ski and swim. Maybe not.
