The prompt for the 20 days of Chill for today is summer rain. I had to laugh at that since I live in Southern California and we don't get summer rains. P.J. noted that summer rain is a bummer because it wipes out baseball games. I think the local teams, the Angels and the Dodgers have been rained out less times in the last fifty years than I have fingers on my hands, combined.
So what to write about today? Well, how about summer rain? I've been camping enough times that I've been able to experience summer rains. My youngest son and I went to the Grand Canyon and had thunderstorms every single day that we were there. It was quite an experience.
Although it's not rain, when my wife and I honeymooned in the middle of July in Oregon, Crater Lake received a foot of snow on the day before we got there. It made for some really nice shots, which I have on slide film and need to scan and digitize one of these days.
I even got sprinkled on when I took this shot in Bodie, California at the state historic park that surrounds this old ghost town. Even though I don't usually see summer rains very often where I live, I have experienced them enough elsewhere, that I can honestly say I like them. It makes for some really striking photos in my opinion.
Today's prompt for the 20 days of Chill Writing is Life's Turning Point. I didn't really have to think too long about this, because for me, anyway, it was that point in my life when I finally realized I was an adult. And surprisingly, it wasn't at the birth of my daughter. No, the moment came a year later.
For the most part, I know most people are clueless until they have their first child. Some might even be clueless afterwards, but that's an entirely different story that I won't go into deeply at all. I've heard many people say that when their first child was born, then knew that they were adults. I didn't think that way at all. I already had a job, was married, owned a house, but I really didn't feel "grown-up" even after my girl was born.
On her first birthday, all that changed. At the risk of embarrassing her, I'll tell the story, but I'm sure she's heard it before. On her first birthday, we were celebrating much like other couples do, including giving her some new foods to try for the first time. Something definitely didn't agree with her and she started projectile vomiting. (We later found out she'd caught a virus, because we all ended up getting sick). So my wife grabbed her and rushed her to the bathroom to try and contain everything.
In the meantime, I'm out in the living room, trying to entertain my daughter's godfather and keep the dog at bay. I walked down the hallway and noticed barf on the carpet, barf on the walls, barf on the ceiling. At that moment, I realized I was an adult, because I didn't see anyone else around who was going to clean all of that up. That was my life's turning point.
A long time ago, in another state, far, far away, I was born. I've been living in California since I was three years old, yet for the longest time as I was growing up, I called Indiana home. California is home now, has been for a long time. Interestingly, I have but one memory of Indiana, making a snowman and then watching my dad knock it down with a snow shovel later on.
Back in Indiana my dad flew airplanes as a hobby. After we moved out here to California, that ended for some reason. He was making more money out here than he had been in Indiana, but I know the cost of living was also quite a bit higher as well. He took us to a couple of air shows, but that was the extent of his flying for the most part out here.
In 1966, my great uncle flew his plane out here from Illinois. He had been a graduate of Purdue University and they were playing in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day 1967. He took us up flying over Orange County. I remember taking photos with my new camera out the window of Knott's Berry Farm and Disneyland and the newly built Angel Stadium. I'm sure we violated some kind of air space laws with regard to Disneyland, but it was great fun.
When we went back to visit Indiana the next year, we made it to Illinois to visit my great uncle again and we flew over the state capital of Illinois and the nearby cemetery where Abraham Lincoln is buried today. I can remember my dad taking the controls on both of these flights. I wonder if he ever missed it, or if it just became a fading memory? Was it something that just got compartmentalized away, kept out of sight because he just couldn't afford it? Any time I've asked, he's always said it was too expensive and he didn't have enough time with growing kids in the house. I'll take him at his word.
When I first started to geocache 15 years ago, I had a new GPS unit, but you couldn't input cache pages into the unit because it had not computer cord to connect it up to the computer. Nowadays, that almost seems like standard equipment, although I recently went to a Geocaching Event where someone gave away as a white elephant gift a GPS unit exactly like my original.
Back in those days, if we wanted to go out geocaching, we'd print out the cache pages and carry them with us, often times writing notes about the caching experience on them and then hopefully, keeping them in order so when we got home, we could then write our log write ups on the computer to lay claim to the find we'd found out in the field.
Now, the only pen and paper you see while geocaching is usually the paper log book inside the geocache and the pen that all good geocachers carry with them because most geocaches are so small that they don't have room for a pen. You have to be able to sign the log book to claim the find.
And so it goes with technology. We've pretty much eliminated the need for pen and paper, yet we still use it. Some things are hard to change. It would be fun to see all geocaches go totally electronically. Find the geocache, then once you have the geocache in your hand, input your electronic signal access code given to you from the website and you automatically get credit for a geocache find. As with anything, I can see people hacking the system to cheat, but we see that all the time no matter what. I guess it's a challenge. For me, the challenge is the find. I'm not going to lie about how many geocaches I've found, just to inflate my numbers and impress someone else. The only one I'm in this for is me.
But I digress a little. Totally electronic geocaching would be fun, but I really do like the pen and paper. With the total electronic version, you'd have no need to look through all the stuff in the cache. Even though I don't usually take anything, it's still fun to see what's in there.
This will probably be the most difficult post I've ever had to write on this particular blog. When I looked over the list of prompts for P.J.'s 20 days of Chill writing challenge, I thought this post might be tough to write about. The events of the last week make this post very difficult to write about, but not like you might think. And actually, this post will be very therapeutic for me.
He came into our lives in mid February, 2005. We had been dog-less for about 6 months after our dog Rocky had passed away at the age of 17. I was kind of getting used to the idea of not having a dog under foot and when my wife called me up and said that I needed to go look at a dog, I decided to humor her.
She had called me up because she knew I'd look at the dog and say no and that would be the end of it. She knew herself too well to be able to be rational about things like that. So I went down to the dog grooming place where this two month old puppy was. They put him on the counter, he looked up into my eyes and then put his paws up on my chest and that was it. I brought him home, put him on my daughter's bed, which woke her up and said "Happy 16th birthday."
He was named Jack for no other reason than we all liked the name. It was far better than my wife's suggestion of Quentin. Jack has been a member of our family ever since. He'd greet my wife's dad at the door, because he knew Grandpa always brought treats for him. He liked my lap the best sitting in it for hours while we watched a movie or a sporting event on TV, but he liked the foot of my wife's side of the bed at night. He'd look at you and then sit, as if to say, "Look, I'm being a good boy. Will you give me a treat?" And he was a very good dog.
Last week, age and illness caught up with him. He got sick just about the time Christmas break rolled around and a couple of days after Christmas we had to take him into the vet because he just wasn't rebounding like he'd done in the past when he was ill. After a night in the hospital, it was clear we had to make the toughest decision anyone who has ever loved a furry friend will ever had to make.
Jack was surrounded by love as he crossed over the Rainbow Bridge on December 30th last week. He is missed by all who knew him.
Life wouldn't be the same without dogs.
When I saw this prompt for the 20 days of Chill Challenge, I knew my answer would be Yosemite. There's something about this place that just speaks to me. My first visit was when I was four years old. I don't remember much of that trip, but I do know that I've been back numerous times in the course of the last 50 years. I know I will go again in the near future. I don't think I could ever get enough of this grand spectacle.
I've been to Yosemite in all sorts of weather and all the seasons. Most of the time I've gone in the summertime, as that's when I have the most time off in which to travel to this scenic spot, but I've done a one day weekend trip to the park in the fall with my daughter. I've also visited in the spring time with my dad when we were scouting out colleges for me. I walked on the valley floor during one of the heaviest snowfalls on record on a late December day back in 1988.
Each season changes this park, but you just can't beat the scenery at this place. And there's the constant that attracts me, the scenery. I know there will be detractors out there who will say that it's too crowded. And they would be right. But that's not going to stop me from going. Each time I visit, I go to my favorite spots, take in the view, compose photo shots and just enjoy myself. Many of my favorite shots are along trails, which don't have as many people. The people that venture out on a trail away from the valley have a different sense of purpose and a different respect for the park. We know the masses are there for a day or two, to take in the sights and to move on. We have a different feel for the park.
Every time I camp there, it's for at least a week and there's still so many things to see there that I never get it all done. Just another reason to get me to come back later on I guess.
I took this shot from the valley viewpoint as you exit the Wawona tunnel on a June day in 2014. I have to say I've been fairly fortunate in that most of the times I've been to Yosemite, there's been weather. The clouds just help the shot, no matter where your taking a photo, but here, it just makes the spectacular shot even better.
I have to say, I'm a man who has strong convictions, but not a whole lot of follow through. I've made resolutions in the past, especially with regard to blogging, but usually have fallen through.
Just last year, I participated in P.J.'s 20 days of Chill Writing blog challenge and swore I was going to do better with my blogging. I posted 23 blog posts in January of last year, but only 34 overall. Needless to say, January was the high water mark of my blogging last year. So I'm not going to make any promises this year. All I know is I had a lot of fun with this writing challenge last year, so I'm going to participate in it again this year.
Today's prompt is "Who am I?"
I'm a teacher. I've taught in the same school for 32 years, plus one additional year at another school. Interestingly, I've taught at my school longer than four other teachers at the school have been alive.
I'm a husband. I've been married for 27 and a half years. As in every marriage, it's not perfect, but I know for sure I got the better end of that deal. Why my wife would want to put up with some of my antics and shenanigans for the past 27+ years is beyond me, but I'm glad that she has.
I'm a father. I have three children, all beyond their teenage years. My daughter, my oldest, is a teacher up north. She is a fifth generation teacher in my family. My son, my middle child, is in between jobs right now, but just moved back down here to Southern California. I hope that means I'll bee able to see more of him in the coming year. My younger son is still at home with us. He's attending community college and looks like he's going to major in Psychology once he gets to a four year institution. We will be making the rounds to different colleges this spring.
I'm an outdoorsman. I enjoy being in the outdoors. If it's hiking, or camping, or geocaching, I'm probably doing it and doing it for much of my off time when I'm not working.
I'm a photographer. Believe it or not, my parents bought me my first real camera when I was in 3rd grade. I wish I still had that old camera that took roll film, but somewhere when I graduated to better cameras, that one went by the wayside. I still enjoy taking photos and you'll see many of them in this blog and on other sites as well.
Day one done. I'm looking forward to the next day of this challenge.
