UMTravels

Not as much sleeping in this morning. I have to get all the clothes packed, the bottles recycled, and the cabin cleaned out by noon.

Working more today since as the Queen Registrar we have to meet and settle up the bill, which means rounding up WhiteWater and RiverSong (who has the check book). But since WhiteWater has the final numbers, I’m bailing.

I have to get out of here with enough time to make at least one, if not two Home Depot stops — one in Salem to see if they carry the cabinets I need (they don’t, they only have the new pre-assembled ones that won’t fit in the van), and the second in Jantzen Beach if  they don’t have them, or don’t have all of them. Jantzen Beach has everything except one piece, the door to the 9″ cabinet between the fridge and the sink. Handy to have the van. Handy to have a van that has auto-levelling — it took five minutes to pump up enough pressure into those rear shocks to raise the back end up from all those cabinets!

Guess this means I’m spending the next couple of days tearing out the kitchen in the Rose Street house. Better get Julian up here to help.

The downside of the Salem Home Depot is that I don’t get to go the back way into Portland, over the river and through the woods. Oh, well, summer.

Quiet evening at the city apartment, making plans for opera on Saturday (and who will that date be?), checking email, and generally just chilling in peace and quiet.

Well, got the kids (Julian and Natalie) off to the airport this morning at 6:15am for their 8:30am flight — and came home and went back to bed. Got woken up again by MoonSong delaying work for a day due to the rain.

Yesterday’s progress report.

• Most of the catalogs printed
• Dinner for 4 (Jill and the Kids)
• Fliers for the bags printed
• Jeff picked up the bags/towelettes/fliers

Not too bad, today I need to finish the rest of the catalogs and deliver then to Jeff and swing by the apartment and grab the stuff that wasn’t there yesterday (long story, and not worth repeating).

So — random thought from the last trip — talking to this obviously (from his conversation) Republican about Senator Craig scandal. He said it all goes back to Whitewater (the Clinton scandal), that it’s the Democrats fault. Let’s see, Roll Call, a DC political rag broke the story, didn’t think they were Democratic or Republican — and he was hung out to dry by his own party, no one was supporting him from that side of the aisle… but Whitewater? he was rambling on about how there are only three people left alive from that investment group — Bill, Hillary and the woman who went to jail rather than talk — he thinks they’ve all been knocked off. Wow. Right-wing nut cases in First Class — imagine.

Dinner tonight with Jim and Suzanne at Corbin and Catherine’s house. I’m thinking there will be wine involved. Better get my work done now.

I am on the trip because of my friend Whitewater. This will be his last trip through the canyon as a boatman, and most likely even as a raft potato (that’s my job this trip). He has the shakes — Parkinson’s at 53 — two years older than me.. There are many others on the trip for exactly the same reason. I start this entry this way because of the day I’ve had.

Day three on the river:
Got dumped (along with Uli) on the first rapid of the day — not by Whitewater but by MarkMark on Chris’ smaller faster raft. Two rapids later Jimbo and Sarah’s raft flipped after hitting a “hole”. Their boat had the majority of the 123 liters of wine. As I sit here, our medical team has just taken a chunk of flesh of another boatman’s finger that got smashed in another rapid. All the accidents were before lunch. The surgery before dinner.

Wish you were here — as they say on postcards.

300 plus emails later, the inbox is mostly cleaned up just in time for company arriving tonight. Speaking of emails in my inbox, this one labeled “honourary canuck”:

It being Monday, it must be a wine tasting. Not sure why these happen on Monday’s but 40+ swirl, sips, dumps later, I need a serious drink rather than that damn French grape product. Southwest, Loire, Burgundy, Southern and Northern Rhone — Jimmie’s method is start with the whites running from region to region, then the rosè, then the reds, and finally the dessert wines. I have heard others say they like to alternate whites and reds within a region and then have a cracker or cheese between. Time to get a clipboard to keep in my briefcase.

Swung by the apartment to pick up the new wine shop computer, some stuff for hummingbird, and a copy of Quick Books, also for the shop.

Luckily my house guest, H²O Blanco, or maybe it’s Aqua Blanco, or maybe just Whitewater suffered the same traffic hell as I did yesterday. For Hummingbird and BamBam it was even worse on Sunday with an 11-hour trip that should have taken 8. He got to the house around 6:30 which actually gave me a little time to clean up the place for his three day visit.

Dinner was pan-fried lamb lollichops, with asparagus heads thrown in at the last minute. Yum. Add a salad, wine and conversation and voilè, it’s dinner.

After dinner amusement was AquaBlanco checking out my sauna heater (which he thinks works, but until their is power, not final) and having a cocktail above the house in the rain. Good thing I bought that market umbrella.

[219.2 Looks like I didn’t gain any weight on the road!]

Well, besides work for Shirts of Bamboo, the errand of the day was signing papers at with Ileen at Alpine Mortgage, arranging for the appraisal and last minute bits of paper.

Looks like 10% down, 6.5% for 30 years — down from 6.75 last week, and not that much different from the 6.375% for 20% down. These are a little higher rates than a standard mortgage, but this one is assets based, rather than income based. It’s the perfect loan for self-employed people with assets.

The suitcase is out for the Hawai’i trip. Looks like everybody is headed to Hawai’i this January. Whitewater will meet us in Kona — he’s there for three weeks. RiverSong and GE will be in Honolulu when we return from the cruise early Saturday morning but don’t fly out until 9pm. Hopefully they will have a car.

Tonight is a quiet dinner in — just me, the computer, and the TV. Well, that and starting to pack. Will do laundry tomorrow since I’ll stay at Wonderful’s tomorrow night since the flight is a O Butt Early on Saturday morning.

My day was spent wrestling with paper:

• Business Plans
• Operating Agreement
• Limited Liability Forms
• IRA Pass-Through Forms

The nice thing: we are pretty much done with them! And I was working on a possible logo:

It’s still a work in progress and needless to say, fixing the lawn mower got put off another day.

Dinner tonight with The Girlz and Roscoe The Wonder Dog, one of only two dogs I like and allow into my house. I didn’t get a picture of us at dinner, but here is a great one from when we were in Hawaii last winter:

Jerked lamb blade steaks, salad, fresh dinner rolls, corn on the cob and a couple of bottle of wine dinner was.

After dinner amusement was going through some of my Grand Canyon photos to give them an idea of what they are getting into in a couple of weeks — two week rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. I did a three-week trip in October of 2007, and my buddy WhiteWater is doing a 5-week trip this October.

Brought back lots of good memories.

[227.7]

After a slightly delayed morning drive by shagging it turned into project day.

Project number one. Install the Inverter Control Panel and Rotary AC Switch into SOB. Now all the power stuff is on one panel under the refrigerator:

The small black rotary switch will shift the 110 power from shore power to inverter to generator. Super simple.

Next up on the agenda — spray paint Jimmie’s propane burner stand high-heat black after Wonderful did a little sand blasting on it. Just in time for Jimmie to start on the beer for Sandi’s Wedding in November:

And on to the phone booth. Well, I got it mostly unburied, but that’s about all I got done with it:

Spent more time thinking about the electric hoist system that I have the parts for to go into the garage…. did some dis-assembly of the one from the church and starting thinking about plans for the new one. Nine feet of track (left one piece at the church) which should swing everything out of the way of the Jag.

Dinner tonight was with H20Blanco (WhiteWater) who is in town after the Bush visiting family and friends. A huge slab of ribs and salad and wine, and more importantly, a diagnosis of the last problem on the Wolf Range — new thermostat. I get the part, he will install it saving me a $500 service call.

[222.6 — damn potato salad at yesterday’s BBQ]

The buckwheat sourdough pancakes (and bacon) were stunning. Guess it was a later night for the rest of the crew since I had to call from the front porch because no one was answering the doorbell.

Gay Pride in Humboldt County is a small affair — the march route is about 12 blocks and ends up in the town square in Arcata. Small — but with a kick-ass marching band from Humboldt State College. Here is a shot of them laying on the ground in a fake “die in” ala Act Up of years ago.

I took some video (I think), but I still haven’t figured out how to get it to play — guess I’ll have to read the manual when I get home (and print it out in some size I can read — the manual is 6pt type!) Here is the sum total of the 10 shots I took in still mode:

Maybe I’ll get lucky and get the video clips working and update this entry (or make it tomorrows). Sort of wished I’d had the 20x optical zoom camera for all the pretty co-eds and hippy boys.

Dinner with WhiteWater this evening, no decision on in or out or what.

[? ? ?]

The score from last night was: UncleMarkie’s van arrived first (after leaving last) at 7:45pm after stops for Chinese take-out and booze, Jamie, Paula, and crowd at 8:45pm (they left first) and Matt and crew at 9:45pm. Good thing WhiteWater knew where the key was!

Up at 7am this morning to wash, pack, and organize all the raft gear. The van is totally trashed inside from all my stuff, sleeping bag and pad out for last night’s night in the van (cats in the house). Left at 11:30am after much of the scut work (washing coolers and cans) and headed for the Sierra Trading Outlet in Reno on the way to Chico. As much as I like the crew of the trip — I’m ready for a change.

Small world — I ran into Jay in the bathroom at the outlet in Reno. Too funny. He ended up buying some ostrich cowboy boots for $225 (regular $700), but I found nothing.

Next stop Chico in a couple of hours. Maybe (or not) more then — what I really need is a shower (decided to kit the road before the water was warm).

After last night’s ABL (Alive Below Lava) party, today was one of calm waters with the largest being 3’s and 4’s.

We clocked 12 miles or so with two stops — one to hike to some pictographs (yes, I hiked!) and a sunny lunch stop.

Camp stop was a little before 4 this afternoon. Dinner is Sara and JimBob’s re-hydrated Carnitas (which we saved the last of the Sangria). My hard liquor stash died two days ago and I’m relying on the kindness of my fellow rafters.

MarkMark is no better. He still can’t keep anything down including liquids and there has been talk of putting out the emergency flag and getting him choppered out. He doesn’t have insurance so that’s an issue, but after being curled up in the fetal position for three days it might have to happen.

WhiteWater on the other hand is doing great — spending the sunny parts of the day in the “squishy” (the inflatable kayak). It is uplifting to see the contented look on his face as he plays in the water.

The header says it all.

WhiteWater rowed. MarkMark got out of his fetal position to row, and only Gena bounced out (and then in) of Paula’s boat… swimmer 11 of 14 on this trip.

I wore my river booty bow tie through the rapid — we were the first boat. Not perfect according to Jamie, but we didn’t flip or dump people.

Thai chicken stir fry for the celebration dinner. JimBob brought out Gin and Tonics, several people brought out Maker’s Mark, add sparklers and costumes and you have a celebration.

MarkMark still dead to the world with whatever he has — but he pulled it together for the run through the falls. The crew has him on Cipro and chicken noodle soap — which is much better than having him helicoptered out, which I thought was more my option than his.

Part of me is looking forward to a real shower and a bed (and ice in my drink), but part of me knows that I will miss the camaraderie of this adventure.

What a quiet day on the river today. If I wasn’t breakfast duty I would have gone back to bed after my 6:15am crapper call.

The morning activity (for me) was a river walk looking for booty. My first success was a black and white polka dot silk tie (which I’m wearing at the moment with my phantom ranch t-shirt) wrapped around a tamarisk tree (brush). A load of garbage (propane cylinder, Miller can, etc.) plus a Frisbee that died on it’s first flight due to UV exposure. Funny thing — I’d rather do the booty/trash walk than the fern grottoes.

Lunch and a nap followed. Finally finished “Snow” — a Turkish novel I’ve been dragging around for three continents and most recently a river drowning. It’s headed to Wonderful next.

Dinner was coleslaw and jambalaya — DAMN GOOD! 5 liter night since tomorrow is Lava Falls, the last and weirdest big rapid of the run. I expect to be in Jamie’s boat doing the Dubendoff position (butt in the well, body hanging off the front side of the boat high-siding). My worries for tomorrow are WhiteWater (feeling strong after a day of rest) and MarkMark (who has been feeding the red ants all day today with his puke).

Time will tell.

This morning’s rapid was Upset Rapid — for once Chris didn’t row, which makes me assume he won’t for Lava Falls (last BIG rapid before the end).

More 3-4 rapids which Matt ran at the helm of Jamie’s boat. Pulled into some canyon a mile or so before a hopeful campsite so eight could go hiking — not me, was nice to float down and have some quieter time helping set up an afternoon camp, take a bath, and open the sangria early.

Tonight WhiteWater is cooking. The week two wine inventory is done and we have a liter of white and 4.5 liters of red available per day for the rest of the trip.

The plan for today of on the water by 9 was more like 10:15, with the scouting the big rapid of the day, first thing.

I’m on Jamie boat today, with EMT Matt who also is learning to row. Matt does most of the rapids after the first biggie.

Wonderful stop at a waterfall, then lunch, and another stop at a spring to fill water bottles — from spring water dripping off a limestone ledge. I really hope someone got pictures.

Camp tonight is sparse, I’m sleeping in the kitchen after preparing boneless beef short ribs, mashed potatoes and onion peas for dinner. There wasn’t a scrap left — whicj is good for a meal on the river.

WhiteWater did the first rapid of the day with Uli and Rick as the strong paddlers — and most of the rest of the day Uli was on the oars — makes me feel better with a couple of strong paddlers on his boat — it also makes me feel like dead weight on this wilderness experience. Thank god the dinner was a hit!

Once again Uli and I were swimming again, just after lunch.

WhiteWater flipped the boat at Bedrock Rapids. It took three people to get it back upright — just before another rapid.

One of the oars on The Queen of Denial II was bent at a 40 degree angle — and Uli and I swam (i.e. bounced off rocks) the rest of the rapid. WW got a little banged up — I lost my hat, swallowed a bunch of water, and my sandals were found floating and retrieved.

My day bag was swamped, but the other bag is dry so at least I’ll have a dry sleep. I’m now wearing Jay’s spare polypro.

And now it’s time for rice and dahl for dinner (my favorite, not) and ensalada caprese (truly a favorite).

I love Gena’s homeopathic tinctures — especially the brandy based one for hypothermia.

Early day tomorrow as our afternoon was shot from our unplanned regrouping. On the river by 9am.

On the water by 9:30am this morning. First rapid is Hance, which is a 9 on the ten scale. Leslie went swimming for the entire length of Hance — was in the rubber kayak, no helmet.

One mile later it’s another about the same (Sockdolager). Wild rides both. Of course…all the different river guide books we have give different numbers. Let’s put it this way, at Hance we got out and scouted the rapid (well, I held the boat).

We were off the water at noon (two short days in a row) to time our arrival at Phantom Ranch and still finding downstream camping, which is tight around the ranch.

Being back on WhiteWater’s boat floods me with calm even in the worst of rapids. It’s the level of trust and love. I rather die at the hands of someone I’ve known for a week.

Left wrist is bothering me a bit, and to right shoulder is still a little weird…but I’m getting a great upper body workout.

We (Team 2) are cooking tonight — Uli is doing goulash.

Wine situation: put out 3 litre of Black Box Cab and a liter each of the bandit Merlot and Pinot Gris.

Left at 10:30 because we are having a small day after yesterday’s plus mileage. Reason: Phantom Ranch — the only chance in the canyon to mail postcards.

So, today was an Anasazi ruin (nice touchable shards and a few stone building outlines) followed by two of the more nasty rapids on this trip — the ones where you check every strap on the boat for tightness.

Apparently there is another devil of a rapid in the morning, the Phantom Ranch in the afternoon.

Very short day on the river — got to camp around 2 and had lunch. Got everything dried from this morning, read a little, hung out in the sun and relaxed (with periodic camp duties), and avoided the desire to hike.

Also did a wine inventory and determined that if we drink 1 liter of white (with 1/2 that for Gena) and 4 liters of red we will make it on the 123 liters I bought.

At 5 another group showed up up canyon — commercial — needing a space to camp — they’d been screwed out of the last three (too small for two groups). My first contact led to an amusing discussion with WhiteWater, naked, soaping his beard, saying sure. She (the commercial guide) mentioned they had a birthday tonight so I rounded up some balloons from Sarah to contribute.

Taking the balloons down with Uli to the other camp we met this other charming guide — Harlen — be still my heart. Maybe I will go to their party tonight!

Just a quick word about sand. In the Grand Canyon there is a very fine sand, everywhere. Add rain and it’s gloppy fine sand everywhere. Now I know why my father carried a whisk broom when we we camping when I was a kid.

Day 6 on the river. WhiteWater’s other boat — the fast nimble one — now has a foot strap, front strap, and side grabs. I no longer worry (as much) about going swimming (getting dumped out of the raft) as much, which means I can paddle harder to get us out of jams.

Glorious sunny day on the river — nothing more than a 4 rapid (scale of 10). Stunning campsite — took directional pictures of it.

Worried that the white wine may not last the trip even though I bought 4.5 liters more than needed. Time will tell.

Tonight is beef stroganoff under the stars — the full moon we started with is now at half mast. Amazing the stars you can see now — imagine in a week.

Well — that is the phrase from WhiteWater about the Nice, Lucerne area of Clear Lake, California — the “White Trash Riviera”.

The day started with a quick breakfast of waffles and eggs and the last bit of packing. Out the door by 10:30 — and to the Germain-Robin “warehouse” for a tasting — ended up buying a bottle of their Poet Tawny Port for someone who just had a big event, and a bottle of their Hanger One Mandarin Vodka for another person at said event. Let’s hope it makes to trip home a month from now.

Did the shopping at the Sentry Market — found some “interesting” things for the raft trip. Got 6 liters of wine in aseptic boxes of 1 liter each on sale for $6.99 each — not as cheap as the five liter ones, but close, and it will be a nice variety. Must make a good impression!

Got to love California — picked up some things for my own beverage bags — limit, two cases (or in my case, two orange sacks — one large, one small). The score? 1.5 liters of premixed Bloody Marys, and (4) each Long Island Iced Tea and Margaritas (yes, with REAL booze in them).

Got to the WorldMark Clear Lake a little early — room was ready — as the two WorldMark folks I saw in the Sentry said it would be. They were shopping for guest — you can fill out a list and the groceries are waiting for you when you arrive in your unit. Too bad I don’t know what I’m cooking before I see what’s on sale, special, etc.

Pictures of the 2-bedroom condo here: http://www.twango.com/channel/markso.GrandCanyonTrip

Dinner was marinated pork on the grill and a big salad. After dinner is reading the paper and updating the two blogs. And postcards, and web revisions… which will get put off until tomorrow cause I’m out of steam — but the two day old headache is gone. Is it change of venue? aspirin? wearing sunglasses while driving today? fresh air? quite time on the lake? Who knows — we’ll see if it comes back tomorrow. If the “owner re-education” at 10:30 doesn’t do it ($50 in AMEX booze cards), it might actually be gone.

Can’t quite decide what to do tomorrow — probably should be billing some hours while I can — but touring wineries (like Steele) sounds tempting as well. Oh — maybe I could hit the wineries on the way to the bay area since it’s only a couple of hour drive.

After a lovely breakfast of sourdough waffles and bacon — we started the process of gear checkout. Whitewater is a god-send. Means I won’t be doing this on the ramp at put in which wouldn’t make me very popular.

Here I am with everything for the three weeks, minus the pink river purse. That’s my borrowed PFD (personal floatation device) on the floor next to me. Thanks WW — and for the splash jacket (better than my windbreaker from the jazz fest in California).

Called Germain-Robin today to set up a tasting for tomorrow afternoon on the way to Nice (Trendwest Clear Lake). Might try and schedule a distillery tour as well, but for either Wednesday or Thursday. They make the most amazing small batch brandies — a favorite of Mr. Pucci and myself.

Dinner tonight will be a BBQ — which I need to go shopping for. Will pick up a bottle of wine (or two) as well.