Scenes from England

The Birthday Boy. The button says, "I Survived Damn Near Everything."

My Nanna. Next June will be their 70th wedding anniversary.

I got to know some of my relatives a little better:
Seems as though I've known them all my life, after all. The dogs are definitely part of the family.

The evil flat coated retriever of Torrington Commons.
aka Mack.

People who think English food is bad or boring have obviously never eaten in the right places. And many pubs still allow dogs, which is just cool.

In a recent post (caused by me), Barry over at Staring at Empty Pages indicated that a never-ending loop will start due to Newton's Third Law of Pub-Motion - “For every beer treat, there is an equal and opposite beer re-treat.” Definitely true. There wasn't a sober evening while my cousins were around. I actually got up and sang karaoke in a pub one night, which I'm sure embarrassed my brother. The same song I always sing if I'm drunk enough and there's a karaoke machine nearby. The Shoop Shoop Song. My cousin Sarah's daughter Lauren (does that make Lauren my second cousin?) found it on the list after I cery varefully staggered over and couldn't find it. So of course, I had to sing it.

Going back: I flew Virgin Atlantic and took this picture of the seat in front of me just before we got to Greenland

Tagged!

I was tagged by The Darwin Report. Luckily it didn't hurt very much. Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random (or arbitrary) things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things about me:

1. I just flew in from England, and boy are my arms....[shift forward in time 14 hours] actually my brain was too tired to think of 6 random things last night. Hopefully it's better this morning.

2. I have a concert tonight to which I'm driving the truck, although I'm a little out of practice with both the bassoon and driving on the right side.

This is one we do at a local retirement community on Veteran's Day every year, and makes me cry every time. For the first few years, they had WWII veterans in uniform carrying the flags (very slowly) down the aisle. Last year, I think they were replaced by Korean War veterans. I get all choked up when we play the Armed Forces Salute and veterans of each branch stand as we play their respective songs. Seeing the music through tears and playing with a lump in your throat isn't easy, I can tell you.

3. While in England, apart from attending my Grandad's 100th birthday party and getting to know some of my many relatives a little better, we went to the Dartmoor Zoological Park. I highly recommend going if you're in the neighbourhood. And even if you're not.

4. I didn't know until recently that Alcoholics Anonymous is a load of religious crap.

5. My son appears to be becoming a gay rights activist. He's really pissed off about how the passing of Proposition 8 could affect David and Pete (his Dad and Step-dad). I have more than one reason to be proud of him! Oh, all right. Lots, actually.

6. After 33 years in this country, I got my U.S. Citizenship eight years ago because I was tired of not being able to vote. Finally it's going the way I voted...

Hmm. Six people I can tag? I had a hard enough time coming up with 6 arbitrary things about me...

1. Kia at A Blog About Everything, who is definitely still alive.
2. Mr Farty at Better Oot Than In
3. Barry at Staring at Empty Pages
4. Andrew at Artificial Habitat, even though he hasn't posted anything for months, and may, in fact, be dead.
5. David at Musings by the Hairslave. Welcome to the blogging world!
6. The King of Ferrets at Ferret's Cage

You're it!

I'm off to Devon!

I'm leaving for England on Wednesday. My grandfather is turning 100 and there's a big party. With their six children, 19(?) grandchildren, various spouses and great-grandchildren, its going to be a fairly big party. Since my grandparents are pretty much housebound, we're all going to squeeze into their tiny house. We know it can be done. We did it for Grandad's 99th birthday last year.

I put a question mark next to the number of grandchildren, because I can never remember how many cousins I actually have. I'm the eldest, my brother is the second eldest, and I can remember the names of the first 7 or 8 after that, but I'm a bit fuzzy on most of the ones around my son's age and younger. It didn't help that we moved to the U.S. before they were born, so the most I've ever met any of them is 3 or 4 times. I come from a huge family, but feel as though I come from a tiny one with just my parents and my brother.

My cousin's children? Might as well forget it. I'll never remember their names. Except Poppy. She came to our wedding, and then "long-distance-dated" my son's best friend for a while.

The two cousins I feel I know best are the two daughters of my mother's youngest brother, because they've actually come over and visited for a while. Nicky (15 years younger than I am) came to stay while I was doing my thesis, so I put her to work. She got to slog through cow fields and slosh around in streams for her vacation. Gwen (3 years younger than my son - 27 years younger than me) and my Aunt Jayne fared a little better on their recent visit.

My mother mentioned the name of one of my cousins and said she was Grandad's favourite, and I almost burst into tears. I never had the chance of being Grandad's favourite (although I probably was at one point because for almost three years I was the only one).

I actually feel much closer to my aunts and uncles, although I suppose I really don't know them any better. Most of them have come to visit over the years, and my mother's youngest sister is only nine years older than I am.

My parents live ~2000 miles away and my brother lives ~2700 miles away, and it seems as though the only time we all get together nowadays is 5371 miles away. I'll be back in a couple of weeks!

Scenes from Hell

One of the places I took my aunt and cousin on our recent vacation was Lassen Volcanic National Park. It is one of the five least frequented of all the California National Parks, and gets only 10% of number of visitors that Yosemite gets. This is one of the reasons we came here instead. I hate crowds. And I've been here a couple of times before and found it fascinating. The area is volcanically very active. There are four major types of volcanoes (cinder cones, composite volcanoes, shield volcanoes, and lava domes), and all four occur in the area. Lassen Peak is one of the largest lava dome volcanoes in the world.

Mount Lassen last erupted in 1915, and is definitely very much not extinct. Here is a big (~4 ft. diameter) mudpot at Sulfur Works, right near the park entrance. I took this picture over the chain link fence...

And then I followed my Aunt Jayne around the fence and the sign that said it was dangerous to go beyond this point to take this picture... Note from the end of this post that it runs in the family.

This fumarole is across the street.

Further along the Highway to Hell is Emerald Lake. Here is my cousin Gwen playing in a tiny patch of snow. The green color is caused by algae growing on the bottom and very clear water. Lassen is one of the snowiest places in California, and snow often doesn't melt until late July in wet years. My ex-husband and I were here during early June of 1987, and there were still 10+ foot snow drifts. We didn't see much on that trip. This year was a dry year.

At the top of the trail to Hell, is Balancing Rock. Gwen had to go and prop it up again for the picture. This boulder was carried along by a glacier during the last ice age and then left perching as the glacier melted out from under it. The peak in the background is Brokeoff Mountain, part of the giant Mount Tehama that collapsed in on itself about 350,000 years ago. Note the brown haze. The smoke from all the Northern California fires was getting thicker by the minute. We had some nice views in the morning, but by afternoon, visibility was down to a couple of miles.

Along the Nature Trail to Hell, there was still quite a lot of snow, so of course there was a snowball fight. Here is Jayne being tagged by Gwen. Note I am hiding behind Jayne - to protect the camera, of course. I think I hid behind a tree a bit later.

Further along, the road to Hell was paved in snow. I think there was almost too much for even Gwen.

Checking out how warm the water flowing out of Hell was. Bathwater.
Finally we made it to Hell. Bumpass Hell. Full of mudpots, fumaroles, and boiling springs. And a very strong smell of sulphur. Bumpass Hell was named after Kendall Vanbook Bumpass, who in 1865, broke through the crust into a boiling spring (twice) and lost his leg. The story used to be posted on a sign at the trail head, but the National Park Service signs don't even mention it anymore. Maybe they thought it would dissuade too many people from visiting this part of the park, but when my family and I were here in 1980, I think that it was why we decided to make the hike.

Fumaroles are surprisingly loud.

Even in Hell there are green spots. Yes, the water was teal. Or maybe aquamarine.

One last climb around in the snow before we went back down into the Sacramento Valley where temperatures were in the upper 90s.

Lassen Peak

Doing what comes naturally

Some photos of my recent vacation with my aunt and cousin visiting from England.

Me

Yes way.

Balancing at Muir Woods (Bill watching nervously)

Balancing at Lake Tahoe (note the smoky haze)

Hanging on the outside of a Cable Car, San Francisco*

Sparkling wine tasting at Mumm in Napa Valley

My cousin Gwen

Bumpass Hell, Mount Lassen Volcanic National Park

I told her not to go past the sign...

Alcatraz

More photos soon.
*No, that's not '80s big hair. It's the wind. Really.

Gambling is bad. Very bad.

I'm currently taking my aunt and cousin around scenic spots in currently very smoky (from the (originally) ~650 fires) California. We've spent several days in San Francisco (Alcatraz, cable cars, etc.), gone to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and toured Lassen Volcanic National Park where many of the spectacular views were only so-so or non-existent due to thick smoke. I should have some pictures later, after I can download them. Right now, we're at Lake Tahoe, where the smoke has cleared a little, staying on the Nevada side.

My aunt has never gambled before. Last year, she apparently bet on some horse races, but she's never been anywhere like Stateline, Nevada. You know. That den of iniquity. We got $10 off each room because we signed up for their Casino card, had a nice cheap prime rib dinner, went for a walk, and then left my cousin in the room with my computer (free wireless internet) while we went to the casino.

My aunt didn't want to play much. She lost £30 when she went to the horse races last year, and she didn't know how to work a one armed bandit. I lost $3 showing her how to use one, and then she lost $3 on the same machine and said she was done. I then put more money in a different machine, played for a couple of minutes and won $90. My aunt got so excited, she put money - in the same machine - and a few minutes later also won $90. We decided to quit while we were ahead. We were both shrieking with laughter. We took photos holding our winnings, and then realized that with all the giggling and waving money around, we were making ourselves easy marks, so (still with much giggling) went into the bar and had a celebratory drink.

I think this has been the highlight of her trip so far.

I hope we aren't contributing to the delinquency of my cousin. She turns 16 on Thursday. When we got back to the rooms we tried to tell her that gambling was bad, and that she should NEVER do it, but it was difficult through all the giggling. I don't think she believed us.

Template edit trials

You may have noticed that I'm trying to edit my template. I've got it wider. Now I just have to shift it over to the left and Done. widen the sidebar or post body Done. Still needs tweaking, though. It may stay like this for a while though, because I'm trying to get ready for relatives visiting from England next week. This has involved painting, carpet cleaning, and general mucking out so far.