Mother's Day weekend...in Webber Canyon, Paris, and Whidbey Island

Living in the PNW can be awesome in ways that makes the gray days and drizzle all worth it.  These past few days have illustrated that.

On Friday our favorite bird finally arrived for the summer--the Western Tanager.  This beautiful bird is yellow like a Goldfinch, but is a bit larger.  The other feature that sets it apart is it's bright red head.  During mating season the red is really brilliant.

So, finally, all of our favorite birds are here.

Then, later on Friday, we drove to Eastern Washington with Jules.  We stayed at one of those AirBNB (sp) places that was really really nice.  It was one half of a duplex, with the owners living in the other half.  They went to extraordinary efforts to make it comfortable and fun.  They will get a terrific review from us.

UPDATE:  The owners provided a photo they took as we were heading out for our ride:

The reason we went there was to do an organized bike ride, the 4th time we have done this together with Jules.  The ride is called the Inland Empire Century.  In the past, Jules has done the entire century while we did somewhere between 50-75 miles.  There are some great features of this ride, the best being the 6 1/2 mile climb up Weber Canyon to the area above the Columbia River called Horse Heaven Hills.

This year Vicky and I did 54 miles and Jules did 65, not anywhere close to the number of miles any of us are capable of doing on organized rides.  And it was absolutely exhausting....and exhilarating.

The reason for the shorter miles for both of us is that there were 25 mph headwinds.  Headwinds really take it out of you because you don't get any break.  The first half of the ride, 27 miles, was straight into the teeth of the headwinds. 

But headwinds when one is climbing 6 1/2 miles up Weber Canyon is another level of taking it out of you.  It took us an hour and 15 minutes to do this 6 1/2 miles, pushing and pushing against the wind, with occasional gusts that were so strong that they actually stopped us, and we had to work to keep the bikes upright.  But we made it, all three of us (Jules was doing a different route so we weren't with him at the time), and none of us had to stop to rest along the way.  We felt great going up that canyon.  And whooped and hollered and high-fived each other when we made it. 

Then we had another 7 miles against the headwind to our lunch and turning around spot.  This beautiful area consists of flat fields in all directions, almost no vehicles.  We always enjoy it. 

Here am I eating our lunch after 27 miles, after the 25 mph headwinds, and after the climb up Weber Canyon.  At this point we knew we would have the winds at our back for the final 27 miles.  That was a relief:

And here we are after climbing Weber Canyon.  You can see how much wind there is by how much our jackets are billowing:

Here is a photo of Vicky heading down Weber Canyon.  Quite something, isn't it?

After returning we found a fun little pub to have a well-deserved dinner, and then crashed for the night.  We all slept like logs.  Imagine that.

The next day was mother's day.  We got up early, celebrating the mothers in our family, and Vicky being celebrated. 

We drove to Seattle, did a quick clothing change, had lunch with Jules, Jessica, and Adam, and headed to the Paramount Theater in Seattle to see a performance of An American in Paris with Jessica and Jules.

It was the best performance we have ever seen.  The dancing was truly awesome (it wasn't Gene Kelly, but if that is what a person is looking for you will never enjoy dancing).  It was the best dancing we have ever seen, and we have seen a lot of professional dancers.  The singing was great, the sets were stunning, the choreography was beautiful, and the story was happy.

After the performance, even with stopping at our family's home to retrieve our bikes and having a 20 minute wait for the ferry, we were home in two hours.  Two hours.

We live on this isolated five acres on an island, and can be home from a performance in Seattle in two hours.  That's one of the best parts of living on Whidbey Island.

After we got home Candice and the girls arrived and we had dinner with them.  I am writing this entry early the next morning, and they are all still asleep in the other room.

Vicky got mother's day greetings from Ian and Adam, and from Jules and Jessica.  Emily, Sean, Soren, and Sebastian called and sang to her (and have something arriving for her today which she is excited about), we got to see Candice, Stella, and Marina (who took us out for dinner), and Owen called so Vicky got to talk to him for a long time.   Oh yeah, almost forgot:  I got her something too!

And I thought a lot about my mother, who died three years ago while we were visiting her for Mother's Day.  I was at her side, Vicky and me sleeping in her hospital room.  She died with people who loved her holding her hand.

This morning the birds woke us up, as they do this time of year--they are so loud when the dawn breaks that we have to shut our windows.  It's an glorious sound, and we love it.

And, of course, it is raining once again, bringing us back to reality.  This spring has been unusually wet, even for PNW standards.  We may do the STP this year in an Ark instead of on our bikes.

Baby Juncos were born this morning!!!!

Feed me!

This is their childhood home:

Cycling through tulip fields and beer: A fun break from our Whidbey Island cycling

We have had some difficulty cycling this spring.  There has been a record amount of rain, making it hard to find times to get out.  But we have done our best, and have accumulated a fairly large number of cycling miles.

We enjoy our Whidbey Island rides, as they are hard and hilly.  We also have done a couple of organized bike rides.  Those are fun for a different reason.  Primarily they are fun because you are riding with a large number of like-minded people.  Of course, our favorite organized ride is the STP (Seattle to Portland), the ride we focus our training on.  We basically need about 1400 miles on our bikes before we can do this ride and have fun on it.  That means riding almost every day--some serious discipline.

So far this year we have done the Tulip Pedal ride in La Conner:

And the Bike N Brews in Seattle, with Jules:

This coming weekend we are traveling to the tri-cities to ride the Inland Empire with Jules.  It is one of our favorite weekends of the year, and favorite rides.  We go up a long climb in Weber Canyon to Horse Heaven Hills.

We do these other rides for variety and to do them with Jules.  Otherwise, there is no place where it is more beautiful to ride on a daily basis (which we do) than Whidbey Island.  And if you enjoy cycling up hills, come here:  YOU WILL GET HILLS!

Juncos are back nesting in our hanging basket

We are enjoying following the birth of this new life.  The Junco mom and pop are back in the same hanging flower basket where they made their home last year.

That's the good bird news.  On the sadder bird news, WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?  The hummers have left.  And we have seen only one pair of Goldfinches.  We have seen a few House Finches, but none of our other tropicals who usually are eating bird seed faster than we can fill the feeders by now.

The wet and cold have to be what's driving them away.

UPDATE AN HOUR LATER:  We just saw our first Evening Grosbeak, one of our very favorite birds.  Maybe he will bring the others!!!!!   We are so excited.

Junco babies:

Goldfinch that we hope gives us a good Yelp review:

And the Evening Grosbeak that we just now saw. See why we think it is so beautiful?

Not only that, but he brought his wife!  They are honeymooning here!

Vicky passes 10,000 cycling miles!

Since January1, of 2012, Vicky has now logged 10,000 miles on her $400 step-through "girls" bike.

Quite an accomplishment for someone who took up cycling in her 60s and for someone who has a titanium disk in her back that is a constant source of worry and discomfort.

Because of the limitations of her back, she needs a bike where she can step through it to mount instead of step over it.  Those used to be called "girls" bicycles because girls, being such dainty and frail creatures, looked clumsy and too "manly" lifting their legs over their bikes, especially since they were always wearing skirts.  (Can you believe that people used to think in this way?).

So it's no carbon fiber bike in her future--just the best step-through we could get.  And she ROCKS on it.  She loves her "girls" bike, and wouldn't trade it for anything. 

It also is pleasing to her that for these 10,000 miles we have done them all together, so the 10,000 mile mark was also a mark for us.

Here she is crossing that 10,000 mile mark.

Where are the hummers? and other birds?

Something very strange is happening, something that doesn't make us happy.

Our hummingbirds have, so to speak, flown the coup. 

They are gone, all of them. 

It happened while we were gone for a week.  We left plenty of food, as we always do, but came home to find the food hardly eaten.  Usually they stay until the first of July.

When we left the hummers were flitting around our feeders like they usually do--several of them bopping on and off of them, fighting for space, etc.

And now?  Nothing.  We've seen one in the past 10 days or so, probably an Annas, not one of the Rufous that had been here.

Where are they?  Has the weather been too cold and wet?  Is it something else?  Is it something we said? 

We also used to see our tropical birds by this time. We saw one (ONE) goldfinch 8 days ago.  And none since then.  All we see are the birds that stay here year round.

Does anyone know what is happening?  Is this something to be worried about?

It's a Small World, and a high-tech one: Our latest trip to Disney World

Vicky and I both went to Disneyland in the 1950s (not together, of course.....ha ha).  We remember it well.  It was so quaint.  We took horseback rides and stagecoach rides.  We went on the Jungle Cruise where the guide shot a fake Hippo and where there were fake headhunters and shrunken heads.  The train ride went past a homestead that had been raided by Indians, and out in front was a dead guy with an arrow in his back.  What felt fine then doesn't feel quite right now.  That's an improvement in our thinking, I believe. 

Even the ticket situation was quaint.  You bought a book of tickets, with a certain number of A rides, B rides, etc., up to E rides.  E rides were the best.  Before you could go on rides back then you actually had to do some on-the-spot planning.  I went to Disneyland again in the early 1960s, but don't remember much about that visit.

Fast forward to the early 1980s, a few years after Disney World opened.  I went there several times in the early 80s, and to Disneyland several times as well.  Disney World had two theme parks:  Magic Kingdom (which was almost identical to Disneyland) and Epcot Center (which never did have a coherent theme and still doesn't).

No longer did you use your ticket book.  Instead, you just paid an admission price, stood in lines, and did whatever you wanted and had time for.  You still had to plan your day on the day you arrived.  That seemed to work fine.

That was still the system in 1986 when we went again to Disney World.  That was the last time Emily had been there until this year---a 30-year hiatus. 

But in the early 2000s, when I went about five times in five years, a new system had been introduced:  Fastpass.  For certain rides you pulled a little slip of paper that allowed you, at a later time, to do the ride with little or no waiting.

That system worked even better, and the day was still planned on the day of your visit. 

But now the fastpass system requires an "app."  And a phone for the app.  An "app?"  For Fantasyland?  Is that why it is A Small World now?  Because of "apps?"

Instead of planning your day when you get to the park, like with the old fastpass system, now you can plan it 60 days ahead of time......if that's your idea of enjoying something like Disney World. The other hidden change with the new fastpass system is that it now is more parent-oriented than child-oriented.  Parents will determine, by using the "app," what the kids will do during a day several weeks into the future.  No more kids yelling:  "I want to do THIS ride."  The day is structured by parents more so than it was in the past. 

And as a result, the big difference between our visit here and our honeymoon here 5 1/2 years ago is the number of people who are walking around looking at little screens. And the fact that getting a fastpass so you can ride on the attraction you want may not be possible unless you stay at a Disney World resort (those people can get fastpasses 30 days before other people).  Now, isn't that cheesy?

Makes me long for the olden days of yore when you had a book of tickets with A rides, B rides, etc.

Aside from being old fogeys who want the world to stand still, Disney World was its usual awesome experience to share with Emily, Sean, and the two grandsons Soren and Sebastian.

Our first ride after arriving was It's a Small World.  It's our favorite ride.  It was introduced at the 1964 New York World's Fair, and brought to Disneyland (and subsequently Disney World) after the Fair closed.  In a way it is showing its age, but in another way it is timeless.




Our guess is that Sebastian's favorite park was the Magic Kingdom.  Some of the rides were geared more to his age.

Probably his favorite was the "Pirate Experience."  Can you believe this?

Soren's favorite was probably Hollywood Studios.  It had some exciting rides (including the Haunted Hotel which is awesome and which he went on twice).  This theme park has changed since we were there last.  It should be renamed Star Wars Studios.



 Our favorite theme park?  Probably Animal Kingdom, especially the Asia zoo.





 

We also like the World Showcase at Epcot.  I especially enjoy the Italian wine ride.  You don't need a Fastpass for it---just a VISA card.

 

Disney World is a tourist trap that is carefully designed to make you part with as much money as possible.  It has tacky gift shops, impossible crowds, and a seriously flawed Fastpass system.

We can't wait to go back. 

Florida Motels offer GREAT! service.

We went to Disneyworld with Emily, Sean, Soren, and Sebastian.  But first we spent two days in St. Petersburg.  They stayed at a 5 star hotel.  We stayed at a minus 2 star motel.  (the scary thing is that it was actually a chain!)

It's hard to describe.  On the one hand it sorta kinda appeared someone was fixing the place up, and it sorta kinda appeared as if someone had given up on it.  We first drove up to the "back" side (not really the back side, more like the side side.....or whatever), and saw a huge dumpster filled with old and very stained mattresses.  EWEEYYUUUU.

We drove around to the front to find the office locked.  At 4:30 p.m.  So we hung around for awhile, and finally a nice and energetic woman showed up.  There was trash all around, and old rolled-up carpets outside.  But, we thought, it's cheap!  And all we are going to do is sleep here.  And there's a Taco Bell and a McDonald's within walking distance....if you are brave enough to walk here.  And besides, we had made a reservation on one of those internet thingys.....and had already paid for it.  (plus, although there was a lot of trash around, there were several signs saying:  NO REFUNDS).

Oddly, there was a swimming pool which was very clean.  Not a leaf in it.  And for the three days and two nights we were there not a single person was in it.

Ok. The room.

We realize things are different now than when we were kids.  Or, even different than they were last December.

The room (which the nice woman said we would react to by saying "OMG!") was one where our reaction wasn't OMG, but was, instead, WTF?  The nice woman also asked us how much we had paid for the room.  Their computer wouldn't tell her.  So, the next morning I popped my head in to report the amount to the sullen young man who had replaced the nice woman.  He was totally interested. 

Here are some photos:

1.  The refrigerator.  It had last been defrosted when Johnson was President:



2.  You don't really need to assemble the channel changer before you use it do you?



3.  NO WIRE COAT HANGERS!!  (there were two of them)



 4.  The pictures above both beds were identical.  It had been decorated in the height of the ugly 1970s, and was frozen in time:




5.  But, who can complain?  A minus 2 star motel might not be clean, might not have a refrigerator that is clean, might have a dumpster full of stained mattresses right outside, might only have two wire coat hangers, but it does have this in the night-stand drawer:

We couldn't find a way to describe this on Yelp.  Ideas?

(OK.  next entry is about Disneyworld.  That was...um.....better).

Ping Pong when it's raining

Two years ago we bought a ping pong table.  We bought one of the better ones because we assumed it would spend a good deal of time in the garage, and we didn't want it to warp.

It spent about two weeks in the garage, and the rest of the time it has rested inside on our dance floor.  We play almost every day for at least 30 minutes. 

It's great exercise.  Not as aerobic as cycling or hiking (or dancing) but for flexibility and eye-hand coordination it is an excellent activity.

And we have improved.  A lot.  There is the old saying that you can't teach an old dogs new tricks.  But you can.  It just takes longer!

Here is our clip of our last ping pong match before we head out to the East to see grandchildren.  Vicky nailed it!

Training for our 6th STP in the rain and cold.....and rain and more rain

We are going to ride the STP (Seattle to Portland) bike ride again this year with Jules.  It will make our sixth time doing it together.  That's almost unimaginable when I think back to when we bought Vicky her inexpensive step-through bike shortly after we were married.  We thought we'd tool around the island a little, never dreaming we would do the STP even once.

But the more we rode, the more we knew this was something we wanted to do.  As of now that inexpensive ($400) bike has gotten her to Portland five times. 

And since biking has become more of a thing for us, she has outgrown her inexpensive step-through bike, and could use a real road bike.

But the problem is that this one fits her so well.  She rides in an upright position.  A better road bike would put her more into the commonly-seen riding position bent over the handlebars.  She has a titanium disk in her back which limits her flexibility, and necessitates an upright biking position for her, so a better bike really isn't an option.  The two most important aspects of enjoying riding and being able to ride many hours in one day is being in shape and having a bike that fits you.

For me, I think it is a kick.  When we are on our bike rides, I think it is cool that this Medicare Grandma of nine kids can keep up with younger people on bikes where sometimes one wheel costs as much as her entire bike.  I'm proud.

We came home a month earlier from Road Trip 6 than we had from Road Trip 5, which was itself one month earlier than when we arrived home from Road Trips 1-4.  We were gone almost the same amount of time for all of them, but just left earlier this year so we could catch fall in the mid-west National Grasslands.

Part of our thinking was that we could start riding and getting into bike shape a month earlier.

Good plan, but we forgot to tell the weather to cooperate.  Because it has been COLD and RAINY.

 

We can bundle up for the cold, dressing up in our full armor gear, but when it rains the visibility for us, and most importantly for vehicles, is worse.  So it's not as safe.  It also gums up the bikes.  There have been only a handful of days when we could ride outdoors. 

So this year, we have only gotten in 200 miles.  Most of our riding has been indoors, on our trainers.

  

And that is SO BORING.

I admire people who can ride exercise bikes consistently or ride exercise bikes at a gym consistently, because it is absolute torture for us.  You ride and ride......AND DON'T GET ANYWHERE!!

And there's nothing to see, or to talk about.

To keep from going crazy we started watching movies on Amazon while we cycled on the trainers. 

That lasted for only a few movies:  Steven King's Graveyard Shift, and all of the Indiana Jones films (seeing them altogether leads to this conclusion about them:  All of them are good except the second one which is just a bunch of screaming by some kid and Kate Capshaw).

What we realized was that movies move slowly.  Even good ones. Even Indiana Jones!   And when you are sitting in a theater or watching it on your television that is OK.  But when you need distraction it doesn't work.

So we shifted to documentaries.

An amazing difference.  Time goes much more quickly.  Learning something and being able to talk about what we are learning has made it doable.

So, what have we learned?  I know you are interested.

Well, we are now experts on WW-II.  We learned about the glider corps--didn't even know there was one.  After these boys landed their gliders (hopefully) they were more or less on their own to get back, to be able to do it again.  Many didn't.

We learned about the 10th Mountain Division, and the horrific battles they fought in Northern Italy.  Most casualties of any unit that fought in WW-II.

We learned about the British Air Corp's bombing in the Lancasters.  It was slaughter in the skies, and slaughter on the ground.

We learned about the great naval battles of WWII between the Hood and the Bismarck.  What seems on the surface to have been a great battle was actually, of course, just another a great slaughter.  The Hood was obliterated in seconds.  Three survivors.  The Bismarck, the pride of the German navy, lasted only 8 days after it was launched!  Because German submarines had been called to the area where it sank, the British ships had to immediately leave instead of rescuing the German sailors.  Hundreds of potential survivors drowned. 

War:  Young men dying and old men talking.

The most fascinating thing we learned was about Garbo. The spy referred to by the allies as Garbo, not the Greta Garbo.   Garbo single handedly probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives.  He was a double agent spy.  He actually received the German cross for service to Germany!  This guy was good.  He had a network of spies reporting to him......all made up.  The main thing he did was convince Hitler that the invasion of France was going to be in a different place than Normandy, so Germany moved all of their troops away from Normandy.

He told Hitler that the Normandy invasion was a feint, and he bought it.  After it was clear that there was no other invasion he told Hitler that because the feint went so much better than expected that the allies just decided to skip the real invasion.  And Hitler bought that too.  This guy was good. 

When you watch Saving Private Ryan again (if you have the guts to), consider what the slaughter would have been like for those boys landing at Omaha Beach if Germany had actually been fully prepared for it.  Normandy was successful basically because of one man who neither one of us had ever heard of.

We learned about ancient history:  Napoleon's Navy, Alexandria, Genghis Kahn. 

Then we got into psychopaths, an interest I'm sure everyone also has.  We watched some of the latest about psychopaths which, given our professions and experience, told us that there was nothing new.  We watched a show about Aileen Wournos, the female "serial killer."  A movie was made about her (Monster, with Charlize Theron).  Her attorney convinced her to plead guilty, so she did, and got the death penalty.  Her attorney was someone named something like Mr. Attorney.  Seriously.  Then we got into Bernard Madoff.

So, ask us anything about psychopaths.  Anything.  We've got it.

Now we are in to Ken Burns.  Our first one we watched was about prohibition.  It got boring---after awhile it was just a bunch of stories about different criminal enterprises.  We did learn one interesting fact:  The origin of the term bootlegger.  It came from the 19th century in places where selling alcohol was illegal.  Guys would walk down the street with flasks in their boots, and would sell drinks from them.  I think that would ruin the experience of my Chianti, though, quite frankly, but apparently I'm alone about that.

Now we are watching about the Dust Bowl, which is much better.  Those poor settlers.  They did it to themselves, and if we had been there we would have done the same thing.  Just feeding their families, and desperate.  When you-know-who says that our country is experiencing "carnage, " it is clear that he has never really talked to people who really experienced carnage, or have even spent two hours watching The Grapes of Wrath.

So, our bodies and minds are getting better and better!!!  Sheesh.   Talk about taking ourselves too seriously.  Minds getting better?  Right.  Bodies getting better?  We're in our late 60s.  We're treading water with our bodies, at best.

Project #6: $$$$$$$ Redoing the crawlspace

Do you think a lot about what is under your house?  I know I am obsessed by it.  Ask me anything and within a short amount of time I'll get around to talking about crawlspaces.  That's why I was so shocked a few weeks ago when the pest control service we have a contract with said we had a couple of "leaking pipes."

Ah, no biggie.  Just call the plumber..............and call another plumber.............and call another plumber...............and another........

Well, what we found is that plumbers on Whidbey Island either have heard about us and don't like us, or they have so much business that they just call people back at their leisure, or we live on Whidbey Island and everybody just kind of makes it up as they go along.

Finally got a plumber out who said.......he wouldn't work on the house because there was too much debris under it, including dead rats, etc.

What?

So, we contacted a company that cleans out and repairs crawlspaces.  Did you know there were companies that specialize in this type of difficult work?

These are the photos from under the house.  It had really deteriorated.

Yech.  And I mean, YECH!

I knew it had been a couple of years since I had been under the house, and I could tell at that time that the insulation wasn't all that great, but I thought we had everything basically done.  And we should have had it basically done.  The guy who I contracted with 10 years ago to repair the house had put in insulation, etc., but now we see he had not done as good of a job on this as he did on the carpentry.

One thing he forgot to do was to hire a pest control service to close up all of the potential entry points.  In the 10 years too much damage had been done.  Mostly by rats, which are interesting creatures around here.  They do tons of damage if you are not careful, but (and this is the weird thing, so cue creepy music) you never see them.  Never.  You see mice, voles, chipmunks, squirrels, etc., but never see rats. 

I really don't like having to do something twice.  If it's done right the first time you shouldn't have to.  But we had to.  It wasn't done right. 

So, we hired an off-island company to completely redo the underside of the house.  The first step was pulling out all of the old junk.  A crew of five spent almost an entire day doing this:

 Looked kind of empty and bare:

The next stage was to get a plumber out. We finally got one from Oak Harbor, 50 miles away.  As we said, the ones closer to us must be flush with money because they just didn't call us back.  (Note to people who live elsewhere----if you are a plumber come to South Whidbey and open a business!).  We also had the local pest service (Surety Pest Control---a shout out to them because they were always reliable and on-time) come out two times and closed up holes where pests could come in.

The final stage was installing the new insulation:

This whole enterprise was not cheap.  However, it was necessary.  It illustrates the value of budgeting for the unexpected.

It is also worth noting that the nine or so men who worked on this project didn't speak English as their first language.   It was hard work, and I didn't want to ask too many questions.  They got paid, were willing to do it, and if any people who spoke English as a first language would have wanted to they could have.  Not only that, anybody who spoke English as a first language could open this type of business on Whidbey Island.  We had to contract with someone whose business was located several miles away.

We are pleased with the results.  Our home is more secure, more solid, as a result.