Disneyland, 2019, Part II

Among the attractions attracting and rides ridden (several more than once) were the Main Street Horse-drawn Streetcar, Pirates of the Caribbean (P's favorite), Haunted Mansion (not P's favorite), Splash Mountain, Enchanted Tiki Room, Jungle Cruise, Tarzan's Treehouse, Tom Sawyer Island, Fantasmic, Mark Twain Riverboat, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, It's a Small World, Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, Monsters, Inc., Frozen, Luigi's Rollicking Roadsters, Radiator Springs Racers, Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, Soarin', Toy Story Midway Mania, Little Mermaid, World of Color; and more.

Nice meal at the Carthay Circle; and other places

At the World of Color extravaganza one evening: the group in front of us had
purchased the ear head-sets that change color in response to surroundings...
cracked me up...all adults

Cinderella's Castle under renovation

No Mal de Debarquement Syndrome here

Readying for blast-off

Columbia, great sailing ship

Cinderella?

Wait a second! Isn't someone supposed to be steering this thing?

Later that evening, manned by pirates (of the Caribbean), in Fantasmic

Mickey in historic role

Dragon fire on the water in Fantasmic; which was actually good, I thought;
World of Color, not so much

Happy ending: all the characters riding by, waving, dancing

Jack the Pirate

More night-time extravaganza, projection onto fountain spray

And, of course, three nights of fireworks

Disneyland, 2019, Part I

In mid-March Vicki, Penelope, and I visited Disneyland again. Three days. One of their favorite places. I was happy to serve in my usual role as chauffeur, porter, photographer, and sometime place-holder in lines. And to see all the happy people, especially the loved ones. In moments of quiet, I confess, I am strangely drawn to Disney; but there never have been any quiet moments (to paraphrase a favorite line); the din is constant, never-ending. Anyhow, the weather was near perfect, the lines were not too long, Vicki was able to use the fast-pass and related opportunities expertly, and 7-year-old Penelope never tired at all, insisting we stay until closing Saturday night to do the Jungle Cruise (my favorite) just one more time (our fifth). All in all it was a great visit.

At the entrance

Anticipation; interestingly, we spent most of the three days at the California
Adventure

After Elasti-Person, she sort of lost interest in the
characters; probably didn't want to lose ride time

Pulling a fast pass via the max pass

Old favorite

From the bridge of the riverboat Mark Twain

Occasionally the souvenirs were amusing; my favorite was
"The mountains are calling: Thunder Mountain, Space
Mountain, Splash Mountain"

Vicki and P did the live on-stage Frozen

Happy ending

Aboard the ferris wheel

Thus

Matterhorn with the San Gabriels in the background

Helpful model of part of California Adventure

On Splash Mountain, the final dive, Vicki trying to protect her contacts

At the World of Color, one evening...projecting onto spray from the fountains

Poppy Peeping

A week after Rebecca and family returned from New Zealand, we took grand-daughter Penelope on a road trip to Southern California, in part to visit Vicki's brother Bob and his wife Beth near San Diego, but also to visit Disneyland. Along the way, we took in the "super bloom" going on in the mountains east of LA. California, and particularly southern California, had an unusually wet winter, bringing on a super abundance of spring wild flowers, mostly orange poppies. For an afternoon, we joined the throng viewing them--two weeks ago before the throng got really big--and took in a marvelous natural view at Walker Canyon.

Throng: the access road was a miles-long parking lot; the exit lane from I-15 was
backed up more than a mile, and barely moving; but we got in and got to see
it close up

Pano

Middle California, Winter, 2019

You'd think there would be more to show for four months somewhere, but, then, we weren't in travel mode, and I was thus not in photo mode, nor blog mode, and so, as we now prepare to return to all three, and Europe, I don't have much to show for the months we spent in Middle California, mostly house-sitting for Rebecca and family. Nonetheless...

In early January we took P camping down to Monterrey,
did some walks there, playgrounds, shopping; here she is
before the RL Stevenson house; Vicki claims that Robert
Louis is a distant relative, and thus P's distant relative; P's
mom taught for a time at Robert Louis Stevenson School
in Pebble Beach ("Bob Louie" in Californese); thus a
meaningful connection

Previously shown: it rained much of these four months and
was unusually cold, even for the Bay area

Departure photo of Jeremy, Rebecca, and Penelope,
heading for Fiji and New Zealand, in January

Among our achievements, principally Vicki's, was the
collection of life-time t-shirts for this quilt, which now
adorns the bed in Le Sport

Another of Vicki's achievements was completion of Rebecca's childhood (through
age 12) photo album; Rachel's will be completed next fall

My major achievement (not pictured) was in editing and copying and backing up
our 87 gazillion photos, videos, diaries, and other matters of historic documentation;
I also set two long streaks of Duolingo, in my heroic effort to learn enough French
not to make restaurant wait-staff laugh (hysterically, as in Lyon); this earned me
a case of de Querzain's synotenovitis (aka "gamer's thumb"), and the wearing of
a brace like that pictured above; life is so cruel; you'd think an effort to learn a
language, at my advanced age, would be rewarded, not punished

Another achievement, sort of, was having Le Sport de-oxidized; I removed most
of the decal work beforehand...

Up close, personal; we also had some plumbing work done, and the furnace...

On a visit to brother-in-law Bob's in Oceanside: tools that did not spark joy...

Toward the end we did go with Rebecca and Penelope to the Exploratorium in
San Francisco, interesting science education place with interesting connection
to the Oppenheimers...

Interim Update #4,739

We're not traveling, exactly, so I am not blogging, exactly, but I thought I might post something to explain the month+-long absence. We're in Middle California, house-sitting for daughter Rebecca while she and family are enjoying the initial travels of her semester-long sabbatical. Currently, she, Jeremy, and grand-daughter Penelope are in New Zealand, preparing to cross Cook Strait to the North Island. See her blog, SherouseHouse.com. They return here at the end of the month. Vicki and I have been living in their house, with Le Sport parked, vacant, in the drive-way. Tomorrow we will take it to an RV shop in Redwood City for de-oxidizing and a new kitchen sink faucet. Major excitement. Maybe you should consider de-oxidizing too.

We have not been idle. First there was moving in and re-arranging a few things. Vicki has been working on photo-albums, and I have been scanning new-found slides and prints as well as 700 pages of travel journal entries from before our retirement. Also preserving and re-formatting the family videos. We also meticulously removed the full-length decals from Le Sport as well as the adhesive; all this to facilitate tomorrow's de-oxidizing. We jointly chose and assembled the pieces of a T-shirt quilt covering most of our lifetimes, a photo of which will appear when it's done and delivered next month. Other excitement has included the fall-out from changing Medicare supplement plans, prescription plans, and PCPs, all in the same month. Sort of a perfect storm of health-care matters. Good thing neither of us was at sea (sick). Further excitement came from changing our pass-word service and strategy. Plus there is also the continuing excitement of going through our things stored here, inventorying, selling or donating or trashing, re-packing, and re-storing for the next time.

We have particularly enjoyed the cable subscriptions, Vicki viewing all known episodes of Outlander, the time-travel "sex and violence down the mine" series, and both of us watching almost all known episodes of Grace and Frankie, Vicki rather more enthralled than I. In addition, I have undertaken a study of screwball comedies and have so far watched Bringing Up Baby, for example, four times. Not nearly enough. My new wireless ear-buds (thanks, girls) have been getting a full test as I work through the recorded works of Cole Porter on my daily walks. Also La Conga Blicoti and the Andrew sisters and such. On one very long walk I listened to the entire Meistersinger. Happy stuff.

We have already begun planning our next travels, which will take us back to Rome at the end of March, through northern Italy, southern France, a Paris apartment in May-June, then some northern France and Belgium (Westfleteren) before crossing over to Britland, if it's still there. We'll finish up in Edinburgh in an apartment for the Festival and Fringe. No plans beyond returning in August to the States. If they're still there. And if we can still get in.

The weather here has been predictably dismal: cool, wet, cloudy, Bay area. See illustration. Okay, not nearly so dismal as other parts of the country.

Oh yes, I've also been brushing up on my meager French on Duolingo...a plus tard!

Rain overwhelming the gutter outside the dining room