On Thursday, I’ll post the next in my UT-OH! blog-a-book series: The tale of how MC the Cat barely avoided having his danglies cut off, which, much to his dismay, would have ended his tomcatting ways.
The Sculptures of Burning Man
humor
UT-OH! Chapter 3: Hiring the Family Pets Scare the Away the Graveyard Ghosts: Part I (It’s Friday the 13th)
First Grade was not the highlight of my school years, thankfully. Things had to get better. And did. My second and third grade teacher turned out to be my Godmother. There is a commandment issued on a mountain somewhere and written in granite: She had to like me. My attitude toward education made a dramatic leap. I actually became something of a teacher’s pet, which surprised everybody. Me, most of all. But back to the wilderness, er, Graveyard.
Between the third and fourth grade, I discovered a new way to enjoy nature. I moved my bedroom outdoors in the summer. It was partially to avoid sharing a room with Marshall and partially to escape my father’s house shaking snores. But the real reason was that I loved being outdoors. I would move out as soon as school was over and stay until it started, or later if parents and weather permitted.
At first I slept on the ground in a cheap cotton sleeping bag. The ground was hard, the nights cool, and the mosquitoes persistent, but these were minor drawbacks. I was free. If I had to pee, I’d climb out of the sleeping bag and find the nearest bush. If I woke up thirsty, a convenient garden hose was nearby. I would go to sleep watching the stars and listening to a giant bullfrog that lived in the ditch in front of our house. I would wake up to the cool morning air and chirping robins. Life was good.
Then it got better. My grandparents bought me a real bed— a wood framed, steel spring army cot, complete with mattress. Looking back, I think they may have been embarrassed that their grandson was sleeping on the ground.
My paradise was marred by one thing, the Graveyard. It was always there on the edge of my sight. White tombstones glared at me.
As hard as I pretended, the cemetery and its frightful inhabitants would not go away. So I developed a set of defenses. The first was to sleep facing the opposite direction, or hide under the covers, ostrich like. A more sophisticated approach was to locate the bed where I couldn’t see the Graveyard. Our well-seasoned cars worked in a pinch, but they weren’t quite large enough. Bits and pieces of the Graveyard would creep around their sides, peak over their tops and slink under their bottoms. A trellis built by my father, Pop, was much better. Its luxurious growth of honeysuckle created the perfect screen. I set up a permanent residence behind it.
But even the trellis wasn’t enough to calm my imagination. More drastic action was called for. I hired protection. It came in the form of various family pets. Their job was to chase the ghosts away. Payment was made by allowing them to sleep on my bed. Apparently, the scheme worked. The evidence is irrefutable: No ghosts attacked me in the years I slept outside.
The downside was that I didn’t have much room. Two dogs, a cat, and me on a one person army cot constituted a menagerie, or a zoo, if you counted the fleas. It was difficult to move. At first, I was very careful not to disturb my sleeping companions. I became a circus contortionist frozen in place with body parts pointed in every direction. If this meant a sleepless night, so be it. It was a small price to pay for keeping the ghosts at bay.
Gradually, my attitude changes. I grew larger, the bed space shrank, and the animals started sleeping on top of me. Meanwhile the ghosts, who tend to hassle little people more than they do big people, became less of a threat. Therefore, I needed less protection. Neither of these factors led to the final banning of the animal kingdom, however, it was the shameless shenanigans of Demon the Cat and Pat the Greyhound.
Demon, the alpha family cat, was as black as the darkest night. As such, she was appropriately named and attired for Graveyard duty. In fact, she spent a good deal of her life there, stalking mice, lizards, birds and anything else she could get her claws into with impunity. Captured prey would then be brought home for approval, or as gifts. My job was to dispose of the half devoured carcasses, preferably before Mother saw them. I would sometimes tie a string around the unsolicited gifts and run around the yard with Demon in mad pursuit. (Okay, this was admittedly weird, but I did receive high marks from the cat.)
Depopulating the Graveyard was not Demon’s claim to fame, however. Motherhood was. She had kittens often and everywhere. I suspect that half of the cats living in Diamond Springs and El Dorado County CA, today, can trace their lineage back to her.
Two instances of kitten production bring back vivid memories. The first took place on the living room floor. Demon was a young cat at the time, and a neophyte at motherhood. Her impending delivery was quite apparent from her large belly and ceaseless exploration of clothes hampers, closets and other dark places. With high hopes of avoiding a misplaced litter, Mother had arranged her bedroom closet as a maternity ward.
It was my duty to show Demon her new home several times a day. I would carefully pick up the very pregnant cat, carry her to the closet, and deposit her in a box with well-used clothes. Demon didn’t buy the program. It seems that my bedside manner was faulty. She would climb out of the box, glare at me, and stalk out of the room.
When the joyous day finally arrived, I was home alone. Demon was practicing her would-be mother waddle walk across the floor when she suddenly stopped, squawked and squatted.
Neither she nor I was ready for what followed. After all, how prepared can a young kid and a first-time mother be prepared for birth? In a massive surprise to both of us, a tiny, black bundle of fir emerged from Demon’s undercarriage. Surging emotions paralyzed my seven-year-old mind.
One thought stood out: The closet! If Demon hadn’t memorized her delivery lessons, I had. I jumped across the room, grabbed her by the nape of the neck, and dashed for Mother’s bedroom. As fast as I ran, it wasn’t fast enough. In the middle of the kitchen, the new arrival completed her journey and was heading for a crash landing. Somehow, somewhere between Demon and the floor, I caught the warm, wet ball of fur in my free hand. After that, my memory fades but I know that the three of us made it to the closet. I left Demon busy licking her new baby. Demon accepted her new home and four more kittens followed the first, although in a less dramatic way. Diamond’s cat population explosion was underway.
Part 2 of Hiring the Family Pets to Keep the Graveyard Ghosts Away will be posted next week on Thursday’s blog-a-book day. Tune in to learn about my second vivid memory of Demon’s kitten production, how Pat the Greyhound became a member of our family, and how Pat and Demon’s bad behavior led to the banning of animals from my bed. Sort of.
UT-OH! Chapter 3: Do You Feel the Vibes, Tonto? A Train Is Coming. –The Lone Ranger
My endless vacation came to an end the fall of 1949. It was time for the first grade. Mother was delighted. Mrs. Young, not so much. A number of the little boxes on my report card that reflected good behavior were marked ‘needs improvement.’ Mrs. Young had decided I needed a lot. Is neat: needs improvement. Shares: needs improvement. Is polite: needs improvement. The list went on. I was a little savage.
The ‘neat’ part was particularly sensitive. My shoes were falling apart, my pants had holes in them (this was before it became a fashion statement for young women), I smelled like a little boy who only bathed once a week, and didn’t wear any underwear. You might wonder how Mrs. Young knew about the latter. It wasn’t that she did an inspection. The zipper was to blame.
I was in the bathroom one day, had finished peeing, and was zipping up my pants when my poor little guy got stuck in the zipper. Damn that hurt! I screamed like the six year old man I was and made a beeline to Mrs. Young to solve the problem. She must have been delighted and wondered where in her contract it stated “Must be available to liberate little boys’ penises from zippers.” Anyway, she did her job. I suspect a not-nice note was sent home to my mother. Anyway, underwear became part of my attire, forever after.
I thought of naming this chapter, Free the Penis! But my editor/Peggy (wife) thought not.
Once, I got spanked. “Reading and writing and ‘rithmetic taught to the tune of a hickory stick” the old song School Days proclaimed. My classmate Joe and I had disagreed over who was top dog. We fought it out on the playground. I thought I was doing Mrs. Young a favor by clarifying the issue. Joe was even more uncivilized than I. She thought otherwise. The only justice I could see was that Joe got it in the end as well, so to speak.
The high point of my year was that I made my first two friends who weren’t family or buddies of my older brother. Rudy and Robert were a pair of Hispanic brothers who lived in a small house out in east Diamond. We had hit it off immediately and on a Saturday toward the end of school, the boys and their parents invited me up to their house to spend the night. It was my first official play date and my first ever sleep-over. I was nervous. My mother took me up and dropped me off to a royal greeting by the boys, their parents and their siblings.
“Quick,” the boys urged, “we have to go stand by the railroad tracks.” We could hear the train’s whistle as it approached Diamond.
The tracks were part of a narrow-gauge railway Caldor Lumber Company used to bring logs from its tree-cutting operation 20 miles up in the El Dorado National Forest to its lumber mill in Diamond Springs. When the company was established in the early 1900s, it had located its sawmill in the forest near its logging operation and used mules for hauling the logs. It had then switched to oxen, and finally a giant steam tractor. The tractor made so much noise that the company was required to use outriders a quarter of a mile in front to warn people so their horses wouldn’t be spooked.
Understandably, the company switched to the railroad when it relocated its mill to Diamond Springs, 20 miles away. The train, in turn, would lose out to logging trucks in the 50s. At the time, however, little kids still had the joy of watching the engines and their line of rail cars carrying massive logs out of the forest.
My father had a close connection with the railway. As one of Caldor’s two electricians, he was responsible for maintaining phone service along the track between the lumber camp and the mill as well as the massive machinery the mill used for cutting up logs and producing lumber. When there was a problem with the phones, off he went to check out the 20 miles of line. A hand cranked generator was necessary for creating the electricity to make calls. We inherited one when the line was replaced. Marsh and I would invite our little friends over, crank up the machine, and have them touch the outlet. They got the message. It was shocking.
Pop’s favorite railway task was clearing snow off the tracks each summer when the logging camp opened up for the season. “We had a diesel-powered rail car with a snow plow on it,” he explained to me later. “We’d back up and take a run at snow banks, crashing into them, and hopefully breaking through. Often our car would jump the tracks. We’d all pile out and lift it back on.” Some fun; he loved it.
While watching the train was high entertainment, the primary attraction for us was that the engineers carried an ample supply of wrapped hard candy that they would throw out to the boys and girls standing alongside the track. It was a tradition.
The train was near. We could hear it chugging along. Rudy, Robert, their brother, sisters and I sprinted the hundred or so yards over to the tracks. Being a smart ass, I laid down and put my ear on one of the rails. It was a trick I had learned from the Lone Ranger and his side-kick, Tonto. You can actually hear the vibrations and supposedly judge how far away the train was. I needn’t have bothered since the train came into view a hundred yards away while my I was focused on the ‘vibes.’ I’m sure the engineers saw me.
“Get off the track!” Rudy and Robert screamed. We started waving vigorously. One of the engineers dutifully leaned out of the cab and tossed us candy, lots of it. We scrambled around picking it up and shoving it in our pockets. At least the ones that weren’t shoved into our mouths.
After we had collected our candy from the train, dinner was a long hour off. I suggested to Robert and Rudy that we head out to the woods behind their house and ride trees. Who needs horses? My brother and I had learned that we could climb up to the top of young, skinny pines and make them sway back and forth by leaning out. The farther we leaned, the more they swayed. It offered a free carnival-like experience 10 feet up in the air. Even more could be accomplished by throwing our feet out in the direction the tree was swaying and hanging on for dear life. If the tree was skinny enough, two of us could make it bend all of the way down to the ground, where we would drop off and allow it to snap back up. It took a while for me to persuade Rudy and Robert that the sport wasn’t going to kill them.
I suspect the trees didn’t enjoy the experience nearly as much as we did. Years later when I read Robert Frost’s poem about children bending birches, I fondly recalled our pine tree horses— or bucking broncs if you prefer.
“It’s dinner time!” came the call so we rushed back to the house and made use of an outside water faucet to wash the pine pitch off our hands. Sort of. Pitch has a way of sticking like super glue. It’s the pine tree’s revenge. Mother had a box of Boraxo at home for the task. Hand inspections were held afterward.
“You have to try this,” Rudy enthused, dashing into the house and coming out with a red pepper. I should have been suspicious when the rest of the kids gathered around. But what does a first grader know? I gamely bit into the pepper and was introduced to habanero-hot. The kids roared as I made a mad sprint for the faucet and drank a gallon of water, becoming a major part of the evening’s entertainment. It would have served them right if I’d peed in their bed later.
I forgave them when I had my first Mexican dinner, however. I still love Mexican food. And I’ve come to enjoy habanero-hot on foods ranging from burritos to spaghetti.
As the night progressed, it soon became time for bed. I was about to flunk sleep-over etiquette. The boys slept on the same bed. Admittedly it was bigger than my small single at home, but I had never slept in a bed with another person, much less 2 others, or maybe it was 10. That’s what it felt like. They put me in the middle. I was mortified, but I tried. I really did. Ten o’clock came and there I was, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, body frozen in place, and midnight, and two, and four. At five, I gently nudged Robert.
“I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept all night,” I confessed. “I have to go home.”
“Ummm,” the half-awake Robert had moaned and moved.
I got up, dressed, and slipped out of the house by 5:30, careful not to wake anyone else. It was close to dark outside with only a dim light announcing the morning. Home wasn’t that far away, maybe a mile and a half at most. But I still remember the journey from a first grader’s perspective: It was long and spooky, my first great solo adventure. I followed the dirt road over the railroad tracks out to the Pleasant Valley Road. Not one car zipped by. Fortunately. They probably would have stopped and driven me home. Everyone knew everybody else in Diamond Springs with its population of 750. “Sorry to wake you up, Marge, but I found Curt out wandering in East Diamond.” By noon, everyone in town would have heard the story.
I walked past the hill with the cross on it and picked up Highway 49. Halfway home, I came to Tom Murphy’s grocery store. Sodas were stacked in wood boxes in front, waiting to be moved inside. I looked around furtively; I was totally alone. So, I helped myself to a Coke; I deserved it. I continued on my journey, walking by the post office, Dub Walker’s store, the barber shop, Scheiber’s hardware store, the historic Pony Express stop, the firehouse and Gust Brother’s Garage, eventually reaching the dreaded Graveyard. I clutched my coke and crossed the road, preferring Pagoni’s mean dogs to the ghosts.
Arriving home, I carefully hid the soda outside. It wouldn’t do to have overly inquisitive parents discover the purloined drink and ask questions. I happily enjoyed it later in the day, feeling much less guilty about stealing than I did about abandoning my friends. I suspect there was a bit of consternation when Rudy and Robert’s parents woke to find me missing. Imagine what would happen today.
UT-OH! The Introduction to a New Series
Years that end in three have a special significance to me. They mean another decade has passed. I was born on March 3, 1943. According to the March issue of Life Magazine that year, Americans and Australians were duking it out with the Japanese at the Battle of Bismarck Sea, Westinghouse was firing frozen chickens at airplane windows, and women were wearing bow ties as a fashion statement. None of these events registered on my mind. It was still devoted to getting milk, although, looking back, I would have loved to have witnessed the frozen chicken splat test.
The introduction to my new series is below, but first I want to share a few thoughts in general about UT-OH.
My objective is to relate stories from my past in a memoir format which incorporate— if you’ll pardon the expression— Oh Shit! moments. We all have them, right. My focus will be on such experiences that you laugh about later, not on those you find yourself asking yourself, “Why or why did I do that?” I can haunt myself on those. I don’t need to haunt you.
Second, let’s talk about the name: Ut-Oh. Some of you may look at it and say, “Curt doesn’t know that the proper spelling of Uh-Oh. Maybe I should tell him before he embarrasses himself further.” For the record, I know it’s Uh-Oh, but Ut-Oh is how I pronounced it as a kid and I have every intention of continuing to, no matter how embarrassing. It fits.
Third, a number of these stories I have told in the past in my 15 years of blogging. In fact I even started to organize them once before. I’m doing it again. My apologies to those of you who have already read them. A handful have been with me the whole 15 years. I love you, but a good story deserves to be told over. And there will be new tales!
Finally, there is the issue of accuracy. Peggy read an article recently that stated the older the story from your early childhood, and the more it has been told over the years, the more likely it is to change. Very slightly each time perhaps, but after 75 years? Who knows. Here’s a summary of what AI has to say about it: “Yes, memories from early childhood change over time… reflecting how our brain develops, making narratives richer or more fragmented.” I like richer. Having said that, I’ve tried to make my stories as accurate as possible given my memory and active imagination. Each one actually happened, even if my mind has modified the script, especially from my earliest years.
My intention, assuming I don’t get sidetracked, is to post UT-OH stories on Thursdays and my normal travel blog and focus stories on Mondays.
UT-OH! AN INTRODUCTION
We all have Ut-Oh moments where things don’t go according to plan. Most are relatively minor, like spilling a bowl of spaghetti in your lap when you are having lunch with your future mother-in-law (first marriage). Minor, perhaps, but it’s better if she does the spilling. Either way, it’s an ut-oh in small letters unless your sense of humor (or hers) is out of whack. Even then, it has the potential for making a good story.
In this book, I am mainly talking about larger Ut-Ohs, even all cap UT-OHs— like the time a group of murderers, kidnappers, bank robbers, and Patty Hearst got stuck in a snowbank next to me on a remote mountain road in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They were out practicing with their automatic weapons, apparently preparing to rob a Sacramento bank.
UT-OH is full of such tales. Most take place in the outdoors. How could it be otherwise given that I’ve spent over 77 years of my life wandering in the woods. I started when I was five by exploring the jungle-like graveyard next to my house. (I’d been kicked out of the first grade for a year.) At 75 I was backpacking 750 miles down the Pacific Crest Trail to celebrate my birthday. Now in my 80s, the adventures continue— as do the Ut-Ohs.
I know what it’s like to be stalked by a grizzly bear in Alaska, charged by a herd of elk in New Mexico, and attacked by army ants in Africa. Once, a rattlesnake tried to bite me on the naked butt. I hadn’t seen it slither into a cat-hole I had dug for bathroom duty in the woods and I’d almost pooped on him. Fortunately for both of us, he had rattled his displeasure as my rear loomed above him.
There are lessons to be learned in this book. Checking your cat-hole for rattlesnakes is one of many. For example:
- You should sleep with your shoes in the sleeping bag when you are snow camping in minus 30° F weather at Denali National Park. Toasty warm toes do not appreciate being shoved into solidly frozen shoes.
- Screaming loudly may dislodge a bear when you wake up at 4 AM with one standing on top of you.
- It’s best to be in shape before venturing out on a solo 10,000 mile bicycle journey around North America. Boy did I pay for that. Did you know that having calluses in your crotch is an important part of preparing for a long distance bike trip?
- And finally, I recommend you have more than a 20 mile backpacking trip behind you before you decide you are qualified to lead 60 people, aged 11-70, on a hundred mile backpack trip across California’s Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. The learning curve was straight up that time— for nine days in a row.
But hey, I’m a man who has been carrying a horse bone with him as a traveling companion for 48 years. What could possibly go wrong? Join me next Thursday as I get kicked out of the First Grade and learn that the graveyard next door is a very scary place at night.
Hello Deer: I Won’t Say We Were Part of the Herd, But It Was Close… Focus on a Deer’s Life Cycle
Today’s post on deer is part of our focus series where I make use of our extensive photo library to feature a single subject. From 2011 to 2021 we lived in Southern Oregon up in the mountains about 30 miles west of Ashland on five acres that backed up to a million acres of national forest. There were many things that we loved about the property. The deer herd that insisted on calling it home was a big one!
Fawns on our property were normally born in April or May, hidden away by the doe, and sternly instructed to stay put and not move when she was away eating for the first 2-3 weeks. The spots they are born with serve as natural camouflage making the fawns extremely difficult to see. They are also scentless when born, making them impossible to smell.
We did come upon a newborn fawn once. The mother had blown it and given birth right in the middle of our driveway. We were returning from town and sat for 30 minutes as the doe urged the baby to get up. Its twin was already off to the side. Finally the youngster stood on wobbling legs and managed to totter off to the side. I kicked myself very hard for not having my camera.
On Friday I will do the intro to the my memoir: UT-OH. I am blogging one chapter at a time. I am quite excited about the book and have already written 22 chapters. Please join me.
In Search of Wild Areas, Culture and Beauty in 2026: We Return to Costa Rica, Bali, and Scotland
2025 was a good year for us from a travel perspective. We stayed home, so to speak, and limited our wandering to Hawaii, the Southwest, and New England. Now we have the itch to go abroad again. We’ve chosen three areas known for their beauty, culture, wild areas— and relative safety: Costa Rica, Scotland, and Bali.
Naturally, we will be blogging about our journeys. But there is more, as they always say on late night TV ads. Or at least they used to. Peggy and I don’t stay up that late and most of our TV time is streaming without ads. I am continuing our focus series over the next two months and beyond. “Oh Deer” is my next one. I’ll be featuring the herd that lived in our backyard in Oregon and liked to stare at us through the windows.
And finally, I’ll be offering a new series I’m calling “Ut-Oh” where I will be pulling together posts that I have included on my blog over the past 15 years plus new material featuring my more serious/humorous misadventures in my life. I’ll do an introduction to it next week.
The Southwest: Where Geology Lives, Deserts Thrive, and Ancient People Speak… 2025 Wrap-up
As we noted in last week’s post, our 2025 wrap-up is based on three trips we made during the year and blogged about. The first was Hawaii, which I posted last Monday. Today’s post features our Southwest journey where we wandered through the Southwestern US for five months visiting national parks, state parks, and national monuments. Next week’s post will cover our three week leaf-peeping trip through New England in the fall.
The photos used in the three posts are all from ones we selected to include in three calendars we developed for our extended family, each focused on one of out trips. (Not all of the photos here made it into the calendars, but it was a flip-of-the-coin type decision.)
We discovered the towering rock above in Chiricahua National Monument, which is located in southeastern Arizona. The monument is named after the Chiricahua Apaches who roamed the area prior to it being occupied by pioneers from the eastern US. A couple of notes. One, the park is filled with a fascinating variety of rock structures. Two, we have discovered over the years that national monuments often include scenery, geology, history, plants and animals that easily match those found in national parks. They are definitely worth visiting and are usually far less crowded.
Happy New Year to everyone and thanks for joining us on our adventures in 2025. It’s much appreciated. Costa Rica, Bali, and Scotland are coming up in 2026! Curt and Peggy
Wishing You All a Happy Holiday…
Each year, I create a Christmas Card for Peggy and me to send out to family and friends, and, I might add, share with you on Wandering Through Time and Place. Admittedly, they are designed to be a bit strange, and hopefully elicit a chuckle. After all, Santa is ‘a jolly old elf.’ This year, he has a bit of a problem, however…
Okay, let’s think about this. Rudolf only has to work one day out of the year. What in the world does he have to complain about? Well… Here’s some information I included on the back of the card:
-To start with, Santa is really old. He takes his origins back to Saint Nicholas who was born around 270 AD. That makes his age around 1700 years! No wonder he hasn’t kept up with modern production and delivery services. If he contracted with Amazon Prime, he, his elves, and the reindeer could all sit around a bonfire drinking rum infused eggnog and celebrate a job well done on Christmas Eve. Instead…
-He and the reindeer have to visit some 300 million homes. And, they have to do it in 34 hours, given changing time zones. “So what are you whining about?” Santa likes to argue. “I got you ten extra hours.” But what does that really mean…
-He has to deliver gifts to 9,127,789 houses per hour, or 2,536 per second. And what applies to Santa, also applies to his reindeer. That’s one heck of a lot of landing on roofs, taking off— and flying. How far do the reindeer have to fly, you ask…
-It’s been clocked at over 100,000,000 million miles by according to Santa’s odometer (and confirmed by scientists who have ‘worked’ it out). That means the reindeer have to fly a staggering 2,823,529 mile per hour.
No wonder Rudolph is upset about his pay. But Santa has a solution that won’t cost him an extra penny. He has recruited Rudolph’s girlfriend who is willing to work for less to get into the business of guiding flying sleds on foggy nights. Rudolph is not happy…
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen are all for Santa’s decision. They think it will be a lot more fun to follow Rudette for 100 million miles than Rudolph. What a surprise? But wait, negotiations are under way, and…
There is good news from the North Pole! Santa and Rudolph have reached and agreement. 10 pounds of apples, 4 pounds of corn and 5 pounds of alfalfa will be added to Rudolph’s trough each day. Plus, he will have Rudette along as a partner on Christmas Eve to help light up the night and his life— at equal pay. Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen will each get 9 pounds of apples, 3 pounds of corn, and 4 pounds of alfalfa, and, they still get to follow Rudette. Everyone is a winner!
Wishing each of you a great holiday season and a healthy and happy New Year. Thanks for coming along with us on our journeys this past year!
Curt and Peggy
*A final note, I know that Ut-Oh is usually spelled Uh-Oh but Ut-Oh is how I pronounced as a kid and continue to today.
2025: Focus on Hawaii… The Year in Review
Our blogs each year, for the most part, are based on our wandering ways. We kicked off 2025 with a trip to the Big Island of Hawaii where we stayed in a VRBO 30 miles outside of Hilo for a month, rented a car, and explored the island. Spring and summer found us wandering through the Southwestern US for five months, pulling a small trailer behind our truck, and visiting national parks and monuments. In October/November, we left the trailer behind at our home base in Virginia and traveled for three weeks through New England admiring the beautiful fall colors.
Our next three posts will be devoted to doing our yearly wrap-up of our travels— based on our annual calendar. Each year we select 13 photos from among what we consider our best travel photos for use in a calendar we create for our extended family. This year we created three: one for each of the areas we visited. Family members got to choose which calendar they wanted. The photos for today’s post were selected for our Hawaii Calendar. The orchid above is one of numerous different species found at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden just outside of Hilo. We highly recommend a visit if you travel to the Big Island. Over 2000 tropical plants are found in the garden.
That’s the overview for our trip to Hawaii. Next up is the Southwest.
I want to give a special thanks today to Lauren Scott at baydreamerwrites.com who did a great review of my book, The Bush Devil Ate Sam. Lauren is a published poet and author of a children’s book. Her most recent works include King Copper and Cora’s Quest. King Copper is a touching collection of poems about her dog, a chocolate lab, that recently passed away. Cora’s Quest is a children’s book that follows a young fawn as she goes on a delightful journey of exploration through the woods with her parents— until she gets lost.(Don’t worry, the book has a good ending.) You can learn more about both books by visiting Lauren’s site listed above.
What I like most about Lauren is her humanity— her warm sense of caring. Here’s what she says about her writing: So, whatever genre I share with you, whether poetry, personal stories, fiction, or kid-lit, I hope you’ll discover a piece of writing that evokes a special memory or acts as a reminder that you are not alone living with your emotions. Maybe you’ll get a good laugh, after all, we know laughter is the best medicine. Or perhaps you’ll experience an ‘aha’ moment.
Dangerous Romanian Apple Is Caught Slipping into US without Passport… With Us. We’re Back!
Peggy and I were innocent victims. The apple was using us for its nefarious purposes. The staff at our hotel in Bucharest had slipped apples into breakfast paper bags when Peggy and I, along with her brother John and wife Frances, checked out at 2 AM. They had included a sandwich made up a slice of cheese and a slice of ham on white bread without any condiments, plus— the piece de resistance— a two-bite muffin. I’d eaten the sandwich and muffin on our ride out to the Bucharest Henri Coandă International Airport. I was suspicious of my apple, however. It had a not-right feeling. I tossed it into a trash can. Let the Romanian authorities deal with it.
Peggy, on the other hand, had visions of eating the apple somewhere along the way on our seemingly endless journey as a defense against starvation. She slipped it into an extra bag she was carrying for gifts and the apple immediately burrowed itself into the bottom of the bag, where it hoped to be forgotten. I can’t blame it for not wanting to be eaten, but apparently it had other motives as well. I don’t know what John and Frances did with theirs. I’d watched Frances cut up lots of them on our trip down the Danube, however. As for John, it probably depended on his political assessment of the apple. Had he thought of it as liberal, or radical, he would have consumed it on the spot, down to its very seeds. Had it been Libertarian, he would have coddled it, possibly even slipping it into Texas where the laws are different (not really, when it comes to US Customs).
We had a 4 hour layover in Zurich where the apple would have been consumed except we were traveling business class and could hang out at the Swiss Air lounge where all sorts of goodies were available for eating. Likewise, we were fed two full meals on our flight from Switzerland to Virginia. The apple continued its happy and secretive existence in the bottom of the gift bag— until we were in the middle of a massive crowd of people slowly making our way toward the passport check stations. It was then that Peggy saw the sign: “All travelers entering the United States are Required to Declare meats, fruits, vegetables, plants, seeds, soil, animals, as well as plant and animal products (including soup or soup products) they may be carrying. The declaration must cover all items carried in checked baggage, carry-on luggage, or in a vehicle.” The food might contain dangerous pests. Not declaring it is a crime subject to fines up to $10,000!
It was an “Oh poop,” moment. Oh well. Having lived in California for many years, we were used to border checks for fruit. We either got rid of it before entering the state or declared it if we hadn’t. I’d stopped being overly concerned when the border checks were frequently unmanned. If we declared fruits, the guards told us to throw it into a nearby trash can, or eat it. So much for the dangerous pests.
When we reached passport control, Peggy bravely pulled the offending apple out of her bag and explained why she had forgotten it. “Here, you can have it,” Peggy offered with one of her dazzling, disarming smiles. “Or is there a place I can toss it?” The agent reacted like Peggy was offering her a dead rat with the bubonic plague. She grabbed Peggy’s passport and locked it up in a plastic box for Peggy to carry. “Follow that red line to Custom detention,” she told her. Suffering from guilt by association, I was directed to go with her.
We opened the door and a very stern looking fellow took Peggy’s passport and glared at the apple. We were told to go sit on the side with a lot of other people. We would be allowed to go when and If the agents found no more apples in our luggage, which, at the time, was going around and around on the Swiss Air’s luggage carousel. “Can I go pick up the bags and bring them back here?” Peggy asked. “No” was the terse reply. “You will not bring fruit into the country,” we were reminded again. We were very close to being criminals. Agents would go collect our luggage so we wouldn’t try to escape.
A sign declared we were to take no photos or record any conversations. I understood why. Four agents were standing in the back of the room sorting through a pile of garbage four feet high and four feet across, carefully pulling out each piece and examining it. I certainly wouldn’t want my photo taken doing that. I hoped that they were well paid. As for the no photos, I wasn’t going to take any photos of their secretive activities, but I really did want a photo of the apple.
I pulled out my MacBook Pro and opened Photo Booth. Positioning my apple where I wanted, I pushed the red cameral symbol. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP the computer went as it counted down. The wasn’t an ‘Oh poop’ moment. It was an “Oh shit” moment. I imagined guys with guns rushing over to grab me. I quickly closed my laptop and waited. Nobody seemed to have noticed. The problem was, I wasn’t happy with the photo.
Out came my laptop again, this time with the sound turned off. I positioned the apple just so (as you see it above) and snapped another photo. The only thing I could see in the photo that might be considered in the no-take area was a TV that featured Mr. Potato Head on the left and an orangish looking guy with horns on the right. Satisfied, I put the laptop away and we waited. And waited. Another family of four was in the same strait we were. The daughter had brought a closed package of beef jerky to give to her brother, which was apparently a crime even more serious than ours. Her father was roaming around like an angry bee.
A half hour passed, and then an hour, and then an hour and a half. Each time the agents brought in luggage, Peggy and the dad would jump up to see if ours was included. Nada. Once the agents brought in 20 pieces from a French airline. Who knows what that was about. Maybe the French were trying to smuggle in a hundred pounds of Foie gras. The French fellow they were holding couldn’t (or wouldn’t) identify any of the luggage. I felt for all of the passengers who were wondering where in the heck their luggage had disappeared to.
Finally, the dad went over to talk to the “Big Guy,” who stood about five feet tall, and asked if he could go out with an agent and identify his luggage. Maybe the fellow was feeling a little guilty about the dad’s long wait with children. He said yes. Peggy, who knows an opportunity when it knocks, ran over and requested the same privilege. Five minutes later Peggy and the dad showed up with the luggage that the agents hadn’t been able to find in two hours. Ten minutes later our luggage had been scanned, Peggy had her passport back, and we were free to go. It was one AM in Bucharest. We had been traveling for close to 24 hours. All’s well that ends well. We had been worried that the following photo may have shown our fate.
Wandering through Time and Place 