Backtracking - Australia

A look back at my Sydney and Melbourne trip in October 2017.

A Broken Jaw

So my newly bar mitzvah'd nephew was at the ball park Thursday, playing with his buddies in the outside field while his younger brother played baseball. He hit a pole and nearly knocked out his teeth...he would have but a very close family friend, he's been up to the cabin several times with the summertime crew, is the head athletic trainer at the colleges in their town and was there to push his teeth back in place and stop the bleeding. Massive amounts of bleeding. They rushed him to the hospital and middle nephew has to have his jaw wired shut for the next 4-6 weeks.

They play hard. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know how hard they play from our week at the hideaway. All 3 nephews are athletes. It's inevitable when both of their parents are coaches. They're not unfamiliar with pain. But a wired jaw is something else.

I was asked to make Jakee's Bar Mitzvah montage. My brother-in-law posted it to his facebook page the day after Jakee's accident and even though I spent over 50 hours looking and working on that video, watching it the day after his accident brought me to tears. The boy has such an amazing and infectious smile. And to think that he won't be able to smile for over a month, not to mention not being able to eat solid food...just breaks my heart.

My Beautiful Chatty Robin

We have 2 robins in the neighborhood. Maybe more, but 2 I can tell apart. And they like hanging out on the corner of our balcony in the afternoon when it's shady. I love watching them and listening to them sing. My desk is only about 8 feet away, and I'm very careful to not scare them away, at least I try not to.

Weekend in the Sierra

The cameras in mobile phones have come a long way in a relatively short time. I still 'need' my big DSLR, or at least I will when I finally replace the one that got destroyed when we flipped the boat last summer. But one of the main reasons I've been able to survive without a DSLR is because of my cell phone camera. It takes great photos. Plus it easily takes videos. But another added bonus? Google Photos, the app I use to view and edit the photos from my phone, magically creates video slideshows of any of your special events. It created this video all on its own and even added the music. It added some photos or video snippets I wouldn't have, but then again, it's completely instant gratification. And yes, I do like making video slideshows now and then, but right now when I can't even write a decent blog post, instant gratification is my very best friend.

As you can see in the video, we're in the middle of remodeling again. Remember the flood we had in December? Not only did it soak the floors in the bathroom where the leak originated, it soaked the floors in the hall, and even into the older bathroom. (It also leaked into the kitchen, but we're pretending not to notice that...la la la la la la...I can't hear you!)

Anyhoo, we were planning on remodeling that bathroom in the future, so this just made it happen quicker.
Here's a quick summary of events:

DECEMBER 2015
We walked into a soggy cabin. Mopped up everything that we could, bought some fans and tried to dry it out as best as we could.
Merry Christmas.


We pulled up the carpet...

and threw out the carpet pads, which were the most soaked.

JANUARY
Our contractor came by the next week and assessed the damage.
The leak started here. Burst pipe under the sink. Joe our contractor had to drill holes in the bottom of the cabinet so it would dry.

He got rid of the flooring.

had to drill holes in the walls so the walls would dry.

Thankfully the old bathroom was still usable, but the water soaked into the floors in that room, too.

February we didn't go up, and Joe did a lot of tearing down. So when we went in March, this is what we found:

MARCH
Stripped to the studs.
WOW, that bathroom is really big!

APRIL
Which brings us to the current month...
We have a tub. And insulation.

Much progress. We've been spending a lot of time at Lowes and Home Depot deciding and picking things out.

And all of it needs to be done by July when the family comes for Camp Retz.

It'll happen!

Wet Mule Deer In The Backyard

That Time We Flipped The Boat

This year's Camp Retz was a little more eventful than I would have preferred.

As the boys get older and stronger and more adventurous, the harder we (Jimmy and and his brother Steve) have to work at keeping up to their level.
This is their friend catching air.

Normally when you're on a tube behind a boat, the fun is hanging out back there and go as fast as you dare, but for the most part, just enjoying the ride.
It's still like that with the youngest nephew.

But the goal with the oldest nephews, who are now 12 and 14, is to whip them around back and forth as sharply and quickly as possible to try to dump them into the lake, while they try their hardest to hang on.


Reggie is 5'11" now, so it's gotten easier to dump him because he's taller and his weight works against. It's still very challenging because he's an athlete and is really strong and fast.

But Jakee is still nimble and small enough to be able to maneuver himself on the tube very quickly, adjusting his weight to the sharp turns.

This year, we were towing Jakee behind the boat, and did a sharp turn and hit our own wake at the perfectly wrong angle and within split seconds, the boat was upside down.

Thankfully everyone was fine. No injuries at all. My biggest panic as i was under water, was the boys. We had 2 boys on our boat, Reggie and his 15 year old friend. Jimmy was piloting the boat, and I was facing backwards taking photos of Jakee. It's funny the different perspectives we all have. I was sitting on the side that went in first, and it was sooo sooo fast. I didn't even know it was happening because I was concentrating on taking photos of Jake. The next thing I knew, I was in the water under the boat. Jimmy and the boys said it felt like slow motion as their side of the boat slowly flipped over. The boys were in the front of the boat and they jumped/dove into the water away from the boat as it was flipping. Thank God! They were never under the boat, which is such a huge relief to me. Jimmy's side flipped over me, but we never saw each other under there. He said he felt the railing and just pulled himself out from under the railing and was out. I had to crawl my way out from under. I was told I was the last one to come up. I was never worried that I wouldn't get out or drown, but I was definitely on survival instinct because I needed to make sure the boys were ok. That was all I could think of while i was under water...get out to make sure everyone is ok. I'm pretty sure as I surfaced, I took count, saw everyone, and asked "is everyone ok??" And they all were.

Jakee was the safest since he was quite a distance from the boat. He thought he just fell of the tube like usual, and never saw any of the action ahead of him because it all happened as he was falling off. When he looked up, he didn't see the boat and was super confused before realizing the boat capsized.
This is the last photo I took.
You can see the water overloading the front of Jake's tube, which made him fall in. I was snapping photos as the boat flipped.

The youngest nephew was on shore with his mom and dad. They saw it all happen and Steve immediately got in his boat to rescue. I can't imagine what they thought as they watched the boat flip. He was there within 90 seconds. When he got to us, we were laughing and retelling our stories. He was very happy to see all of us fine and even joking around. The boys quickly got onto his boat. Jimmy, Steve and I assessed what might have fallen to the bottom of the lake and what was crucial to recover. Like the keys to the car. Which I thought for sure were at the bottom of the lake because they were in my backpack, but we were relieved to find it floating under the boat.

We hooked our boat to Steve's and towed it to the dock. It was very challenging towing it because of the drag. It pulled Steve's boat in unexpected directions making navigating difficult. But we finally got it there. Reggie, Jakee and their friend went to get Max and Danny and all of our stuff from where we camped out for the day. In the meantime, Steve and Jimmy and 2 helpful strangers tried to upright our boat. It took a while, but they finally got a heavy duty recovery strap, hooked it to the hitch on our car and the far side of the boat, and got it upright.

We did lose a few things, and my camera and cell phone were damaged beyond repair, but the only thing that mattered was that everyone was ok.

And the boys had a great story to tell when they went back to school in August.

Here's a video from the GoPro that was attached to the back of the boat. It was filming the boys on the tube. We don't have any photos of the tow back to the dock, or uprighting the boat, because...well...my camera and cell phones were both water logged. I was able to recover the photos from the camera card though, so yay for that!


We've definitely learned a lot from this. We had the best outcome for something that could have been so much worse, and for that I am eternally grateful. The boys realize it was a big deal, not just another adventure. It was an actual boating accident. And we'll be piloting the boat more cautiously.
And remember to always wear your life jacket.

Rodeo Beach

This is the 3rd year Jimmy and I have gone to Rodeo Beach for our anniversary.



The sites and views along the way never get old.
The lowering sun made the Bay Bridge glisten.

The Golden Gate Bridge always looks good no matter the time of day or weather.

And every year I can't resist taking this snapshot, even with all that yucky smog.

There's a little bit of marshland between the parking lot and the beach and for the last couple of years, we've seen a handful of egrets fishing for dinner. Or maybe those are cranes. Or maybe the one with the outstretched neck is the egret, and the other ones are cranes. Even after a bit of googling, it's inconclusive and I'm more confused than before.

We had a little more time this year to walk along the beach before sunset. This year Jimmy took most of the photos with our big camera.
He took a snapshot of me taking our annual photo. A selfie of our selfie.

Here's a 2 minute slideshow of some of our photos and videos of the sunset at Rodeo Beach on our anniversary:

2014 Rewind

2014 was a good year for us. We traveled more than normal, we celebrated a big family coming of age event, we spent a good amount of quality time with close friends and family. Of course, there were a few low-lights, but by and large, 2014 was definitely one of the better ones.

Here's a quick video recap of some of the photos I captured through the year.


Wishing you a very Happy New Year!

_

Fall...ing down on the job

November is already 1/2 over and I have not started my annual November Daily Gratitude. Shame on me! Well, I'll start today and hopefully will continue thru the end of the month.

To start off with, here's a fun timelapse video of my nephew's bar mitzvah.

In case you're wondering, the reception was 'aloha' themed. :)

Sweetwater Mountains - Ride through the Aspens

It's a bit of a bumpy ride, but I promise it's worth it.

Beautiful California

Found this amazing time lapse video made by Hal Bergman.

Bergman wrote that his goal was to “cram all of the visually stunning things about the entire state, from coastline to mountains to deserts, from cities to wilderness and national parks, into four minutes.” This time lapse took Bergman over four years to make and the average clip in it took between three and ten hours to edit. (via Bold Italic).



You'll see the building where we live at 2:33. Can you find it? :)

Mazel Tov

We celebrated a big family event this weekend.

The oldest of the 3 nephews had his bar mitzvah.

What a huge event and amazing rite of passage.

It was our first bar mitzvah but not our last. 2 more to go after this.

Jimmy and his oldest brother had a part in the ceremony.

Two of Max's brothers came in from New York. Reggie had his 4 most influential uncles up there supporting him.

I can't express how grateful I am to be a part of this family, how much joy they bring to my heart and how much love I feel for them.

I was honored when they asked me to do Reggie's video montage. They showed it during the reception after the ceremony. It was a lot of fun compiling the photos and add music to it. It's a pretty simple video, but everyone seemed to enjoy it.

And. So.

Not entirely sure how I feel putting this out there. I've been practicing and playing for 6 months. Feeling very insecure about it, but feeling like I'm making some improvements. Still completely obsessed. Sometimes I wonder why I wasted 30+ years not playing. Wishing I were more musical and wishing this came easier. It's so very not intuitive for me. It's a struggle, every moment of it. Some parts are much harder for me to grasp than others, but all of it is tough. But I love learning. I love hearing music differently. I love listening to different music than I ever did before.

This is Pearl Jam's "Last Kiss". A sad song, but nice to play. It's easy to 'feel'.

I'm struggling with my strumming more than I do with chord changes. I can't seem to keep my strumming consistent. Even though it's still very rough, I can see slow improvements. I'm pretty passionate about this right now. Passionate enough to keep working through the tough parts.
Yup, video is flipped. Don't know how to flip it back.

Badlands National Park

I thought I was done reminiscing about our road trip, but here's one more video.

Hungry hungry chipmunks

Sorry guys, I'm not gonna feed you. But you are super cute!

home sweet home

We've been home for 11 days. Getting back to our normal routines.

Just finished a slideshow video of the highlights of our trip.
Click on the full screen icon or the Youtube icon on the bottom right side of the video to watch it bigger.

Dinosaurs and Ovens

There are actual dinosaur fossils in Utah!

In 1909, paleontologist Earl Douglass discovered eight dinosaur tailbones protruding from a sandstone hill in the Utah desert. This discovery was the beginning of a dinosaur quarry that ended up being one of the most productive Jurassic era quarries ever found.

In 1915, Dinosaur National Monument was established to protect and conserve that dinosaur quarry.

There were 10 different dinosaurs found in this area.
This jumbled mess of bones was created in a riverbed. The ranger said that something, perhaps an 85 foot barosaurus, jammed the river, creating a massive dinosaur bone jam, much like a log jam you'll see in any river. Dead dinosaurs from miles upstream would get caught in this jam and couldn't flow further down river. The flesh rotted away, but the bones remained. As years passed, they were covered and fossilized in sandstone. These dinosaur bones are 149 million years old. After millions of years, the earth shifted, pushing the riverbed upwards, making what was originally a flat river, a mountain.



The most common dinosaur found here was the Camarasaurus, a sauropod herbivore. Other dinosaurs found were:
sauropods (herbavores): Apatosaurus, Barosaurus, Diplodocus;
theropods (carnivores): Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus and Torvosaurus;
ornithischians (Beak-like herbivores): Camptosaurus, Stegosaurus, and Dryosaurus.

Phew. That was a mouthful. Did you get all that?

Nevermind all the official names, it was just very cool walking in the same spot that dinosaurs walked. I had never been overly interested in dinosaurs, but physically being in that spot was amazing. And kind of humbling - my (hopefully) 80-90 years on this earth is nothing. But I will make the very most of it, that's for sure!

The rest of our drive through Utah was fairly uneventful.
We saw some nice waterfalls as we got into Provo, but this journey didn't take us to Utah's more famous Arches, Bryce or Zyon National Parks. Another year perhaps.

All of Nevada is desert.
Miles of endless desert.
Pardon the spots. Sometimes you gotta shoot through a bug splattered windshield.

But now and then, you can find a hidden jem in this desert wasteland.
Like these Ward Charcoal Ovens.

They were built in 1876 to turn timber into charcoal to be used for the nearby silver mines. They're 30 feet high and 27 feet in diameter at the base. They were only used for 3 years, till they ran out of timber and ore.

Afterwards, they were used by prospectors and stockmen for shelter during harsh weather. More notoriously, they were used as a hideout for stagecoach bandits.

Here's a simple video I took of the ovens.


This one, lead by a state park ranger, is more informative.

Yellowstone Day 1

We arrived in Yellowstone today. We'll be here for 3 days, there is so much to see!

There's still a lot of snow here.
Not just in the mountain tops, but along the road.

Most of the lakes are still covered with ice.

But then there are the hot springs, mud pots and geysers.
These were in the West Thumb Geyser Basin.

We walked about a mile along a boardwalk that had several bubbling geysers, springs and mud pots.
It was very warm and steamy walking by them. It was like being in a sauna. Except it was also very stinky, like sulfur.

Most of them weren't this intense azure blue or this clear. These almost make you want to jump in, except the beautiful colors are caused by different bacteria and the water is close to 200 degrees. Oh yeah, you'll also smell like rotten eggs.

Of course, we had to see Yellowstone's most famous geyser, Old Faithful. Although it wasn't very faithful on it's time. It was suppose to erupt at 7:13, give or take 10 minutes, but it was about half an hour late. But it was worth the wait.

And the Beehive Geyser gave us a very nice opening act, erupting about 15 minutes before Old Faithful did.

And we were always on the lookout for wildlife.
We saw elk.

Bighorn sheep.

And buffalo everywhere. It's pretty spectacular. They are huge beasts and just kinda lumber along, not paying much attention to us humans.

Here's a quick video of some just sauntering by us on the road. Not a great video, but it was so cool watching them just walk on by so casually.

Bullwinkle J. Moose and Company

We saw moose yesterday! 2 by the side of the road and 2 wandering around at the ranch we're staying.