La Nebbia

It was mildly foggy this morning, enough to be eery but not hamper the commute. It made me think of two incidents from my distant past. The first time I really experienced thick fog was returning home to Orange from BYU for the Thanksgiving break in 1976. I'm pretty sure I was with Stuart Campbell and we dropped off a guy named Peter in Victorville. Then as we descended the Cajon Pass into the San Bernardino area we entered a very dense fog in the middle of the night. At times it was so bad we rolled down the windows to try to see the lines in the road. (We also found that headlights can actually make it harder to see through the fog but left them on so as to be seen by the other cars dumb enough to be on the road.)

I have another vague memory of driving south from the Fresno area at night (probably home from family camp) ?by myself? and encountering a similar situation. My recollection is that it lasted for a couple of hours and was SUPER dangerous.

Southern Caribbean Sep 2018

We just got back Sunday night from a very nice cruise with our "new BFF's" Michelle and Steve Young.

Once again we were drawn to the Caribbean. We hit three new spots and returned to Grand Turk. We love to do the snorkeling there.

It's a little nerve wracking to plan a cruise to the Caribbean during what is still considered Hurricane season. Actually, though we traveled to Aruba and Curacao which are considered to be too far south for the big storms. About a week before we left Florence made landfall in North Carolina. There was also Helene on its heels. But, she turned north up the Atlantic. And also Isaac which sorta petered out in the Lesser Antilles.

I kept checking the weather forecast before the trip and It looked like we would be fine except it might be windy in Aruba. During the voyage the on board app would occasionally show that we would probably get rain during the later part of the trip. But, it all turned out great. Our first sea day was a little windy and our second was little hazy. But, there was plenty of sun and only one slight sprinkling of rain the whole week.

This is us right after getting on the boat and consuming our first prime rib.

Our first port of call was Princess Cays in the Bahamas. I hadn't ever noticed this port on the Carnival circuit until after the 2017 hurricane season when it seemed it began taking some of the load off Half Moon Cay. It is quite close and very similar. The water temperature the whole week was a couple of degrees better than I was expecting, usually in the 86-88 degree range, very nice. Snorkeling at Princess Cays was fun and not taxing or dangerous. We enjoyed our spot even though we understand now we could have had more seclusion to the south side of the tender port.

Here is Steve modeling his new full face snorkel mask. I tried it out and like it a lot. Might have to get one.

This group of fish was swimming just off the lifeguard pier, probably waiting for food to be thrown to them.

We did the Chukka tours Ultimate snorkeling adventure in Grand Turk. The neatest feature is the wall where you can practice diving deep. Unfortunately, they make you wear the silly emergency inflate vests. And, I swear there is some residual air in them which makes it that much harder to dive. My little underwater camera is great and all. But, we sometimes have trouble figuring out how to get it in the proper mode. It defaults to video and I think it's probably best to shoot stills. Plus, you really can't see the screen underwater so you are flying blind the whole time. I "took" tons of pictures in Grand Turk when the camera really wasn't powered on. All we ended up with was a bunch of inadvertent video shots, from which I was able to scavenge a couple of screen shots.

Snapper fish in Grand Turk.

This port was also greatly damaged by the storms of 2017. In rebuilding they added to the Las Vegas atmosphere of most of the resort area. It's best to go south of the Carnival pier for more privacy.
I don't really have too much trouble getting down to about 30'. But, it would be nice to be rid of the vest and have free diving fins to try to go further.

The first sea day during almost all of the daylight hours we had a large group of Boobies accompanying us on the port side only. It was quite entertaining to watch them glide and then dive for fish, leaving a turquoise trail in the water. They were attended by a couple of large Frigate birds who almost never flapped their wings. It may have been the effect of the wind across our bow that kept them with us and only on the one side. The rest of the week we saw very few seabirds.

Curacao was fun. The ship was in port from 8:30am to 10:30pm. We hired a bus tour that took us around the island for a couple of hours pointing out the sights and teaching us the history and the culture. After that tour, they dropped us off at a lovely beach (Mambo beach) that was crowded with TOO MANY people. We eventually made the best of it and quite enjoyed ourselves.

Part of our group was an extended family. They had left some of their kids on the ship. One young woman was trying to figure out how she could get back to the boat and bring her son to Mambo beach because she knew he would love it. She changed her plans around some and then came back to the ship the same time we did so she could retrieve him and take him back. Later the next day we made a wrong turn down a corridor on our deck and ran into her. So, we were able to ask her how it all went and if her son enjoyed it. Then after we got straightened out we also ran into a young black couple we had chatted with while boarding the cruise. In retrospect it seems we were supposed to make that wrong turn and run into them. We never did see them again.

We were scheduled to leave Aruba at 3:30 so we debarked early and hired another bus to take us to a beach. After the experience at Mambo beach we were careful to explain what we were looking for. Snorkeling was important. But, relatively small crowds were more important. Even at that while the driver was taking us probably to Arashi beach we discussed further. He directed us to Boca Catalina beach which is just south of Catalina Cove where he actually dropped us off. The only drawback was any facilities were a 5 minute walk up the beach. But, they were not needed. This spot was perfect and may be my new vision of paradise.

This is a place where a lot of the snorkeling excursions bring their patrons. But, they didn't come to the beach. The water was perfect. The sun was only occasionally obscured by small thin clouds until about the time we were leaving. We had about 4 hours there. We parked our towels under a Jacaranda tree in front of a couple of private residences. We shared the space with some birds and small lizards. Shell hunting was very good here. We evens saw a couple of  chitons which I haven't seen in forever. When I wasn't in the water, I was lying on the sand at the waterline letting the waves lap at  me. Afterward I would have to go rinse the sand from my shorts.

Angelfish in Aruba.

California Lighthouse.

Pretty sure that was a Royal Caribbean boat.

We hadn't planned on doing much in Fort Lauderdale when we returned other than get an uber or someone to take us to Church. As I thought about it we felt it would be best to have a taxi take us to the airport where we could rent a car. Our flight wasn't leaving until 6:30. So, we had some time to use. There was an English speaking ward meeting at 1pm. But, once we got the car we drove to the chapel to see what we would find. We met some very nice people including Brother Terron from the High Council. He said the Spanish ward was meeting at 11am and also that his ward was having a linger longer at noon. He persistently encouraged us to go to the Spanish Sacrament meeting so we could then attend the lunch at noon. Well, we hadn't quite had our fill of food yet. So, that's what we did.

We met a senior missionary couple, the Gunns. Turns out he is the brother of Roger Gunn who was in the mission with me and Michelle. Also met some nice Elder and Sister missionaries and participated in a birthday celebration for one of the eight year olds. The Elders showed us the park next door.

The chapel in Fort Lauderdale is on very nice grounds. We thought the mossy Oak trees were especially fun.

Adjacent to the chapel is a park that abuts the South Fork of the New River.

We then drove out to see their Temple. Although we couldn't get very close. It is very lovely.

A couple of notes and observations: We booked our rooms at the same time as the Youngs and right next to each other. We thought it would be simple to arrange to dine at the same table and time. Not so. We could have arranged it at 8:15. But, that's too late. So Lenore and I got to know some strangers and so did the Youngs.

Lenore and I shared a table with Tammy and Joe Leal. He is a personal injury attorney who lives in Phoenix and she is a nurse and runs a labor and delivery clinic in the Seattle area. And yes they live apart. They were very nice and charming and we had similar interests and personalities. It was not difficult to share part of the evening with them.

We've only sailed out of Miami (and Long Beach). On our previous Caribbean trips there was a fair number of black people. It didn't seem remarkable given that probably a fair number of Miami cruise patrons are locals unlike us. Well, the Fort Lauderdale cruising crowd was remarkably black. I would say perhaps even one-third. It turns out that Broward County has almost double the percentage of blacks as Miami-Dade.

Another notable thing, we noticed not a small number of mixed race couples and mixed race groups obviously traveling together. In light of all this and the current racial climate in the country, everyone seemed intent on going out of their way to be friendly and cordial.

We went to three shows and two of the comedy performers. Everything was quite well done. One of  the on board performing groups, Smooth Operators, had a female lead vocalist with an amazing voice. There was also a remarkable male singer in the performing troupe and two very good female voices.

La Caille in May

This last Spring was pretty momentous for our kids. Ailsa passed the Nevada bar in early May (whew!) Jensen graduated with her Masters degree in the Entertainment Arts & Engineering program at the UofU. And Laney graduated from SLCC with her Associates degree and then Itineris High School. (We remember with delight when she moved from Kimber to Itineris and was in TOTAL crisis mode because she didn't think she had been prepared for a "real" high school, hah.)

Well, since Lane never got much of a celebration when she graduated Kimber and it also seems we missed out on something for Jensen along the way, we decided to splurge and take the whole family to La Caille for a fancy dinner.

We've maybe only been 5ish times before. A couple times for receptions. It is rather expensive. And Lenore isn't super excited about spending a bunch of money so frivolously. It did cost us $500, and it MAY only be perhaps 25% better than a $100 restaurant. But, it's a nice treat every 10 years or so.

We were seated out in the gardens and were admonished not to feed the peacocks because they get emboldend.

One of the specials was a 36 ounce Tomahawk steak at $150. I'm sure it was yummy. But, we gave that a pass.

Jensen and I had the Filet Mignon, Mom had the Chicken, Ailsa had the Seafood Fumet, and Lane had the Scallops and risotto. All of the food was top drawer. They also brought us several additional complimentary things.

The charcuterie plate was to die for. I had truffles once before in a risotto at Michealangelos that I really didn't care for. The truffles in the charcuterie were very tasty.

We had Opera Torte, Bananas Foster, and Creme Brulee for dessert, along with some complimentary treats to help us celebrate all of our accomplishments.

Mission Reunion 2018

We had a nice cozy mission reunion back on 16 June. It involved a session at the newly remodeled Jordan River Temple. We had about 20 at the temple. We are starting to get OLD!

Later that evening we had about 30 at the Settebello restaurant in Farmington. I've been to the Salt Lake location before. We really enjoyed ourselves. The food was very nice. Laney attended with us. The charcuterie plate was amazing. We sat with Glenys Tobiassen and her husband and had a lovely time talking to them. Briefly got to see Blake Ostler and his wife. Just a very nice evening.

Huntington Beach 2018

Another super fun time at the Beach this past August. We needed to drop Laney off at SUU on the way back. So, we drove both the Lexus and the Rav4 down to Saint George and left the Rav there while we went to the beach. Mom had hip joint replacement surgery on the first of the month and was still in the rehab place when we stopped there. We stayed into Sunday morning because Leslie had her Paris Abroad friends at the beach house until Sunday afternoon and we were supposed to delay our arrival until after that was over. It was pretty hot in Saint George. Our car got up to 122 sitting in the driveway. We visited mom a couple of times and gave her a blessing.

I think we were cursed for travelling on Sunday. We left around 11 after Sacrament meeting. The drive to Las Vegas to pick up the kids took an extra hour because a car fire maybe 20 miles past Mesquite had the traffic literally at a standstill. That was annoying enough. But, after we picked up Jensen and Ailsa in Las Vegas we had to deal with all of the return traffic to LA from LV after the weekend revels. That added probably another 2.5 hours to our drive. Not fun. I was kinda hoping we might be able to catch Leslie's friend Lisa Little (who I know from the Washington Seminar) before she left. They were already all gone.

The surf was high the whole first week. Even when we went to Corona del Mar. I did go in and body surf a little during the swell. But, I'm super mindful of my lack of oxygen processing ability now. Perhaps if I was able to do it regularly, I could regain some power and stamina. Also, the water temp was SUPER nice, around 74-75 the whole time. Quite a bit warmer than I think I have ever seen it there.

I'm trying to take a picture of me and Ailsa on the bikes. This is returning from the Huntington Pier. I did get my churro at a fun little shop right on PCH.

Since the surf was heavy a very large wall of sand developed at the upper end of Newport. At its highest it was 5-6 feet. For this picture we were horsing around trying to make it look like it was difficult to navigate.

We went to CDM at my insistence. Because it's a fairly nice "family" beach. We went on Friday knowing that Saturday would be a mob. Well, Friday wasn't much better. We need to go on a Tuesday or Wednesday. Since the surf was so high, the lifeguards didn't want people in the water past their knees unless they had two fins. I caught a couple of nice waves. They were higher than I have ever seen here. Usually they are laughably small.

I took everyone to see Hidden Cove. They really enjoyed it. Although, they want to go back when it isn't so crowded. We think lots of people sought it out because they could enjoy the water at will since there is no surf there.

We attended church at the closest building. After Sacrament meeting Melody Conforti came up and said hi. It was nice to see an old friend from the Orange III ward. Also, chatted briefly with a young man who had been translating for a Spanish speaking member and another member whose name was Tad. The translator's name was Todd. He was quickly showing us video of himself surfing at the Kelly Slater ranch. JEALOUS! The family had much to say about my slipping right into the rhythm of the place and the bizarro similarities between me and Todd and Tad.

After leaving late Tuesday night and sleeping at Ailsa's apartment, we dropped Laney off in Cedar City without a hitch and made it home by about six. All of the cats are looking at us like, "What did you do with the girls?"

A River Runs Through It, Trois?

Almost annually, when the Taylor's come to town, we visit them at their cabin near Sundance. I think I've posted about it ?two times? before. The family has often gone on hikes up to Stewart Falls. This is the first time I have made the jaunt. You go to the end of Brickerhaven Road and then just keep going. We had fun. It was a little taxing, something like a mile and a half with 500 feet elevation rise, but beautiful. Everyone went on the outing, including family dogs, Ilo, Binky, and Roxy. And, also a foreign dog named Enzo, tagged along with us. He's the bigger Australian Shepherd in the pictures.