Following the lead of my mentor, friend, and exemplar, Tami Moore, this is a weekly article to document progress in meeting my writing goals as described here.

I use an Excel spreadsheet to track all my work by category (blog post, copyediting work, creative writing) and item. So all I need to do is add up the “words” column and I’m good to go. I’ve also decided to give this article half-credit, since I do a bit more than just paste boilerplate and fill in numbers (see the next section, for example). However, it will be counted in the following week’s total.

Blog posts and creative writing count full credit (with the exception of this weekly article, which counts half credit). Copyediting for other writers is counted at ten percent of the actual word count for the document; style sheets for that copyediting will count twenty-five percent. Editing my own work, if and when I get to that point, will count fifty percent of starting word count. 

How Did I Do?

My weekly goal is 2,000 words. This week, I published three articles to the blog, one of which was a creative writing effort.

• Weekly Word-Count: February 5 – Blog Post @ 50 percent: 317 words
• Feather Path,How Chapter 7: "Betrayal"¹ – Copyediting @ 10 percent:  266 words 
• Darklight, Chapter 2 (continued)  – Creative writing: 1627 words

Total: 2,217 words. Still on target, but I’m (only slightly) concerned that my output has been steadily declining the past few weeks. Of course, I can attribute that to the distractions of being on vacation. And until I really commit myself to doing some serious writing, whether on Darklight or other fiction, that excuse will work. 

On a more positive note, when I wasn’t writing, I was reading. And as Tami (and others) have stressed, if you’re going to be a good writer, it’s every bit as important that you read. During the two weeks I spent in California, I read six novels. That’s six more novels than I read in all of 2009; in 2008, I think I read one. And believe me, I experienced yet another epiphany. While I didn’t doubt those who preach that writers must also be readers, it’s a completely different thing to arrive at that conclusion empirically. 

As I read Robert Ludlum’s The Ambler Warning, it struck me that, thus far, Darklight contains a lot of dialogue. In fact, Chapter 2 (at least the part I’ve written so far: there are still a couple scenes to be drafted) is almost completely dialogue. Of course, part of that dialogue is a pretty dramatic scene, which also provides quite a bit of insight (I hope) into the character of the heroine. But now I understand that I can communicate just as effectively, and doubtless more concisely, through narrative instead of dialogue. I can’t wait to put this discovery to the test!

Florida

If you’ve been following the blog for any time at all, you know I’m at the Walt Disney Resort through the 17th. Today was one of those days a parent (or, in my case, a grandparent) lives for. Alison woke her mother at 4 a.m. this morning, urging her to "Get up! GET UP! We need to get ready to go to Disney!" And she was every bit as animated all afternoon, after flying down from St. Louis and being picked up at the airport by her dad. 

We finally got to the Magic Kingdom shortly after noon, and she was running and skipping everywhere, until we left for the day about 5 p.m. The glowing smile and ready laugh she had all day long lightened everyone’s step, and I had as much fun watching her have fun as anything I’ve done in a long time. It’s going to be quite a week.

Poor tyke: We were discussing dinner plans, and she proclaimed she wanted steak. So we found a steakhouse, but the was really starting to lose it, and the grilled cheese sandwich and fries appealed much more than steak. She managed to eat half the sandwich; not sure she had even one fry; drank about a third of her milk, before she laid her head down on Grandpa’s lap. At that point, we transferred her to Mom’s lap (roomier on that side of the booth), and she was lost to the world, including a 20-minute trek through a Publix while the adults stocked up on groceries to last a few days (breakfasts, at least).

Still…I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings at Epcot (I was last there in 1983 or ’84). Well, except for the steady rain that is forecast to bring us at least a half-inch of rain. Ugh. Beats the hell out of two feet of snow, though!

Weekly Word Count: February 12 is a post from: Kestrel's Aerie

 

In Los Osos, we’ll celebrate my wife’s birthday, when we’ll be joined by her childhood friend (later this year, they’ll be going to Italy’s Amalfi coast to celebrate a half-century of friendship—delayed a year due to the passing of my wife’s mother last March). The following week, Janet’s brother and his wife will join us for a few days, and I’m hoping we get to do a bit of wine tasting, as well as enjoy a couple excellent local restaurants.

The day after we arrive in Orlando, our granddaughter and her parents will join us for the week—the Disney parks vacation was Alison’s Christmas present from her parents, and they were kind enough to allow us to join them. I’m really looking forward to revisiting Epcot after an absence of over 25 years.

We arrive home again on February 17, and we can only hope that spring will be edging its way into the Black Hills. However, I won’t be at all surprised by a lot of snow and bone-chilling temperatures, either.

Complicating our packing for a three-week trip is the fact that the weather along California’s central coast is expected to be in the 50s to low 60s during the day, dipping into the lower 40s and upper 30s at night. By contrast, Orlando should be in the low- to mid-70s. Hence, we’re packing for both climes, which means jeans, long-sleeved shirts and sweatshirts for California; shorts and tee-shirts for Florida: a quick way to increase the weight of your luggage by a third.

We don’t have Internet access at our vacation house in Los Osos; because it’s not used year-round, Janet and her brother (rightfully) agreed the expense of cable for TV and Internet wasn’t warranted. Instead, I have a Verizon USB wi-fi modem; however, I’m limited to 5GB per month. So, I expect to be able to check mail once or twice a day, and perhaps download my feed reader to the hard drive. I do expect to be able to keep up the blog, but articles will probably be shorter. And, I should be able to continue with my copyediting projects for Tami, Bre, and Iris. Obviously, WoW is out of the question: While my laptop can handle the game easily, my data plan can’t. At least I’ll save the weight of my laptop mouse!

I don’t know if I’ll be able to watch the Super Bowl, but I’m hoping for a barn-burner of a game. And if the Saints win, so much the better!

Talk to you again from (not-so) sunny California!

Kinda Sorta AFK is a post from: Kestrel's Aerie

 

Welcome back to what is part 3 or 4 (maybe 5?) of our four-week journey last month from Rapid City to St. Louis to Los Angeles to Los Osos and back to Rapid City. Whew! That took almost as long to type as it did to drive!

Los Angeles

As I related yesterday,, we arrived in L.A. on Wednesday the 18th, a bit later than originally planned. Nonetheless, we were not at all late for dinner; in fact, there was definitely time for a couple of Bill’s homebrews beforehand. One of the nice things about being “grownups” is that Bill and his sister (my wife) get along very well. Mrs. K and Bill’s wife Cookie are as much sisters as any blood relatives. And I manage to fit in pretty well too (convenient, no?).

One thing we all share is a love of good food and good drink. I believe I’ve mentioned before that not only does Bill brew his own beer, but he and his friend Jim make their own wines as well. They’ve won awards for reds and whites, and Bill’s Zinfandel is a particular favorite of mine. Every time I visit, I be sure to snag a few bottles to bring home.

On Thursday, we were all up early. Mrs K and Cookie went to Curves, and dropped off the van at the Toyota dealer. I watched what little coverage there was of the first round of the U.S. Open.

Later that morning, while Bill was at work, the other three of us took a large amount of investment coins (Mexican Libertads, a couple Krugerrands, some Canadian Maple Leafs, and some US Eagles) and a bit of jewelry (all of which had belonged to my mother-in-law) to the Torrance Women’s Club, where three numismatists/gemologists from a local shop were holding an appraisal clinic. 

While we were in California in March, I’d inventoried many of the coins and researched their values using current spot prices for silver, gold and platinum. Thus, we had a ballpark idea of their worth. When the appraisal of the 100 silver Libertads came in within $100 of my estimate, we were confident we were going to get a fair price for our coins and jewelry. To make a longer story shorter, we walked out about 90 minutes later with almost $10,000 in cash.

We celebrated with Mexican food at a nearby restaurant (not quite fast food, but very good nonetheless), then went shopping a bit. We needed some necessities of some sort at Target, and since we happened to be very near a Wild Birds Unlimited store, we stopped in and I selected my anniversary present: a Tilley LTM6 Airflow hat in natural with green underbrim. If you noticed the picture of me in the preceding article, I need considerable head protection from the sun. While baseball caps work, they don’t protect the ears, and they don’t travel well. The Tilley meets both requirements splendidly.(Thanks to @Llanionfor the recommendation!) (And no, that’s not me in the picture, although the hat does make me look almost as dashing! Courtesy, Tilley.com)

We then returned to the Toyota dealer to pick up the van. The oil was changed, and so were the wiper blades. Turns out the large black plastic piece we found outside Needles was in fact from the Previa: It’s an air vent filter; nothing critical. We once again tossed it in the van and headed back to Bill and Cookie’s.

Friday, we went to lunch with our friends Karen and Mike, as previously documented. Saturday was a pretty leisurely day, although Bill and I did spend an hour or so wandering around Fry’s Electronics. I tried not to drool over all the gear available, and to my credit (or shame; you be the judge) I didn’t buy anything.

Saturday evening, however, was a meal to remember. Bill smoked some pork ribs, and I promise they were every bit as good as those from the best Kansas City barbecue houses. Every. Bit. My birthday wish-list contains one item: A Weber Smoker. We also had the best macaroni and cheese ever, and that’s coming from someone who generally does not like baked mac’n’cheese.

Sunday was breakfast at the Lighthouse Deli in San Pedro, with Bill’s friend Jim. Sunday breakfast at the Lighthouse is a weekly tradition for Bill, Cookie and Jim, and we’ve joined them whenever we’re in town. For the first time since we’d been in L.A., the “June gloom” (morning overcast, or “marine layer” of fog) wasn’t present, so we sat outside. The food is great, good portions, and some unique dishes. Bill, for example, enjoyed the beef stroganoff omelet. I stuck with a somewhat more traditional buckwheat waffle. The coffee is excellent, and they’re quick to keep you topped up. All in all, a great Father’s Day breakfast!

Once we got back to Bill’s, we loaded the van, then the three of us (sans Bill) headed up the coast to Los Osos. After a quick food stop in Santa Maria (and to pick up a lug of fresh strawberries) we arrived at “the cabin” around 4 PM.

Los Osos

The cabin is Mom’s mobile home, a very nice double-wide she bought about five years ago. She had all the inside walls and ceilings plastered, as well as several other upgrades, so it looks much more like a real house than a mobile home.

The reason we call it “the cabin” is because when Bill and Janet were young, their folks build a bungalow in Morro Bay, which was always called the cabin. So the mobile home (located in a park for folks 55 and older) has become cabin #2, since we decided to keep it as a vacation home rather than sell it (at least for the time being). It’s within easy walking distance of grocery stores, banks, hardware store, bakery, cafes, and Los Osos is ideally situated in the heart of the Central Coast wine country.

The next few days were filled with sorting and pricing items for the estate sale, scheduled for Friday for the park residents, and Saturday morning for everyone else. I’ll not bore you with the details; suffice to say, my mother-in-law managed to accumulate a LOT of stuff over 81 years. Since we are keeping the house, there wasn’t a lot of furniture to move, but what there was, was plenty heavy and awkward. Bill came up Thursday morning, so he and I spent some of Thursday and then Friday morning moving stuff around.

Bill and Mrs K also spent some time on Thursday dealing with their mother’s estate, transferring accounts under the trust she established. All I’ll say about that is, between my military retirement pay and my wife’s inheritance, it’s nice to be able to be retired in our mid-50s.

Friday evening, Cookie’s daughter Deana drove up from L.A. Deana’s one of my favorite people in the world: Her joie de vivre is contagious. Besides that, she enjoys beer as much as Bill and I do! On Saturday, while Mrs. K and Cookie collected cash, Deana, Bill and I put a serious dent in two pots of coffee and made sure things didn’t fall down (i.e., we leaned against them to keep them in place).

Shortly after noon, we started boxing up the remainder (which was a lot!). About half went to the mobile home park for their annual yard sale; the other half we donated to Hospice of the Central Coast. The money we earned from the sale is being reinvested into paying bills and upkeep on the cabin (less what we spent for dinner Saturday night).

At 6:30 we arrived at Giancarlo’s in Morro Bay for dinner. We had reservations, but our table wasn’t available yet, so the hostess offered us a glass of wine while we waited. This was our first indication that the evening would be a memorable one. This was, again, one of the five best dining experiences I’ve had. Certainly, the company had a lot to do with it. But the food, wine, and service were top-notch too.

I had a lamb shank osso bucco that was just perfect, full of flavor. Mrs. K had the Crab Cioppino, and the waiter offered to buy her dessert if she could finish it. We ordered four desserts and were charged for only three. Deana had a swordfish steak that was firm and flavorful; it almost made me regret my choice. And Cookie’s scallops…my favorite mollusk…mmmmmmm. Bill had a duck comfite that was the best duck I’ve ever tasted: Firm, flavorful, well-seasoned.

There was also a two-man combo playing “old standards” (well, not that old—they played some great Elvis ballads). They were good, played to the diners, and we were very appreciative. When we realized that this year marked the 60th wedding anniversary of Bill (Sr.) and Ginny, Bill and Cookie’s 25th, and our 35th, we requested a song in Bill and Ginny’s honor. To say it was quite an emotional moment would be stating it quite accurately.

We finished up with dessert, as I mentioned. As is my habit, I ordered the tiramisu. It was good, but not great. I am starting to get the feeling that truly outstanding tiramisu is a myth. Or perhaps I really don’t care for it as much as I used to think I did. It’s a truism that no two tiramisu are identical; given that, I should probably abandon my quest for the World’s Best Tiramisu, because if I ever find it, I’ll continue to be disappointed ever afterwards.

Sunday morning we went to breakfast at The Sculptured Egg in Baywood Park (it’s hard to tell where Los Osos ends and Baywood Park begins; essentially, they are twin cities). We’d eaten there in March, and it’s probably one of my favorite spots for breakfast. Mrs K and I split a stack of pancakes and a cinnamon roll. After we returned home, Deana headed back to L.A., while the wife and I started loading the van.

We had a cedar chest, a jewelry chest (48” high with base), a wine chiller, and two sets of china (among other things) to put into the van. By lunch time it was filled, and I could still see out the back window. But it pretty much precluded any shopping stops on the way back to South Dakota! I suppose I should have taken pictures; I guess I’m still very much not a photojournalist. I’ll try to do better in the future.

Sunday evening we went out for fish and chips at our favorite place on The Embarcadero in Morro Bay. Monday morning, Bill and I loaded up his truck with all the stuff he and Cookie were taking to Hospice House in San Luis Obispo. By 9:00 AM, Mrs K and I were on the road.

The Trek Home

Our journey home was optimized for time, and we wanted to make the trip in two days. The first day (Monday), we traveled to Bakersfield, then Barstow to Las Vegas, cutting through a corner of Arizona before heading north on I-15 in Utah. The desert was hot, the drive was generally boring. Thank heavens for the iPod. After eleven hours on the road, we spent Monday night in Cedar City, then headed out again about 8:oo AM Tuesday.

We had no trouble getting through Salt Lake City, although there was one slowdown for a rather nasty-looking accident shortly before we hit the Loop around the city to head up to Wyoming. While the climb through the mountains from Salt Lake to Evanston, Wyoming, is quite beautiful, our poor loaded 4-banger struggled with the climbs, dropping quickly from 75 to 65 to as low as 50 mph in spots.

In Rawlins, we turned north on US-287 toward Casper. We ran into a few showers, and saw considerable lightning, but managed to avoid the really serious thunderstorms. From Casper, we headed south on I-25 for a bit, then hit US-18 towards Lusk, north on US-85 to Mule Creek Junction (yes, it really is called that), where we hit US-18 east through Edgemont, SD, up through Hot Springs, and into Rapid City. We walked in the door, after 14 hours in the saddle, at almost precisely 11:oo PM. We were in bed by 11:30…although the cats were so happy to see us home again (especially Mom), they pretty much ruined any chance at a really good night’s sleep.

The End

The cedar chest was moved to the guest bedroom this morning, and the jewelry chest will head down to Eric and Diane’s, either in August, or more probably in October. And now, it’s time for me to find a place for that wine chiller in the basement.

Coming up in the next few days, I’ll be writing about some personal goals I’ve set for myself, and showcase a few websites I’ve added to Google Reader in the past few weeks. I may even squeeze in a WoW article or two!

Finally, thanks to all of you who have continued to subscribe to the Aerie’s RSS feed, including the 20 or 30 new subscribers in June who pushed me comfortably over the 800 subscriber mark, despite only three articles all of last month. I promise to do better!

Odyssey Concluded is a post from: Kestrel's Aerie

 

Amarillo to Winslow

On Tuesday the 17th, we woke early and were on the road for what was a short day (thankfully, after the marathon of the day before). We soon hit the New Mexico state line, and stopped at the New Mexico Welcome Center. Over the years, I’ve become an expert on rest areas, and state welcome centers are generally among the best in a given state (I must say, though, that Missouri sure seems to have some of the best rest areas in the country, along I-70). New Mexico’s I-40 welcome center, just west of the Texas state line, rates an A+ for comfort, design, information and friendliness of staff. My wife practically had to drag me out of there!

So we continued on toward Winslow, Arizona, our stop for the evening, as I mentioned earlier. The trip was uneventful, and for the most part, the scenery is pretty wonderful (as long as you like deserts; however, the Painted Desert is definitely a pretty one!).

We arrived in Winslow by mid-afternoon, and were able to check into our room at La Posada Hotel right away. La Posada was everything we expected, and more. The rooms were quaint, and each is named for a famous former guest. We had the Jimmy Doolittle room, which was great, as this airpower pioneer is a hero I’ve long admired. The grounds are extremely lovely, and inside is a veritable museum (although some of the artwork is a bit…different).

Since we had some time before dinner, we thought we’d take a stroll down to the kitschy, Route 66 part of Winslow.¹ We even took each other’s pictures on that street corner made famous by The Eagles:

Well, I’m standin’ on a corner
In Winslow, Arizona
And such a fine sight to see
It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford
Slowin’ down to take a look at me.
Come on, baby,
don’t say maybe
I gotta know if your sweet love
is gonna save me.

We resisted the temptation to buy any of the souvenirs at either of two corner shops (in the picture, I’m facing one; the other is across the street to my right), figuring our pictures would suffice.

Dinner: The Turquoise Room at La Posada

That evening, we enjoyed one of the five best meals I’ve ever had, at La Posada’s Turquoise Room restaurant (and please don’t ask me to list the other four!). In the photo below, our table would be the one in the lower left corner (you can see the tops of two chairs, but not the table).

To follow along, check out the dinner menu. We started with an appetizer, Piki Bread with Hopi Hummus.² (I was also enjoying an absolutely fantastic draft lager from a local microbrewery; unfortunately, the name escapes me. From now on, I shall be taking copious notes on food and drink for this blog!)³

For her entrée, Mrs. K selected a sampler (not shown on the linked menu), which included a range-raised quail and a chili of bison, elk, lamb (and probably armadillo as well, according to her brother!), and tamale in a cactus flower, while I thoroughly enjoyed the Locally Raised Churro Lamb Sampler Platter, with a glass of MonteVina Syra. One thing we decided even before we arrived was that we would be saving room for dessert! From the menu:

Yeah, it was that good! Can’t think of a better way for us to have celebrated our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary (even if it was a few days early).

Winslow to Los Angeles

Wednesday, we woke early, decided to pass on breakfast at La Posada (next time, though!), and got on the road by about 7 AM. We had hopes of pulling into my brother-in-law’s driveway about 3:30 PM. Alas, the best-laid plans…

The previous day, we’d encountered a fairly strong crosswind while driving across New Mexico and the eastern half of Arizona. As we approached Flagstaff, it seemed to me that somehow our front-end alignment had gotten out of whack, and I mentioned to my wife that in addition to an oil change (which our Toyota service hadn’t provided when we asked them to make the ‘92 Previa “road-trip-worthy”), I would have the alignment checked in L.A.⁴

Flagstaff is a beautiful city, and is the gateway to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. It’s also home to Northern Arizona University. It was drizzly as we climbed the mountain toward Flagstaff, and we actually had some rain in and around the city. As we headed down the western side of the mountain, however, the drizzle tapered off and we had one of those gorgeous days you get in the desert, with the bluest of skies, peppered with big, white, fluffy clouds.

As we continued on toward Kingman, I noted again how much the van seemed to be pulling to the left. Suddenly, I heard (and felt!) a loud “THWAP-WHACK-WHACK”. Of course, I was in the left lane, having just passed a semi. I immediately took my foot off the gas, checked behind me to be sure I could safely cross to the right, and hit the button for the emergency flashers. I pulled over as quickly and safely as possible, stopped, and we got out to survey the damage.

Surprisingly, all four tires were fully inflated. Even more surprisingly, and somewhat frighteningly, the tread from the left-front tire was wrapped around the axle and CV boot! It had completely separated from the tire at 75 mph. No, the tire was not a retread. It was, however, about 6 years old, and for the past 3 years has gotten little use, except for sitting out in South Dakota’s fickle, and extreme, weather. More on the implications of that in a bit. My first concern was that none of the cables (brake, power steering) going to the wheel were damaged; fortunately, everything appeared to be just fine.

Now, I was praying the (full-size) spare was inflated; it was! We had the tire changed in 30 minutes, which wasn’t too bad considering we’d never had to change a tire on the Previa before. On pins and needles, we drove the last 20 miles into Kingman.

Our trusty Garmin GPS had located a Goodyear tire dealer right off the first Kingman exit, so we went there. The manager took one look at the tires and noted they had considerable sidewall rot from exposure to weather over the years. He also noted that tires should generally be replaced about every 5 years, to preclude just the sort of thing that happened to us.

When I’d taken the van in a couple weeks before our trip, to ensure everything was in good shape, I’d made a point of asking the service manager to (a) check the tires to be sure they were up to a 5,000 mile trip; (b) replace the wiper blades. They didn’t do (b), and as for (a): He assured me we had “plenty of tread.” Well, duh! The tread went all the way to Lincoln’s chin!⁵ 

I had been fully prepared to replace the tires, had Toyota indicated it might be advisable. So it was with no hesitation that we had the Goodyear folks put on four new tires, while we walked over to a nearby Denny’s for a belated breakfast. In the meantime, my wife phoned our sister-in-law to let her know our arrival would probably be closer to 4:30 that afternoon.

An hour after arriving in Kingman, we were on our way again, and I was feeling a lot better than I had the last 20 miles, believe me! Soon, we hit the California state line near Needles. As beautiful as the Painted Desert is, the desert between Needles and Barstow is some of the most Godforsaken land in the US. And I’ve seen a LOT of the US!

About an hour past Needles, we stopped at a rest area (California, you get a C-minus on I-40, and I’m being generous). As I pulled into the space, I heard and felt my tire hit something; sounded like it was under the left-front tire. Oh great! I got out and pulled out a large, black plastic piece of automobile, but no way to tell if it was from the Previa, or had possibly been there and I hadn’t seen it. It had a gash in one side, which may have been caused by me hitting it; it was also hollow, and had some dust or dirt inside. So who knows how long it had lain there? I took a quick look under the van, but couldn’t see any immediate indication that it came from the Previa. The absence of fluid on the ground (other than AC condensation) was encouraging at least.

I went to the restroom and came back to the van. I asked Mrs. K to watch under the vehicle as I started it and backed out, to see if there was any evidence that we had a problem. As I turned on the engine…a dash light came on and didn’t go out. Now what? “Check engine oil.” Well, first I checked the owner’s manual: This indicator, if it comes on and stays on, indicates oil level may be low; check and add oil if needed. Okay, fine, we may be a quart low. Not a problem; I can get a quart at the next service station. Still, it was unsettling. As for the mysterious plastic piece: We tossed it in the back, and decided to see what happened if we drove on.

After about a minute, the oil light went off, and nothing else untoward happened as we continued our trek. At the next opportunity, we pulled off at a convenience store, and I added a quart of oil. The oil light didn’t re-illuminate, so I was completely confident we were fine there.

Eventually (about 4 PM.) we approached L.A. Throughout the entire trip to this point, I’d driven within a couple miles of the posted speed limits (generally, 70 or 75 mph on the Interstate). As we got closer to Los Angeles, the speed limit dropped to 65, then 60, and finally down to 55. I tried to follow suit…and was passed by everyone! Understand, I basically learned to drive on the freeways of Los Angeles, and I still feel comfortable there, but things have changed—a lot!—over the past 30 years or so since I’ve driven there regularly.

We saw a diamond lane (carpool lane, 2 or more people per vehicle) and since we had quite a ways to go on that particular freeway, I hopped into it. Soon, I was doing 70, then 75, and cars were still exiting the lane, passing me, then reentering. Sorry, I was NOT going to do 80 there.

As we moved from one interchange to another, the gas gauge started dropping (the last quarter tank in the Previa seemingly disappears in 15 minutes of driving). My wife was concerned that we might not have enough to reach Bill’s house. However, gas stations are not as ubiquitous at every off-ramp as you might think.

Eventually, we got off the freeway—at 5 PM., the height of rush-hour—in Bell. Yeah, right where I wanted to be, in the barrios. Not. It is an unfortunate fact of life in East Los Angeles that anglos aren’t completely welcome in all parts of that area of L.A. However, we drove around, finally using the GPS to locate a gas station, got $10 worth, and pressed on.

We were perhaps 15 minutes from my brother-in-law’s at the time; I think we could have made it, but hated to chance running out of gas on the freeway. We pulled up at Bill and Cookie’s driveway at 6:00 PM. on the dot. The first thing Mrs. K said to her brother was, “Steve needs a beer.” (He brews his own, and it’s excellent!)

Tomorrow: Odyssey Concluded

Odyssey Continued is a post from: Kestrel's Aerie

 

Sunday will be a large family brunch in honor of my mother-in-law and her approaching 81st birthday (Feb. 29, so she really doesn’t get one this year). All told there will be 15 of us at brunch. Our immediate family will stay in the area through Wednesday, when we’ll drive back down to the Los Angeles area for some sightseeing and a Thursday trip to Disneyland for my 4-year-old granddaughter (not that the rest of us won’t be enjoying the Magic Kingdom, either!)

Friday night my brother-in-law is hosting dinner, complete with his home-brewed beers and homemade wines. Should be a fantastic evening. Then on Saturday, back to reality (i.e., freezing temperatures, snow, ice; in other words, winter in the Midwest).

So for the next 8 days, there won’t be much going on at the Aerie; however, I do have an add-on review scheduled to debut on Monday morning. In the meantime, Happy Valentine’s Day, Happy Presidents’ Day, and enjoy Love is in the Air!

On the Road Again is a post from: Kestrel's Aerie