Merry Christmas, Part 2

In addition to the family photo that I posted in the previous post, we took one outside with all of the dogs.

Despite my considerable misgivings about getting nine adults, two children and SIX dogs all in the photo and sort of presentable, we managed to get the following in only two shots!

If you're interested, here's who's who in the photo...

Cathy and I are on the far left, with Dodger and Copper. To our left are Jill, sweet baby James, and Joe. Heather is holding Madeline in the center. To her left is Lefty - she's Scott and Sara's three-legged rescue dog; Sara is holding her. Scott is right in front of Sara, with Koufax the giant golden doodle dominating the front of the picture. Sherry is right behind Scott, holding Sammi, Jill and Joe's dog. Dan is on the far right, with Eddie, his and Heather's black-and-white mutt, next to him.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all! I hope your Christmas was as memorable and enjoyable as ours was.

On 12/22, the family all gathered at a hilltop cabin outside of Paso Robles, a small city in central California that is widely known for its wineries. Our weekend home was right in the middle of wine country; you can see vineyards below our place:

On Sunday, daughter Jill, a high school biology teacher, insisted we drive over to the coast to see the elephant seals. While this was primarily a quasi-educational experience for five-year-old Madeline, the rest of us enjoyed the drive and seeing the seals. Elephant seals get their name for the proboscis that adorns the male seals, as well as their size: full-grown males weigh as much as 5000 lbs; the females are much smaller.

The seals literally litter the beach in this little stretch, a few miles north of San Simeon.

Because of travel and work plans, we celebrated Christmas a day early. Here’s the whole clan - minus five of the six dogs we had on site!

It got cloudy the evening of the 24th, with rain showers in the night. We also enjoyed a spectacular rainbow; the photo below doesn’t do it full justice.

Here’s another shot after the clouds blew through…

Pismo Beach

Yesterday we left Redlands - where we had a most enjoyable stay - and drove to Pismo Beach, some 250 miles away. Pismo is on the central coast of California, just about halfway from LA to San Francisco.

The truck ran great, on this the first occasion where we pulled the trailer with the new transmission. We didn’t observe any funny noises; the truck seemed to upshift and downshift normally. The route was fairly flat, so there really wasn’t an opportunity to see if the transmission temperature was OK (our truck has a transmission temperature gauge).

We’re staying at a beautiful RV park, Pismo Coast Village. This place is immaculately maintained. It’s right on the beach, just south of downtown Pismo.

Right now, we are enjoying absolutely perfect weather. It’s 72 degrees out, calm and not a cloud in the sky.

Pismo is noted for having a wide, flat beach of hard packed sand. In fact, a portion of Pismo Beach State Park is open to vehicular traffic. The pic below was taken on our walk this afternoon, right at low tide. The beach is probably 250 yards wide, from the surf line up to the dunes.

“It Was Forty Years Ago Today...”

On Monday, December 18, 1978 I did something that changed my life forever: I walked through the door at Pilot Chemical Company and started my career as a research chemist - the best job I ever had.

It was quite a day, starting off eventfully. We were staying at the Motel 6 on Pioneer Blvd. It was raining when we got up - and we had a flat tire on the car.

Despite these issues, we managed to get me to work on time. Cathy dropped me off and went to look for a place for us to live. She found a house to rent, came and got me to look at it and made all the arrangements. After work, we had keys made for the house, had dinner and drove to our apartment in Thousand Oaks, some 60 miles away.

Not only did working at Pilot change my life, it changed those of Cathy and all the children. While I was in graduate school, I had a 30+ mile commute to UCLA. After that, I vowed I was going to live close to work; this vow was the driver for us settling in Whittier, the city adjacent to Pilot’s location in Santa Fe Springs.

We ended up living in Whittier for almost 30 years. Cathy enjoyed a 20+ year career in the East Whittier City School District. All four children were born, raised and educated in Whittier.

I never dreamed I’d spend my entire career with one company, but I did. In hindsight, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Musings...

We’re hitting the road tomorrow. We’ve greatly enjoyed our little sojourn here in SoCal, but we’re more
than ready to move on. Tomorrow we are heading for an RV park in Pismo Beach, some 200 miles or
so north of here. We’ll be there for a few days, then heading to the house we’ve rented in nearby Paso
Robles. We'll be with the whole family there for Christmas.

Meanwhile, here are some (semi-random) things on my mind…

Freeways

We noticed this when we moved to Cincinnati from LA. In Cincinnati, the freeways are nearly all
interstates (71, 74, 75 and 275). They are all identified as such, being called “I-75” and similar. In LA,
that’s not the case. Although most freeways are interstates, a goodly percentage of them are US or
state highways; as such, the “I-” designation won’t work well. Here, freeways are largely identified
using the important adjective “THE”. One does not speak of “I-5”; rather, one talks about getting on
THE 5 (or THE 91, 405, 101, etc.). We got some funny looks in Cincinnati when we spoke of THE 75,
until we realized the error of our ways.

Freeways in SoCal have names, too, but they are rarely used.  In many cases, the vast majority of
people don’t know the freeway names. I’ll bet that not one person in ten knows that the San Gabriel
River Freeway is the official name of THE 605. Even if they did - who in their right mind would say that,
instead of THE-six-oh-five?

Traffic

We realized a number of years ago that we have no interest in ever living within the Los Angeles
basin ever again. That three of our children do so is the only reason of any validity. Even so, that is
not a sufficient reason. They all work full-time, and live fairly large distances apart. As such, they
rarely see each other.

The real killer is traffic. If you live more than, say, 20 miles from someone, traffic is a constant worry.
Driving 20 miles might take 20 minutes - or it might take 80 minutes. Retired types can usually manage
the timing, but not always.

When I worked for Pilot in California, by intent we lived close to work. The longest commuting distance
I had was 6.5 miles. It never took me more than 15 minutes to get to work. Cathy’s commute was even
less: 1.5 miles. Neither one of us ever had that grinding, stressful and expensive commute each and
every day.

Cathy’s Sojourn

Cathy spent three days last week out of town with two good friends. It was our friend Judy’s 65th
birthday on the 13th, and the three of them met for a girls weekend away, doing girl-type stuff. It was
probably good for both of us to spend a little time apart. Since July 1, we’ve been together just about
24/7. Like any two people in a relationship, we’ve got different interests and desires and it’s good for
the relationship for those to be attended to occasionally.

The U of R

I mentioned in an earlier post that Cathy graduated from the University of Redlands, which is located
just a few minutes away from where we’re staying. One day last week we rambled around the U of R
campus. We were both surprised at how little the main campus had changed, although there was
significant expansion of the University along its periphery.

I got significant husband points by reminding her that it had been some 44 years since she last saw
the campus!

What’s Next for Rick and Cathy?

So, what is next for us? Our transmission cost us a Thanksgiving in Washington. Our original plan was to leave Orcas Island and gradually make our way south through  and Oregon. We’ve got Christmas plans already set up with the family: we are renting a house in Paso Robles, CA, which is roughly half-way for all of the kids.

Since we’re now in SoCal we’re not going to see Oregon and Washington right now. Our current plan is to stay put here in Redlands until the 18th. We’ve got reservations at a place in Pismo Beach for a few days. Our rental of the house for Christmas starts on the 22nd.

After Christmas, we’re spending a week or so back in SoCal, then heading to Tucson, AZ for six weeks. After that… it’s time to get back on the road again!

Meanwhile, we are enjoying the nice weather here. We’ve seen the girls a little bit, although we are on the opposite side of the LA basin from all of them. That means an hour-plus drive time, without even considering traffic - something no Californian would ever do. Yesterday, for example, we were privileged to go to San Clemente and babysit the grandkids while Jill and Joe went to a Christmas party.

We’ve both got projects in the works, making Christmas gifts. We’ve also decorated our home a little bit, as you can see below…

Redlands is a nice community of some 65,000, located approximately 60 miles due east of downtown LA. When Cathy went to school here it was a quiet little place surrounded by orange groves. Well, the orange trees are pretty much all bulldozed under. The land they sit on is far more valuable being turned into subdivisions and strip malls, in the insatiable desire for growth that is omnipresent in Southern California.

We’ve found some nice places in the foothills to take the dogs hiking. The pic below was taken earlier today. That’s Mt. San Gorgonio, the highest peak in SoCal at some 11,500 feet, on the horizon.