Christmas with family!

We visited my little sister's family, on the central California coast, for Christmas! It was a fun visit. We only stayed for a week, and it seemed to hurry by so fast, it hardly felt like we'd gotten off the plane, before we were getting back on another one to head home.

We had a late morning flight, but with the holiday fast approaching, we wanted to be at the airport with plenty of time, so we called for an early ride. With Mandy being an in-cabin pet, they wouldn't let us check in online, so we needed to get all three of our boarding passes and check a bag, take Mandy to the pet relief area, go through security, and still have time for breakfast before boarding. It was a good thing we got there extra early, because the line to check a bag was longer than I've ever seen it. It wound all around, using up all of the normally "optional" queue space, then wandered out into the main terminal, and wrapped around two corners with a long corridor between them. United did a great job of keeping it moving, though, and it didn't feel like it took that long. The line for security wasn't so bad, since we both had our TSA Precheck clearances. Once we got to Concourse B, we had breakfast at my favorite restaurant in Denver International Airport - Pour La France!

Mandy was a super good traveler, once again. She put her head down before takeoff, and slept until after we had landed, and people were starting to get off the plane. Then she looked up inquisitively, with one of those "are we there yet?" kind of faces.








I snapped a few pictures while we were flying, but this one was the most interesting to me. The Sierra Nevada mountains had a lot of snow!







We started our visit with another of those delightful walks around Atascadero Lake near my sister's house. My grand-niece is getting to be a real "little person" with a personality of her very own. She's such a sweetie, when she wants to be!





My sister had "no room at the Inn," so I booked us a room at the Carlton Hotel in downtown Atascadero. I've been wanting to try this place. We liked it a lot! The king size bed was super comfortable, with a down quilt, and all the other amenities were very well executed. They also had done a wonderful job of decorating the hotel lobby for Christmas. Did you notice Mandy peeking out from behind the arm of the chair?



My nephew and his wife (they married last summer!) hosted a delicious Christmas Eve dinner, in their cozy basement apartment. They worked so hard to make it an amazing experience for all of us.







We spent Christmas morning opening gifts at my sister's house. Sis didn't want to be cooking breakfast that morning, before preparing her big Christmas dinner all the rest of the day, so I texted everyone before we left the hotel, and offered to bring whatever people wanted to order from the nearby Coffee Shop. Nobody responded, so I figured nobody wanted anything. At the last second, one of them asked for something, and then they started giving me everyone else's order. I think we finally got everyone covered for breakfast. About two hours later, when we were finishing up our gift-opening frenzy, everyone started announcing that Sumner wanted to know everyone's breakfast order. It turns out that it took two hours for my group text to be delivered on Christmas morning! Maybe it got delayed with all the Merry Christmas mobile phone traffic? Good to know for future holiday mornings!

We stopped by Morro Rock, the last of the Nine Sisters peaks in San Luis Obispo county. When I was in college, we used to go to Morro Rock, to try to see the Peregrine Falcons, a protected species that was known to nest there. I don't remember ever seeing them back then, but we sure got to see a lot of them on our visit this time! It was a real treat! My pictures of the falcons showed them very small and unexciting, so I'll just show you this pic of us by the Morro Bay inlet, with the harbor in the background. It's exciting to me, to know that the falcons are flying right over our heads here!

The friendly concierge offered to take this picture of the three of us travelers in the nicely decorated hotel lobby, before we flew back home. We really did enjoy our trip, and especially this place. It didn't feel so bad, having to leave my Sis's house each night, knowing we were coming back to such nice accommodations. The evening concierge took a real interest in Mandy, which made our comings and goings all the more pleasant.







Home safe and sound! Even with as much fun as we had visiting family, we were happy to get back to Littleton, and our cheerily decorated home. There were a bunch of Christmas cards waiting for me when I got home. I am glad for the real-time updates that social media like Facebook provides, but I have to say, I really *love* looking at the delightful pictures that people choose to send at the end of the year, and reading the summary notes about how they've been doing - it's one of the highlights of my year! For many years, I was too emotionally overwhelmed to send out my usual Christmas letters, or even to handle the logistics of getting some cards sent. I'm starting to perk up a little lately, and feeling like I'm able to send out a few cards, but I still get overwhelmed, when I start thinking about what to say in a holiday letter.

Hudson Gardens Lights!

We enjoyed visiting the Hudson Gardens holiday light display tonight! It was quite cold - a little below freezing - and even all bundled up, we were glad to be done, and heading off to a nice hot dinner afterwards. They don't allow dogs, so Mandy had to wait for us in her nice warm bed in the back seat of my car.

We loved this reindeer "pulling" a sleigh, with very cool sparkly stars above. Lots of people were clustered around, waiting to climb into the sleigh for a photo opportunity.

Fun series of conical tree-lights. These lights were driven in coordination with the music that was playing on loudspeakers nearby. I had to wait for awhile, to catch them all on at the same time!

Really impressive lighting on this large tall tree. This was the display farthest into the gardens. They had Santa waiting for the kids to come visit, right near this tree.

Nice perspective provided by these fence-mounted lights along one of the wide paths in the gardens.

Nicely lit rocks at the exit, gave us a cheery attitude, as we headed off to sit by the nice warm fireplace at Panera Bread for dinner.

Cuba! exhibit at DMNS

We enjoyed our visit to the preview of the “¡Cuba!” Exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. I learned a lot, reading about the history of Cuba on the various displays, and seeing the interesting representations of current and past life there. Most people know about the Cuban cigar industry, but I wasn't aware of their reputation for having so many classic old cars. They're taking the lead on urban farming, and are providing guidance to other cities around the world. They have a fantastic underwater park, Gardens of the Queen, on 850 square miles of reef south of Cuba. There were also some fascinating displays of animals that are unique to Cuba. I especially enjoyed the display of the words and works of dozens of Cuban artists. They had some touching quotes from people that migrated here, about what they wish for Cuba in the future.

We moved on to the “MindBender Mansion” exhibit sponsored by Anschutz. Lots of challenging puzzles for the enjoyment of children and adults alike. So many fun puzzles in the MindBender Mansion exhibit! Finally, an excellent series of examples for “thinking outside the box!” I've heard that phrase used inappropriately, by so many people who have no idea. I think we need to understand the box, before we start trying to think outside of it.

New word: Adduce

I learned a new word today - Adduce: To cite as an example or means of proof in an argument. The context was... [the judge rejected the government’s challenge and approved the merger with no conditions imposed, citing the government’s failure to adduce “economic evidence of any kind” and reliance on “bare conjecture” as the basis for its case.] It's fun learning new things, but I suspect I won't think to use this word any time soon.

Estes Park

Kind of a whirlwind visit to Estes Park - in and out in about 24 hours, courtesy of Jennefer’s tricky work schedule. Glad I got to meet her cousin! We went for a short walk down to Lake Estes on Friday afternoon after we got there. It was cold and windy, but we saw some beautiful views.



 

So it’s “bugling season“ in Estes Park, and apparently that means you never know when you’re going to run across a bunch of elk in town. We saw this herd just down the street from our hotel on Saturday morning.





 

We enjoyed a somewhat strenuous hike up to Kruger rock, in Hermit Park, southeast of town. There were still a few Fall colors to be seen.

There's a spectacular view from the top of the hill - of Estes Park, Lake Estes, and the surrounding area!

Visit with Sis

Mandy and I spent a fun week visiting my big sister and her dogs, cat, and chickens on the northern California coast. Such a beautiful area. Mandy was once again a great little traveling companion, taking the voyage in her regulation-size airline pet carrier in stride.

We went on lots of walks and hikes in the lush Arcata forests.

My sister has beautiful redwood forests within walking distance of her house. Such a treat.

Mandy liked exploring the forests at her own pace. I think she really enjoyed getting to explore the forest off-leash.

Three independent dogs, and three possible ways to go. It figures, that each dog would position themself at a different choice.

Hike to St Mary's Glacier

We hiked up to the ridge above Saint Mary's Glacier on Labor Day Monday. We made it up much higher than I've been able to climb here, so far! One or more, of time, weather, energy, and poor planning always seem to conspire to keep me from my goal of making it to the actual top. This time, it started to rain/snow on us. And, hey, the glacier is back! Small and separate (there are actually three small glaciers right now), but it's here. Mandy was once again our intrepid hiking guide dog. Once she realized that I wanted her in front, she did a great job leading us up the loose rocky trail. She made lots of friends, of people and other dogs.

Looking down from above St Mary's Lake, with the bottom of St. Mary's Glacier a little below us. We were about halfway up as far as we were eventually going to get.

Looking around at the height of our climb, a little above 11,000 feet, it's mostly high tundra up here

I'm always a little amazed, at how well Mandy does on our mountain hikes. She's such a little dog, but she acts like a big old mountain dog. Here she is, leading the way back down toward the upper part of the glacier. Nice view of the mountains and weather off in the distance.

Here's a striking view of another hiker looking down on the lake, from the ridge across the glacier from us, with some rain clouds in the background.

There are some interesting twisted pine trees around St Mary's Lake!

Hike from Echo Lake

Enjoyed a gorgeous hike at the beginning of the Labor Day weekend. We started from Echo Lake, tried an interesting trail that headed West away from the lake, got partway up that trail toward Chicago Lakes, and turned around at Idaho Springs Reservoir. Mandy is such a great little hiker! We saw the beginnings of some of the Fall colors that make our mountains so pretty. We finished up with dinner at BeauJo's Pizza in Idaho Springs, on our way home.






Pretty view of incoming weather while we were hiking.

Mandy had no problem leading the way on the trail. Beautiful view of the mountains off to the west of us. We didn't make it that far!

Our intrepid little hiking guide, Mandy led the way across the creek with no hesitation.

Brighton and Marissa's Wedding in San Simeon

Jennefer and I  just got back from attending a beautiful outdoor wedding, at the end of San Simeon Point, on the central coast of California, just a teeny bit west of Hearst Castle. My nephew Brighton married Marissa, his fiance of two years, after a sweet surprise proposal at Disneyland, one of the places they both love to play. Wishing the two of them the best life ever together!



The one mile walk to the wedding site from the beach parking lot seemed so short, with all the before-and-after wedding excitement, that I barely remembered to take any pictures. I was also preoccupied with trying to run a GoPro video camera that they had given me, as their videographer for the walk out, and the wedding. Here's a pic that I snapped on the way back, with my sister, her best friend, my girlfriend, and my sister's daughter in law. That's William Randolph Hearst State Beach, below us in the background.

The wedding site was so pretty itself, with an awesome Pacific Ocean view, that we almost forgot to look the other way, and notice Hearst Castle up in the hills, just a bit inland from us. The fog was rolling in below us, which made the entire site look beautifully surreal.

We had several fun family breakfast gatherings at the Country Touch Cafe in Atascadero. We also went for a few walks around Atascadero Lake, near my sis's house.

Short bike ride!

Fun! Jennefer and I  went on a short, introductory / calibration ride around the block - my first ride in years. Lots of stopping to adjust things. No injuries! All in all, a good first ride.

Dad's 99th birthday

My sister and her husband joined us in Littleton for a few days of fun, then the four of us flew to Florida, to visit Dad for his 99th birthday. My cousin from New Hampshire joined us there. Dad had started out saying he didn't want any kind of party, but by the time we got there, he had a dinner for 20 planned! I invited my friend Jennefer to come meet my Dad and his friends, and she changed the family dynamic of our visit, in a very nice way. With some encouragement from my cousin, we did a few extra fun activities, like swimming in the pool at Dad's condo, exploring Morikami Gardens just inland from Del Ray Beach, and walking around MacArthur Beach State Park near my Dad's, all of which we enjoyed a lot. And... Jennefer is now my girlfriend :-D

Fun X-Plane adventure!

I tried out a high-end Asus ROG Strix gaming laptop computer from Costco, hoping a faster computer would make the X-Plane 11 flight simulator run at realistic speeds. It *was* fast enough to run X-Plane in real-time, but had some quirks I decided not to live with. For anyone interested, my big issue was about how hot and noisy it got, when trying to keep up with the complex flight simulation graphics. I was also thrown off by the small solid-state drive. Solid-state drives are cool, because they allow very fast access to applications and data. The man at Costco told me it was going to be a 256 GB drive, and it turned out to be only 128 GB. After installing just the one application, X-Plane 11, that drive was over half full. That didn't bode well, for future software installations. I was also annoyed by the lack of keyboard indications (the usual three lights) for the caps lock, num lock, and scroll lock modal keys. When I used the computer for everyday things, I really missed those lights.

Still, I did have a blast during the 90 day trial period (thank you Costco!), flying the little Cirrus Vision SF50 personal jet Northwest from Denver to Steamboat Springs, Jackson Hole, Missoula, Spokane, and Friday Harbor, then North up the coast to Ketchikan, Juneau, Anchorage, and Fairbanks, then Southwest to Kenai, King Salmon, Cold Bay, and Dutch Harbor, before turning back Northeast, and threading my way back along the coastline to the continental USA, by way of Sand Point, Kodiak, Homer, Yakutat, Sitka, Prince Rupert, and Portland.

I tried lots of different flight conditions: day and night, clear and cloudy, rain, snow, ice, and fog, flying into large metropolitan and small unattended airports. The ground scenery, starlit night sky, sunrises and sunsets, and weather effects were so beautifully realistic! I was able to setup a connection over my WiFi network, to my iPad, so I could use the Foreflight app to plan and execute each leg of the trip, in the exact same way it would be used on real flights.

Each night, I flew a different leg, or multiple legs, of the trip, depending on how late I wanted to stay up. Omigosh, it was way too much fun and time-consuming, for a working stiff - so it's a good thing I'm retired! I was very sad, to have to return that laptop computer, as X-Plane 11 runs too slow on my old desktop computer, to be usable at all.

So, I've got two takeaways from this experience: 1) I need a new, fast, quiet-and-cool-running computer to run X-Plane some more, and 2) I need to win the lottery, and buy myself one of those really cool personal jets!

Sad event last night

I'm feeling sad for the pilot of the Cirrus SR22 aircraft that crashed near here last night. Because of the events that made me into who I am today, I continue to have an insatiable thirst for the details of these things. It was cool, overcast, and drizzly last night, with cloud based reported at 6800 feet - about 1000 feet above the airport - and it was after sunset and getting dark. I got online at liveATC.net last night, and listened to the recorded radio transmissions between Centennial Tower and the Cirrus pilot, from his 8:11:11 VFR takeoff clearance, to his admission at 8:17:24 that he thought he would return to the airport, mixed in with a series of requests from the tower, for him to avoid other aircraft on the final approach course, until he asked at 8:18:30 for a repeat of the wind numbers, when the tower offered him a choice of runways. Wild guess on my part – but it sounds like a VFR pilot blundering into IFR conditions, or an IFR pilot attempting to scud run. He sounded a little overwhelmed to me. It didn't help that the tower controller was getting very irritated with his failure to comply with instructions. So sad for the individual, but it also sounds like there was a little bit of luck, for the big news story to not be about a midair collision in the clouds last night.

If you want to listen, the audio recording starts at 8pm, so the time numbers are minutes and seconds after 8.
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http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kapa/KAPA-May-12-2018-0200Z.mp3
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Free Sound Effects!

Kinda cool: The BBC is offering more than 16,000 free sound effect samples for download from its archive. I don't think I have the time or the storage space to download any of these, but they're fun to listen to. Here's the online blurb that announced them:

Attention all sound effects enthusiasts! Over 16,000 classic BBC Archive sound effects and field recordings, from air raids to zebras, are available on the BBC Sound Effects Beta: http://bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk/ -- they are FREE to listen to, or download and reuse for non-commercial purposes.

Dining Out For Life!

April 26: Dining Out For Life! After Kristan's leg was amputated, Project Angel Heart was there for us, when we were having trouble putting healthy meals on the table on short notice, with our weird schedule. Every Saturday, they would drop off a week's worth of diabetic-thyroid-kidney-patient-friendly frozen meals for her. Then a month later, after I broke my ankle, and was bedridden for awhile, my sister Mikele (❤️ thanks again sis) asked them to drop off meals for me too, which they did, and it really helped us out in that time of need. They didn't charge us anything, but once things quieted down, I started making regular donations, to make it up to them. I also try to take advantage of this "dining out for life" event every year, by simply going to a restaurant that donates to them. I would love it, if anyone else did that too, in her memory, or for any other reason. They mailed me a brochure with a list of the places in the Denver metro area, but you can use the link above, to find places near you that participate, if you're interested.

Walk around Echo Lake

Super cold, very windy walk around Echo Lake. Fun adventure! Scenic drive on the back roads! Pretty iced-over lake and snowy surrounding countryside! A challenge for Mandy with her new boots (they didn't last long)! Did I mention it was windy and COLD?! Good test of the gaiter-mask-hoods that Jennefer bought us! We had a satisfying hot lunch in Idaho Springs, after surviving our cold windy walking adventure.

Rejected again

Well, I was called for Jury Duty again, this time for Arapahoe County, which requires me to drive way over past Centennial airport, to the Justice Center over there. I've been called so many times over the decades, and never made it onto a jury. This time, I made it all the way into the jury box for about 30 seconds. I took the place of a potential juror that had just been excused by the prosecution. Within seconds of moving to the front row, the defense attorney chose me for one of his peremptory challenges. This felt a little like the last time I was excused. I suspect that when they asked me to list my favorite TV shows in their initial questionnaire, my answer probably made a difference. I said, "Blue Bloods." ;-)