I would like to report that California is alive and well. I only saw one brush fire, the power is on, shaking is minimal, and the L.A. River has a trickle in her concrete bed. We left just as the current heat wave was beginning. Timing is everything.
My sister, who has had recent bouts of cancer, collapsed lungs, kidney shut down, and visits from her little brother, is doing fine. She still lugs around a bottle of oxygen, but sheer determination has brought her back to the point where she has been to Hawaii (the Big Island) and is on her way to Laughlin (we all know where that is) later this week.
She lives in Camarillo, which is near Oxnard, which is near Ventura, which is near Los Angeles and while we were there, we piled into the Mazda and drove up to Santa Maria, which is near... never mind. We just happened to run into my niece and her two kids and my cousin at my nephew's house. It was a minor family reunion.
WMM and I missed our planned visit to the NEA convention because of my wrecked knee. The L.A. convention center is a place where you must walk a lot.
In a nutshell, the trip went like this:
Left home 5:30 a.m., Saturday, I think, drove to the Knoxville airport and caught a 737 to Chicago. They put us in First Class. In Chicago, the flight we intended to take to LAX was overbooked and no standbys got on. The man said the next flight was also overbooked by 39 soles, but that a flight on the other side of the hall was going to John Wayne airport in Orange County, but hurry. We got on the AirBus and they put us in Last Class, litterly the last row in Coach. But we had a window and for the first time ever, the weather was clear all the way to the west coast. I plainly saw the big rivers, (Mississippi and Missouri) the big round wheat fields, the Rockies, (a little snow left) the desert, the canyons, the Sierras, the San Bernardinos, the San Gabrials, the Chino Hills, and the Santa Anna Mountains (very close up).
At John Wayne, we caught a commuter plane and they put us on what passes for a seat, again with a window. You are never very far from a window on those little cigar planes, and you always bump your head at least twice, but the view was fantastic! We took off west, circled over the Pacific, coming back in over Long beach. Then we circled low and slow over the city to land toward the west at LAX. It might have lasted 15 minutes. Then we caught another cigar to Oxnard airport and again a brief flight over the ocean, back in over Marina del Rey, circled over the mountains and came in over miles and miles of vegetables. Another short but senic ride. My sister met us at the gate(Oxnard only has one) without her oxygen bottle. That was the first indication that her recovery was continuing.
This is too long. I'll continue in another post.
Howard