The new HVAC is installed and working. It’s very quiet if we are in the basement. I can’t even tell if it’s running when I’m upstairs. That’s a welcome change.

The week went by fairly quickly for Danita and me, but for different reasons. Danita suffered from frustration trying to get medicine to Bud. She isn’t permitted to go to Bud’s apartment. She can drop off a bag of stuff, or Bud can take a bag of stuff down for Danita to pick up. The frustration came in trying to explain to Bud what stuff Danita wants. Danita made two round trips to Riderwood this week and has called either Bud or Riderwood at least once a day. It looks like this might be resolved Monday, when the last medicine is due to arrive at the drugstore.

My week went by quickly because I was working on a project to change the security system for our website. Several residents contribute content to the website. We fence them off so they don’t step on each other’s toes. The old system was incredibly complicated, failed if we updated the software, and in general was falling apart. The new system is simple, clean and works very well. I spent most of the week doing tests with this website. Today I spent all morning installing the new system (took about an hour) and removing the old (took about 4 hours). It’s all up and running, the documentation is written, and everything looks great.

Another thing that’s helped is that supplies are more available. Danita has been able to buy ground beef, chicken, and bacon. Most paper products are still extremely scarce, but our household stock is in good shape.

Riding the bike has been great for me this last week. We’ve had mild weather and there’s less traffic. I have some rides that use trails. Unfortunately, those aren’t fun because there are so many people out walking. But riding the streets is great. Danita has been walking the neighborhood for her exercise.

We obviously won’t be traveling to see the grand kids for a while, so we did a video chat. It was fun.

That’s about it for us this week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The biggest change is undoubtedly Mom’s 90th birthday party. We had planned to go to Florida and host a party of about 20 or so on April 4. All of my kids and grandkids planned to attend. Rick and As our vacation wound down, emails were going back and forth about what we should do. There are so many news articles and advice was rapidly changing. Some of the news articles were correct when published, but quickly overcome by changing advice. Other articles were just wrong. I wanted to make a fact-based decision based on CDC advice. Their website isn’t unfriendly, but there’s it’s a big site and finding advice that applied to us was tedious. Danita finally found the correct paragraph. We were advised not to have any gatherings of 10 people or more when elderly were involved. We reluctantly cancelled Mom’s party.

By the time we got home from vacation, we were advised to self-isolate for 14 days. We couldn’t do it completely. But we’ve been pretty good about it. We don’t mind being a little lax because there was no indication of COVID on the cruise ship. While anything is possible, we were a largely isolated society for 16 days. If anybody came on the boat with COVID, it would have been apparent by the time we disembarked. Doctors have asked us to reschedule all our appointments.

There was no food in the house. We had to visit the grocery store. We couldn’t buy what we wanted. For example, there was very little meat available. But Danita is wonderfully flexible and very inventive in coming up with tasty and varied meals with what’s available. Danita’s Kindle E-reader stopped working while we were cruising. She can read on her phone, but it’s an inferior experience. There is no one-day delivery these days. Her new E-reader arrived this morning, which pleases her immensely. My hair has been growing for the last 5 weeks or so. It’s bothersome. I finally realized that after our self-isolation ends on March 30, I still won’t want to go to the barber. I ordered some hair clippers from Amazon. The clippers should arrive Tuesday. It will undoubtedly be a lousy haircut, but few will be able to see it. There are so many little things we need. We’re looking forward to the first day we don’t order something from Amazon.

Many places are closed, which is common throughout much of the US. But some of the implications were not anticipated. No visitors are permitted in Riderwood, where Bud lives. Danita can meet Bud in the front lobby and they can exchange packages. But Danita can’t go to Bud’s apartment to load his pill container or pick up tax forms. As I was writing this, Bud called and said he might have sprained his ankle. Riderwood sent an employee to Bud’s apartment. Everything’s OK. But between using the telephone, talking through a Riderwood employee with an accent, and Bud’s confusion, it’s a complex operation.

There are a few more unexpected consequences of all the closings. Churches are closed. Our priest came up with something I somewhat irreverently call “drive through Eucharist”. The idea was to offer the Eucharist without having more than 10 people congregated at any time. It sounded like a good idea, but the bishop shut it down. Our clubhouse is closed for all uses. Danita can’t go to the clubhouse to get her morning cup of coffee. Our condos and community have monthly meetings. They have set up a way to attend electronically. The next scheduled meeting is Tuesday. It should be interesting to see how well residents adapt.

Among the things that are closed are county parks. Gates are closed and cars can’t drive in, but walk-ins are permitted. Or they were until a ranger stopped by a playground and found over 100 people. One wonders what the mothers were thinking. In response, the playgrounds are closed and taped off. It’s a mildly interesting story, I suppose. But it had a personal impact of sorts. On my ride yesterday I decided to use a long-cut I often use through a park. It’s a pleasant area and avoids some traffic. I just ride through. I have never seen a ranger in the park. Until yesterday, when a ranger was driving through as I approached the entrance. I wasn’t sure of the current rules. If the ranger told me not to enter, it would add another 2 miles as I rode back and around. I decided to ride past the entrance and turn around after the ranger had time to leave the area. That worked fine. I hadn’t made it all the way through before I encountered a second ranger driving through. They didn’t stop me, so I guess I was OK.

We decided this is the perfect time to replace the HVAC system. All houses in our condo have a gas-fired furnace and an air conditioner. Larger houses have a second heat-pump in the attic. Many of our neighbors have had their air conditioner or heat pump fail, so it’s about time for replacing the AC. Furnaces aren’t failing, but we have a sealed bearing in our furnace that squeals like a banshee. It’s so loud the house is not habitable. Repair costs about the same as replacing the furnace. We have reduced the squeal to a low rumble by lubricating the bearing. It doesn’t make sense that one can lubricate a sealed bearing, but for the last 5 years, it has worked. That doesn’t mean it will work forever. Plus, if COVID gets a lot worse and the AC fails in August, we’ll be suffering and sweltering for quite a while. Plus we won’t be traveling for a while, so the travel budget can pay for the new system. So we are getting a new system Tuesday. The contractor will be working in the basement. We’ll be upstairs.

This is a long message for a simple week at home. I hope this finds everybody getting by.

This is the last day of our vacation. We drove slowly up Highway 1 from Monterey to San Francisco. There was quite a bit of rain early in the day but we were quite lucky. It rained when we were driving and let up when we got out for a look. Our first stop was Greyhound Rock for some way cool shore sights. Then we drove on to Pigeon Point Lighthouse. This is the most photographed lighthouse in California. Unfortunately it’s falling apart, so it might not be around much longer. Our final beach stop was Pescadero Beach.

Then we were in San Francisco. We decided to drive to the Golden Gate bridge and walk across the main span. We’re staying at the Columbus Inn, the same hotel we stayed at many years ago when we vacationed here. The hotel is is quite comfortable and in great shape. Tomorrow morning we’ll drive to the airport and head home. We expect to get home around 11 PM Eastern time. It would have been nice if things were open and concerts were being performed. But we had a really great vacation. We are grateful we got as much done as we did.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The Pacific Ocean forms the west coast. Highway 1 runs along that coast offering amazing vistas. There’s mountains immediately east. The Hearst Hacienda is on the east of the mountains. Highway 101, a near-interstate high speed highway, runs north to south east of the Hacienda. The original plan was to take the windy road back to Highway 1, then slowly drive north along the coast. With fog likely still around, we didn’t want to see if we would be twice lucky with that windy mountain road. So we went east to 101, then north to Monterey. That added about 2 hours of driving, but it was much easier driving. We wanted to visit the fabulous Monterey Aquarium, but it was closed. Our hotel for the night is in Monterey. We had plenty of time and not a lot to do. We decided to slowly drive south on Highway 1, backtracking and catching the views we missed by going up to the east of the mountains. It’s a magnificent stretch of road. It was hard to select just a few pictures for the blog.

Our first stop was Point Lobos State Park. We arrived around 10 and walked the trails. By the time we left, the park was full. They were turning away cars. People were parking on the street and walking in.The line of parked cars was over a mile long. We continued south, driving and stopping until we got to the Point Sur Lighthouse. Unfortunately, the lighthouse was closed and there were no tours yesterday. So we snapped a few pics and turned around, taking the opportunity to stop at a couple of vistas we missed going down. Our last stop was at Bixby Creek Bridge. By this time it was mid-afternoon. The crowds were so large that people were parking anywhere they could, including one hapless car parked immediately in front of a “no stopping any time” sign.

We were at our hotel around 3, with plenty of time to do some laundry. The rain kindly waited until we returned from our trip for take-out pizza.

We’re about 150 miles south of San Francisco. The original plan was to spend a day driving up and visiting a few parks, then spend a couple of days in San Fran. Unfortunately, most of the things we would do are closed. We decided to cut our vacation short. We’ll be flying home Monday.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We drove to the Hearst Castle. Just before arriving, we stopped in Cambria. Most of the towns we went through were rural agriculture communities. Cambria is completely different. It’s the “perfect” tourist town. Downtown is filled with eateries, arts, organic foods, etc. The parking is a great bargain. One can park anywhere for free. This is really good because everything else in town is very expensive. If you are ever in Cambria, I suggest you check out the ice cream / bakery and get a scoop of “motor oil” ice cream. It’s very good.

Normally, tours at Hearst Castle sell out months in advance. Today we could have walked up and purchased tickets for any tour we pleased. Quite frankly, the biggest surprise is that this state park was still open at all. Danita really enjoyed the tour, but I didn’t. So far as I can see, Hearst dumped about half a million dollars a month (in today’s equivalent money) into this rambling complex until he ran out of money. His companies were taken over by the court and restored to financial health. Then we went back into dumping money into this complex. His father didn’t trust him with money and gave the estate to his mother. (Very unusual for the day.) His mother wouldn’t let him start building the complex as long as she was alive. Any sense of coherence was due to Julia Morgan, the first female architect. She did over 500 projects. About 499 of them were on time and below budget.

We took the “back road” from there to Hearst Hacienda. Our tour ran long, it was late in the day, there was a lot of fog, and we had to drive through the mountains on a very narrow, very curvy road. There were two places where I couldn’t see the road and had to guess where the road is. (I’m a good enough guesser, it turns out.) We made it without incident, but Danita was pretty distressed. The Hacienda is on an army base. It’s a wonderful building. We stayed in one of the towers. The room was warm, dry, safe, and clean. But the WiFi didn’t work. Danita said she could see my withdrawal pains.

The army base is quite isolated. The only place we could eat was at the bowling alley. We had loaded hot dogs. How can one possibly have a more American experience than eating loaded hot dogs at a bowling alley on an army base?

All the pictures are from Hearst Castle. Fog prevented any outdoor shots.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Our main objective was to get from San Diego to someplace north of LA.Our plan worked out well. We took Amtrak to Oxnard, then took a cab to the airport, then rented a car. It was a 2-hour drive to Embassy Suites in Lompoc. But it took us longer because we took a detour to the Chumash Painted Cave. It was cloudy and late in the day. So I shined my cell phone’s LED light into the cave to catch this pic. I am amazed at how well it turned out.

The drive up to the cave was amazing. Basically we turned East at Santa Barbara. We saw amazing mountain scenery (50 shades of green, at least). Then we turned onto Painted Cave Road, which went up into the mountains on a 1.5 lane road with the tightest switchbacks I have ever driven. We drove past the cave because the turn-off is so small I couldn’t believe we were there. I turned around on the narrow curvy road with Danita in serious distress. We got back to the turn-off and trusted to luck parking our rental car on such a narrow road. We’ve seen other painted caves, but this was a good one. This pic was taken with my pocket camera illuminated by my cell phone’s LED “flash” light and the camera lens poking through the grate.

From there, we drove to our room at the Embassy Suites. We have taken full advantage of the happy hour. I don’t know what we’ll do tomorrow. Danita and I are saving that conversation for tomorrow after the wine has worn off.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We couldn’t believe our good luck today. It started first thing in the morning. The weather yesterday was cool, cloudy, and rainy. The forecast for today was cool and cloudy with showers. In fact, the sun came out and we had a fantastic day.The good luck continued when they let us disembark. If you’ve been watching the news, you know that doesn’t always happen these days. Our original plan was to take the Green light rail from the port to our hotel in Old Town. When I looked it up on Google, I saw warnings of some flooding, so we decided to take a cab. We got the suitcases locked away in the liquor closet (which I figured was probably the most secure room in the hotel). The next order of business was to make sure we knew where to catch the train tomorrow morning. We spent quite a bit of time wondering around, mostly because there is no passenger terminal in Old Town. We finally found where to board the train, and we found the ticket printing machines, and we got our tickets printed. Excellent! Then we wandered off to Old Town looking for information. We found the information desk just 10 minutes before the free morning tour. The day couldn’t have possibly gone better.

We learned that San Diego was a desert area with very limited vegetation and almost no natural resources. Nobody wanted it. We’ve seen plenty of exhibits about the 1850s and given quite a few tours. But we still saw some new stuff. The bedroom of one house had hanging shelves to protect valuables against damage during earthquakes. The walls were stenciled near the ceiling. The red lines are tree branches and represent the man. The flowers represent the woman. The two are tied together at the very left side of the picture. This is where the couple’s bed would have been in the original house. There were only a few houses built, and they were built with adobe due to the lack of other building materials. The second house we visited was built with whitewashed brick because — big surprise here — the Mormons helped build the house. I had no idea the Mormons were ever in San Diego. It turns out to be an interesting story in its own right, but far too log for this blog.

The bed netting is because of biting insects — fleas in this area. The outdoor stove shown burned cow dung because there wasn’t any other fuel available. Our guide speculated that pizza probably had a unique, pungent flavor. The next picture is of the first school house. It was built very quickly with scrap material from a ship wreck so they could qualify for a government grant. As it happens, the wood they used was Cyprus. Local termites don’t like Cyprus, making this the only wood building from that era that still stands. The last picture is of me getting ready to be a Mormon soldier.

It’s time to get ready for dinner. Our hotel has a large restaurant. After dinner, we’ll go to a play. The theater is just a block away. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The previous day in Manzanillo we spent an hour sitting in the middle of the harbor waiting to dock the boat. They announced the delay was caused by more careful health inspections. This announcement was readily accepted by everybody as being totally reasonable. It was also a lie. This morning, at “Ask the Captain”, we learned that the delay was caused by trying to dock a boat on Saturday afternoon when everybody was on siesta. The captain was not pleased.

Yesterday (Sunday) we visited Puerto Vallarta. This is a large tourist area with new, modern attractions. Danita, I and 18 other brave souls skipped all of that and boarded military trucks to go back country. The tour was a blast. I was relieved to see a much wealthier area than we saw in Manzanillo. Everywhere we went, we saw good access to electricity and modern plumbing. We saw plenty of buildings with satellite dishes and even quite a few air conditioners.

Our first stop was at a chocolate museum. There were no glass cases here. They had cocoa trees. We opened a ripe cocoa pod and tasted the seeds (quite sweet). Plus there was the standard chocolate samples and discussion of chocolate (which is an Indian word that means “bitter water”). If you look at the pics, you will see an immature pod above a small white flower. The flowers are pollinated by a specific species of mosquito.

From there, we visited a back country village. Then we took off on dirt roads. We saw a modern Mexican cowboy leading a train of horses and mules, several examples of very healthy looking irrigation channels, etc. The pictures look a little rough because they were taken from a moving truck bouncing down a dirt road at a high rate of speed. (From where I sat, I could clearly see the speedometer was disconnected.) I was convinced the drivers were randomly driving around until we came to a fence. Instead of turning around, out guide opened the fence and we entered Vallejo Ranch.

This is owned by a family that is trying to preserve wildlife and especially the Camporno tree. This tree needs protection because its raw fruit is sweet and cows love eating it. Cows like it so much the tree can’t reproduce itself. Camporno fruit is much like coffee, but contains no caffeine. It makes a drink that tastes much like coffee but is 100% decaffeinated. The ranch also has a way cool tower. One of the other fruits we saw while at the ranch was Habillo. These beans look and taste like good food, but the cause severe diarrhea. High doses can cause convulsions. The story is that Montezuma added a good measure of Habillo to the water of the Spanish conquistadors, which is the origin of “Montezuma’s Revenge”.

We finished the tour at a Mexican grill at a lovely lake. The featured drink was tequila with hibiscus water. It goes down easier than sangria and it’s every bit as potent. It’s guaranteed to put you in the mood for a nice siesta.

This was our last tour and a great cap for the cruise. We are at sea today and tomorrow. We’ll disembark in San Diego Wednesday morning, where we will start the last week of our trip.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We had heavy weather Friday. It started about 2 AM. Winds were 80 MPH with 100 MPH gusts (hurricane force). The outdoor decks were all closed. The storm was very localized. By 9:30 we were back to sunny skies and calm seas. The ship did well. The only damage was to a room on our deck that had a defective door seal. The carpet was wet all the way out to the hallway.

Yesterday we stopped in Manzanillo. It’s the largest commercial port in Mexico, but they don’t normally get tourists. The town’s economy is all about the port. Colorful houses climb up the hill. The pretty picture masks the poverty. Our guide said that most of the houses we saw don’t have running water or electricity. People get to the houses by walking up steps — there are no streets going up the hill.

Our first stop was at an area where people extract sea salt. The activity started before irrigation. Tere wasn’t much to do during the dry season. Sea water is pumped into shallow pools. It sits in the sun evaporating for two days. Then they sweep the salt out with brooms. The locals found a market for a premium salt which is skimmed from the top of the pool after one day. The claim is that the premium salt has less sodium. The claim makes no sense, but I don’t begrudge any extra income these people can find. From there we went to a plantation and harvested some tropical fruit. Then we visited an area that makes clay bricks. The brick making demonstration was interrupted by a shaved ice car, complete with a speaker mounted to the roof broadcasting bad music. We finished the day with a snack at a restaurant on a black sand beach. Poverty and abandoned buildings are everywhere. I included one picture of the deck of a restaurant that is falling apart. They shoved broken masonry under the deck to prop it up. But they have nice bike lanes.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.