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North to Alaska - Day 4

9/22/2022

It’s a long drive from Chena Hot Springs to Denali. Steve splurged and bought us tickets on the train from Denali to Talkeetna where Steve and Darla have their cabin. (Well, near Talkeetna, about an hour’s drive out into the wilderness.)

Steve told us to meet him in the lobby at 6 am to make the drive. That meant no coffee for me. Steve promised to stop for breakfast along the way. (That meant an egg McMuffin and bad coffee.)

Steve and Darla had come up on different days, so had two cars. I’m glad they did. With all our baggage, we couldn’t have gotten 5 people into one car.

We packed and headed out. It was a two-hour drive to Denali.

We got to the train station two-hours early. Steve dropped us off and headed to his cabin. We went to check in and Buddy asked, “Are there any upgrades to our seats?”

The ever-patient ticket clerk allowed as how we could upgrade to Gold Class for one hundred and thirty bucks. Each. For those of you who know me well, you know I would never pay that kind of bread for an upgrade, but Buddy wanted to, so I shelled out the bucks.

We were seated in the Gold Class car with the domed roof and big, wide, comfortable seats. The dining room was underneath us in the same car.

“All aboard!” yelled the conductor and we were off.

Hurricane Gulch

I took the train from Portland to San Diego after taking care of my mother for six months and was extremely disappointed.

This was not the same experience. I kept looking for Tatiana Romanov and James Bond. We were leaving From Denali with Love.

We settled into our seats and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. Through the trees we could occasionally spy majestic mountains. A clear fast-running stream paralleled the railroad tracks and eventually crossed under us and emptied into a large murky river.

The steward came by and asked us to head downstairs for lunch. The lady sitting in front of us asked if we were travelling alone.

“Yes.”

“Would you like to join us for lunch?”

The tables in the dining car seat four people. Because the train was full, they needed us to double up. No problem.

Candy and Billy Bob (I’m sorry, that’s a dig at their Texas roots. He was really Bill.) were delightful lunch partners.

I had penne pasta with reindeer marinera sauce. Buddy settled for a hamburger. The food was great.

Afterward, we returned to our seats and continued to enjoy the ride.

We got back to our seats in time to pass over Hurricane Gulch. There was a “tour guide” somewhere on the train that kept talking to us over the speakers. For the most part his comments were inane as were his puns and jokes. He really needs some new material.

But when it came to Hurricane Gulch, he informed us that the bridge over the Gulch was the longest in the United States. (I wonder if he knows about seven-mile bridge in Florida?) and that it was the highest bridge in North America.

I could believe it. Way down below us was a tiny river that looked like a ribbon of blue and white. It was a big river, but it seemed like we were looking down from an airplane.

Buddy asked me if I was happy and, for the first time on the trip, I could say yes. It was a wonderful train ride.

Now for the $64,000 question: Did we see Mt. Denali? This was one of the objects of my Alaska Adventure. According to our tour guide we went right past it. The only problem was that the cloud cover was so low we couldn’t see the tops of the trees, much less the highest peak in North America.

Buddy and Steve in Talkeetna

The drive from Denali to Talkeetna was about two hours. That’s a long time for an aging bladder. Sure enough, about an hour into the trip, Buddy needed to stop.

Steve drove and Buddy rode shotgun, I curled up in the back seat and wandered in and out of consciousness. I felt the car stop and popped up. “What’s going on?”

“I need to go pee-pee,” Buddy answered, jumping out of the car.

Not a bad idea I thought. I could feel pressure in my bladder as well. I got out of the car and walked around to the roadside.

“Stop. Don’t watch!” Buddy yelled.

Being the gentleman that I am, I walked up the road about a hundred feet and turned my back. I was just done doing my business when I heard Buddy yell, “Help.”

I wasn’t sure what she was saying, but I kept my back turned. “Help,” she yelled again, “I can’t get up.”

I turned and found her squatting in the bushes with her pants down. “My knees won’t work. I can’t get up.”

Now I wasn’t too fast on the uptake. Instead of pulling out my cell phone and taking a picture, I walked over, grabbed her hands, and pulled her up.

She was mightily embarrassed. “My legs failed me. I couldn’t get up,” she muttered as she got in the car.

Oh well, as the Bard said, “All’s well that ends well.”

We got to Talkeetna, Steve picked us up, and we headed to his cabin. Darla was not feeling well so she went straight home.

Steve’s cabin is a work in progress. The work is all professional quality (Steve does great work), but the plumbing isn’t in yet, and the wiring not complete. They have solar power, and the lights went off while I was getting ready for bed.

We had dinner and headed to bed. Buddy checked out before Steve and me. We sat and talked a bit, and I began to feel ill. My stomach heaved and I felt woozy. I knew these symptoms. I had full-fledged food-poisoning. I think it was bad reindeer.

I made a fast exit to the kitchen where I proceeded to throw up in the sink.

I fought it for a while, then I turned in. I went into the kitchen to wash my coffee cup and the storm started.

The deck was heaving, and I had to hold onto the sink to keep from being thrown from my feet. I hung on and looked out the window to see the extent of the storm.

The sky was overcast, and the rain dribbled, but there was no wind.

The deck heaved under my feet like I was in a force-5 gale. I clung to the wall and cabinets to make my way to the stairs. I grabbed onto the banister and eased my way down. When I got to the bottom, I had a problem. The deck was heaving and there was nothing to hold unto between me and the bed.

I ran for it. I stumbled across the room like a drunken sailor (get the reference?) and threw myself on the bed. I pulled myself up to a sitting position and the room swayed so badly that I thought I would fall over.

Remember I mentioned that I had Meniere’s disease? It hit full force. I was literally incapable of walking.

By the time I settled into bed, I wanted to die.

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North to Alaska - Day 3

9/12/2022

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They plan on making the plane into a B&B

Day 3
The day began with clean clothes and bad coffee. I made sausage, scrambled eggs, and bagels for breakfast. The day started well.

We met Darla and Steve at the activity center and sat down for a game of hand and foot. I’d never played this card game before, but it was a lot like Hearts, at which I excel.

We played a couple of hands to get me up to speed on the rules, but when we started in earnest, every time I did something I was informed that I couldn’t do that.

We paired up. I partnered with Darla and Buddy with her brother. I already knew that Buddy cheats at board games and pool, but now I learned that it ran in the family.

Steve won hand after hand. Toward the end I started getting the feel for the game and Darla and I went on a winning streak. When it came down to the final hand, they were ahead of us by five hundred points or so. I played a sneaky hand and caught them with a pile of cards in their hands. I started to tally my score and was corrected once again. You have to count your books before your card count. I had to rebuild my books so we could count them.

The first time I counted my 5-point cards, I had 45 points. The second time, I only had 40 points.

We went ahead and counted our hands. Steve and Buddy had 1195 points. Darla and I had 1190. They won by 5-points. Then there was the issue of the 5-points I miscounted. Hmmm. I wonder . . .

Soakin' in the Hot Springs

We went back to our rooms for lunch. I made spectacular peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Then we all met at the spa and had a good soak.

The original pool has been cemented over, sand filled the bottom and huge boulders lined the shore. It’s about a hundred feet long and maybe fifty feet wide. There are several overhead pipes that spray cool water into the pool to make it safe for human habitation. Near the pipe where the hot water comes from, the water is hot enough to scald you.

And of course, as with all mineral hot springs I’ve been in, the water feels slimy.

I had to answer Mother Nature’s call, so I left the group and waded my way across the pool. There is a pipe railing at the edge of the ramp coming down into the pool. That’s there to prevent hapless fools from falling off the ramp and into deep water. Of course, with my bad knees and Meniere’s disease, I hold onto the railing as I walk down.

The pipe eventually disappears under the not very clear water so people can walk around the end. In my best imitation of a Mel Brooks movie, I spotted where the railing went under water and started across.

I stubbed my toes on the rocks and fell across the barrier, knocking all the wind out of my lungs.

I cried out and mothers covered their young ones’ ears. (Actually, I’m taking literary license here because they don’t allow little kids in the pool.) I mumbled a few more bad words and worked my way down the submerged railing which disappeared into the murky water.
When I thought I had gone far enough I turned toward the ramp and tried again. You guessed it. I stubbed my toes and fell on the pipe.

Grumble, grumble, grumble. &*((^%$#!!.

OK, I had to go down further. So I did. When I felt I had gone far enough I turned in again and immediately was attacked by a big orange ball. I fought my way loose and headed up the ramp, thinking, “they should put some sort of buoy at the end of the ramp, so people know where to turn.”

What did I say about hapless fools?

As far as I can tell, no one saw me and there was no laughing and snickering.

After the pool we returned to our rooms for a much-deserved nap. Eventually Buddy wanted to go for a walk. I wanted to get started on my travelogue. While we were talking, we spotted Steve and Darla taking Cody out for a walk. Buddy ran to join them, and I got to work.

After I finished the first two days of our trip, I was getting hungry. I decided to go ahead and make dinner. I had no idea when Buddy would get back and I wasn’t about to wait. If she couldn’t be here on time, she could just eat cold food.

As I put the finishing touches on beef teriyaki with broccoli, Buddy walked in the door. Now I have to tell you, we thought we made a perfect couple, until I discovered her fatal flaw. She hates cauliflower and broccoli, my favorite two veggies. We ARE NOT compatible.

Buddy Can't Resist a Challenge

After dinner and some talking, I decided I wanted a piece of homestyle apple pie from the restaurant. We pulled on our coats and headed to the bar. We got there and there was only one other couple at the bar. Slow night.

You need to know that weird stuff happens to Buddy. Through no fault of her own, stuff just falls from the sky on her head. OK, got the picture?

The Infamous Triangle

There was a ranch triangle with a bar to ring it hanging above the bar. With it was a sign saying, “Ring the triangle you will be required to buy a round of drinks for everybody sitting or standing le at the bar.”

That was like waving a red flag at a bull. Buddy grabbed the bar and rang the triangle to wake the dead. Everyone laughed. When the bartender returned Buddy asked him if he head the ring.

“Are you kidding,” he responded. “They heard it in Anchorage.”

She got off lucky. The other couple at the bar were getting ready to leave. They just had a cup of coffee. Cheap dates.

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North to Alaska - Day 2

8/30/2022

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Scenic Alaska

Day 2
The rain continues and it’s still cold. Buddy told me that it was 85-degrees in Alaska in the summer. Bull pucky. It’s 59 and raining. I’m still dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. I bought a hoodie at the gift shop. That was a little help, but not enough. I still froze.

Did I ever tell you that one of the reasons I left Seattle was that in the winter, the cold, wet weather hurt my knees? Well, here I am, having flown 3400 miles to spend ten days in the warm Alaska summer. My knees are killing me.

I took eight pain pills in the first two hours to get the pain under control. My doctor says I should not take more than eight a day. That advice was out the window.

Darla is amazing. We sent her some money, and she stocked us up with all the supplies we would need at Chena Hot Springs. She even sent a coffee machine and coffee. Unfortunately, it was regular coffee, and I can’t have caffeine.

We dragged ourselves out of bed after our travel day. I stumbled into the bathroom to discover that the hotel provided a coffee maker and two packets of decaf. I would have been ecstatic, except that they forgot to give us a coffee pot. My buddy just shrugged her shoulders and said, “It’s Alaska.”

Thank you, Darla. I hooked up her coffee machine and made a pot of the worst coffee I ever drank. When Buddy was up and dressed, I needed food. We went to the restaurant in the lodge building and had mediocre omelets. The reason Darla packed us the food was because the restaurant here is not exactly 5-stars.

Welcome to the Great White North. The resort has Wi-Fi if you stay close enough to the lodge to get it. I can sometimes get it in our room on my laptop. Cell phones are iffier.

We can’t make phone calls, but we can send texts, sometimes. It’s really spotty whether the text you send gets through or not. Sometimes I’ll take a picture and send it to someone, and it just sits on my phone ‘til we get back to our room. Sometimes it doesn’t go through at all. It’s also spotty whether we receive texts or not.

All of this is to say Buddy has a problem. She owns a business back in San Diego, and her partner is covering for her in her absence. Oh, wait a minute, there’s a crisis.

Buddy can’t call her partner to work it out, she sometimes gets his texts and sends her texts, but sometimes he doesn’t answer them, so I think they didn’t get through. She is stressed to the max.

After breakfast, we decided to go sign up for horseback riding. It was still raining. Buddy loved the rain. I just remembered my Seattle winters. They weren’t taking the horses out in the rain.
“OK, what do you want to do now?” I asked.

There was a bushel of other activities (did you notice the clever use of a country term?), all of which involved getting soaked in the rain. I opted for a nap.

Buddy went for a walk with her brother, sister-in-law, and Cody.

After the nap we went to the activity center to see what else was going on. There was a tour of the resorts geothermal electric plant, so we signed up.

The guide took us first to the green houses. We stood out in heavy rain because they wouldn’t let us in during some critical procedure. He told us all about the resort’s desire to be self-sustaining and most of the food served here is grown here.

I couldn’t have given a damn. I was cold, wet and my knees hurt.

Then we went on a walk around the facility. We saw the gardens where they grow giant cabbages and squash (yuk). Then on to the duck ponds. I was ready to give up the tour, but I wanted to see the geothermal plant.

Eventually, we made our way into the plant building, like a bunch of drowned rats.

The Geothermal Process

Our guide then explained the process from which electricity was generated. It was interesting and they had some neat diagrams on the wall, but I was disappointed. Three giant machines sat in the huge room behind the glass window. I expected to see them huffing and steaming with a bunch of trolls and troglodytes tending them.

Nope, they just sat there. Whatever mysterious process that produced electricity took place inside these giants and after thirty seconds, you’d seen it all.

We went back to the activity center to sign up for massages tomorrow. Sorry, all booked up. However, Steve and Darla were at a table playing dominos. We inserted ourselves into their game and had a great time.

Remember our baggage? I’m still wandering around in a soaked hoodie. Of course, being from Seattle, I can’t complain, and I’m too macho to anyway. No one else was complaining. It’s Alaska.

There is a shuttle that runs to the cruise ship dock every day. We asked if they could stop by the airport and pick up our bags. Too late. Already gone for the day. Maybe tomorrow.

Then providence stepped in by the name of Wendy. Wendy drives the cruise ship shuttle. She called in. She was going to be late coming back.

Could she stop by the airport and pick up our bags?

She’d be delighted. She should be back by 6.

She wasn’t here at 6. OK, maybe she’ll be here by 8 or 9. 9 came and went, no bags.
We repaired to our rooms, and I fixed a package of frozen Beef Stroganoff and noodles that Darling Darla provided. I had no idea what I was getting into on this trip.

Darla thought of everything. We had an electric skillet to prepare the meal in, plates and silverware, and most anything else the heart could desire.

Buddy put away 5 duck farts

For months Buddy has been telling me that she was going to buy me a duck fart in Alaska. After dinner she drug me to the bar for said libation.

When we walked by the main desk, the young lady told us our bags had arrived.

YAHOO!

“We’ll pick them up after we have our drink.”

We went to the bar to further test my patience and Buddy decided to go thank Wendy, the shuttle driver. She thanked her, they hugged, and Buddy gave her a $50 tip. All’s well that ends well.

I had all sorts of evil fantasies about what was in a duck fart. With a heard of ducks in the pond I expected the bar tender to duck out the back door (pun intended) and grab a duck to get a fart.

It was nothing of the sort. It was made with Kahlua, Bailey’s, and vodka. It went down smooth. Buddy downed hers in a gulp or two. I was more judicious. Before I had quite finished the first, the second one showed up in front of me. It too was good.

I had one more and Buddy had five. The amazing thing is that we consumed that much alcohol and we weren’t tipsy. I do have to say that my humor got funnier and funnier.

We picked up our bags and headed up to our room. We both took showers and flopped into bed. Too much alcohol, a warm shower, and clean clothes made the day.

Thus, ends day 2.

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August 24th, 2022

8/24/2022

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North to Alaska
(With apologies to John Wayne)

Summer in Alaska

This is the tale of the first vacation I've taken by means other than boat in ten years. My friend invited me to join her on a trip to Alaska. I'd never been there and could see no reason not to go. So here we are at:

Day 1

Travel is exasperating at best and downright horrible at worst.

We left San Diego at 3:45 on a flight to Seattle. When we were checking in our bags, I noticed that our boarding passes were different from our itinerary.

“Oh, the flight has been changed,” the customer service rep said.

“Don’t you think they should have told us?” my traveling buddy asked.

We now had a six-hour layover in Seattle.

We fumed and boarded the plane.

Fast forward three hours. There was absolutely nothing memorable to tell you about the flight. Now we were deplaning in Seattle. I stopped at the kiosk and asked the rep if there was any plane heading to Fairbanks sooner.

“Oh yes, there’s a flight boarding now at Gate N3.”

“Where’s gate N3.”

“It’s on the other side of the airport. If you run, you might make it.”

So run we did, me loaded down with my computer bag and Buddy dragging a carry-on suitcase. We arrived at gate N3 just as they closed the door to the jetway.

“Can we still get on this plane?” I asked.

“Sure, just show me your boarding passes.”

“You don’t understand. We have tickets for a later flight, but we don’t want to wait six-hours to board.”

So, she took our boarding passes and gave us new ones, opened the door, and wished us a good day by name.

I felt a little bad because I remarked as we boarded the plane in San Diego about how impersonal everything was now a days. “I remember a time when the rep took your boarding pass and said, “Have a good flight, Mr. Wallace.”

Maybe there just friendlier in Seattle than in San Diego.

Oh, there was one small issue. Our bags had already been loaded on our original flight. They wouldn’t arrive in Fairbanks until after 1 am.

We’ll figure it out.

The flight to Alaska was also unnoteworthy except for a couple of things. As we climbed out from Sea-Tac we flew through a heavy cloud cover. We didn’t see the ground again until we were on final for Fairbanks.

The cloud layer below us looked like we could get out and walk on it. There were swirls, mountains, and valleys in the clouds. I read a bunch and took a nap. When I woke up, I looked out the window. There were tiny islands peaking above the clouds. It took me a minute to figure out they were mountain tops. As we sped along, the mountains got taller. Finally, we were flying above a fairy land of rock, snow, and glacier. We could see what looked like rivers descending from the mountain peaks. They were wider than the Columbia.

It dawned on me that these were glaciers. It appeared, from above, that we could actually see the rivers of ice moving down the mountains. We were in the Great White North.

Then there was Buddy. She has no inhibitions and a child-like fascination with the world.

When we got our seats on the earlier flight, we couldn’t sit together. They had window seats on two consecutive rows, so we took them. Early in the flight, an arm reached behind the seat and grabbed my knee. The old man sitting next to me said, jokingly, “Can’t you wait ‘til you get there?

Sometime later, Buddy got up from her seat, turned around and got on her knees to talk to me over the seat. It reminded me of prairie dogging in an office when people pop up over cubicle walls to talk to their neighbors. This continued all the way to Alaska.

As we descended through the clouds, I got my first glimpse of Alaska. It looks remarkably like the North Cascades in Washington. Everything is green with plenty of mountains and wide valleys. It took me a minute to realize I was looking down on hundreds of square miles with no sign of human habitation. No roads, no buildings, no phone or power lines. Nada.

The city of Fairbanks contains 3200 souls. The airport isn’t exactly JFK. The long runway accommodates large planes and miles of taxi ways line the perimeter. First, I saw a couple of WWII era DC3s parked in the grass. Then old Otters. Then an old Convair. These planes were still in use.

We landed in Fairbanks at 9:45. Now we had a problem to contend with. Buddy’s brother was going to pick us up at 1 am. Our bags wouldn’t arrive until 1 am. This is when we first learned about our cell phone problem.

Buddy in front of Chena Hot Springs Lodge

There are large spaces in Alaska that are uninhabited, and many more that are lightly populated. It didn’t make economic sense to put in cell phone towers to allow people in Chena Hot Springs to make calls.

So, we couldn’t contact Steve to let him know we were early.

How would we get to the hotel? (At the time I didn’t know that we weren’t going to a hotel, it was a mountain resort. I thought we were staying in a Motel 6 in the town of Chena Hot Springs. There is no town of Chena Hot Springs.) OK, I’ll try Uber.

I punched our destination in to the Uber app, and to my horror, the ride would cost $175. It was 67 miles to our destination.

I immediately vetoed that idea.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to wait here until Steve picks us up.”

“I texted Stevie, to tell him we arrived early,” my buddy said.

I used the restroom, and when I got back Buddy said, “I just talked to Stevie, he’ll be here in five minutes.”

“What?”

“He decided to drive in early, so he’s almost here.”

There is a God.

Steve arrived and carted us off to our resort destination. We’ll worry about our bags later. Maybe we can go back at 1 am to get them, or maybe we’ll just wait ‘til morning.
It was late and I was hungry. We tried stopping at several fast-food places on the way, buy they were all closed. Finally, Steve stopped at a gas station that had a mini mart. I don’t know why I was disappointed, but at 10 o’clock at night, they had a very limited selection. I finally settled for a burrito that I warmed I the microwave.

I got what I paid for. It was a gut bomb and I got stuff all over my hands and clothes. But at least I had something in my stomach.

We headed down the long and winding road. And on, and on. The road deteriorated from a nice highway to a two-lane country road. Then it got bumpy. Then I felt like I was in the great outback. Finally, the road reduced to a one-lane road, and, after an hour and a half, we were there.

The Chena Hot Springs Resort is really a cool place. There’s a main building that reminded me of the Ponderosa (for you old enough to remember Bonanza).

We were in building two, which looked like a nice ‘70’s motel. Steve and his wife, Darla, were in a small cabin on the other side of the complex. That’s where they exiled people with dogs. Darla and Steve brought Cody, their lab.

It was cool and raining when we arrived. My sweatshirts and jacket were in my bag on the other airplane. My buddy at least had a sweatshirt. It reminded me of the scene in Cool Runnings where the Jamaican bobsled team steps out of the Calgary airport into -20-degree weather. Only I didn’t have any more clothes to put on.

By the time we got to the resort, it was tomorrow. The sun had set but the skies were still light with the twilight. We were so tired and cold it was all we could do to flop into bed.

Thus, ended day one.

That's the first day. I'll post the subsequent days once each week until we get home. I hope you enjoy this little travelogue. Please drop me a line to let me know someone out there is reading it.

The dragon at Chena Hot Springs

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Opening El Sombrero

3/12/2022

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In 1964 Eugene, Oregon was not exactly the center of the Latino universe. When we opened El Sombrero there was one Mexican Restaurant in Portland and one in Seattle. That was it.

The loggers and farmers in the Willamette Valley had never heard of a taco, much less eaten one.

Tommy dropped dead one day in his kitchen. He owned Tommy’s Inn just across the street from the University of Oregon campus. The building was ancient, the equipment older. Tommy’s Inn was the epitome of the greasy spoon diner.
Mama worked across the street at the Campus Inn for Bill Spiller, Tommy’s arch-rival. When Mama came home with the news of Tommy’s death, Papa saw opportunity.

Papa immediately contacted the landlord and negotiated to take over Tommy’s lease. Then he contacted Tommy’s widow and bought the furniture, fixtures and equipment. He and I loaded our tools in the truck and set out to remodel Tommy’s Inn. I was thirteen at the time.

When Tommy died, they locked the doors and left everything as it was. It was a mess. By the time we had cleared all the legal hurdles and gained access to the building it had sat empty for months. We had a bumper crop of mold growing in the refrigerators. Bread left out on the counter turned green. The freezer shelves were covered in frost and none of the food was usable. A thick layer of grease covered the kitchen, and the greasy smell permeated the restaurant. We spent the first week just cleaning the place up enough that we could start demolition.

On the first day on the job, Papa fell through the rotted floor. Our first job was to tear out the old floor and replace it. Papa has been working in construction since the 1920’s and knew a thing or two about building.

“Look at these funny nails,” I said as I began pulling up the old floor. The nails were like none I had ever seen before.

“My God, those are square nails,” Papa said. “I’ve seen them in some old buildings, but I’ve never worked with them before. We stopped using that kind of nails sometime around the turn of the century.”

I spent my entire summer working with Papa, cleaning, painting, and remodeling. We tore up the old kitchen and redesigned it to work like Francis’ kitchen at La Fonda. Installing the tortilla machine was no small challenge.

We built a tortilla room in the storage area behind the dish room. Papa piped gas into the room to feed the oven. There wasn’t much natural gas being used in Oregon at the time and Papa had to clear all sorts of bureaucratic hurdles to get the permit. I installed shelving where we could cool the tortillas before stacking them. Finding enough room to install the machine, but still have cooling shelves presented an engineering problem. Finally, we made the shelves removable. The tortilla machine itself had a conveyor that folded up when not in use. When we had everything installed and running, there was no room to work in the dish pit. That meant that we had to run the tortilla machine when the restaurant was not open.

We built plywood booths in the dining room to replace the rickety wooden tables Tommy had used. We repainted the exterior with bright Mexican colors. Our crowning glory was hiring a crane to lift our eight-foot plywood sombrero to the roof to proclaim to the world that we were in business.

By the end of summer, we were ready to open. Papa wanted to hold a grand opening. Mama wanted to sneak into business. She said we would open a couple of weeks before school started to do a dry run, sort of work the bugs out, then when the University was in session, we would announce a grand opening with advertising, give aways, music, etc.

While we worked on the restaurant all summer we studied the neighborhood. Weekdays were fairly busy in the little shopping district that was then called the Campus Village. Weekends were dead. No one worked at the University on weekends and most of the shops in the village were closed. We decided that we would open on a Saturday in mid-September so that we could test our equipment before we had to face a crush of customers.

As became Papa’s habit, he rose early that Saturday. He hauled me out of bed, and we drove into town to start the set up. Papa made a pot of cocido for soup that day. He made enchilada sauce and cooked beans while I chopped lettuce, grated cheese, ground onions, stuffed chiles and did all the things necessary to be ready to serve lunch.

Mama showed up around ten o’clock and started her preparation of the dining room. On this day, she taught me how to make fresh salsa for the first time. By eleven o’clock our first employee showed up to waitress the lunch shift. We unlocked the door and were in business. As planned, we got off to a slow start.

Around eleven thirty a couple of young men wandered in asking about “tay-cohs.” It seems that they had been introduced to tacos on a trip to Southern California. By noon we had a couple of customers, but it was apparent that it was not going to be busy. At one o’clock Papa announced that he still had construction work to finish up and needed to run to the lumber yard. I took over in the kitchen as he jumped in his old Dodge flatbed and took off down the road. We only had an order or two at a time and I had no problem keeping up.

At about this time Mama, always mindful of labor expense, sent our waitress home. There wasn’t enough business to warrant keeping her on duty. Through the afternoon Mama and I worked together, laughing and joking about how slow business was and how we were not going to be able to make a living here.

Around four o’clock we started having a customer or two straggle in. At five o’clock it was a steady stream. Suddenly the dining room filled up, Mama ran from table to table, distributing menus, serving water and tostaditas with salsa, and writing orders. We had a wire with clothes pins on it strung across the pass-through port on which the waitresses clipped their tickets. I read the tickets, prepared the order and put the food on the pass-through bar under infrared heat lamps. The wire was filling up.

With no Papa in sight, I started to panic.

The old building had once housed a drug store and a bookstore in separate storefronts. Sometime during its long history the dividing wall was torn down leaving a large open space for a dining room, but there were still two doors that had once served the separate businesses.

“They’re coming through both doors,” Mama shouted as a line began to form for tables.

My panic rose.

Mama put ticket after ticket on the clothes pins in the window. I tried as best I could to keep up. I was only thirteen years old, and this was my first experience with doing a real job.

“Lock the doors, tell the people to go home,” I shouted to Mama as she put another ticket in the window.

“We can’t, we have to serve them.”

“Let’s get out of here. We can escape through the back door.” I dropped my spatula and ran for the back door. As my hand reached for the doorknob, Mama grabbed my collar.

“Don’t leave me now. We have to get through this together.”

I looked into her big brown eyes. I could see real fear. I couldn’t abandon Mama to her fate. I returned to the steam table and began to whip out enchiladas and tacos.

We had made a slight miscalculation in choosing a day to slip quietly into business. The Saturday two weeks before school began was the first University of Oregon football game. They were still playing at Hayward Field at the time, within easy walking distance of El Sombrero. The opponent that day was the University of California at Berkley. Since school hadn’t started yet, thousands of Cal students made the trek north to see their team play. These were people who loved Mexican food. It seemed like every one of them walked through our doors that day.

Somehow we made it through. Mama says it’s like the pain of childbirth. You remember that it hurt, but you can’t remember how much. I learned something that day. I never panicked again, no matter how busy we got. I also bonded with Mama in a way that I don’t think would have been possible without going through the trauma.

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I'm Entering a New Chapter

10/8/2021

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This COVID Crap is Getting to Me

My, how the world has changed. I’m not talking about politics or COVID-19, I’m talking about my life.

I have always believed that our lives are like books. We live through chapter after chapter. When you turn the page on one chapter, you open the page to another chapter. There it is before you, a white page waiting to be written on.

Well, I turned a page. A big page. Maybe I’m moving on to Book 4 in my life.

I sold the Victory. I know, I can hardly believe it myself. That boat has been my home and part of my identity for over ten years. Now here I am, homeless.

I’m looking for an apartment in the San Diego area but wouldn’t turn my back on a nice place in Mexico. The cost of living there is so much cheaper.

The Victory Under Full Sail

The couple that bought the boat are exactly who I expected to by it. He is English, so he’s not afraid of ferro-cement boats. He has spent his life on the sea working on various working boats and charter yachts.

She is American. A lawyer. She was transferred to her firm’s London office where she met Simon. The rest, as they say, is history.

They now plan to sail the Victory to San Francisco to visit her cousin who just had a baby and prepare the boat for offshore cruising. They then want to see the world. I wish them the best of luck and will follow their blog. I know that the Victory has gone to a good home and will be where he was designed to be, on the open ocean.

As for me? What am I going to do now? I don’t really know. Many years ago, I had thought that when I got too old to sail, I would buy an RV and explore the good ol’ U.S. of A. I might do that. I want to take a long road trip through Mexico and to Belize. I need a partner for that adventure. Anyone wanna sign up?

One thing for sure, I will continue writing. I’m well into the new Ted Higuera book. I’m tentatively calling it Back to Vietnam.

In this new adventure, Ted gets word that his uncle, a Green Beret who went MIA in North Vietnam in 1969, might still be alive and held prisoner in Vietnam. Of course, that sets off a chain of events that take Ted and his gang to the other side of the world. I’m really having fun with this book. I can’t wait to share it with you.

I’m also thinking seriously about spinning off a new series with a character introduced in The Panama Murders. Captain Collin MacGregor helps Catrina solve the mystery and will be a main character in the next Catrina Flaherty book. But I’m going to take him back in time to the start of his adventure.

He was the crime beat reporter for the Seattle PI. When the PI went under, he started writing true crime books. His wife was murdered, and he desperately needs to solve that case. Then he drops everything and runs away from the world. He takes off on his sailboat to parts unknown. Along the way he gets involved in various mysteries in different ports and writes about them to sustain his voyages. I can’t wait to get started.

Other than that, I intend to do some traveling. When I go, look for me to keep you posted on this blog. I love writing about my travels.

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Life in the Age of COVID

2/24/2021

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Welcome to a new era. For better or worse, we have a new president. COVID-19 has decimated the country. Before long we will have more deaths from COVID-19 than in all our wars combined. Depending on where you live, you are probably in some state of shut down. In San Diego, all the restaurants, bars, gyms, salons, bowling alleys, etc. are closed. I’m living like a hermit, going out once a week to buy groceries.

The sun still comes up every morning and goes down every night and life goes on.

We interrupt this story for a commercial message:

BIG NEWS.
The Panama Murders is finally ready to be released. On February 26th, you can get you copy from Amazon. For the first three days it will be available for my Friends and Family discount of only 99 cents. Then the price will revert to 3.99. I hope you’ll take advantage of this opportunity. (The discount does not apply to the paperback version.)

If you haven’t yet, you can also take advantage of my other offer. The entire Catrina Flaherty Mysteries series is on sale for 99 cents each. Grab your copies now so that you’ll be all caught up on the series when The Panama Murders becomes available. Click here to get yours today.

Now, back to our story.

For years my brother, Jim, has lived near Mama and taken care of her. When her hot water heater bursts, he fixed it. When her roof leaked, he patched it. They, along with my brother Jon and his family, live in Portland, Oregon. The land of perpetual rain and cloudy skies.

Jim has hated Oregon winters for decades. Three years ago, he decided to do something about it. He bought a big house near Phoenix, Arizona and began moving his business to the Valley of the Sun.

In November I got a call from Jim.

“I’m moving to Arizona for the winter and I’m concerned about Mom.”

Mama is 96-years old and still lives on her own. She drives, shops, and takes care of her home. Jim was worried that with him leaving the state, she would have no one to look after her.

“You said once that you would be willing to come up to Oregon and take care of her.”

Crap. Caught in my own faux generosity. I have no ties to San Diego. I have friends here, my boat, and love the weather, but I can work from anyplace that has the internet.

I packed a bag and caught a flight to Portland.

Mama, circa 1947, with an albacore tuna

For the next two plus months, I lived with Mama and tried to make her life easier and more enjoyable. She would make coffee every morning (not the quality that I’ve become used to, but it worked). I would work on my business for a while, then make breakfast. We’d have breakfast together, then she washed the dishes and took a nap.

I got back to work. I managed to finish all the polishing work on The Panama Murders and move towards getting it published. At about 6 pm I’d get dinner started and we’d eat before Jeopardy! came on TV. I have to watch Jeopardy! (We miss you Alex.)

Mama hasn’t had cable since her husband, Dave, died. She couldn’t figure out how to work the remote. I should say here that Mama is absolutely technically challenged. If it’s newer than a toaster, she can’t work it.

I had internet installed so I could work, so we streamed movies most nights. We watched a bunch of old movies that Mama liked and binged on some cool TV shows.

Mama has been clinically depressed for decades. There has been almost no joy in her life since 1962. In the time I was there, she was having a good time. I’m sure the loneliness of living alone contributed to her moods. With me there every day, she had someone to talk to, someone to share old memories with and someone to keep up with the latest political news with. One morning after breakfast I even heard her singing while she was washing the dishes.
Jim sold his Portland house and came up in early February to get it ready for the sale. I took the opportunity to take a San Diego vacation and come home.

I can’t tell you how happy I was to get out of the Oregon weather. The weekend after I came home, Portland got hit with a blizzard. Meanwhile it was sunny and in the 60’s in San Diego. Spring has sprung here now and it’s sunny and in the 70’s every day.

I dread going back up to that cold, wet climate, but duty calls. On the 15th, after I’ve had my second COVID vaccine, I’m heading back north. I don’t know how long I’ll be there, but I know I have to be there for Mama.

That’s the news around the nation folks. I hope you’re all staying safe and healthy. I’ll be back next month with a new episode of my blog. Stay tuned. And don’t forget to get your copy of The Panama Murders on Friday.

Mama and me at the Del

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Merry Christmas, Chief

12/18/2020

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Christmas on board the Victory

This is a story written by Mama about a Christmas long, long ago.

Merry Christmas, Chief
By
Victoria Ayala Pantoja

That Christmas Eve day in Eugene, Oregon, when my husband Charles and I had been in the restaurant business only three months, we had just begun to learn what must be common knowledge throughout the restaurant industry: restaurant inspectors – whether they be fire, health, sanitation, maintenance or agriculture – always show up at noon, when your place is full and you are the busiest. Then, of course, you are supposed to stop operation and give them your full attention.

Ours was a Mexican restaurant, and another thing we learned that year was that a tortilla machine looked about as familiar to our local Oregonians as an other-world alien.

A tortilla machine is a big, steel, Rube Goldberg-like monster. It has a dough cutter, three roller conveyors, three sets of gas burners and an oven. After mixing the dough you push it through the rollers, which work it through the cutters, and onto the first conveyor, which carries the cut tortillas over the first set of burners and cooks them on one side. When the tortillas reach the end of the first conveyor, they drop onto the second conveyor, where they are cooked on the other side. Then to a third conveyor, which cooks them a little more on the first side, and then rolls them onto a receiving table. Where an attendant spreads them on a metal racks to cool.

The Tortilla Monster

To give you an idea of the strangeness of this machine, one day a lady who had heard about our tortilla machine, called to ask if she could buy five dozen tortillas for her Christmas party. I assured her that she could. She came the next day, walked in and looked around the restaurant for the machine. She had brought with her twenty-five quarters to insert in the machine. I took her to the tortilla room and introduced her to the monster. Looking at it in disbelief for a few minutes, she asked weakly, “But where do you insert the quarters?”

Cutting the Tortillas

The first fire inspector came right in the middle of the noon rush, demanding that I light the machine, so he could check it for safety. Being too busy to stop, I told him that I was the only person in the place that could – and would – light it for him. I suggested that he come back after lunch, when, I told him, I would be glad to light it for him. He shot me a dirty look, then proceeded to inspect the machine. It was obvious that he had no understanding of what he saw, and he finally left without saying a word.

The following day, a different inspector from the Fire Department came – again, right in the middle of the lunch rush. Looking the machine over, he asked me how it worked. “If you’ll come back after lunch,” I told him, “I’ll show you. Right now I’m busy and can’t take the time.” I rushed off with a pile of hot plates in my hand.

He followed me down the aisle, right to the table where I delivered the food. “Mrs. Wallace!” he said in his most authoritative voice, “I’ve come here to inspect your tor . . . tortila machine. You can’t operate one in Eugene unless it is inspected. It’s the Fire Department’s responsibility to see that every machine in the city is safe.”

“If you’ll come back after lunch, I’ll show you. I’m just too busy right now,” I replied, as I hurried off to collect more plates that were piling up at the pickup counter. Several hours later I realized that he was gone.

The next day, right in the middle of the lunch rush, a third inspector walked up to me. “I want to talk to Mrs. Wallace,” he demanded.

“I’m Mrs. Wallace – may I help you?” He looked down at me from his great height, looking astonished that I should be Mrs. Wallace. “I have a report here from the Fire Department. You have a tor . . . tor . .. taco – how do you say it – machine, in this restaurant? I am the third inspector to come out here to inspect it. All our reports must be in tonight, and if we don’t check your machine, you can’t operate it any more. You have been very uncooperative, and the machine is not inspected yet.” He sounded disturbed.

Stacking the Tortillas

"Oh!” I protested, “I have been cooperative! I’ve offered to demonstrate how the machine works, if you’ll just come in after the lunch hour.” I was swamped at the moment, running all over the place, trying to do the work of three people. “Look, Mr. Inspector, you’re the third one that comes here, right I the middle of lunch rush. I will not take time to light the machine right now! If you want to do it yourself, go ahead, but do it at your own risk!” I walked off.

Inspector number three walked into the tortilla room, stared at the machine for a few minutes, scratched his head and left.

The next day was Christmas Eve. We were planning to close right after lunch, so everyone could go home and get ready for our Christmas Party, which we were going to hold in the restaurant. We had all brought our pretty, wrapped gifts that morning, and being short of space, we had stacked them on top of the tortilla machine. Packages covered the machine; there was a piñata filled with candy; and surplus Christmas decorations were strewn all over the tortilla room. The ‘monster’ was invisible, completely covered with gifts and goodies of all kings.

As usual we had a big lunch. The employees and customers were wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. There was joy everywhere. It snowed the night before, and right now the phonograph played Christmas carols. It was the perfect Christmas Eve, with happiness all about. And wouldn’t you know it? -- right in the middle of the busiest part of the lunch hour, a big red fire engine stopped in front of the restaurant, and His Highness the Fire Chief Himself, followed by two courtiers, strode into the dining room. He was tall, dark and handsome, with a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. He was dressed to the hilt (for the party to come, no doubt) with gold braid on his cap, gold buttons on his coat, and heavily decorated with medals. He marched straight towards me.

Merry Christmas, Chief

“Mrs. Wallace, I am Fire Chief Blah Blah, and I am going to inspect your tor . . . tor . . . tamale – or whatever you call it – machine.”

“Mr. Fire Chief, these are hot plates I’m holding. If you can’t wait until after lunch, go ahead and light the machine yourself. You’re the Chief.” I walked off with my load of hot plates, and in a moment forgot about him.

I stood by a table taking an order when the blast came. The entire building shook. Black smoke and the smell of gas poured out of the tortilla room. Someone shouted, “The Russians are coming!” – but I knew what had happened and was afraid to look. I ran to the tortilla room, and there on the floor lay the Fire Chief and his two helpers, half covered with Christmas wrappings and ribbons.

The Chief’s hat had disappeared, the buttons on his coat had blown off, and his hairy chest was exposed. His beard was singed, as were his hair and eyebrows. He looked like a minstrel. Everything in the room was torn to pieces. There was a shoe on the window sill, and another shoe in the sink with the dirty dishes. The piñata was nowhere to be found, but there was candy everywhere. Quickly I reached over the prone bodies and turned off the gas. Then I was seized with laughter, and I ran to the restroom where I became hysterical. By the time I had control of myself, Charles, who is much braver than I, had revived and dusted of the Fire Chief and his assistants.

With all the nonchalance I could muster, I said, “And now, Mr. Fire Chief, this is how you light it.” I lit a match and held it to the pilot lights. When they were lit, I pushed a button, and the conveyors started moving in their rhythmic pattern. Then I pushed another button and all the burners lit at one time. “There,” I said, “that’s how you do it.”

Someone found the Chief’s clipboard under a pile of torn packages and handed it to him, then have him a pencil. He stared at the machine, then at me, and then he signed the paper.

We offered the Chief and his entourage some Christmas cheer. “WE don’t drink on the job,” he replied, “but this has never happened before.” Even as he talked, they were reaching for the eggnogs.

That was the beginning of the Christmas party that year. The firemen stayed until late that night. The last we heard and saw, a fire engine with its siren screaming blasting down Thirteenth Avenue, carrying three bedraggled looking firemen, singing in Spanish, “Noche de Pas, Noche de Amor."

With Mama at the Del

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The Perfect Game

9/21/2020

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Sandy Koufax, in my humble opinion, the greatest pitcher of all time.

A couple of months ago, I promised to tell you how baseball came into my life. Unfortunately, I had to have emergency surgery and I wrote about that instead.

This month, I get back on track. The 2020 baseball season is winding down after only 60 games and we will be in the playoffs in a week or so, so I thought I better get this out before the season is over.

I don’t recall my first exposure to baseball. We were living in Costa Mesa, California at the time. At school, we played baseball during recess. I was pretty good at it and loved to play the game. Of course, there was no organized baseball for six-year-olds at the time.

Living in Southern California, I naturally became a Dodger fan. They moved from Brooklyn to L.A. when I was six, but I don’t remember it. My parents never discussed sports. I was much more educated in what was happening with the Cuban revolution or what Khrushchev was doing at the U.N., or the Suez Crisis or the U-2 Incident.

Baseball was a religion for young boys in the ‘50’s. Everyone had a favorite team, and everyone had one special player that they admired. Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle were on pedestals by themselves. No Dodgers could compete with them and I had to admit that they were great. They just weren’t Dodgers. I don’t remember Duke Snyder, but he wasn’t in their class any way.

The "Say Hey Kid," Willie Mays.

In 1960 we moved from SoCal to Eugene, Oregon. Papa was fed up with the overcrowded metropolis. Something I didn’t learn until years later was that he also had to get away from Mama’s mother, Abuelita.

The Pacific Northwest was a baseball desert. The nearest team was in San Francisco, but no self-respecting Dodger fan could ever cheer for the Giants. I had learned to hate the Giants in SoCal, a prejudice that lives on to today. I’d rather beat the Giants than the hated Yankees.
In Oregon, I played baseball any chance that I got.

I was in the eighth grade and my parents owned the El Sombrero Mexican Restaurant. I didn’t get to play on the school’s baseball team because everyday after school I rode my bike to the restaurant, did my homework in a back booth and worked the dinner shift.

Before doing my homework though. I read the sports pages and picked through the box scores for every team. The league had expanded and added the Mets and the Astros (originally the Colt 45’s), both laughing stocks.

By this time the Dodgers were a powerhouse. Well not exactly, but they had the best pitching in baseball, maybe in all of baseball history. In their rotation were two Hall of Famers, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. They were both dominating pitchers. Behind them in the rotation were Claude Osteen and Johnny Podres. They were unstoppable.

Then it happened. During the first week of school with the Dodgers in a hot pennant race with the hated Giants, Sandy Koufax pitched a perfect game.

Mickey Mantle, "The Mick."

If you are not a baseball fan, you may ask, “What is a perfect game?”

A perfect game is when the pitcher puts every batter he faces out. Twenty-seven men come to the plate and twenty-seven men are out. No one reaches base, no one is walked, there are no errors. It is like a ballet. Each team member doing his part in perfect coordination with the man on the mound. It is a sight to behold. (In the intervening fifty-five years, I have never seen another perfect game, although seventeen have been thrown. The most recent perfect game was thrown by Mariners super-star Felix Hernandez, but I was sailing in Mexico when it happened.)

I don’t remember why I was at home that day, maybe I was sick, or it was a night game. But I was there. I watched as Kurt Gowdy and Tony Kubek called the game. I watched as Koufax mowed down fourteen batters on strike outs. I was in awe as inning after inning my hero sent the Giants down one-two-three.

(That was fifity-five years ago and I still get tears in my eyes as I write this.)

I had never seen such perfection. A man so much in control of his world.

And not only was it Koufax. Bob Hendley pitched for the Cubs. He threw a perfect game until the seventh inning when Lou Johnson scratched out a hit. Hendley did not give up an earned run. The only score was an unearned run in the fifth inning.

Many baseball scholars consider this the best baseball game ever played.

I was stunned. Inning after inning I had my heart in my throat. Could Koufax really do it? Would anyone ever score?

It’s not hard to say that after that game, I was a dyed-in-the-wool baseball fanatic. I’ve watched thousands of games since. I’ve been a life-long Dodger fan, but when I moved to Seattle in 1977, I became a Mariners fan too. That worked well since the Dodgers were in the National League and the Mariners in the American League.

My fantasy world series is the Dodgers vs. the Mariners. I couldn’t lose.

Ken Griffey Jr. The greatest ballplayer I ever saw.

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The Boil

6/24/2020

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Getting ready for surgery

It was the most horrible experience of my life.

It started innocently enough. I got a text from my broker saying he was bringing a couple to look at the Victory next Wednesday.

There were a thousand little projects I needed to do before he showed the boat. I had five days. I mapped out what I was going to do each day and went at it with a passion. At the end of the first day, I was dead tired and my knees and back were killing me.

I kept it up. Working all day, then falling into my bunk at night.

Somewhere during all that hard labor, I noticed a small sore on my bottom. I ignored it because I had too much to do to worry about it.

The next day, the sore was bigger. It hurt to sit down. No problem, I had too much to do to sit down anyway. The sore continued to grow. By day three, it felt hard and was hot to the touch. I kept working.

Finally, Wednesday came and I had to vacate the boat so the broker could show it. I made an appointment with my doctor and headed to the clinic. I was in serious pain at this point.

The doctor looked at it and told me to go to the emergency room. “I could lance it here,” he said, “But I suspect it is too deep for me to handle. I would have to bandage it up and send you to the emergency room anyway. You might as well start there, then if it’s as bad as I suspect, they have the facilities to work on it.”

I drove the ten miles to the nearest Kaiser emergency room.

A nice young Indian woman was my doctor. She looked at the abscess and called in an older doctor to consult. He examined the spot and they went off to talk.

I finally got an anesthetic

When they returned, he told me that they were going to lance it and remove all the puss. It would be painful. “We’ll inject Novocain,” he said, “but it will only anesthetize the area around the abscess. The puss in the abscess is an alkali and Novocain is an acid. They cancel each other out and it will hurt.” Truer words were never spoke.

The other option, he said, was to give me a full anesthetic and put me out. That would require a longer stay and I would need someone to take me home and stay with me for a couple of days.

I (stupidly) chose the pain. “Just get it over with.”

They shot me, poked me, cut me open and squeezed on one of the most sensitive areas of the human body. I screamed out in pain. I don’t remember anything ever hurting that badly. I thought about the torture scene in Cyberwarfare and decided I would have talked.

After the younger doctor was through torturing me, she left again and returned with the other doctor. He examined the abscess and told me that they were going to have to operate.

There was calcified puss in the wound and if they didn’t take it out, it would have serious consequences.

At this point I prayed for the anesthetic.

“We’re going to give you Ketamine,” the older doctor said. “You will be conscious, but you won’t be able to feel anything. It’s like the lights are on, but nobody’s home. Of course, some people experience hallucinations under the drug.”

The nurse gave me an IV and administered the drug. I breathed heavy for a few minutes, then the pain went away.

It was a bizarre hallucination

Something happened. I was a bodyless consciousness. My mind was trapped in some kind of maze. There were steep walls on both sides at ninety-degree angles from the road. The walls were orange with computer circuits etched on them. Balls of light flashed by me at an incredible speed. I felt like I was trapped in the movie Tron. There was a steady beep-beep-beep that dominated my thoughts.

Then I started moving. I was flying through the narrow corridors at the speed of light. There was a wall at the end of the corridor. I tried to slow down, but I had no body, no substance. I was just a thought.

When I reached the wall, the corridor turned ninety-degrees and I continued to fly down the canyon.

I didn’t know who I was or where I was. I couldn’t put coherent thoughts together. I just was. I was scared and didn’t want to be there. I used my considerable brain power to try to break free. I was trapped.

I tried to cry out, but I had no throat, no voice box. Terror enveloped me. I tried to take control of myself. Where am I? How did I get here? Am I dead? Is this what it’s like after you die?
This went on for eternity. I would fly though the rest of time as a thought.

I start to come to

Somewhere, far in the distance, I heard noises. Deep rumbles from far away. What were they? Time stretched on. Gradually I recognized the noises as human voices. Then from somewhere, I could see fuzzy figures.

Hundreds of people dressed in blue surrounded me. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I knew they were talking.

My vision improved. It was still fuzzy, but the gang of people became two nurses. My lips hurt.

Wait, I have lips? Far out in front of me, maybe hundreds of miles, I felt my lips, dry and chapped.

My throat stung with dryness. My throat was somewhere beneath me, but it hurt. I needed water.

I cried out. My mind said “water,” but all I heard was a roar.

“I think he’s coming around,” the male nurse said.

“Watch him,” replied the female.

“WATER,” I cried. The sound was not understandable.

My throat and lips cried for relief. I tried licking my lips with my tongue. Somewhere, hundreds of feet in front of me, my three-foot thick tongue reached for my lips. I couldn’t reach them; they were too far away.

I tried to salivate, but I didn’t have any saliva glands.

After what seemed forever, I roared the word, “water,” and the nurse responded. “In a little bit,” he said.

“Chap stick,” I rasped. I could understand my words now. They didn’t sound like a human voice, more like a wounded animal roaring, but I could understand them.

Seven or eight days later, my vision came into focus and my voice box returned. “Water,” I pled.

“I’m sorry, I can’t give it to you yet. Just be patient a little longer.”

“Lollypops. Can I have one of those lollypops to moisten my mouth?”

“I’ll check with the doctor.” He went about his business and didn’t leave my bedside.

Pain roared through my throat and to my lips. Time passed.

Eventually, the nurse came with a moist lollypop and swabbed my mouth. Oh God. Relief at last.

“Chapstick. Hand me my tube of Chapstick.”

The nurse grabbed the tube and handed it to me.

I reached for it, and to my surprise, I had a hand and fingers. I clumsily applied the balm to my lips.

I lay there forever with the room spinning around me.

Eventually, the female nurse removed my IV and told me I should get ready to go. Did I have anyone to come pick me up?

“No. I live by myself.”

“I’m sorry. We can’t release you unless you have someone to take care of you.”

Shit. What to do.

“Hand me my cell phone.”

I called Dawn and tried to explain my predicament. Somehow, she understood my incoherent babble.

“I have the truck here. I’ll call an Uber to bring you here, then you can drive me home.”

And, he's back

Calling Uber was impossible. I tried several times, then finally got a ride scheduled. I waited five or six minutes, then got the message that the ride was canceled because I wasn’t at the pickup point. Somehow, I managed to figure out that they were trying to pick me up at the hospital.

The kindly and beautiful nurse offered to help. She arranged for a ride for Dawn. Before long Dawn was there and they released me.

I can’t thank Dawn enough. She rescued me in my hour of need, took me to her place and nursed me through several days of grumpiness and pain while I recovered.

My wound still hasn’t healed. The doctor said two to three weeks. It's been over a month. On my last visit, they said if it didn't improve they would refer me back to general surgery.

I’m up and around but sitting still hurts.

I still have cold shakes when I think about the experience. I don’t usually experience fear. The only thing I’ve ever been afraid of in my life is dogs. But each time I think about the orange canyons and flying balls of light. I shiver in fear.

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North to Alaska - Day 4

North to Alaska - Day 3

North to Alaska - Day 2

August 24th, 2022

North to Alaska
(With apologies to John Wayne)

Opening El Sombrero

I'm Entering a New Chapter

Life in the Age of COVID

Merry Christmas, Chief

The Perfect Game

The Boil

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