10 Days to Go!

“Dad, do you think it’s going to be any easier when you are 64 or 65?  You’re only 63 once.”  With those words from daughter Skyler, and the urging of my bicycling friends Ron and Barb Douglas from Spokane, I signed up for a two week, 885-mile ride from Zion National Park to Santa Fe, NM.  What am I getting myself into?

East and Paulina Lakes

With just 10 days to go, today I’m heading off to camp at East and Paulina Lakes (6300 ft. elevation) in Central Oregon for five days of getting used to cycling and sleeping at higher elevations.  Kathy is going to join me over the weekend, at least for company and an excuse to go camping.

On the Portland Century

We are both recovering from walking pneumonia.  Kathy was diagnosed and finally treated two weeks ago.  On Saturday I rode the 101-mile “Portland Century” with friends Jim and Debbie Miller and finally decided to see a doctor on Monday.  Fortunately, I never got the fatigue and congestion that she did.  We are so grateful to live in the 2st Century with access to modern medicine!

And speaking of modern medicine, it looks and feels like my March elbow surgery was a success!  I've even been able to resume swimming (with many stops to catch my breath).  Book sales have continued to be steady, especially following an article in the Statesman Journal about my experience of writing it.  

Kathy has been unbelievably busy with her Assistance League responsibilities at the local and national board level.  She will be at its national conference in Orlando during part of my bike ride.  

This year's Art Festival Treasure

In between everything else, we've had a very good summer since our return from Colorado.  The annual Salem Art Festival, dinners with friends, Saturday markets, and beautiful weather.  

As always, we’ll hate to say good bye to all of it.  We hope you've had a good summer as well.

Stay tuned for more updates and photos from the road over the next three weeks.

Colorado

Thursday, July 17, 2014

We arrived home around 12:30 PM yesterday after a five-hour, 350 mile drive from Baker City, OR.  It’s been a fun and varied two weeks.  As with other trips, it was good to go, and even better to be back.  We logged over 2800 miles, and all but 150 were pulling “Jackson,” our beloved Airstream.

We like to plan ahead, but much of our best life experiences have been the result of spontaneous decisions.  One of them was deciding to drive seven miles off the desolate highway in NE Utah to see Dinosaur National Monument.

Our Campground on the Green River

Turtle rock @ Dinosaur

Morning Bike Ride

What a nice surprise! Very laid back, beautiful, not many tourists, and HOT!   Oh yes, it had authentic dinosaur bones, and the rock formations and petroglyphs were impressive.  We camped along the Green River and went for an early morning bike ride before heading to Steamboat, CO.

Before our insane descent down the mountain

Steamboat Springs , CO is a delightful resort town with an economy that doesn’t depend just on tourists.  We spent three nights there, hiked in a nearby wilderness, rode the many miles of bike trails, enjoyed the hot springs, wine bars, and coffee shops.  We also did something crazy by riding our wimpy cross-bikes down Mt. Warner.

I snowboarded down many of the black diamond slopes 12 years ago, so how hard could it be to ride down a green ski trail on a bike?  Turns out,very difficult, as the mountain bike trails are completely different from the ski runs.

We should have taken a hint when we saw many buff jocks 1/3 our age in full X-Games protective armor on high-end mountain bikes going up the mountain in the gondolas.  Our skills and low-end cross bikes were no match for the curvy 2,000' 7-mile descent, but as we neared the bottom the trail leveled out, the adrenaline subsided, and we started enjoying it. We survived, and now remember it fondly now that the aches, scrapes, and pains have since gone away.

The annual Kelemen Family campout with my four sibs, two nephews, assorted significant others, and eight dogs was the best ever.  No drama, just lots of good conversation around the campfire and beautiful scenery at Sylvan Lake State Park, 15 miles of mostly dirt road south of Eagle (between Vail and Glenwood Springs).  It’s interesting how after 40-55 years, we all have our own perspectives on the family, our parents, and each other.

Sylvan Lake

My little brothers--Neal and Mark

The Kelemen gene pool, minus our daughters

Our campsite at Sylvan Lake State Park

Putting on the hunting jacket to set a mousetrap

Mark and I tried our luck fishing.  As always, the fish  won. After out-of-state license fees, my one little 6" catch-and-release trout came out to be about $175 per pound.  Time fishing and time with one of my brothers?  Priceless!


At age 14, the Denver Post published my letter to the editor protesting the construction of I-70 through the Glenwood Canyon.  With the passage of time, I can now see how necessary the Interstate has become, and I can appreciate how the designers went out of their way to preserve the spectacular scenery of the Colorado River and the canyon.

Along the Colorado River under I-70

Start of the Glenwood Canyon

Glenwood Hot Springs--It's HUGE!

Brothers Mark and Neal dropped us off to ride the beautiful 16-mile bike path along the Colorado River to Glenwood Springs.  Unfortunately, part of the path was washed out by high water. But a nice dip at Glenwood Hot Springs more than made up for it.




So, it’s back to reality, but a good one. Today we clean out the trailer and put it into storage for a few weeks. I  am shipping more books to Amazon fulfillment centers and Kathy gets ready for her Assistance League board meeting in Burbank on Sunday.  Meanwhile, we’re looking forward to the 65th Annual Salem Art Festival and a wedding on Saturday.  Life continues to be good--very good!

It Was an Utter Disaster

Jordanelle State Park, UT

July 6, 2014

No, I’m not talking about our trip, but rather something we learned along the Oregon Trail on the lonely Highway 78, about 25 miles south of Interstate 84 near Boise.  We decided to take the back roads from Salem as far as we could before being forced to use the Interstate system to get to the annual Kelemen Family campout in Colorado.  So driving along the way, we stopped amid the sagebrush at a couple of historical markers.  One of them was called “The Utter Disaster.”  Here's a link to a photo of the descriptive sign.  Now we know what an "utter disaster"really is. 

Fortunately our trip is just the opposite.  We left Salem late Wednesday to snag a campsite on the beautiful Metolius River, where we return to camp every year.  Our good friends Bob and Lisa Martinsson joined us.  We hiked, biked, ate a lot, and just sat around the campfire.

Along the Metolius River

Bob and Lisa Martinsson

Saturday, we drove the remote Highway 20 from Sisters to Homedale ID, just across the Oregon border.  We enjoyed a beautiful spot on the Snake River amid the heat, humidity, and insects.

Sunset on the Snake River

 Today we completely crossed Idaho and made it slightly past Park City, UT to the Jordondelle State Park.  Both days, Doris Kearns-Goodwin’s No Ordinary Time, about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt during WWII, helped melt the miles and give us a huge sense of appreciation of what it was like back then and where we are today.

Jordanelle State Park, UT

As fun as it sounds, we haven’t been able to completely disengage.  Kathy has a lot of balls in the air with the national Assistance League board and her upcoming CA board meeting three days after we get home.  Two weeks ago, my book, The Confident Retirement Journey,  got the equivalent of “Colbert Bump” from a very nice Wall Street Journal review.  That depleted my inventory at three Amazon fulfillment centers and created anxiety about getting new shipments across the country on time, with glitches along the way. Nice problem! But, the good news is that finally today, all but 12  of the 400 shipped books are presented and accounted for with more than enough daily sales to pay for our campground fees, fuel, groceries, wine, and my Red Bull costs.   

Tomorrow, we hope to visit Dinosaur National Monument and either camp there or near Steamboat Springs, CO. Life is  good!

Lake Chelan and the North Cascades

Driving through the arid canyons of the Columbia River basin from Grand Coulee, we could never guess that that the beautiful oasis of Lake Chelan was down the road hiding above us on a plateau. We've heard about the place for years but we were caught totally off-guard by its beauty, the big town, the vineyards, the orchards, the snow-capped peaks, and above all, its sheer size.  It's 50 miles long, and 1,486 feet deep--the third deepest lake in North America.  At its deepest, it is over 300 feet below sea level.  

Vineyards and orchards near uplake from the town of Chelan

We camped among giant ponderosa pines in the nearly deserted Alta Lake campground 20 miles north. At the town of Lake Chelan we took the express 2.5 hour boat ride to the upper end of the lake to the village of Stehekin, which is accessible only by boat or trail.   Over 100 people live there year-round.  We rented bikes, hiked to a waterfall, then then hit its famous bakery.  The trip back on the four-hour boat seemed to take forever, but at least we were surrounded by beauty and not towing a trailer over winding roads.

Rainbow Falls

Departure dock to Stehekin

The demanding drive through North Cascades National Park the next day was quite a contrast, especially as we got into some very steep and curving roads west of Winthrop and over Rainey Pass. The peaks were often hiding in the clouds but we got a few glimpses.  Our almost empty campground in Newhalen was at an elevation of only 500 feet, reminding us of the lush vegetation just  up the Santiam Canyon from Salem.

Entering North Cascades National Park from the East

We had planned to spend more time at North Cascades NP.  But the trails still had snow on them and the mountains were clouded in.  We learned from the ranger that peak season really doesn't start until mid-july, hence the empty campgrounds and almost empty roads.  The forecast was for rain so we left for home on Thursday morning, getting to Salem eight hours later.  The traffic jams in Seattle and Portland were  at their legendary best.  

We now call this trip the Dam Tour.  We started out to see beautiful scenery and go places we hadn't been before.  We succeeded in that.   In the process we must have come upon 15 or more hydroelectric dams and actually visited two of them.  As a result, we now know just a little more about hydraulics, electricity, engineering, and the big complex world in which we live.  It was a damn good tour overall!

From the Diablo Lake overlook

Gorge Falls Near Newhalem

The Amazing Grand Coulee Dam

Fathers Day, 2014

Even though our daughters are thousands of miles away, it was a good Father’s Day.  We started off with a nice breakfast at the Airstream rally in Sacajawea  State Park.

Breakfast with fellow "Streamers"

Best of all, we got to explore new roads and see some truly spectacular things—the upper Columbia River basin and the Grand Coulee Dam.  We became very interested in the dam after listening to the book The Boys on The Boat, which was all about the UW rowing team preparing for the 1936 Munich Olympics during the Great Depression.  To pay for tuition, two of the team members spent a summer suspended from ropes high above the river jack hammering away at the granite cliffs.

The approach to the dam is like driving the Columbia Gorge, only on a small windy road with different formations, but spectacular just the same.

Along the way to Grand Coulee

We stayed in Steamboat Rock State Park, a very delightful surprise, and we wish we could have spent a couple more days for hiking and biking.

Steamboat Rock State Pa4k

Lush green campground

The Grand Coulee is reputed to be the largest concrete structure in the world.  Nearly a mile wide and 46 stories high, there is enough concrete in it to complete two four-foot sidewalks around the world two times.  Unlike the Boulder Dam on the Colorado River, it’s not much to look at because so much of it is under water.  What makes it impressive are its statistics, engineering breakthroughs at that time, and the sheer amount of effort it took to complete it.  Just one of the new generators, for example, processes more water than the entire Colorado River at the Boulder Dam does in a day—and there are eight of them, plus several smaller ones!

The Grand Coulee Dam from Vista Point

The Grand Coulee Dam fills you with pride about American ingenuity and what we are capable of doing.  However, it is also a depressing reminder of our current lack of vision, political will, and taxpayer unwillingness to invest in the future because “it is a government project.”  Never mind the fact that it helped us win WWII with the electricity for aluminum aircraft, the shipyards, and plutonium production.  It is now a hugely profitable economic engine for Washington that provides so much agricultural bounty, including our favorite, wine grapes.  Some of the power is shipped all the way to San Diego, but a good amount of that is lost during transmission.

 We highly recommend a visit to the visitor center (except for the annoying fake jackhammer that kids play with constantly, which I would have done if I had seen it at a young age).  We also recommend the guided tour.  After a security screening stricter than at airports, we got to go below the surface of the water, see a few generators, and ride across the top of the dam in a van, under the watchful eye of a cop in a bullet-proof vest toting an assault rifle shadowing us.

We left the place with two familiar feelings that we get when we visit impressive places like this:  1) we stand on really broad shoulders of giants that preceded us, and 2) we enjoy the shade of trees planted by someone who never knew us.

Next stop—Lake Chelan and the North Cascades National Park.

Let the Summer Begin!

A lot has happened since the last blog.  My elbow is much better, to the point where I have resumed Pilates twice a week and road and mountain biking.  Weight lifting or swimming laps are still out of the question until the end of summer.

Groovy! 

I attended my last board meeting two weeks ago, our last symphony was three weeks ago, and last Sunday we attended our last fundraiser/auction for the season, so let the sumer begin.  Actually, the Rotary 70's party/fundraiser was fun. Even though I haven't been around very much, work has been exciting and business has been booming.  My book, The Confident Retirement Journey, is scheduled to be featured in the Encore supplement of the June 23 Wall Street Journal.


Kathy has been extremely busy with her national and local Assistance League duties, traveling twice to California since the last post. She has another 5-day board meeting in Burbank in late July.  Her 89-year old mother has physically recovered from her February stroke, but still has cognitive issues and is very unhappy and resentful about living in a retirement community instead of alone in a duplex.   It's up to her to find and execute an alternative and  and frankly, we'd be very surprised if she pulled it off.
And speaking of living arrangements, late May marked the 5th anniversary of our move into our condo at the Meridian. The place is now 92% occupied, mostly by renters.  That said, we love it here--the location, the convenience, the view, and our community of neighbors who live downtown and a few doors or floors down.

Summer view from one of our decks

We got the trailer out of mothballs and took it on a trip to the Redwoods and south Oregon coast.  I went tent camping on the Metolius River by myself. Initially Kathy couldn't go because she took her mom to the Portland rose parade and had too much Assistance League work to do.  But she got to go for just an hour or so because I lost my keys mountain biking, and she graciously made the four-hour round trip to rescue me.

Sunset at Sacajawea State Park

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We're now at an Airstream Rally at Sacajawea State Park in Pasco Washington. It's good to see some old friends and make new ones over good food and wine.  It's also the site of a big bluegrass festival, but after a couple hours of  the high nasal voices and the same repetitive banjo licks, we're ready to go on a long bike ride and do some wine tasting tomorrow.

Here's a link to some photos so far.

Redwoods:

Summer 2014 (so far):

So Much for the Dragon--My Right Hand Feels Better and Does Things Better

Things are looking up!. I got my big clunky cast removed on Friday and I now have a flexible elbow band and a custom-designed wrist guard. Unfortunately the wrist guard is not all that comfortable and it restricts my thumb and finger movements more than previously. I need to drive to Eugene on Monday to get a new fitting.  

But it will be nice to shower and use my right hand more than was previously possible. I even got to drive the car today to an appointment!  

It looks worse than it feels.

It's so nice to bend my elbow and use my fingers!

I'll be in this  get-up for another month before the start of physical therapy and more active exercise beyond walking recumbent bicycling. That seems like an eternity away.  Meanwhile, I got very exhausted just walking the four-mile round-trip to the Saturday market, so maybe I should just ease back into things.  But nagging in the back of my mind is what I so well remember from college physics and every break in physical training over the years--it's so much harder to get back into shape than it is to simply stay in shape.  

And my Dragon?  She's fine on my tablet, as long as it doesn't involve formatting, web links, etc. It simply is not feasible at work.   It seems like I spend far more time correcting and editing than I do to just type it out in the first place.  

And speaking of editing, I got bad news-good news the same day of getting my cast off.  The Wall Street Journal was going to run a feature on my book, The Confident Retirement Journey. Well, that got bumped at the last minute, but the editor of the Encore supplement (which deals with retirement) assured me it would be in the May or June issue.