2004 Tour home

We stood in line to see the pandas, which were not in full view, but were still fun to watch. (Photos of Pandas). Mom was eating a large branch of bamboo, while her babe was suspended up high in this sort of branch sling. I was a bit under the weather so the fact that we got there in mid afternoon and only had a couple of hours was fine with me-even though there was a lot we didn't see. The other high point was the gorillas (Photo of Gorillas)

March 17 - St. Patrick's Day

Today was a day for getting things made right. "Tony", who could fix anything "RV", had traveled in one for seven years and fixed all the little stuff which needed help. It seems that little stuff just needs fixing now and then. At 60 something, Tony was bemoaning the fact that he had to stay home for possible heart surgery in a few months.

Unfortunately, the pain in my rib had gotten worse, or at least hadn't gotten better, so I sought out a DC to see if I could get it taken care of. After he pushed, prodded, adjusted and told me I was short on salt, I walked out with some green powder and more questions than answers.

I had been feeling reluctant to leave the ocean behind without one more visit. We stopped at Cardiff-by-the-Sea and I was not disappointed. I have never seen patterns like this (Photos of Cardiff Beach). Robin felt like a little time to himself and stayed in the car. He had already submerged himself in that sea. We arrived in Anaheim after hours of traffic.

March 18

I'm glad that we got to see California Adventure AFTER Universal and every other theme park, because just visually, Disney has everyone else beaten. We visited the part of the park where you can try various sorts of animation. Then, as I had made a doctor's appointment, I left and Robin got to play by himself.

Rob's Log: Stardate 032104

This week, I went to Disneyland, where I had the run of the California Adventure. The first place I went was the Orange Stinger, a high flying swing ride that majorly tested my fear of bees with both decals and a soundtrack.

Next stop was the MaliBoomer, a gravity defying zoom upwards that I'll try my best 2 describe. U sit down in the seat, then U put on the shoulder harness (complete with barf guard). Then U get blasted into the air where you float for a while and then come down slowly. Then I went on the Grizzly River Run, a white-water raft ride on which I got wetter than I do at Wild Waves.

Anyway, next, I went on the truly COOL California Screaming Roller Coaster on which I left my Spleen, Stomach & Tonsils. Finally I went on THE best motion simulator EVER, In which you are actually lifted off the ground!!!! For those of you haven't been on one, a motion simulator is where you are put into a room and the seats move around while a movie plays in front of you. The combination makes you think you are moving forward. In this one, we felt we were flying over some of the more interesting parts of California: Golden Gate Bridge, Sierra Madres, orange groves, sea coast and finally right through the Disneyland fire works.

Well I have to go Because My Mom is bugging me to "hurry up." O Well.

-Robby Chaplain

Meantime, I was 1/2 hour late to my 4pm appointment with Dr. Kwon, a lovely Korean MD who got right to the issue at hand with a chest x-ray and some resulting anti-biotics. Sometimes, good ol' allopathy is the course to take. I had pneumonia and pleurisy - no wonder I had been hurting.

March 19, Marnie's Birthday

As is our custom, the moment my eyes cracked open, Robin sprung to life with my gifts. I opened various sweet things, a necklace and a DVD of the Moody Blues. I wasn't feeling terribly well, but we got going and went off to the Nixon Library.

When I think back to the Nixon years, I, like many people, I would assume, remember a painful time in our history. Nixon seemed to carry that pain on his face. I don't remember him smiling very often and unfortunately one of his parting quotes was, "I am not a crook." Oh dear.

In visiting the Nixon library, (Photos of Nixon Lib) I was amazed at how much that man accomplished, from his first office as congressman in 1946, through his vice-presidency and presidency and as an elder stateman, and how sad it was that he left office in such disgrace. He was involved with NASA, the civil rights movement, relations with China, and of course getting out of Viet Nam and this is only scatching the surface.

As I had described to Robin before we went, this portrayal of the man was by his compatriots, his friends. It was very well done and I came away feeling awed and compassionate. I felt and feel that this country did a horrible injustice to Richard Nixon, but also that he contributed his own self-effacement, his own "death-wish". I feel we all ached for him, but it was very uncomfortable.

Pat's birthday celebration had been on the 17th and there were still flowers on her grave. On Richard's, a single, dead white rose, head bowed. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, we did not have enough time to really see everything in depth. We did see his birthplace and the little house his dad had built from a kit (Photos of Nixon birthplace), which is in its original place and just feet from his and Pat's graves. I can't imagine how a family of seven could have lived in this tiny house.

Later on, I was able to talk our way into free parking and 2 ParkHopper tickets (usually only available to residents), which meant that we could spend a couple of hours in both Disney parks (Photos of Disney) After enjoying the parade (Photos of Disney Parade) and trying to get in the too-crowded rides, we gave up and took this still recovering birthday mom home.

March 20

I woke up with an amazing idea! Visit Sam Maloof! I didn't even know if he was still alive, but I called information and got his number.

Sam (Photos of Sam), a world-class furniture designer and craftsman whom I had studied with in the 1970s, sounded just as I remembered. Now 88, he is incredibly young, just as beautiful and generous as always. They had an openhouse going on and a memorial service they were hosting, but still invited us up for a visit. Sam had my first tape which I had given him on our last visit, when I had invited him to lecture for the Minnesota Woodworkers' Guild in the mid 1980s. He said he had just taken it out a few days before and wondered what had happened to me.

I had always wanted to see his (their) home. Freda had passed away five years before and he had married Bev, an old friend, who was obviously a lot younger-I thought my age or so. (Turned out she was 72!)

When we arrived, Sam was "holding court" in the court area-the open square formed by his several hand built buildings. The original location of the home had been claimed for the building of Hwy 210 and the whole complex had been disassembled and moved. Sam had lost over a year's worth of work time to accomplish this, but the result was just as extraordinary as the original. (Photos of Maloof Livingroom).

I was invited to move my harp in and play for Sam and Bev for a brief while and then they invited us out to the local InandOut for what they claimed were "the best burgers". Well, maybe...

Alta Loma, which was not to be found on our older maps, has become a very fast growing suburb of L.A. When Sam and Freda moved here 50 years before, it was citris groves. Before we left, they gave us some of their lemons. I'm sure that they hadn't needed the iron security gates they have now.

Sam is an amazing spirit. With the gigantic sum he gets for each piece of museum-quality furniture he produces (with only 3 helpers), he is a man of amazing humility and care. He is so kind that when he met Freda as a young college student at Scripps, he didn't want to "hurt the feelings of" the woman he was with at the time and so put off asking her out. He still has that concern for others. What a great model! They invited us to park in their lot for the night.

March 21

This morning, Sam knocked on our door, to remind us we needed to collect the instruments before they were off to church. He said they had enjoyed my music over night. I asked Bev if I could sing a song she had sung to me about a lawn-chair. She said she's like to trade. Great!

We headed east towards Palm Springs and started seeing huge fields of wind generators (Photos of Wind Mills). Robin took all but one of these photos from the RV, underway. He is developing quite an eye!

We got to Palm Springs in the early afternoon and drove around Desert Hot Springs, Palm Springs and after all our time in L.A., were aching for a natural environment-enough strip malls, for Heaven's Sake! It was HOT-about a dry 100F! A higher elevation might be cooler and so we headed for Joshua Tree National Park.

The boulders in Joshua Tree invited the imagination to see everything from whales to "Ziggyesce" cartooon characters. (See Photos of Joshua Tree). It was hard to believe how quiet it was at night-when most of the critters were out and about. And, it was cool!

March 22

We headed east on the 62 ("Next Services 100 miles") through the most barren landscape I'd ever seen. The only signs of human life were an occasional bottle or can at the side of the road, until we got to a turnout where an unbelievable sight met us: a shoe tree. (Photo of Shoe Tree) Without any major exits from the two-lane highway, here in the middle of nowhere, people had brought their old shoes (including auto shoes) and dumped them on this one dead tree. There were no other trees around of this scale and hundreds of pairs of shoes! I figured we must be getting close to an exit or town or something. Still had a way to go...

We finally got to the Colorado River and Lake Havasu. The first RV park we came to, we went in. A late afternoon dip in the lake was a godsend! We were told it was much too cold, but next to Puget Sound, it was like bath water. Neighbors claimed the weather was 30 degrees above normal. Our air conditioner, which I never thought we would need in March, was not putting out cold, so we ventilated as well as possible. It was hot well into the night. (Photos of Lake H)

March 23

We drove off to Mojave, really not knowing anything about the place. I happened to see a sign to a visitor information center and checked it out. Murl was the man behind the counter and very enthusiastically told me where to go and what to see. Unfortunately, he didn't mention the extent to which our teeth would rattle on the road to the higher elevation where the campsite was. However, the scenary was worth it! (Photos of Mojave)

On the way up the hill, I saw a tortoise on the edge of the road. It closed itself tightly and never budged. (Photo of Rob and Tortoise)

2004 Tour Home