March 15, 2021
WARNING: This is a very long post and goes through the year of pandemic.
Flagler Beach, FL
Well, it was a hell of a year. No skiing got done. A lot of stuff didn't get done. But, a lot of other stuff that was both on and off the agenda got done.
While 2020 didn't go to script (the script was to glide to retirement, have a big party, and move to the beach) , some big things happened:
- I stepped down as Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research & Engagement
- My colleagues asked me to stay on part-time in a new capacity
- After 20 great years, we sold our amazing house in Eugene
- I retired from the State of Oregon
- We lived in the RV for four months
- We bought an amazing house (with a swimming pool) in Flagler Beach Florida
Since I now live blocks from the beach, I'll need to rename this blog "For the Love of Snow...and Sand." So, let's revisit a few notable 2020 memories.
March
The last day I spent in my UO office was March 13. I skied that weekend and then all hell broke loose. Lacking nothing better to do (and at the sage advice of our realtor) I start remodeling our master bath.
That was in the early and scary days of the pandemic. We didn't know anything, except that this unseen menace was out there to get us. We set up camp at home, I set up my office on the dining room table (same place I am now, only in Florida) and life goes on. It being winter, it rains a lot.
April
By the end of March I'm getting frustrated with the state response to COVID and lead a group of people to write a white paper that outlines an Economic Recovery Framework for Oregon. It seems to be met with "oh, isn't that nice" while being summarily ignored. I ended up doing a bunch of webinars about the framework over the next few months and seemed to get more traction from people on the east coast than in Oregon.
Work continues on the remodel which ends up, as I expected, being a royal pain in the arse. But progress is made despite design differences Diane and I have.
Every disaster has its silver linings. One was that Kayla came and visited in late April and stayed for six weeks. Since she's a mountain bike pro, we had to go do some riding.
Another was that I never had to go to work. So I grew the obligatory Covid beard and hung out with Diane and the dogs. The dogs loved it, and I think Diane was mostly ok with it too.
May
By now we're deep into purging. I'm stopped all the garage sales due to the pandemic, but got very familiar with Craigslist. Stuff, stuff and more stuff. I realized that having a house that large with that much storage had some downsides. One of them being the amount of stuff you collect over a couple of decades. Our house never seemed that full, but as we systematically went through everything there was a lot there. For my part, it felt pretty good because most of it was stuff I didn't use or need.
May 2
Diane buys me the coolest anniversary present ever--a Republic steel guitar. I blow it by completely forgetting our anniversary - for the first time in 33 years. No excuse--that's a dumb shit move. Anyway, I love that she didn't kill me for getting so wound up in work.
May 6
Kayla and I made our first trip out to Whypass. I wish I would have started riding out there sooner--it's a short 30 minute drive from the house and has some cool trails.
We rode down Fun Girl, which was fun, and then it turned into Skid Mark, which true to it's name ended up getting into a clearcut. Whypass is on BLM land and is still actively managed for timber. I initially wanted to power through it. Kayla, correctly, thought I was nuts. We gave up after about 15 minutes. Otherwise, it was a great ride.
On the 8th we went out to what is arguably the best trail in the area: the Alpine Trail.
The trail is really magical. World class is not an exaggeration. After you go past some very sketchy sections with a lot exposure, the trail gets into this very lush, forested segment that's kind of flat and fast. It was super fun. The trail ends down at the covered bridge in Westfir.
Kayla left after four weeks and then we convinced her to come back for a couple more weeks. It's unusual to get to spend that much time with your adult children - they often move a long ways away and you don't see them that often. So, thank you for that COVID.
June
Kayla left and we listed the house. The entire month was spent selling stuff and cleaning up. Showings started during this period--which kind of really sucked. They would do things like schedule for 1 and show up 10 minutes early before we left to go walk around. At any rate, it was all rather unpleasant.
We published the second white paper in June - on testing and tracing and generally getting stuff under control. It mostly got ignored like the first one.
It looks like I lost all my photos from June - my folder is empty. Probably lost due to operator error.
July
Lockdown and quarantine is getting seriously old by now. I've been studying the literature intently with the help of Dylan and my colleagues at the Institute. It seems pretty clear that risk of contracting COVID is pretty low outside.
So...it's time to get the band back together! We had several driveway sessions over at Gary's starting on July 5.
And one of Gary's adorable new pups, Bear, joined in for the festivities.
July 11
The weather is nice, so it's time to go do Alpine again. This time Titus invites me and we do the full 15 miles with the shuttle. That saves about 4,000' vertical feet of brutal climbing.
The beargrass was blooming and it was absolutely spectacular. We definitely timed this one right.
Titus says "over there!"
Such an amazing trail. The crew was pretty tolerant - they are all WAY faster than I am. I'm still trying to figure out how to navigate a switchback without endoing. It was the perfect day for the perfect ride. These are the parts of Oregon I'll miss.
July 16
Diane wanted to go look for crystals so we headed up to the Cinderella mine outside of Blue River. I took my bike and rode a few miles up the jeep road. We'd been up several times and I was always curious about what was around the bend.
Turns out there were more bends and more beargrass. I went until it looked like it was a sustained down off the ridge - I'd already done enough hills that I didn't want a major climb back.
Diane searching for the elusive crystals.
July 19
We're back in the driveway again making noise. Kevin and Charley joined for a bit of Beautiful Horse action. The neighbors loved us!
I have dozens of pictures of stuff that I sold on Craigslist - furniture mostly, but a lot of other stuff. At some point I sold Grandfather's darkroom to a very gracious young woman in Portland. She sent a nice video saying how happy it made her. It made me happy that someone was going to use it.
July 29
Diane has been wanting to go out and collect sunstones for some years now. So, we packed up the RV, hitched up the Chevy and headed for the desert.
We spent night 1 at the Rockin R RV park out by Fort Rock. The place was, well, rustic. The proprietor was also interesting. In the end, it wasn't a bad place to stay. I ran off to Fort Rock in the morning.
From there we headed down to the Sunstone collecting site. The site is about 30 miles north of Plush in some of the most remote desert you'll ever see anywhere.
It was a pretty amazing sunset--aided by wildfire smoke drifting in from the SW.
I buzzed over to the Spectrum Mine in the am. It's full Mad Max world out there. I was ready to see the giant machines with Mel Gibson in tightly clad leather coming at me any moment. The pictures hardly do it justice. It's a lot of machinery and crap lying in between mine pits and mobile homes. I can't imagine why anyone would want to live out there other than to escape the law.
August
August 1, 2020
Sunstone Collecting Area, Middle of Nowhere OR
Diane nearly collaposed from heat stroke. We picked the hottest days of the summer and it was pushing up a bit over 100 degrees. I hung out in the air conditioned comfort of the RV reading a book and napping for the hot part of the day. At any rate, we got a pretty good haul of decent sunstones out there. It was cool to go again and experience a part of the state that we hadn't been to for 15 years. It's a good reminder of how diverse Oregon is--and that well over half the state is desert despite it's well deserved reputation for rain on the west side.
We finally got an offer on the house. It wasn't what we were asking, and we countered. We ended up settling on $535,000 -- a figure considerably higher than what one of the realtors we consulted said it was worth, but lower than the $547,000 we were asking for it. I spent 10 minutes agonizing over this and decided to not look back. There's so many what-ifs that it could make a person mad in pretty short order.
We were scheduled to close in mid-August. That date kept getting pushed due to the appraisers being jammed up. The delay worked in my favor as I have a big project due for the Oregon Wine Board every August and the idea of getting through the hard part on the road was very unappealing.
August 11
Al comes over and cleans up some drum
tracks to a couple of songs we recorded before the world turned upside
down. The pandemic really screwed things up for all of us. We were
building momentum on writing and recording, were gearing up to play a
giant retirement party (for me), and were generally having a great time.
The next weekend, we had the very last Charley Horse session. I set up everything so we could record. We did a few improves and some takes of a song I wrote during the pandemic. That was a bit of a risk, but the basement was empty so we could spread out. It was definitely bittersweet. I really enjoyed playing with the guys. Gary and I have been playing together since 1988--pretty much the only bass player I knew in Eugene. Brent and I had built a great friendship since the Beautiful Wrecks days and we really had great communication in our guitar playing. Allen is probably the best of a bunch of really good drummers I've had the chance to work with. He has a very unique way of thinking about rhythm. And Charley, well, he an amazing guitarist, and outstanding vocalist, and a very kind person. I hope we'll get to play music together someday again.
August 15
The PODS people come and drop off our POD. Pretty interesting system they have. Basically, they have a frame on wheels that lifts the POD off the truck and allows them to place it anywhere. Except our sloped driveway. We ended up having to get a permit to stick it in the street. That was a good move - it would have been very difficult to load the thing on an angle.
August 19
The PODS people come and haul the POD off to an undisclosed location.
Aug 23
Last Day in Eugene
It was a mad rush to get everything loaded in the Truck and RV. It was sad to leave the house we lived in for the last 20 years, but exciting to be moving on to a new chapter. Dan Phillips came up and helped us load - his assistance was invaluable - as well as Brent's. There were a few things that there was no way for me to move on my own.
It was 5pm before we hit the road. No time for goodbyes or photos of the rigs. Just out and into the jaws of the pandemic. Our first destination was Bly and the opal mine. Leaving that late was a big problem - it got dark around Chiloquin and we did the last two hours at night. Driving an RV or a truck with a trailer with a car on it is not recommended. We got to Bly but couldn't figure out where the RV park was. Finally I took an educated guess and we located it. I parked the truck and then decided the RV was the wrong direction and took off to turn it around. That was a mistake - we ended up having to go into town and in the process of pulling a U-y I bent the arm on the tow bar and dinged the front of the Chevy. Lots of lessons learned that night. We both skipped dinner and I went straight to the Crown Royal.
Aug 24
Sprague River Picnic Grounds
I got up early and grabbed the fly rod to drive a couple miles up the road to the Sprague River Picnic site. I had memories of this place - we randomly stopped here on our very first trip to Oregon in August 1987 (33 years earlier!). I had some very big trout come out and look at my lure and was duly impressed. We were on our way back to Ft Collins. We stopped in Lakeview to fuel up - the road between Lakeview and Winnimucca is arguably the most remote in the lower 48. Not the kind of place you want to break down. Somewhere out there in the middle of nowhere the car started overheating and venting coolant. It was the middle of the night and Diane was driving and there wasn't a hell of a lot we could do but keep going and hope we didn't totally break down. We landed in Winnemucca well after midnight and pitched our tent at the I-70 rest area.
The next morning we were rudely awakened by sprinklers going off at 5am. That got us up and out of there in a hurry. We went over and got some breakfast at Parker's Model T Casino. I was trying to figure out what happened to the car and since the coolant all leaked out guessed it was the water heater. So, we went to the local parts store and bought a new one and installed it. Unfortunately, that did not fix the problem - we'd blown a head gasket - something that was well beyond my ability to fix so we limped back to Fort Collins and used a bunch of coolant on the way.
We went back again 10 years or so ago with Dylan when we did our first sunstone/Hart Mountain trip.
Back to the present day. It's a beautiful little canyon and another example of Oregon's diversity. I caught and released a couple of little trout, but mostly enjoyed being in the place again.
The local gas station dispenses some timeless advice. I sent this to the kids and they quipped it was a real "dad saying." That's true - I used this one on Kayla a lot to reminder that you can't run away from yourself.
That afternoon we went to the opal mine deep in the Gearharts. Diane had made friends with the claim owner on facebook. He is very generous and allows people to dig on his claim - as long as they are civil. We were by ourselves on day 1. Diane works the seam.
Mining is tough on the hands.
This is what we are after.
The site is on the side of a hill in an absolutely gorgeous location.
Zoey and Juno were substantially less excited about digging than we were.
There's the stuff.
Open range!
The prize specimen from day 1. We had no idea that day 2 would be much much better.
Aug 16, 2020
Bly, Oregon
I got up early again and went fishing. Today I thought I would go hit one or more of the mountain lakes up near the opal mine. This is what I think they mean when they say "living in God's country." I also noted how extremely dry everything was - which was a concern that would bear out to be devastating a couple of weeks later.
Fishing at Heart Lake. Seemed like it would be a reasonable place to camp, but for all the cow dung all over the place.
There was one party there when we got back to the mine. I went to the back and chose the hardest place to get to I could find. I got into a really nice vein and kept sneaking the specimens into my bag without showing the other people. Diane was looking somewhere else that was considerably less productive.
The RV park had a pretty nice collection of vintage stuff.
What do you mean, he had bullet holes in his mirrors? He was a friend of yours...
The pups were cooped up in the RV all day so we took them down to the picnic area. They loved it.
The smoke is getting worse, but made for a spectacular sunset.
RV life.
The cream of the days Opal haul. Not bad. Not bad at all.
August 26
Prineville
We bugged out of Bly in the morning and headed north. We made a stop in Redmond to sign the sales papers on the house and finally closed the deal. I think the buyers were already moving in. At any rate, we were happy we didn't have to go back to Eugene to sign and fortunate that Cascade Title had a Redmond office and was willing to accommodate us.
We stayed at the Crooked County RV park next to the county fairground in Prineville. We had stayed there a few times before as we love rockhounding in the Ochoco Mountains. We planned on staying five days just to unwind a bit and enjoy some last poking around Oregon. I'll almost certainly go back, but many of these places are places neither of us are likely to visit again. The problem is there's way too many cool places and way to little time to experience time--especially when you're working all the time.
I also like it because the Crooked River Canyon is right up the road with some world class trout fishing. I never managed to catch anything there despite trying many times. It's due to how little I know about fly fishing for trout. Didn't make it any less enjoyable.
That afternoon we headed over to the Brennan Palisades just a few miles outside Prineville. We had never seen it before, and since I'm keen on geologic formations I was wanting to check it out. I wasn't dissappointed and the girls enjoyed it to. They mostly stayed in the valley while I climbed up and around the formations. Very cool.
We ended the tour by visiting the Stien's Pillar viewpoint.
August 28, 2020
Given my dodgy luck with the trout, I decided to go run the Stein's Pillar trail in the morning. The Pillar is pretty amazing - it just sticks out a couple hundred feet out of the side of the valley. I'd never been up close, so it seemed like a cool thing to do. The pillar is only a few miles from the Palisades, so it was a short drive to the trail head.
I got there pretty early so I was the only one there--the way I like it during the pandemic. I don't need people around trying to get me sick with their disease.
We headed up into the Mill Creek area for some afternoon thunder egg hunting at the Ochoco Agate Beds. The dig was quite productive and we came away with a bucket full of small and medium-size eggs. We'll cut them open later when we get settled and Diane has a place to set up her saw.
We went out to some other remote places to rock hound over the next couple of days. It's always fun to be out there even if the hounding isn't that productive.
We wrapped up our Prineville explorations and headed east on US 26 through John Day heading for the gold mining district near Sumpter OR.
August 31
Sumpter OR
We stayed at the Gold Rush RV park in Sumpter. It's basically built on top of dredge spoil and was not the easiest space to access. As usual, I got up early to see if I could find a place to fish and headed up towards Granite. When I got close to Granite I saw a creek with beaver ponds winding through the meadow below town. So, I pulled off to check it out.
What I got was a really pleasant surprise - a bunch of steelhead spawning in the shallows in between the beaver ponds. Granite Creek is a tributary of the John Day River, which is a tributary of the Columbia. These fish had traveled hundreds of miles to get here. It's a kind of mind-blowing circle of life. And, I didn't have the presence to get any pictures.
There's no fishing allowed on Granite Creek, so I headed downstream for a few miles to check it out. I ended up near the Red Boy Mine and Fremont Powerhouse. A couple of historic sites to throw on top of all the other history out there.
September 2020
September 1
Sumpter Oregon
We went and toured the dredge at Sumpter. It's a pretty ingenious operation and probably the least environmentally sensitive method of mining known to man. At one point there were three of them operating in the Powder River Basin. Another point of interest was our drive up Cracker Creek to the ghost town of Bourne Oregon. It wasn't really a ghost town - it had a bunch of quaint miners cabin. On the way up the canyon we passed a major gold mining operation and I mentioned to Diane that I thought it was probably on Gold Rush the TV show. Turns out it was.
We only stayed in Sumpter for a couple of days. We packed up and headed to the next stop in Ogden UT at the KOA. Odgen is an interesting place; the Ogden KOA was definitely not interesting. I'd love to go back and hit Snow Basin again. Next day we picked up and headed to the KOA in Steamboat Springs, which is much more interesting since the Yampa River runs right through it.
We set it up so Kayla and Dylan and Lindsey, Dylan's girlfriend could come to Steamboat and spend a few days with us. We all have fond memories of the place, and Kayla lived there for several years.
September 4, 2020
Pearl Lake Colorado
We had the Shell Lake Canoe on the Toyota heading back to its previous home in Fort Collins after spending almost 20 years in Eugene. It's a great boat, but it's rather heavy. The plan for the day was to haul the canoe up to Pearl Lake and paddle around a bit.
We got back to the RV and made veggie brats and played a game of Sharkopoly. Lindsey kicked our asses.
September 5, 2020
Steamboat Springs, CO
We headed out for Fort Collins. Diane got a picture of what her trip looked like for 3,000 miles.
We got caught by a cattle drive in North Park. Gotta love the old west part of America.
We stopped at Woods Landing for a break and went down to check out the Laramie River. We found a bunch of cool rocks and some even cooler fossilized bones. I wished I had more time to do some fishing - it looked amazing. Woods Landing is known for its historic dance hall. I'm sure many a shitkicking party has been held there.
Fort Collins
We arrived in time for the party in my honor. We were ostensibly celebrating my 60th birthday from about a month earlier, but I was celebrating retirement and having made it this far without getting COVID. The party was winding down and we were getting to sleep in the RV when I heard sirens. Then I saw flashers. I looked out the window and there were at least six cop cars two houses down the road towards Prospect Street.
We got up and went inside to see what was up. Turns out some drunken crazy dude went in the house and was wandering around. Aunt Janice saw him and I'm sure had a WTF reaction and told him he had to leave. So he did and she called the cops. They were there in force in a flash--the response time was maybe two minutes. By then everyone in the house was up checking out the action.
We went outside and Janice and Ruthanne were talking with the cops about what happened. I wandered across the street and got some photos of the action. The person bending down on the left next to the cop car was tending to the crazy guy. Apparently it was domestic issues - his partner left him or something and he flipped.
That was probably the most exciting thing that has ever happened or will ever happen on Emigh Street. It was definitely unexpected.
September 6
We took Zoey down to visit Kayla's place in Lakewood. She's got a cute little condo 10 minutes from the Yeti HQ. Diane wanted to go visit her sister Chris who lives in in the hills just west of Denver up by Buffalo Bill's grave. We saw some elk just chillin around the corner from her house.
We got some photos of Diane and Chris, but they are on Diane's phone.
September 7
Heavy smoke was drifting in and it was snowing ash from the Cameron fire. The fire was the largest in Colorado history and was quite devastating. We were on our way out of town heading to Nebraska. The weather report was calling for snow and we thought it best to bug out before it hit.
Little did we know that Oregon was about to have the worst wildfires in recorded history. The Holiday Farm fire started September 7 and burned 175,000 acres and most of the McKenzie Basin. The Almeda Drive fire burned nearly the entire cities of Phoenix and Talent in Jackson County. I've done a lot of work for both those cities over the years and it was heartbreaking to see since most of the structures burned were lower cost housing. Over 1,400 people are still in transitional housing as I write this in March 2021. Bloomberg called and interviewed us about the fire. They ended up using all my quotes and none Rebecca's, which was a bit frustrating.
We stayed in York Nebraska that night. It got dark again and it was a bitch figuring out where the RV park was. Turns out it was located at the end of a dead end road just off the interchange. It was really cold and windy when we got there--not so much fun. We left early in the morning and turned south through Kansas. We had decided to take the southern route through OK, east Texas, Lousiana, and all that.
We needed to stop for gas so we pulled off at Manhattan Kansas. It was a typical small midwestern town. We gassed up and stopped at the fairground. I kept seeing these signs for "Rock City." I convinced Diane that we should haul all the rigs out to Rock City, which was five miles out of town. Turned out to be worth it. It's a very unusual set of sandstone formations.
This supports my axiom that there's cool places wherever you go - you just have to look around and make some time.
September 9
We carried on down the road. The Chocktaw Nation and the hills of eastern Kansas and Oklahoma were surprisingly beautiful. I'd like to go back some time and do some more exploring. Diane had booked us a site at Jellystone Park (yep, that Jellystone) in Eufala, Oklahoma.
The place was almost completely deserted it being after school got in. Looked like a fun place to take the kids - bit water park and an even bigger reservoir that looked like something you see on the bass fishing shows.
September 10
We head on down the road. The objective is to meet Dave Henre and his family at a park called Bogue Chitto near Covington LA, where my friend Mark moved.
We missed the last train from Clarksville.
It was another long day, but we arrived before dark which was a bonus. We'd reserved a spot for two nights so we were both looking forward to a rest day.
September 12
Bogue Chitto was a pretty cool place. It had mountain bike trails so I risked digging into the back of the Ryder and getting my bike out. It was a bit less work than I thought it might be, but still a big mess. It was pretty hot and humid there - you couldn't stand outside more than five minutes without getting soaked. We took the pups down to the river in the afternoon and looked for rocks and waded around.
September 13
Got up early and went for a ride. Then we packed up and hit the road. Next stop, Carabelle on the Florida Panhandle. Looked like a fun place, but there was the little matter of hurricane Sally - one of the several hurricanes that hit that area in 2020.
It was a long drive to Carabelle. We went through Biloxi Mississippi, stopping for gas in Mobile, and then into the Florida panhandle.
I was surprised about how remote it was. We went through the Apalachocola NF and then through Tate's Hell state forest. It all looked like a place you would not want to be stuck at night without a gun. Carabelle is a cute town, but we didn't get to see much of it beyond driving through as it was starting to rain and getting dark.
Sept 14
Its now raining hard and blowing.
Carabelle's claim to fame is being the D-Day training site. I'm guessing that it was quite a bit warmer than the sea's off Normandy. I honor and respect everyone that participated in that momentous day. The world would be a different place if the Allies had not prevailed.
The drive out of Carabelle was pretty hairy - sheets of rain and wind. Visibility was almost non-existant at times. Fortunately, it was a short day across Florida. We stopped in to see Monte and Janie in St. Augustine before making our way to Camptown Beverley Beach. The plan was to post up there while we looked for a house.
The place seemed nice enough - right there on the beach. We were happy to be done driving and to have made it safely across the country without contracing COVID. It was an interesting journey. We really didn't interact with people beyond stopping for gas and the occasional grocery stop. The whole thing has been a catastrophe and a failure of leadership at the highest level of government.
We started settling in, renting a storage space in St. Augustine and unloading the truck was one of the first orders of business.
October 2020
I got into the habit of walking across the A1A to watch the sunrise every morning and just sit. It was cathartic and a nice way to settle into my new home. Sometime in October, the battery dies on my little Canon camera so I shelve it because the charger is packed away in some unknown location.
30 days of sunrise...
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We got a realtor by stopping at an open house in Flagler Beach one
Sunday. Will seemed like a nice guy and a straight shooter and we
needed someone to help us find a place. We looked at LOT of places.
Places in Palm Coast, in St. Augustine, Ormand Beach and in between. We learned a lot about the area. At one point we had a place in Palm Coast we really liked. It was a really nice floor plan, completely updated and had a pool with a bar. The problem was it was 10 miles from the ocean in suburban hell. Plus it was overpriced. We thought hard about that one, but put it on the back burner. Turned out to be a good move.
We went to a gated community called Grand Haven and looked at a house. I hated the place. I felt like I would be locked into the asylum with a bunch of Trump-supporting geezers. The first place we looked at was a terrible design. Diane found another one she liked, but I refused to even look at it.
We really liked Flagler Beach but every place we liked sold right away or was in the flood zone or was a dump or all three. We eventually put a bid on a huge (3000sf) house in Hidden Lakes, about five miles from the beach. It was a nice place and Diane really liked it. But...it was huge and I didn't want a house that big...and, it had an HOA with very restrictive CCRs.
Hurricane Teddy came sometime in October. It didn't really hit us, but it rained. The first real band rained about 6" in 20 minutes and flooded the Surfside Estates behind Camptown. I've never seen rain like that and I'm from Oregon. Crazy. We were mostly happy Teddy stayed out to sea.
Turtle!
Puppies!
When I got bored of running, I took up riding the local trail systems. There's two--Mala Compra (bad deal) and Graham Swamp. Both are quite fun, but Graham Swamp is much more challenging and way cooler.
Having a couple of surprisingly nice trail systems so close to where we were staying was a welcome surprise. I hadn't really thought much about mountain biking in Florida since there's no mountains here. The call it off-road biking - which is definitely more accurate.
The election campaigns are heating up and the Trump supporters are clearly visible. They seem to rally every weekend at the corner of A1A and FL 100 (Moody Blvd). Vehicles with Trump flags are everywhere. The Biden supporters are out there - they are just a lot more low key and less militant about it.
November 2020
Somewhere in the sequence above October turned to November. More houses, more sunrises and a few cold days in there.
There's a cool rail trail just up the road in Graham Swamp. The Lehigh trail used to service a cement factory during the war. Makes sense - Florida is mostly limestone and so is cement. We took the pups over for a nice November stroll.
Let's go Dad!
Around this time I started writing a song called "Same Thing, Different Day." Life was definitely feeling a bit like groundhog day living in the RV with the same routine. I decided about that same time I was happy to still be working. I wasn't quite ready to fully quit and housing was turning out to be more expensive than it was when we started looking a year earlier. COVID definitely screwed with the markets.
Then, one day it was all rainbows.
It was around this time that 1911 S. Flagler Ave popped up on Zillow. Diane found it first. We scheduled an immediate showing with our realtor. I walked in and loved the place - it had everything we were looking for - at 1,600 sf, not too big, large lot with a fenced yard, cement block construction so the big bad wolf can't blow it down easily, a pool, and in Flood Zone X (e.g., out of the 100 and 500 year flood zone). The only rub was it was listed for $499k which was about $100k over what we were hoping to do.
We had come to the conclusion we probably weren't going to get what we wanted for the range we were looking into. Moreover, we were buying into a lifestyle that doesn't exist over the bridge. As Kayla said, a mile, 10 miles, it doesn't matter - if you can't walk to the beach you're not at the beach. We talked a bunch and threw a competitive offer at it. It was accepted. Around that time I had got pre-approved for a mortgage. With rates so low, it was hard to turn the money down. Plus, I didn't want to pay tax on distribution from my retirement account.
What next? Here's comes the gauntlet of buying a home. Inspections, appraisals, on and on and on.
We also had a little election this month...the outcome of which drags on and on. Eventually they declare Biden the winner, but Trump never gives and inch and continues to insist he won. Many people are waiting until the electoral vote count in December to call it. Trump files dozens of lawsuits and all sorts of pathetic riduclous things ensue. I think American has "Jumped the Shark" and need to steel ourselves up to being China's bitch. That will happen within a decade or so I predict...unless we seriously get a grip. That doesn't seem possible given that fully 1/3 of American's don't seem to condone reality. It's more of a choose your own adventure sort of thing.
The results and manifest in ugly and sad ways by how the country, and in particular, the Trump administration has responded to the Pandemic. Something close to 400,000 people have died to this point and there's still many out there that think COVID is a hoax. It's a little scary.
December 2020
Camptown informs us they're giving us the boot December 24. Plus, the wanted to move us around a bunch before that. So we left. We moved up to Bryn Mawr in St. Augustine--about a mile from Diane's parents. It was a known quantity - we stayed there on our visit in 2017 and found it acceptable, if not expensive.
St. Augustine is a charming place - oldest city in the country. We were out on the island and only went downtown once since there was a pandemic going on and we didn't want to join the unwashed masses in their quest to have a spot in a hospital with a ventilator.
Sunrise at Bryn Mawr.
The girls started getting a bit grumpy about living in the RV after a couple of months. It's a pretty small space to be confined to and they could only go out when we took them out.
It actually gets cold in Florida. We found that out the first time we ran out of propane and the heater stopped in the middle of the night. I also realized that I had underestimated winter in the south and was pretty unprepared by not having many warm clothes. Fortunately, there weren't that many cold days.
There's a nice little trail system close to where we were staying called Moses Creek that I took to riding.
I kept getting up for the sunrise.
Bryn Mawr looking west from the beach.
Here's where we stayed.
One day after work I had the bright idea to ride down to the Matanzas Bridge on the beach. Going down was fun, but it was 8 miles which was considerably further than I expected. The ride back was pretty chilly as it was getting dark.
We posted the results of our COVID survey of Oregonians just before Christmas. The results are not unexpected, but are quite disturbing for anyone that wants to get past the pandemic. Oregonlive picks it up and the Oregon Health Authority almost immediately changes their communications strategies. Maybe we're having some impact after all. My assessment is we're running an unscripted social experiment. People that get vaccinated will largely be safe from COVID; those who are not will continue to get sick. Unfortunately, those people are mostly on one side the political spectrum and many do not have the education to understand the gravity of their choices. There's another part of me that thinks, just give them all a Darwin Award and the rest of us will move on without their nonsense.
December 21
Partial Lunar Eclipse
There were some cool planetary things that happened this month - the eclipse and the planetary alignment. Neither were particularly easy to photograph with our gear, but it was a good excuse to go out at night.
Christmas Day
The dogs really, really, really love the beach. Zoey likes to dig holes and Juno typically gets the zoomies and runs around like a mad dog. They are definitely in their element here. It was fun going to the beach on Christmas day. No skiing this season so might as well enjoy the sunshine.
Juno gets the Zoomies!
It's a pretty low-key family free day. We all decided the right thing to do was quarentine so no celebrations. We weren't among the substantial numbers of Americans that chose to risk their lives to get together to drink and watch football.
We're moving forward on the house issue, but it doesn't appraise for our offer and we renegotiate. We shaved off a good chunk, but didn't get down under the appraised value. We're buying into a lifestyle and don't want to start the search all over again because we love the house and are all ready to move out of the RV by this time.
2021
January, 2021
We didn't bother to party like it was 1999, or even 2021. There were a lot of fireworks early in the evening and Zoey doesn't like them. The poor girl was exhausted.
January 6
Siege on Congress. Trump called for the insurrection and got it. I watched it unfold in the RV on CNN. My initial thoughts were it was sad and pathetic and horribly misguided and was directly attributable to Trump who apparently watched it with joy on TV. I commended Congress for regrouping and getting the job done. Unfortuately, more than 100 members of Congress were (some still are) selling the Big Lie. Worse yet, tens of millions of American's believe that bullshit. I've been saying that we're watching the end of an empire since September 11, 2001. It's frightening how much worse it got and how quickly that happened. There's lots of reasons for it, in my view the key contributers are right-wing media and the entire Republican party. They can't win fairly so they tell lies and cheat. It's not clear what they even stand for at this point, but apparently that is immaterial.
My initial reaction was that we really dodged a bullet on this one. As time goes by, and more information comes to light, it becomes clearer just how close we were to martial law. The insurrection was clearly plotted out be certain groups and I have to believe they were out for blood and would have strung up Pence, Pelosi, McConnell or anyone else that hadn't actively perpetuated the big lie. If a member of Congress had been killed or injured, it seems likely Trump would have declared Martial Law which would have set off a whole chain of ugly events. America...how far you've fallen. No longer that shining city on the hill, but destined to be a third world ghetto.
One of the best things to come of this is that Trump gets booted from Twitter and Facebook and the middle school bullying ceases almost immediately. If that's not worth a Hallelujah! I'm not sure what is.
January 7
We're getting close. We do the final walkthrough of the property and find everything in order. Plus, WE'RE READY TO MOVE IN!!!!
Uh, daddy, I'm ready to get out of here!
January 12, Closing Day
Finally, the day is here. The loan work is all done, the appraisal and inspections are done. Everything is ready. All we have to do is go down to the title office in Flagler Beach and sign the paperwork. We ended up going to the wrong address in Bunnell. Diane was ready to throttle me. We finally got to the office and signed everything. All that was left was to do the wire transfer to complete the sale. That was kind of a pain in the ass...lots of hoops to jump through, but I get it. There needs to be some protections when you're transferring that much money.
We drove back up to St. Augustine. Unhooked everything and packed up and left. Diane's happy to be out of the RV.
I think the girls were even happier than we were.
Zoey says she approves.
The next weeks are filled with work and moving. I went up to St. Augustine, rented the biggest U-Haul they had and loaded it up one afternoon. I drove to the house and parked and we started unloading. We got it all out (nice to have a real bed and a sofa to sit on) and then I drove it back up the next day. It saved us a bunch of money to get it done within 24 hours.
Diane then called to fetch the POD. They delivered it and it sat there for a few days while I worked. When I tried to open it...it wouldn't. I could get it up maybe a foot, but it wouldn't budget past that. I was kicking myself for not opening it when they dropped it off. They sent someone out to help us with it - she finally used some magic and brute force to get it open.
We unloaded it mostly in the garage. It made it abundantly clear that we'll need to build Diane a shop for all her stuff.
Feburary 2021
Diane ordered a kit online for a 12 x16 shed and it finally arrived. I started poking around and figured out that we'll need a building permit to put the thing up. That's been an interesting challenge - they rejected the application because they needed more info. Turns out we need to built the thing to withstand 140 mph winds. I hadn't anticipated that or all the requirements that come with it.
After a couple weeks I finally get in touch with the guy at the city to go over his list of demands. He's nice enough, but I get why people hate the planning and building department. The gist of it was that we need to hire an engineer to stamp the design and spec out the roofing and tie downs. Ugh.
The good news is we're starting to settle in. The neighbors are all suspicously friendly. It's like we live in Canada or something. The beach is right there and the pool becons. We're getting stuff set up and buying new furniture to replace all the stuff we sold. I don't regret selling any of that stuff- most of it either wouldn't fit or would have been inappropriate for this house. I'm glad we kept our nice dining room table, our entertainment stand and our leather sofas. We may replace the sofas soon, but it's nice having them here in the meantime.
My phone is seriously starting to die. I replaced the battery in December becuase it wouldn't hold a charge. Now it just won't charge. Fortunately Kayla sent some of her discards, including a perfectly nice iPhone 10. I finally upgrade but made the error of not backing up my old phone so I can't access my address book or any of my message history. Shoulda thought of that one...
Feburary 25
Diane suggests we go up to Jungle Hut - her favorite beach - after work. It's a full moon tonight and I wanted to watch it rise over the ocean, so yea, let's go. I grabbed bevy for when we got there. Moonrise was spectacularly magical. One more thing I appreciate about my new home. The camera in the new iPhone is much, much better than the old one.
Altogether an awesome evening.
March 2021
It's been nearly a year since the pandemic, since I've skied, and since I posted. We're getting more settled and got some nice furniture for the pergola (Diane keeps calling it the pagoda).
The fire pit will be especially nice in the summer. A lot of people here burn wood. Maybe we'll get a wood pit when I build the flagstone patio out front.
March 13
It's biker week in Daytona and I lot of them are roaring around Flagler Beach. They're definitely loud and proud. There's some pretty cool bikes. I'm convincee that everyone inland owns a Harley and comes to the beach on the weekend where they hop from bar to bar. Seems like a rational thing to do to me. Seems a lot more rational just to buy a place at the beach.
The State of Florida called this evening. I normally don't pick up calls and night (or ever according to Kayla) but this one came across as FL COVID VACCINE. That got my attention since I've been waiting for the day for a year now. I was going to sign up Monday when they open it up to people 60+ but they did me the favor of making the appointment for me. I'll go in St. Patrick's day morning for my first dose. I would say thank God, but I think it's more approrpiate to thank the scientists that developed the mRNA technology to create the vaccine and the people that actually created it. And I'll give a tip of the hat to Trump for funding it - perhaps the one good thing he's done. That doesn't really compensate for the half million American's who have died becuase of his ignorance. I could go on, but what's the point?
March 15
It's been a year to the day since I've skied and a year and a day since I went into my office to work. One of the silver linings of all this is that it's now abundantly clear that I can work from wherever I'm at. All I need is a cell phone connection. As an aside, the wifi at Camptown sucked and I ended up using my wifi hotspot most of the time. Pretty handy, but not ask good as having decent service.
It's been a hell of a year. 2020 started with so much promise and immediately turned to shit. We learned a lot about ourselves, about our fellow countryman, and about some fundamental flaws in our social and economic systems. The passage of the Recovery Act and what appears to be the steady and understated guidance of the Biden Administration (sometimes I wonder whether we still have a president - the truama from all the childish bullying will take a while to wear off). I've been around long enough to know our political systems have their own immune response functions are are incredibly resilient. That is, it's more likely that we'll fall back into the same cruel and inequitable patterns than not. I'll hold out hope that we can bounce forward to being a more equitable nation, but the uglieness of the past several years is going to take some time to fade.
I'll likely go dark again until I get a surfboard and learn to surf. There will be skiing in 2021-22. I'm glad I skipped this year - it looked like an utter nightmare and it wasn't that great of a season.
So...to end with some dad wisdom...
Wherever you go, there you are!
