This tree has been hanging out near the beach for a very long time. That’s the blue-green sea, in the background there.
The road to town was so horrible yesterday (coated with ice) that I decided the smartest option would be to play hooky from work today. Fortunately I have an understanding boss.
[daily log: walking, 3km;]
This tree was there beside a road utterly covered in slippery ice.
Driving to town and back was stressful. I had to drive very, very slowly, and even still, I spun out once. I had a dentist appointment. The dentist did some extra x-rays, in line with helping provide me some peace of mind with respect to any possible recurrence of cancer. I’ve been experiencing more pain lately – I always experience some pain in my mouth and jaw (cut nerves from cancer surgery) – but lately I’ve been feeling more. So I wanted to make sure, as I’ve been worrying about possible recurrence – call it a touch of justified hypochondria. The dentist assured me that nothing looks out of place or abnormal, and I don’t have any cavities either, which is good because of my bone-necrosis (that complicates dental work).
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; retailing, 5hr; dentist-visiting, 1hr; ice-road-driving, 2hr]
This tree was beneath a waning moon.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3km]
This tree was near a mountain illuminated by the rising sun and the setting moon.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km]
This tree has an eagle looking down at me.
I went in to work today, not a normally scheduled work day. But Santa was scheduled to appear. The store was quite busy, and children came through. We sold stuff at the gift shop.
Here is a picture of the gift shop “family” with the visiting Santa (known as Earnie).
Jan and I are wearing our uniform “elf hats”. The children are the owners’ kids – the owner Chad is kneeling at right.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km; retailing, 6hr]
This tree was witness to a very high-speed, excited dog was we walked along the snowy road. She was running quite fast, and I just got lucky with this picture as she ran past me.
I got some chores done today. I filled the cistern from the well – still a manual task, and with the input stream off the hillside frozen, we have to make sure we don’t run short of water. I wasted a lot of water playing with hoses and fixing the frozen pipe problem last Sunday. I also did some unplanned maintenance on one of the database for the map website I maintain. But I was pleased that I was able to troubleshoot and solve the problem, despite knowing next-to-nothing about the programming language involved.
[daily log: walking, 5km; dogwalking, 3km]
This tree saw steady snowfall blanket bustling downtown Rockpit, Alaska.
I got to resume my dogwalking habit today, as neighbors Mike and Penny returned from their own travels with their dog Maya. Art and I restocked our larders with a more substantial shopping trip to town than usual, and came home for our traditional Thursday pizza dinner.
[daily log: walking, 5km; dogwalking, 3km]
This tree is the same as one posted two days ago. I was trying to show that the culvert full of ice had partly melted due to rain – but the photo quality is poor.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 8.5hr]
This tree is a guest tree from my past. It’s in front of my place of employment in Ilsan (Goyang), Korea (marked by the long vertical orange sign with blue lettering). I took this picture in March, 2015. I believe it’s one of the dawn redwoods (metasequoia) that are so ubiquitous in newly urbanized parts of South Korea.
I went back to my job at the gift shop, today. I was deeply anxious that I’d forgotten how to do my job, given I’ve been away for a month. But it came back easily enough, as these things do. Perhaps being around Arthur all the time, I’ve developed an anxiety around my own forgetfulness, seeing more danger and decline there than is warranted.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 8.5hr]
This tree is adjacent to a culvert half-full of ice.
By the end of the day, temperatures were warming, however. There is mixed rain and snow forecast for tomorrow. And I’m off to work tomorrow – after almost four weeks… will I remember how to do my job?
[daily log: walking, 3km;]
This tree will be our Christmas tree – it’s a small sitka spruce I planted in a bucket.
I spent most of the day messing with our water system. I can’t say for sure, but my guess is that we had a plug of ice (frozen pipe) somewhere in the outdoor section of buried pipe between the cistern shed and house. So turning on the water supply was far from trivial. The day was crisp and sunny, with temperatures in the mid-to-upper 20’s.
First, I set up a giant construction-site-style heater to blow heat onto the spot where the water pipe enters the house. Counter-intuitively, the water enters the house at the side of the boat-shed, which is on the north side and “bottom” of the house. But it makes sense, since that was the part of the house that was constructed first. Here is the heater, a-heating.
Next, I wanted to apply “reverse pressure” to the buried pipe. So I used the same trick we’d used last summer when I had to repair the main house water filter: I stretched a garden hose down the hill from the cistern shed to a spigot on the house directly. This pressurizes the water in the house while bypassing the buried line. Unfortunately, I had been unwise when we departed – I hadn’t put the hoses away inside the house. Instead, they where lying around outside, full of frozen water. I had to bring them in and let them relax in the bathtub for a few hours, to help them thaw out.
Note to self: next time, put the hoses in the house before traveling!
Once we had pressure inside the house, and with the heater warming the inlet area (a lot! I got the plastic rim of the sunken spot with the intake valve almost too hot to touch), I guess that was what was needed to thaw the ice in the buried pipe.
It was all exhausting – especially since I’d imagined finally getting home and having a lazy day, after all my adventuring in the wild lands of the south. About 3 pm I took a long shower with our restored water pressure, and almost fell asleep before Arthur and I had dinner.
[daily log: walking, 4km; hose-wrangling, 2hr]
This tree is near the ferry’s parking spot in Ketchikan. It was preternaturally sunny but the temperature was about 25 F.
We flew from Seattle to Ketchikan, and then took the ferry across to Hollis, and a guy named Paul (who I know from his coming in the gift shop) helped jump start the car, because it wouldn’t start having been sitting in below freezing temperatures in the ferry parking lot while we traveled. So then we drove home. We are home.
[daily log: walking, 5km;]
This tree is lurking in a forest down below Juli’s house.
Today Art and I drove up from Portland to just south of Seattle. We are staying at my stepson Jeffrey’s house, with his family – his wife and my grandkids. That’s an awkward sentence.
I’ll try to post at least one picture – maybe with tomorrow’s tree. We fly back home to Alaska tomorrow.
[UPDATE:] Here is a nice picture of the whole family: Yvonne, Aurora, Parker, and me in back, Bella and Jeff in front.
[daily log: walking, 2km;]
This tree is in Oregon.
I drove down to Eugene on a day trip, to have a very short visit with my Aunt Janet and uncle Bob. We talked a bunch and had lunch. It was important to fit this in to the itinerary, despite the longish drive. Here is a picture of me with Janet.
The drive was rather intense. In moments it was raining, other moments, snowing, even “almost blizzard” conditions. Other moments the sun was in my eyes and there were rainbows. “Highly changeable weather.”
[daily log: walking, 4.5km;]
This tree was there as Walter-the-dog practiced his “stump” trick.
I taught Walter this trick where he jumps up on a tree stump, during a past visit to Juli and Keith’s house – some years ago. He clearly remembers it.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km;]
This tree was lightly frosted by some morning snow.
Art and I drove to the VA hospital in downtown Portland, this morning, for an annual follow-up with the “poly trauma” team that has been monitoring his progress since the stroke/concussion/broken neck in 2018. The doctor was humorous and pleasant and had excellent communication skills, but I was disappointed with the degree to which the VA was rather unorganized with respect to Arthur’s current needs for some specialized follow-up appointments on various dimensions. Basically, they wanted to make follow-up appointments but were somehow not aware of, or not taking into account, the fact that we were only briefly here in Oregon and live in remote Southeast Alaska… as if we would travel down once a month for doctor visits. That’s not going to work out. So now we are just going to have to wait for a consolidated set of appointments, and travel again later.
The doctor said something funny, though, as we were small-talking about navigating the labyrinthine VA hospital campus: “Actually, this place is mainly just doors.”
[daily log: walking, 5km;]
This tree is in front of the house I grew up in, in Arcata. I took this picture a few days ago.
I went and had dinner at my cousin Jori’s house with her husband. My second cousin (her daughter) and daughter’s family were there visiting from Anchorage. We spent some time looking through some old photographs Jori had found. For example, this is a picture of my grandmother Alice, her mother-in-law (my great grandmother) Isabel, my uncle Allen, my father Phil, my Aunt Janet (in front), and my great grandfather John Way Sr. (sitting). They are in front of the San Marino house.
[daily log: walking, 4km;]
This tree was above a horse.
I saw the horse while walking Walter-the-dog up along the road above Juli and Keith’s house. Later I a saw this deer in their yard.
[daily log: walking, 6km;]
This tree is in front of a high school, which I attended from 1979 to 1983. .
It’s not that much changed, actually. The prison-like facade I remember so fondly is almost entirely unmodified. I took the picture yesterday as I took a walk around Arcata, my hometown, which is something I always do when I visit, given my visits are always short and infrequent. It’s been four years since I was last here, and that visit, too, was only a few hours long: just “passing through.” I also had a long visit with Peggy and Latif, who live in the house that I grew up in.
Apparently the old Trinity Hospital – the building in which I was born, and which closed in the mid 70’s – which languished for years as a physical plant annex for the nearby university, is now undergoing renovation, and will become the new early learning center for the university’s education department.
I am pleased, anyway, that the original building is being preserved and restored rather than simply torn town. The university has been expanding rapidly in recent years. The campus has been promoted by the state system to a “polytechnic” – a kind of “elite” level of state campus intended to be on par with San Luis Obispo and Pomona. This has brought in a huge amount of money, and will, of course, radically change the character of the town, but I don’t believe change is bad. Nevertheless, the “feel” of my hometown is much transformed from the memories of my childhood and adolescence.
That was all yesterday. Today, I had another thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat. Here is a picture of the gathered diners.
That’s the tradition, at Juli and Keith’s house – thanksgiving on Saturday. That’s why I was able to enjoy thanksgiving twice. Double-thanks. The picture above shows Robin and Juli on the left, working on a puzzle (a gift that my mother sent, indirectly). Also seen are Mindy, Kai, Taylor, Keith, Arthur, Hope, and Grace.
Interestingly, Taylor became very engaged in the puzzle, which was apparently uncharacteristic of him. So everyone was drafted to finish the puzzle before any guests could depart. So I guess this completed jaguar puzzle is courtesy Ann and Taylor.
After the great meal was over, and the puzzle was done, and the other guests had left, Juli and Keith and Arthur and I sat in the living room in complete silence for maybe five or ten minutes. It was a strange, but calming feeling. Then Keith spoke up. “I could go to bed now.” That was a perfect end to the day.
[daily log: walking, 3km;]
This tree is in Humboldt County – barely. This sign at the lower right is the Humboldt County boundary – sorry that it’s a bit blurry.
Humboldt County, California, is one of my favorite third-order administrative divisions. It is, after all, where I was born and spent my childhood. But only a geography nerd like me would conceptualize it as a “favorite third-order administrative division.”
There’s an anecdote about this boundary sign, and Arthur’s role in my childhood. Arthur and I were traveling somewhere. I was around 12 or 13 years old I think. We were driving somewhere, a long road-trip in his 64 Ford Falcon that was his main car for several decades. I don’t remember exactly where we were going. It was late at night, and I needed to pee, so as one does when traveling rural highways, we just pulled over and I peed beside the road. It just happened that we’d stopped by the sign at the Humboldt County line. Later, I realized that I’d lost a shoe. It was obvious to both of us that my shoe, which I’d not been wearing, had fallen out when we’d stopped, somehow. So several days or weeks later (I don’t recall exactly), we were headed back home. I’d completely forgotten about the lost shoe. Arthur stopped abruptly and circled around, so we were pointed the same direction as we’d been traveling before. He stopped the car on the gravel by the roadside. “Open your door,” he said. I was puzzled – I really had forgotten about the shoe. I opened the door. “Get your shoe,” he said. Sure enough, sitting on the ground below the door was my shoe. He’d managed to park the car in exactly the same position he had done last time. He truly had a phenomenal spatial memory, “back in the day.”
I drove up from Eureka back to Forest Grove, today. I stopped in Arcata and took a walk around the town, and talked to Peggy and Latif, who are close friends of the family and who live in the house that I grew up in. Many things changed… many things the same. It’s good to revisit old places.
[daily log: walking, 5km; driving, alot more]
This tree is a guest tree from my past – because I drove most of the day and then had a thanksgiving dinner at David’s house on a redwood-clad hillside outside of Eureka. I failed to pause to take a picture with a tree in it.
The tree shown (take your pick) is along one of my “pedestrian commuter” routes in Goyang City (Ilsan), South Korea. I took the picture in December, 2017.
I set a new personal record for driving time between LA (Pasadena) and Humboldt (Eureka): ten hours, thirty minutes. Driving on Thanksgiving day, with minimal traffic through cities, was the advantage.
Here is thanksgiving dinner at David’s. I guess there’s some shrubs in the shadows at the edges, and I could have used this as a tree picture. But it didn’t feel legit.
Erilynn took the picture, that’s David in the front right – an iconic friend of the family from my childhood, one of my many unofficial uncles, I guess. I look like I have a bandage on my neck – that’s just a mask because we were occasionally wearing masks in the house, because of concerns about Covid.
[daily log: walking, 1km; driving, alot]
This tree was over a volkswagen.
[daily log: walking, 2km;]
This tree lives under a bridge like a troll.
[daily log: walking, 6km;]
This tree is in front of a house which replaced another house where my grandfather grew up.
This house that no longer exists was known in the family as the “San Marino House” – it lies on almost the exact city line between Pasadena and San Marino. My grandparents didn’t live there when I was a small child – they lived over in Temple City. My great grandparents lived in the San Marino house. But when my great grandparents passed away, my grandparents had moved into that house by the time of my memorable trips to LA with my parents when I was 7 or 8 years old. That San Marino house was a fabulous old house on a very large lot, with passages, bamboo forests, outbuildings, an ancient 1920’s era pool, a fountain, a pipe organ…
When my grandparents had passed away, my dad and his siblings inherited it, and in 1990 or so, my dad and stepmother and brother Andrew moved into it. And when I came back from Korea the first time, in late 1991, I stayed there for about a year, too. So I know the neighborhood, and developed my own relationship with that old family estate. But for various reasons, the house and lot were sold a few years later, and the house was torn down and replaced by three modern and relatively boring houses – though the one on the corner, which can be seen in the picture above, retains some of the “Craftsman” style features the original old house had. I miss that old San Marino house.
I don’t have many pictures of it. I need to remember to get some from my dad and scan them. Meanwhile, I did draw that house. Here’s one scan of an ink drawing I did of the house in 1992.
And here is one photo of it I found – that’s my dad’s cousin Larry in his Model A in front of the San Marino house, as seen from the driveway.
[daily log: walking, 3km;]
This tree is in front of the Quaker meetinghouse (church) in Pasadena, where my dad works but also that my grandparents were members of when he was born (1939). I attended meeting (Quaker church service) this morning.
[daily log: walking, 8km;]
This tree is out there leaning over the a stretch of the Gabrielleno trail, which runs up the Arroyo Seco into the San Gabriel Mountains in northwest Pasadena. I met my brother, his friend Roy, my friend Jay and his friend Cameron for a hike up that trail. I had an enjoyable day talking and catching up with Jay and Cameron – I haven’t seen Jay since 2018 and I haven’t seen Cameron since… 2009. Jay and Cameron are both very interesting people, though. It was great to spend time talking with them.
[daily log: walking, 8km;]
This tree is inside a dog-park in downtown Palm Springs. My stepmother, Wendy, lives in Palm Springs these days, and she has a dog, which she takes to the dog park. “This is my main social group,” she explained. Not meaning the dogs, though – referring to the other people she meets at the dog-park.
[daily log: walking, 3km;]
This tree is in the courtyard of a hospital in Rosemead, California, where a certain Doctor Carlos Figueroa quite literally saved my life 24 years ago this month. I’ve tried a few times to find him to thank him for this, but I’ve never been able to. He ended his practice and disappeared.
[daily log: walking, 5km;]
This tree is by the wide blue sea.
It is a painful irony, given where I’ve chosen to live these recent years, that I am an unrepentant “public transit nerd.” I love public transit: buses, subways, trolleys, etc. So I am eccentric: I arrive in L.A. with my own rental car, but promptly set out to take the trolley and subway to the beach – just for fun. L.A.’s public transit is grossly underrated – some stations even have clean restrooms – though not quite to Korean standards. A trolley-subway mix from Pasadena to Santa Monica takes about 2 hours. But a drive would be at least an hour – and unpredictably, it could be much more, depending on traffic. Further, driving is intense and focused and doesn’t allow one to read or surf the internet during the journey, whereas sitting on train permits such leisures.
So that’s what I did today. I find large cities reassuring more than alarming.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km;]
This tree is in front of a building in Burbank where I worked for 6 years. That’s the longest I’ve worked in a single location in my life. I worked for Karma Academy in Korea for longer, but the school moved twice while I worked there, so it wasn’t a single location.
[daily log: walking, 6km;]
This tree might be happier in Craig, Alaska.
[daily log: walking, 9km;]
This tree, down by the Tualatin River, was there when Juli watched a salmon jumping on Saturday afternoon.
[daily log: walking, 1km; driving, 1336km]
This tree stood aloof as Arthur walked by at the top of Juli and Keith’s driveway in the afternoon.
[daily log: walking, 4km;]
