Month: July 2017

It is pretty easy to imagine that someone else’s job would be a snap to learn or do, particularly if you don’t have to actually put your money where your mouth is. But, truth be told, every profession and every job out there takes a lengthy amount of time to master. No matter whether your experience comes from higher learning or the School of Hard Knocks, expertise and wisdom are hard won, whether you are a brain surgeon or journeyman plumber. Or, a public servant.

The idea that someone with no experience whatsoever can take on a completely new job and master it immediately…is poppycock; it only happens in fairy tales (and Trump University advertisements). Promises to immediately solve a problem, or, in the case of the Federal government, make an established government program go away “the first week that I am in office”, are proof that the speaker doesn’t understand how government or politics works.

The President’s reaction to his stalled Trumpcare initiative was the now famous, “Who knew that health care could be so complicated?!” Quick answer: The G.O.P.-led Congress, who couldn’t come up with a better plan in eight years. And, can’t make it happen now that they’re in complete control of Washington D.C.!

Which brings me to the “Make America Great Again” fable that America is now trying to endure. It’s become more like “Make America a Laughingstock”.

First and foremost is the uncomfortable fact that, once you’ve reached the top spot in an organization, you are now responsible for the whole thing, warts and all. You wanted the job; now, it’s yours. Make the thing better; don’t bitch about your job. You gather your teammates about you, seek advice, then roll up your sleeves and get to work. Denigrating your employees or allies (i.e. Cabinet members, Congress, staffers) is not the path to success.

A fellow with many personality flaws and life baggage, coupled with zero experience in government, is now C.E.O. of an extremely complicated organization…about which he knows nothing but what he hears on Fox News and reads in the National Enquirer (stories that he probably had planted, by the way…look at this beauty).

Anyone in his organization who actually has expertise, and could provide him with sound advise, he ignores.

 

What could go wrong?

Having declared that the Nation is “broken”, and that Washington D.C. is a “swamp” (which it most certainly has become), our President, who has no experience governing, has apparently decided that he will emulate Seinfeld’s George Costanza, and do “the opposite” of what everyone else has done.

He will suck up to the Russians, insult our allies, appoint industry lobbyists to run watchdog agencies, disregard scientific evidence, appoint relatives to important positions, get rid of or attempt to get rid of Federal employees who are more loyal to the Nation than to Donald Trump, ignore conflict-of-interest and transparency norms, and eschew adult, diplomatic discourse in favor of crude, bullying name-calling. This, in his estimation, is what being Presidential is all about; i.e. doing the opposite that every President before him has done.

Of course, the key attribute to a good manager is hiring the right people. So far, our Fearless Leader has shown an aptitude to do the opposite.

The result: dysfunction, frustration, and embarrassment. In a word, failure, not the “winning” that Trump bragged we’d all get tired of.

And, lots of lying, about virtually everything that his one-man team is failing at.

If the Press doesn’t toady up to his “opposite” plan, then they’re the Enemy, and whatever they’re saying is rubbish. And, when he gets frustrated by his own lack of accomplishment, or is feeling sorry for himself, he lashes out at familiar targets.

(Hey, Buddy, maybe you haven’t noticed, but…the election is over. You won.)

Things have been so dysfunctional in the Trump Administration that rumors, whispers, leaks to the Press, and backbiting among supposed team players have been rampant. That’s what happens when you have a One Man Team…people start sniping.

First, he canned his buddy, his first, proud appointee, N.S.A. Director Flynn. Next, he fired F.B.I. Director Comey, whom he loved during the campaign. Last week, Press Secretary Spicer, who Trump embarrassed week after week, got the ax. The President has been publicly itching to fire Special Prosecutor Mueller (for looking into the Russia stuff), but hasn’t yet figured out how to do it. But, he’s working on it. And, now, it appears that Attorney General Jeff Sessions is in the President’s gun sights, apparently because the A.G. didn’t stop the Kremlingate investigation in its tracks. (How ironic, because then-Senator Sessions was the first politician to endorse Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions.) I guess it’s the old, “What have you done for me lately?”

The President’s public humiliation of his Attorney General has been particularly savage, even for Trump. Sessions’ response to his undeserved public flogging has been measured: “It’s been hurtful”.

One wonders how much abuse a proud, ex-Senator from Alabama can endure. I give him less than a month…

There is so much extraneous, juvenile crap going on in Washington D.C. right now that the Trump Administration may go a whole year without any legislative accomplishment, to the chagrin of the G.O.P., which controls the Legislative branch of government for the first time in 10 years. How embarrassing! The next catastrophe will be The Federal Budget.

Of course, the “Russia thing” is a great black cloud hanging over the White House. Mr. Trump, his son Donald Jr., and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who all look pretty slimy at this point in the investigation, have declared that all of this hoopla is “fake news” and a “nothing burger”.

It’s curious, though, that a bill cleared Congress this past week with only three dissenting votes out of 422, that ties the President’s hands with regard to lessening sanctions on the Russians for, among other things, meddling in the 2016 elections. The Senate then approved the bill, 98-2. Evidently, even his own Republican party believes that “where there is smoke, there is fire”.

Ex-jock/killer O.J. Simpson got out of prison this past week. He’s probably in line for an appointment to Trump’s staff.

The President was rumored to be having his many attorneys investigate the legalities of the Presidential Pardon, just in case he has to bail out a relative or friend or maybe himself. Trump verified this last week when he announced that he has virtually unlimited power to issue pardons. Question: Why the preoccupation with pardons, if, as the President has insisted, no one has done anything wrong?

The most newsworthy event of the week was not the failure of the “Repeal and Replace Obamacare” effort, but the replacing of the White House Communications Director with a Wall Street wiseguy Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci, who immediately proceeded to publicly call out Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus as a “fucking paranoid schizophrenic”, labeled Trump top advisor Steve Bannon  a “cocksucker”, and threatened to fire a bunch of White House staff for not supporting the lame ideas of the Commander in Chief.

Swear to God!

Seriously, could this Administration stoop any lower? But, what did we expect from a President who once bragged, on a TV show, about his approach to new, beautiful women: “Grab ’em by the pussy.”.

This is a guy who likes to hear himself talk and see himself on TV, maximizing the adage, “All publicity is good publicity”. But, when you’re The Leader of The Free World, is live-streaming of your every thought and emotion a good idea, particularly if you come up with a lot of bad ideas?

In the middle of the firestorm over critical policy issues such as Health Care and the Federal Budget, The Boss fired off a brainstorm decision (via Tweeter) to prohibit transgender individuals from serving in the military…without consulting military brass. This stunt raised some serious hackles in the Pentagon, which quickly disavowed Trump’s tweet, but…what else is new? That’s what you get with a One Man Team.

It’s looking more and more like the Donald Trump “opposite” experiment will fail. One wonders how long the G.O.P. will put up with it…

…although the Republicans have been willing to put up with a lot of shit under Trump. One wonders what it is doing to the G.O.P. political base.

Important note: Something noble did happen in Washington D.C. this past week. Senator John McCain, ex-Vietnam War hero and former candidate for President, who has just been diagnosed with brain cancer, got out of his hospital bed to cast the deciding vote to torpedo the Trumpcare legislative fiasco. He’s a Republican, and one of the few G.O.P.ers with big enough balls to defy bully Trump…who was a draft-dodger during the Vietnam War, and insulted McCain during the campaign as “No hero”, because his jet was shot down, he was captured, and spent six years in a concentration camp being brutalized by his captors. (Heroes, according to Trump, are guys who don’t get captured. Go figure.)

On behalf of the millions who have served their country with honor, it must have given this War Hero McCain pleasure to put the K-Bar knife into the Draft Dodger in Chief.

Senator McCain said, after voting “No!” on the lame “repeal and replace” bill, that the time has come for the two parties to take up the matter seriously, together, and come up with fixes and improvements to Obamacare.

Finally, an adult in the room! This is what our Congress and Senate are supposed to do…actually work together to better the Nation.

(Of course, like most legislators, Senator McCain has been party to plenty of Republican obstructionism over the past ten years. His “seeing the light” comes almost like a deathbed conversion, once he was diagnosed with cancer of the brain, and won’t be running for re-election. But, better late than never. He obviously wants to leave this earth with head held high.)

Hopefully, Born Again Public Servant McCain will live long enough to see his seed of wisdom (i.e. the novel idea of teamwork) germinate in the political “swamp” that is Washington D.C.

I’ll believe that when I see it.

Update: “The Mooch” succeeded in torpedoing Reince Priebus with the “fucking paranoid schizophrenic” charge before even settling into his Communications Director office in the White House. However, his public denunciation of Senior White House Advisor Bannon as a “cocksucker” seemed to cross some Trumpian line decency, because two days later Priebus’ replacement, ex-General John Kelly, shitcanned The Mooch for…screwing the pooch, so to speak.

And the beat goes on…

 

Ringling Brothers Circus couldn’t top this act…unfortunately.

Another month or so of this comedy/tragedy and it will be difficult to find anyone who will admit to voting for the idiot.

Excuse me while I weep for our country…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today I took a sightseeing trip up Highway 29 to Calistoga, about 27 miles north of our RV park in downtown Napa.

(By the way, Napa is a very nice town, with all the amenities that one would want. It’s got a nice climate, too. There’s a river that runs through it, and some developer has re-developed a mill site along the river into a chic hot spot, with restaurants, shops, offices, etc. Nice job.)

Calistoga is a much smaller town, situated at the top of the Napa Valley, so a trip up there and back provides the tourist a pretty good sampling of the beautiful wine country.

Lots of vineyards, hills covered with Coastal Oaks, ivy-covered wineries, and many turn-of-the-century Victorian buildings. Here’s one in St. Helena, which is part of the way to Calistoga.

The first vineyards were planted here in the 1860’s. There are now hundreds of winegrowers in the Napa Valley, and most of them have wineries/tasting rooms open to the public. As you drive up Hwy 29, you pass some well-known names: Charles Krug; Beringer; Christian Brothers; Beaulieu Vineyards; Robt. Mondavi; V. Sattui; Opus One; Sterling; etc. Many are immediately adjacent to the railroad tracks, which enables them to be serviced by the Napa Valley Wine Train.

It’s a beautiful landscape; reminds me of Italy and Spain.

Many of the old-time vintners in this valley are of Italian descent. One of them, V. Sattui, has done so well that he’s built a fancy castle in mid-Valley for weddings, upscale dinners, and wine tasting tours. It’s a classic.

The above photo is an out-building, very nice in it’s own right, which reminds me of a wonderful villa that we enjoyed in Chiusi, Italy (Tuscany).

The main building looks like this:

The Culinary Institute of America has a huge stone masterpiece near St. Helena. We’ve eaten there before with my sister Claudia, and some of our Bear Creek friends have attended cooking school there.

Here is some eye-candy that Hall Vineyards uses to attract winos cruising Hwy 29. It is a 20′ tall, stainless steel rabbit, bounding through a vineyard.

I liked the Grgich Hills Estate property, but didn’t sample the wine.

This is a vineyard fan, which keeps the air circulating when there is a frost. It’s probably eight feet across.

The wine grapes are much smaller than the table grapes that we are used to eating. Here’s a bunch:

The couple of hours that I spent cruising Hwy 29 only exposed me to a tiny fraction of the wineries and beauty of this magical valley. It is definitely one of the prettiest places in California.

 

 

 

We are now in the beautiful Napa Valley, home of most of America’s great wine. We’re here for two weeks, and, so far, the weather has been outstanding…80’ish in daytime, mid 50’s at night. No wonder those grapes like it here!

For a number of weeks, we have been bedeviled by our satellite TV reception. I’ve had to confer with the Dish TV tech folks a couple of dozen times about dropped signals, balky technology, etc. (It’s funny…last year, we didn’t even use the living room TV in the rig. Didn’t miss it a bit. Now, once we’ve gotten used to lounging around, watching the big screen, we can’t live without it!) Anyway, yesterday, my bitching and complaining to Dish TV reps finally hit pay dirt when they connected me with a real tech expert at Winegard, the folks who actually make the portable satellite dish receiver product. The guy told me to shorten my coax cable a bit, and, magically, everything got a whole lot better. He also turned me on to a cool app for my I-phone called “SatFinder Lite”, which shows you where in the sky the Dish TV satellites are hiding. Bottom line: we have stopped whining, and are enjoying our TV once again. And, just in time, because we are now able to tape a lot of programming on our DVR, which we will need when we get to our next stop, which is right in the middle of a redwood forest (i.e. no satellite TV reception possible).

Another “bitch and moan” during this trip has been our WiFi service from Verizon. Last year we had no problem with with our Verizon WiFi service. Some time this year, Verizon “upgraded” all of their wireless customers with so-called Unlimited Data. Yeah, sure, they’re going to give you more service for the same price…that only happens in dreams. What actually happens with Unlimited Data is that, after 10 Gigabytes, the speed slows down to a crawl. So, it’s like buying a 56 ounce Big Gulp soda at the 7-11, but you have to drink it through a cocktail straw. It might take 20 minutes  to go online to Chase Bank and check you account. For Charlie’s business, that is useless.

Anyway, after struggling with our WiFi hotspot for a month now, we got into a lengthy debate with Verizon techs, and decided to get a second hotspot…one not included in the “unlimited data” scam. So, we did, at a significant cost, but it will be a tax deductible expense for Charlie’s business, and it will enable us to get her work done in a fraction of the time (that we were experiencing on this trip). So much for the NEW IMPROVED Verizon UNLIMITED DATA deal.

Speaking of deals, if you like wine, this is the place to come. There is a Wine Train (photo above) which takes well-healed winos directly to several big-name wineries in the Napa Valley at a minimum cost of $329 per person. It leaves from the station just down the street from the RV park. We’re going to pass because we don’t have anything nice to wear…and, we don’t like wine, either.

We had some great pizza last night. The delivery guy came over to the park from Papa Joe’s. It cost $26 for a large Pepperoni, Sausage and Mushroom, but it was a beauty, fully-loaded with goodies, and spicy (a bit too much for Charlie). I loved it; gonna have leftovers tonight!

I took Charlie shopping today to Home Goods and Michaels, then we went and had pedicures and manicures at NV Nails. The owner, and employees, were…surprise!…Vietnamese gals, and they were very good. We spent a bunch of dough there, but my feet feel GREAT.

By the way, I think I’ve mentioned that we are staying on a fairgrounds, the Napa Valley Expo. It is a large property, with all types of exhibition buildings, grassy areas, large paved areas, etc. There was a Mexican circus on a portion of the grounds when we got here, and it played for four or five days. Quite an operation, it was, and they must have made a ton of money. These entrepreneurs had spread “free” ticket come-ons all over town, and there are thousands of Mexican families in this Valley, which is labor-intensive agriculture focused; i.e. probably lots of illegal workers, Spanish only families, etc. Mucho cash to be had by the circus folks.

For those of you who don’t know me too well, I will tell you that I used to run a fairgrounds like this one…for six years, from 1988 to 1994. In fact, I used to know the lady who ran the Napa Valley Expo for many years. I just found out this week that she’s in prison…for embezzlement.

It’s not so funny, but a bunch of guys that I used to know in the fairgrounds business ended up in jail cells. Being a Fair Manager gives a person a lot of power to do good or…get greedy. There’s not a lot of close scrutiny by the local Fair Boards. So, lax oversight combined with lots of CASH equals sticky fingers…for those individuals who think that they can get away with it. At our fair, probably something around $1 million in folding money went through our hands in ten days, and that was only counting gate receipts. Maybe an equal amount came from food and product vendors and the Carnival. Anyway, I never succumbed to the temptation, but I was aware of a number of peers who did, and they are now paying the price. Bummer for them and their families.

 

 

 

From South Lake Tahoe, we headed north to I-80, then a bit east to the Truckee River RV Park for three nights.

This park is very tight, in terms of negotiating you way into and around the place with a 40′ rig. We made it, but another guy just ahead of us wiped out a light pole at a tight turn.

We liked this place. There was lots of grass around us, so we were able to let the dogs scamper about and play.

We happened to run into the OWNER of the RV park while the dogs were off-leash, goofing off (i.e. totally against the rules), and he was cool with it. As a matter of fact, he was interested in the Boston Terrier breed (for his mother), and he got a kick out of the three dogs playing grab-ass in the grass.

On Friday, we went into Truckee to shop and have lunch. Truckee, in the winter, is the jumping off point for Northstar Ski Resort. It has a nice little downtown, with lots of boutique shops for women, and one really nice men’s shop.

We had a nice lunch at Casa Baeza, a locals Mexican restaurant. The food was good, and my Margaritas were excellent, maybe the best I’ve ever had.

We needed to find a dog-sitter for Saturday, as we wanted to go into Nevada City to meet up with a business acquaintance of Charlie’s. Luckily, we met up with a 10 year-old gal named Julia, who lives at the RV park full-time (her parents are on-site managers, cousins of the owner that we met). Anyway, we talked to Julia and her mother, Bri, and a deal was struck for a day’s worth of pet care for $50.

We left the dogs in Julia’s care on Saturday at around noon and headed west on I-80, over Donner Pass. That’s the place where westbound traffic must cross the spine of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and it’s the snowiest place in the U.S. (The record is 800 inches in one season!) It’s mid-July now, and there is still snow up there above Donner Summit (7,200′).

We met our friends (Ralph and Paula Bravo) in Nevada City at 1:30 p.m. Our plan was to wander around the town’s shops until 4 p.m., when Happy Hour began at Friar Tuck’s restaurant (where we had dinner reservations at 5 p.m.)

Nevada City is an old mining town from the Gold Rush days. Many of the buildings and houses have that Victorian feel; it reminded me of Deadwood, South Dakota.

The downtown area has a bunch of historical mini-parks, where old mining equipment is memorialized. This one’s a massive rock crushing mill, maybe 15′ tall.

This next one is some kind of giant rock scooping rotary bit (that’s 10′ tall!).

We ran out of things to do and see in Nevada City in about 30 minutes, so we adjourned to a local bar and shot the breeze (and drank) until we could get into Friar Tucks. That’s Charlie, left center, talking to Paula and Ralph (backs to camera).

Unfortunately, we missed out on the local women-only/nude bike race by a couple of weeks. You know what they say: timing is everything!

Our dinner was fun: we had a big fondue party, with all types of meats, cheese, sauces, etc. It was excellent, and made better by the fact that our friend Paula picked up the check. I like that lady! I enjoyed some unusual margaritas…which featured a splash of jalapeno juice. Very tasty!

We didn’t make it back to Truckee until 8:45 p.m. The dogs were awake and in fine fettle.

Our wonderful dog-sitter, Julia, had done a great job!

Things in Washington D.C. are circling the drain, not that it comes as a surprise when you’ve got a bunch of inexperienced juveniles running the show.

For a guy who is not “connected” whatsoever to Russia, Trump and his bunch of cronies and relatives can’t let a week pass without another stupid Kremlingate blunder popping up in the news.

This week it was the revelation, in Donald Trump Jr.’s own words (a lengthy e-mail), that he and the Trump campaign colluded with Russian actors to torpedo Hillary Trump’s campaign. Gee, what a surprise! Of course, Trump, the GOP, and their mouthpiece cable news honks, Fox News, had called the Kremlingate stuff “witch hunt” and “fake news” for the past six months. How embarrassing to be outed by your own son!

And, it wasn’t that long ago when President Trump declared that North Korea wouldn’t be developing any nuclear tipped ICBM’s during his watch. He was confident of this because of his personal diplomacy with the Chinese Premier and his good friend, Vladimir Putin, of Russia. According to the President, his buddies would exert pressure on North Korea. WRONG! Trump was played for a sucker…again…on the world stage.

Doubling down on his strange infatuation with Russian President Putin, this past week Trump proposed a Joint Cybersecurity Task Force…with Russia!…to head off future election hacking by foreign intelligence services…like Russia’s. This wacky, imbecilic idea was immediately shot down by leaders of both parties…who are currently investigating Russian interference in the last Presidential election. Trump is America’s version of the Tin Man…”If I Only Had a Brain!”

For someone who publicly denies that he has, or has had, any special deals with Russia’s Putin, it certainly appears that our President is dancing to the Russian tune for some inexplicable reason. Scarcely a week goes by that Mr. Trump doesn’t go out of his way to praise Vladimir Putin, concoct some type of partnership with Russia, or try to derail any investigation into the Kremlingate mess.

At the G-20 summit in Europe last week, master business negotiator Donald Trump couldn’t be bothered with working out trade plans with our largest trade partners. He sent his daughter to the meeting.

On another front, Congress has now spent 6 months on Trumpcare, the supposed superior alternative to Obamacare. Every plan that the GOP comes up with…sucks, and that’s according to their own party members. Don’t blame them, though. They’ve only had 8 years to come up with an alternative to Obama’s “disaster”. Of course, Mr. Trump said, on the campaign trail, that he would repeal Obamacare on his first day in office.

How low can this country sink?

Lower. Bet on it.

 

We spent a few days in Reno at the Grand Sierra Resort RV Park. This Hotel and Casino property was formerly MGM Grand Reno, Bally’s Reno, and the Reno Hilton. The RV Park is essentially a large parking lot out behind the Hotel, with your basic amenities.

I ran into a guy here who had a very small, but nice, teardrop trailer behind  his BMW sedan.

This little beauty had a kitchen in the back end (pop up), a storage container on the hitch tongue, and, on the inside, a Queen bed, a small TV, and an A/C unit!

See that jug there? I think that’s the urinal.

Nothing much to talk about at the Grand Sierra, except that they had a driving range using floating golf balls. Golfers hit balls out into Lake MGM. There are four artificial island “greens” in the lake to aim at.

The closest island is about 100 yards. There is a peach basket-sized barrel on the island; if the golfer hits the ball into the barrel, he gets a free soft drink.

The furthest island is about 200 yards distant. It also has a barrel, but I didn’t see any balls on that island. A lucky shot into that barrel wins the golfer a free trip for two to Hawaii.

This guy would have a better shot at winning the California Lottery.

After Reno, we moved a short distance up to Zephyr Cove RV Park, near South Lake Tahoe. We’ve been here before; it’s always delightful…pine trees, the lake, nice weather, potential for bears, etc.

The dogs like it here: lots of smells, people, chipmunks, bear droppings, etc. By the end of the day, our children are pooped.

When I’m not working, I have the dog containment area set up to entice little kids over. In this photo, Baby is doing her part, entertaining the children of a couple of California firemen and their wives that we camped next to.

During the daytime, family fun takes place at Zephyr Cove “beach”, which is just across the street from the RV park. The water is icy cold: why?

The snow-topped mountain in the background (i.e. across the lake) is Mt. Tallac. It is 9,700 ft. high. I’m going to hike it tomorrow. It’s a 3,500′ climb in about 5 miles. Should be an adventure.

Update: Just got back from my hike. I didn’t go all the way to the top; ran into a 1/2 mile snowfield at 8,200′ and decided that I didn’t want to bother with it. Been there, done that.

It was a pretty hike, but hard on the feet. Most of the trail is granite chunks, some like super-sized gravel, others like broken bowling balls, and others the size of suitcases (with slippery, sharp edges).

This is one of the few big-league trails that allow dogs. And, I saw a few. But, the rocky terrain has got to be super-brutal on the dogs’ paws…I felt sorry for the dogs that passed me by. They look happy, but will be sore for a month.

I also saw a young guy headed up the trail with downhill skis, ski boots, and a bottle of wine attached to his backpack. Oh, to be young again! (It reminded me of our skiing days, and the fact that Charlie’s last ski experience, and mine, too, was here at Heavenly Valley. Charlie fell badly and had to be taken down the mountain by patrolmen. She thought she had a neck injury, but it proved to be just a scary fall. That was it for her. A number of years later, I was skiing off-trail on the Nevada side with a female friend, and I took a header into a giant sitzmark. It wrenched my back, I got up sore, and continued skiing (for another day, too!). It turned out that I had herniated a lower back disc, which required surgery months later. I did one more ski trip, with the same folks, at Heavenly Valley, after my recuperation, just to prove to myself that I could still ski. I even did Gun Barrel…but, I could feel the missing disk. After that trip, I realized that I had lost my “wild and crazy” nerve, and basically gave up the sport.)

There were some nice views on the trail today. This one is Mount Tallac, the goal of today’s hike.

This is Floating Island Lake, about a mile up the trail.

This is Cathedral Lake, maybe a half-mile downstream from the snowfield where I called it quits today.

And, this is Fallen Leaf Lake, which I passed on the way down. It is a separate large lake, adjacent to Lake Tahoe.

Needless to say, there’s a lot of water up there in the hills, and the creeks are still running strong from the snowmelt in mid-July. Thank goodness for that!

We met the nicest couple at Zephyr Cove: Doug and Carol Domene. They were camped next to us in their new Mercedes RV. He is a college dean and his wife is a property manager. We chatted a bunch over a couple of days, then went out to dinner at Scusa’s Ristorante on our last night in town. Charlie and I really enjoyed the food and company; I wish we were going to be seeing more of them. Doug is a golfer, and they live in Yorba Linda, so I might be able to line him up with a golf date at Bear Creek in the Fall. I hope so.

Booger liked Zephyr Cove, especially the chipmunks, who would run up a tree whenever she came upon them.

 

 

 

 

We enjoyed Park City, Utah. We didn’t do much there, but we reveled in the cooler temperatures. It was actually 40 something degrees one night! (That compares to the almost 30 days straight of 100 degree weather, with nighttime lows in the high 70’s! Ugh.)

We’d been to Park City before, many years ago, on a big ski trip with friends and relatives. I think it was back in the late 1970’s. Charlie got shamed into not smoking by one of my friends (and she stopped, soon after!), and I remember my Dad getting hurt coming down the mountain at the end of the day; he and my Brother skied off a cliff and my Dad ended up getting stitched up! Also, our group took over a nightclub in downtown Park City one night and acted like fools. Good times.

Boy, have times changed in Park City. It is a sprawling place now, probably due to the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002. Some of the events were held at Park City; in fact, the ski jump venue is right in front of you when you go to the grocery store. This place must be a madhouse in winter.

We drove from Park City to Winnemucca, Nevada on July 4th. It was a long drive across a lot of nothing. We did, however, pass the Bonneville Salt Flats near Wendover, Utah. There’s a lot of salt out there, but didn’t see any Speed Trials going on. And, that was the highlight of the day, as we cruised through there on I-80 doing about eighty.

There wasn’t much to be seen in Winnemucca, either, except for two things: a great barbeque joint and a fantastic fireworks show. The Pig BBQ and Pub has really good food: Charlie had Pig Tacos and I had the Cajun Burger. It was probably the best hamburger I’ve had in my life.

That evening, at around 9:30 p.m., a fireworks show began at a nearby fairgrounds…and didn’t let up until 10 p.m.! It was a doozy, and drove our dogs nuts.

I wasn’t in the patriotic spirit. I love my country, but it’s circling the drain, with nincompoop Trump running the show. I’m not sure we will survive this. How a country so great could elect such a loser to public office is beyond me. Rather than being proud on July 4th, I’m ashamed.

We’ve got a child for President, a guy who likes the sound of his own voice, and throws tantrums when anyone doesn’t agree with him.

He’s disgracing the office of President, and doesn’t seem to care a bit.

He doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing internationally, amateurishly attempting to bully North Korea, China and our European Allies.

Speaking of bullying, he’s declared war on the Press, because they’ve been critical of his childish antics and abuse of authority.

Meanwhile, his prime campaign objectives are going nowhere in Congress, as the bad ideas are being recognized for what they are…by his own party.

President Trump has now convened a “blue ribbon” group to investigate voter fraud…because he didn’t win the popular vote for President. The only explanation for this (in his mind) is because millions of illegal voters didn’t support him…despite election officials in every state telling him that he’s nuts. His Vote Fraud Commission has now demanded that all 50 state election heads give them all types of private information about voters. Virtually every state has declined to do so…because the whole circus has an Orwellian odor, attempting to provide Trump’s cronies with data for voter suppression efforts in coming elections.

With all these shenanigans going on, it’s hard to sing “I’m Proud to be An American” and wave the flag on the Fourth. Our country is in deep trouble, and too many people don’t seem to notice…or, worse, give a shit.