Month: May 2019

I’ve scheduled my left hip replacement surgery.

Yep, I’m old, and my hip is worn out. My recent hikes with son Jeff and wife Carol, when they visited here, were the final straw…according to Mr. Hip Socket. He’s bitching and moaning every day now, keeping me from walking the dogs more than a couple of miles without debilitating pain.

I think Mr. Socket knows best, and he’s telling me, “It’s time, Sir!”

My left hip discomfort started several years ago, as a dull pain with occasional incidences of “Owww…that hurt!” It has progressed, gradually over the many months, to the point that I can’t bend down to tie my shoes without sharp pain. Routine tasks, like walking on pavement, are now labored, particularly if I’ve sat for awhile. For example, walking into WalMart from the parking lot: actually, more like limping. Get me a cane.

I used to snicker, cruelly, to myself when I would see the old geezers hobbling up to the entrance. I’d think, “I’m an athlete…that will never happen to me!” Well, that’s probably the EXACT REASON why I now have a hitch in my giddy-up: I abused my body playing sports like baseball, football, basketball, skiing, golf, bowling, competitive swimming, etc. And, messing around in the great outdoors.

I’m now that old geezer, with all of my joints either worn out or wearing out, and infested with arthritis. My body is saying, “Payback is a bitch, Sucker!”

Unfortunately, I’m going to have to endure a few more months of pain. We leave for our RV vacation in 30 days, and will be gone for three months…staying, for the most part, in cool, coastal areas. Beautiful, but not so good for joint pain.

The surgery is scheduled for November 5th, which used to be my birthday.

(Explanation: My Mom lied to school authorities when I was 4-ish to get me into kindergarten sooner rather than later. She said that I was born on November 5th, rather than December 5th. Had she not told the fib, I would have had to wait an entire year, and would have drove her nuts around the house. So, I ended up the youngest guy in my class, as opposed to the oldest. I think it stunted my social development a bit, but…hey!…anything for my Momma.)

I’m not sure how the surgeon is going to do his work, but he will be replacing my femoral head and ball socket with hardware that looks like this:

I’m hoping my surgeon, Dr. Scott Parry, gets a good night’s sleep and uses new prosthetics. I don’t want to have a hassle with Amazon.

From what I’ve been told, the recovery time from total hip replacement is about six weeks. That should result in me limping through the Holiday season 2019.

With no complications, I should have a Happy New Year…hip-wise.

Wow!

I just noticed that a pack of cigarettes, here in Mesquite, costs about $7.50. That’s a PACK, not a carton.

Gee, how times have changed.

When I was back in high school, hardly any of my schoolmates smoked. The school curriculum strongly discouraged the habit, my smoking parents would have killed me if I’d smoked, and I hung around with athletes and good students.

The “Fonzie”-type losers who did smoke back then in 1965 were paying about 25 cents a pack, as I recall, roughly the same price as a gallon of gas. At that time, tobacco companies were still denying that smoking caused cancer, although everyone knew otherwise.

About fifty years later, the “sin tax” (actually, an excise tax) on cigarettes, designed to discourage the cancerous habit, makes up about $5 of the $7.50 cost here in Nevada.

Hard to believe, but smokers must be extremely dedicated in New York State: the average cost per pack is $12.50, running as high as $14 in some locales.

Numbskulls who don’t give a crap about their health would be well-advised to head south. States like Missouri, Arkansas, Virginia and Alabama do not discourage smoking: the sin tax there is as low as $0.17 per pack. So, like a lot of things in the South, they’re “against” something, but…they don’t practice what they preach. (Besides, tobacco is grown in the South.)

I’m not sure that “sin taxes” really work. People who want to be stupid have every right to do so, I think, just as long as they don’t endanger me. At least that’s my primary belief.

However, in the case of people stupidly tempting lung cancer, the cost of their subsequent medical care inevitably impacts medical insurance costs, indigent medical care, and innocent family members, who end up caring for them. The indirect cost of smoking on the American economy is estimated at $300 billion per year.

Despite the heavy sin taxes, health education and TV anti-smoking ads, a lot of folks (and young people!) take up the habit. All of our four sons either smoke now or did when they were younger. Why? They didn’t learn it from us, that’s for sure. I never smoked, and my wife Charlie quit the habit forty years ago, when the kids were very young. I’m guessing that they thought it was cool…something forbidden, so they’d be challenging authority if they partook with their buddies from school. Some things never change.

My son Jeff and his wife, Carol, smoke a lot. They are, otherwise, intelligent people who are just stupid about smoking. They’re hooked. We dread the day we’ll get a phone call announcing a cancer or something. My grandfather died of throat cancer; it’s not a nice way to go.

Obviously, the cost per pack of cigs, even loaded down with all of those state and federal taxes, doesn’t deter them, even though Jeff is currently unemployed. They drink and smoke a lot.

It’s a sad truth that hungry, destitute alcoholics and smokers can always find money for booze and cigs. Go figure.

What costs more, cigarettes or steak? A very nice boneless ribeye steak might cost $15.00 per pound at our nearest Kroger grocery affiliate. Bon appetit. The cost of cigarettes at the same store, per pound: 1 cig = 1 gram, $7.50 per pack /20 cigs = $0.38 per cig, 1 cig = 1 gram, 1 pound = 456 grams, therefore a Kroger cigarette in Nevada costs (456 x 0.38) about $173 per pound.

So, not only is the shit expensive as all Hell, it’s bad for you, to boot.

Wow!

Eleven climbers have died recently on their way up and down Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain at almost 30,000 feet.

This is a view of the logjam last week near the summit of Mount Everest:

I am not a mountaineer. I do some hiking, but have never done any technical climbing, which is required to scale extreme rock faces and the highest ice-capped peaks. I have, however, had some limited experience with the effect of reduced oxygen at altitude, and so I can appreciate some of the horror stories coming out of the Himalaya Mountains this past week or so.

“Effective oxygen” is, basically, the amount of pure oxygen in atmospheric air. At sea level, at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, oxygen comprises 20.9% of the air you breathe. As you ascend away from sea level, that amount drops. At 14,500 feet (the highest that I have hiked), the effective oxygen is about 12 percent. Most people at that altitude experience light-headedness, headaches, and sometimes nausea.

Climbing at extreme altitudes, above 20,000 feet, typically involves the use of bottled oxygen, because effective oxygen at that height is less than 10 percent. Breathing normally at that altitude would be like respirating through a straw, and the effects on the body include loss of physical strength, reduced coordination, impaired judgement, etc.

That last one is critical, because these daredevils are doing something that is extremely dangerous to begin with.

Near the summit, the mountaineers are using bottled oxygen and have been doing so since they left their base camp many hours before. Most of them also use oxygen while they sleep at base camp #2, which is located at an elevation of 26,000 feet.This is because the atmospheric oxygen level at base camp is approximately 8 percent, falling to less than 7 percent at the summit itself.

Experienced Himalayan climbers call this elevation the “death zone”, meaning that they are in mortal danger every second that they linger at that altitude. The goal is to spend as little time there as possible: quickly get to the top, and then get back down the mountain as soon as possible, before bad weather sets in or, more importantly, before your bottled oxygen runs out.

Scaling Mt. Everest used to be an aspiration of only the most skilled, experienced, and physically-fit technical climbers. However, it has now become a commercial enterprise, in which outfitters and guides will take just about anyone up there who has the money. As a result, a lot of foolish people are jeopardizing their lives. It has become a Bucket List item for any testosterone-fueled guy who happens to have $100,000 available for frivolous activities.

Got money and a big ego? You can climb Everest. There’s no certification (as in scuba), no performance level achievements (as in qualifying for the Boston Marathon), and no skill licenses (demonstrating technical knowledge, as in driving a car). Nada.

This has resulted in a mob of climbers gathering in Nepal in May (the only month that is meteorologically safe to climb the mountain) and literally getting in a line to ascend the summit.

Kind of like Disneyland, but more dangerous.

The problem is that those folks in line, snaking up the mountain from base camp 2, are living on borrowed time; i.e. the amount of bottled oxygen that they can carry. When the line bogs down, in many cases because an inexperienced climber is having difficulty, everyone must wait in place while consuming bottled oxygen. Tempers fray, jostling takes place, and impatient people do stupid things.

In some cases, when they should turn back because their oxygen is running out, they persevere in getting to the top. And, die on the way back down the mountain to base camp.

Climbers in the past week have passed frozen corpses along the trail: folks who wrote a check their body couldn’t cash. Those bodies will stay there, perhaps for many years, because no one has the strength (or motivation) to bring them down the mountain, and helicopters can’t safely fly that high.

That’s a high price to pay for checking off a Bucket List item.

I should have gone to Veterinary school.

At the rate that we’re forking over money to the local vet clinic, we could pay for one in a few years. JayJay, Booger, and Baby are all less than one hundred percent right now, suffering from a variety of nagging issues. It’s sad to say,  but the vets, the vet techs, and the front counter girls know us by name.

JayJay is still pooing piles of light brown Tastee Freeze soft serve. It is very unusual for him; normally, his turds are firm and almost black. It’s going on 7 weeks now that he’s either had diarrhea or has pooped out the custard that looks like a liquified version of his food. Other than that, he seems perfectly normal, full of energy. His eye ulcer is healed, and he’s got those shiny, enthusiastic, fun-loving orbs. He’s JayJay except when he’s squatting.

But, Charlie and I, and our vet, Dr. Lenehen, are puzzled by the crappy poop. JayJay is going to have some diagnostic tests run today.

It’s been a long and wet Winter and Spring here in Mesquite (it’s raining again today, and we’re almost in June…in the friggin’ desert!), and the flowers are in full bloom. That means that it is pollen season, and, according to the vet, one of the worst in a long time.

Poor Booger and Baby are, evidently, allergic to some of the pollens that are being spread around by the regular desert breezes. Baby is constantly licking her paws and feet, and she has been getting crud in her ears, which drives her nuts. She spends a good part of the day, when she isn’t sleeping or playing, scratching her ears, her back, etc. or licking her extremities. The vet has put her on antihistamines and ear ointment to get her through this rough patch with the pollen.

Booger has had a mysterious issue with her private parts. We thought it was a urinary tract problem but the vet didn’t find one. Yesterday, Charlie and I discovered a bunch of reddish, scabby patches on her stomach and legs. This morning she saw the vet, who opined that her problem may be a type of staph infection. She’s going to be treated with oral antibiotics and some topical antibiotic gel. She’s already on the antihistamines for her allergies, gets anti-inflammatory medicine for her arthritis, and receives eye drops for chronic conjunctivitis.

Both Baby and Booger seem pretty normal when they aren’t itching or scratching or having boogers in their eyes (that would be Booger herself). Like most dogs, they lay around a lot, in between playing, begging for food, and pestering me to take them for a walk or ride in the car.

Here’s Booger in her hidey-hole:

Today, all three of the beasts got blood tests preparatory to starting up their heartworm medicine for the Summer. The last thing we need is for one or more of them to get parasites in their heart while we are camping in mosquito country. We only have them on heartworm medicine for the duration of our annual RV trip, so they’ll each be taking one pill per month for three months to protect them from Mr. Thirsty.

That’s one more medicine for me to keep track of. Every morning, when I prepare their food, I put Meloxicam in Booger’s dish, give JayJay his Enalapril pill (for kidney issues), put fish oil and flaxseed oil in JayJay’s food dish (for his eyes), and dose each of the dogs with glucosamine/chondroitin for their joints. Following their meal, I put eye drops in JayJay’s eyes: four different drops, one every five minutes.

That’s just their normal medical regime, when they are pooping regularly and not suffering from allergies, staph, cataracts, eye ulcers and the like.

Yeah, it’s a bit of a bother, but we love our little wards, and they return the favor in spades. “In sickness and in health…”, as the saying goes.

For the past three months, President Trump and his Administration have left no stone unturned stonewalling the efforts of Congress to investigate: (a) Attorney General Barr’s dismissive treatment of the Mueller report, which remains redacted to this day; (b) Trump’s business ties to Russia; (c) and, Trump’s potential conflicts of interest, which seem to multiply with each passing month.

In addition, Congress would like to see Trump’s personal taxes, which he had promised during his campaign to release for public scrutiny, because some of his family business transactions over the years look fishy, to say the least. Congress writes tax law, so it wants to know where loopholes exist.

The President has fallen on an expansive interpretation of “executive privilege” to deny Congress the information that it properly seeks, and has added that Congress has no right for this information because it doesn’t relate to any specific legislation that has been proposed.

Basically, he just doesn’t want to cooperate with a Democratic-majority Congress.

Gee, how the tables have turned.

For eight years, the Republican-controlled Congress and Senate conducted innumerable “investigations” into supposed wrongdoing by the Obama Administration, subjecting many Cabinet appointees, high-ranking officials, and even low-ranking employees (who worked for the more recognizable politicos) to withering, public flayings on the pretense that this was critical government fact-finding.

When they weren’t conducting these important investigations, the Republicans spent their time refusing to even consider every policy initiative that came from President Obama, and devised very little meaningful legislation of their own, which is the primary purpose of the Legislative branch.

Basically, they spent all of their time “investigating”.

The Obama Administration cooperated with the so-called investigations, despite their obvious political motivation, because the investigative function of Congress is imbedded in the Constitution.

Hillary Clinton, an ex-State Department official, was investigated ad nauseum for two years by Congressional and Senatorial committees, the objective not being legislative in any manner, but obviously a means of dirtying her reputation running up to the 2016 Presidential election. No criminal wrongdoing was ever found; no criminal charges were brought. And, importantly, no legislation was put forth pursuant to the witch trials; i.e the investigations served no legislative purpose.

Donald Trump was a private citizen at that time, campaigning for President. He loudly regaled the Congressional and Senatorial “investigations”, and publicly led the chants to “Lock her up!” In his mind, the investigatory function of Congress was one-hundred percent legit, and he publicly commended the particular committee members who were very theatrically putting the wood to his likely Presidential opponent.

What can we deduce from all of this?

• It is now apparent that our Constitution, which doesn’t mention political parties, allows Congress to conduct investigations of Federal employees and functions only if the political party holding the Presidency or controlling Congress is Republican.
• It is now also apparent that Executive Privilege, which also isn’t mentioned in the Constitution, can apply to anything that a President wants it to, including investigations by Congress leading to the filing of articles of impeachment, which is its responsibility under the Constitution.
• In other words, a President can do whatever he wants to do.

We, basically, now have the same government in place as the Russian kleptocracy under Putin, the dictatorship in the Philippines, the personality cult over in North Korea, and the military junta that runs Turkey.

Not surprisingly, President Donald Trump has publicly expressed admiration for those folks.

I’d hate to be a high school civics instructor right now, trying to explain how this nonsense comports with our precious democratic form of government.

From the recent news reports it seems like the United States is on the verge of engaging in yet another war, this time with Iran.

Why do we have this compulsion?

As far as I can determine, Iran has done nothing to us lately, except allegedly resume developing nuclear weapons after the Trump Administration tore up the multi-national treaty with Iran designed to keep them from developing nuclear weapons.

Say what?!

This is, of course, after we have imposed strangling economic sanctions on Iran, apparently designed to bring that nation to its knees.

Yeah, it appears that we have purposely provoked them into a hostile position, and now our President is publicly threatening them that if they react improperly (i.e. strike back at us), that he is prepared to destroy them.

We’ll teach them who’s Boss.

Gosh, this is deja vu all over again, isn’t it? How many times has this country manufactured a problem, which then justified us to militarily resolve it?

How about “Remember the Maine!”, the manufactured crisis that stimulated the Spanish-American War?

How about the USS Maddox/Gulf of Tonkin fake “attack” on us which paved the way for Lyndon Johnson to (ultimately) send a half-million soldiers to fight the North Vietnamese?

How about the phony crisis in Granada, where Ronald Reagan sent in the U.S. military to crush a civil insurrection in a tiny Caribbean island country? The Heartbreak Ridge movie run-time lasted longer than the “war”.

(By the way, what gives us the right to interfere in another country’s business? We sometimes seem to think that we own the world.)

Of course, we can’t forget the bogus “Weapons of Mass Destruction” excuse for invading Iraq, destroying that country’s infrastructure, and unleashing ISIS upon the Middle East. We’re still over there, trying to extricate us from the cesspool that we created for no reason other than to throw our weight around.

Our current National Security Advisor, John Bolton, was all-in on the WMD charade, back in the day as a hawkish advisor to President Bush. Now, he’s regurgitating the same bile on Iran. He just likes conflict, hates Muslims and Chinese, and thinks the Russians are good guys.

For some reason, America is also intent on permanently pissing off every Muslim in the world by aiding Israel’s master plan of driving every last Palestinian out of their own ancient homeland. It’s the Crusades, revisited, and we’re in on it.

Why do we get ourselves involved in this shit? Don’t we have enough problems of our own, right here in the good old United States? I’m all for making American great again…let’s start right here!

I’ve said this before and will say it again: reinstitute the military draft. Make it mandatory that every young person, even the children of politicians and rich folks, serve a couple of years and face the prospect of having to fight in one of these needless conflicts.

Guess what will happen? Those politicians and rich folks won’t so easily find excuses to support stupid wars. A big problem we have right now is that very few Congressmen and Senators, like our draft-dodging Commander-in-Chief, ever served in the military. And, even fewer of their children have, not surprisingly. Military service is for chumps, they say. “Let the black and brown kids do the fighting!”

Right now, we have a President who, by his nature, likes to bully people and throw his weight around. At the same time, we have a military-industrial complex which needs armed conflict throughout the world to stimulate arms sales. That’s the only plausible explanation for the recent imperative to pick fights with bad actors thousands of miles from the U.S. heartland, in places like Yemen, Venezuela, and sub-Saharan Africa. It’s a volatile mixture.

Now, it appears that America has decided that the government of Iran must fall.

Does anyone remember what happened when the government of Iraq was toppled by the United States? There ensued absolute chaos in the Middle East: a power vacuum that was filled by anarchy, terrorism, and mindless slaughter. We’re still over there, sixteen years later, trying to clean up the mess we made, with no end in sight.

When the shit starts to hit the fan, after Iran is either economically destroyed or lashes out at America for undermining its sovereignty, our clueless citizenry will again, self-righteously, wonder…

Why don’t those Muslim people like us?

Old age is a bitch.

We’re all turning into fossils around here. JayJay is 84 in dog years, Booger is 77, Charlie is 73 in human years, and I’m 71 years young.

Of course, Baby is…well, she’s a baby compared to us…only 2 (14 in dog years). She’s lucky; everything still works…and she flaunts it.

Jay has had colitis for about 6 weeks. This started up coincidentally with the eye ulcer and the antibiotics he had to take to cure that nasty problem. He just can’t win, although the rest of him (exclusive of his crappy eyes) works pretty well. He’s still got an overabundance of personality and a bounce in his step. Considering that he was abandoned in a house in the desert without food or water when he was about 2-1/2 years old, Jay has come a long way, health-wise, and he seems to appreciate his good fortune.

Poor Booger has some type of irritation of her private parts. She’s been scooting around right after urinating. I think it’s urethritis, or something like that. She also has conjunctivitis. We’ll have to take her to the vet this week. And, of course, she has pretty noticeable arthritis in her hips and legs. She still wants to play, but Baby literally runs circles around her. It’s amazing that they wrestle and compete so much, because Booger has got to be pretty sore. What a dog!

Charlie is always suffering from something. Of course, she had the broken back (since surgically repaired) simultaneous with joint inflammation in her hands (since cured with Voltaren gel). Those issues closely followed her cataract surgery, which was a success. At least she can see well again. Now, we await a visit with a plastic surgeon who, she hopes, can remove a lipoma that is located between her chest wall and one of her saline implants. Never a dull moment with my wife!

Yours truly is suffering this week from overdoing it last week; i.e. big hikes in Zion and Gunlock with the kids. My left hip, which is due for replacement because the ball socket is worn out, has been quite sore for days now. My orthopedic surgeon and I have agreed on a time schedule for the replacement surgery: it will be just after we return from our 3-month RV trip in October. That will give me a bit of recuperation time before the Holiday season.

In the meanwhile, I will have to put up with the daily onslaught of osteoarthritis, which plagues my hands, knees, and neck. It’s no fun, waking up each day to discover which one will drive me nuts. Actually, the knees aren’t that bad, because I get a SynVisc shot in each one annually. It really helps. But, there is no comparable treatment for my hands, so I just have to treat them nicely: no card shuffling, tightly grasping heavy objects, no bowling, etc. I have been able to hit golf balls, however. We’ll see how that goes.

My neck is going to be the biggest problem down the road. I’m pretty sure that I have arthritic bone spurs in my mid-cervical spine. Some days are miserable, where I can’t rotate my head much at all and I have a lot of pain just doing normal things. Then, I’ll go a couple of weeks without pain or significant restriction. (Actually, bad posture while typing my blog on the PC seems to stimulate my neck issues. Today, I’ve propped up my PC so that the screen is almost at eye level. Hopefully, that will help.)

Least I moan and groan too much, it is obvious that all of us old fogies (JayJay, Booger, Charlie and myself) have the same issue with Old Man Arthritis, who, by the way, is undefeated in his career. Eventually, everyone has to pay The Man for having a spine and limbs that wear out. We’re all on that glide path right now. It sucks.

On a brighter note, though, none of us has yet contracted a fatal disease or suffered some cataclysmic accident. We’ve been darned lucky, we all lived long and rewarding lives, and are quite appreciative of that.

As the saying goes, “Count your blessings.”

This week Charlie and I are enjoying some time with our son Jeff and daughter-in-law Carol. They’ve come to Mesquite to see us (from So Cal), and we did a couple of day “stay-cation” in our home, then hit the road in the RV to spend four nights in Hurricane, Utah.

Jeff and I took the opportunity to hit the 18-hole putting course at the Pioneer Center. On our first official score go-around, I had a 47 and Jeff had a 53. The next time out, we both scored personal bests of 46, which would be 10 over par (if par can be considered 2). It is a tough course, with lots of ups and down and sidehill lies. None of us had a Hole in One on the second go-round, but we each had a 4!

The four of us spent some time playing Golf (the card game). We learned from Mac and Sue (our neighbors), and like it because it is easy to play without holding cards in your hand and because we use an automatic device to shuffle the two decks. Anyway, Carol and Jeff like the game a lot, especially since Carol won.

On Saturday, we packed up the RV and headed up to Hurricane, which is about one hour up I-15 in Utah. We’ve stayed there before and like it because Zion National Park is just another 30 minutes up the hill.

Of course, since this is an RV trip, something had to go wrong when we set up at Willow Wind RV Park. The friggin’ water line, which we had replaced after last year’s trip (including a new auto wind hose reel), leaked like a sieve when we hooked up to park water. It appears that someone torqued a plastic coupling, and the pressurized water sprays through the coupling.

As the Marines say, “Improvise, Adapt, Overcome!”, so we are semi-boondocking here in this full hook-up park. We are using gallon plastic containers for fresh water to wash in the sink and to flush the toilet. No problem, really, but it sure pisses Charlie and I off, because we spent mucho dinero upgrading our water service, only to find that we have NO water service. Sonofabitch!

To compound our pique, we also noticed that the coach was dirty and that our carpets were not cleaned, even though we paid for that service.

So, I will have to call our Temecula Valley RV service lady “Diana” on Monday and read her the riot act. We are probably going to have to get the water issue resolved up here (Mesquite or St. George), and hopefully Temecula Valley RV will reimburse us.

Other than those issues, we are now ensconced at Space 116 here at Willow Wind in a super pull-through site with lots of tree cover. It’s a beautiful spot, the best we’ve ever had here.

Today, Sunday (Mother’s Day), Jeff and Carol and I drove up to Zion to reconnoiter the joint. They’ve never been, so today was the opportunity to show them the beauty, get a feel for how the park shuttle works, and do a little hiking.

The Virgin River is roaring in the park right now, so hiking The Narrows, which was our goal when we set up this trip, is out of the question: too dangerous. Instead, we hiked the Riverside Trail, which takes one from the last shuttle stop about 1 mile right up to the spot where hikers embark into The Narrows itself. Hiking is not allowed in that slot canyon when river volume is over 150 cubic feet per second. I would guess that it is five times that volume right now. Nasty!

We also disembarked the shuttle on the way back down the canyon at Pa’rus Trail, and walked the final mile or so back to Zion Visitor Center. It’s a very wide and gentle trail, right along the river, with nice views of the canyon, the rushing river, and flora and fauna (we did see a small group of deer this morning).

Our plan is to return to Zion tomorrow and do some further hiking. I might do Angels’ Landing, and Jeff and Carol might do part of it and then head for Lower Emerald Pools. We will have to see how everyone feels; my left hip, Jeff’s knees, and Carol’s stamina might determine how much hiking we attempt.

Monday:

Jeff, Carol and I left Hurricane early this morning for our repeat drive to Zion. Our goal was to hike a bit up the Angel’s Landing trail (i.e. as far as the kids felt comfortable), do a Lower Emerald Pool hike (note: the middle and upper pools are closed due to landslide), and maybe hit the Canyon Overlook trail near the east entrance to the Park.

Jeff and Carol, who had been very apprehensive about Angel’s Landing, had steeled themselves for the big adventure and were ready to tackle that trail, so up we went.

It is a ball buster of a cardiovascular nature, and those two (the kids) are smokers, so I figured that they’d crap out. But, no, they did not: we huffed and puffed our way all the way up the “ramp”, the pre-Wiggles, and the actual Walter’s Wiggles switchbacks to arrive at Scout Lookout (sometimes known as Chicken Out Point).

I was amazed that they made it this far, and very proud of their determination. We rested for five minutes or so, had a snack, and I figured they would want to call it a day. But, no, they were up to ascending the Hogback, which is a big sandstone rock face with cables.

So, we started to ascend the Hogback.

Unfortunately, we then encountered a whole bunch of folks going up and coming down. It was like Disneyland.

The problem was that two of the three major league hiking trails in Zion (including The Narrows and Observation Point were closed). The river volume is too high right now for access to The Narrows…which was our intended hike when we booked our visit to Zion. The other big hike, Observation Point, is currently closed because of a landslide. What this means is that all of the serious hikers visiting Zion on this Mothers’ Day Weekend are opting to do Angels’ Landing…because it is the only available option.

So, it’s a zoo up there, with two to three times as many people as normal.

Jeff, Carol, and I began the ascent of the Hogback, got about thirty feet up the sandstone slope (with courtesy cable supports), and then ran into about thirty people inching down the same narrow, slippery “trail”, if one could call it that. No place to hide; way too many people, dangerous, and time-consuming, dodging anxious hikers. We decided to call it quits, which really disappointed them.

I knew that the problem wasn’t so much the Hogback, but what lied beyond: the very narrow ledge connecting trail (with 1,000 ft drop off) from the Hogback to the Summit. With all of those people up there, it would be a scary and dangerous place for my kids.

I’d been to the top a couple of times in the past, so no big deal for me. But, this was their one big chance. What a shame!

Had we ascended the cables up the Hogback, we would have had this view, with the top of Angels’s Landing right in front of us. Bummer!

Anyway, we hiked several miles back down the hill, got on the shuttle bus, and headed over to the trail to Lower Emerald Pools. It was an easy half-mile or so, and a very picturesque sight. It could have been been much more rewarding had the upper pools been accessible, but it was not to be: a huge rockfall had blocked the trail.

By the time we were done with the Emerald Pools trail, and had returned to the shuttle, we were bushed, so we headed back to Hurricane for a nice lunch of fish tacos, compliments of my excellent chef son Jeff.

A nice, but tiring and somewhat disappointing day.

The kids are going to come back, maybe in the Fall, so that we can do The Narrows. They love Zion.

RV Update: I talked to the Temecula Valley RV service manager, Dianne, today about our “waterless” motorhome. She apologized and told me to take it to a nearby RV repair place to fix the leaking connection, they’d pay for it, and also to get the carpet shampooed properly, which they would also reimburse. So, I’ve got that to do this week.

Tuesday:

We decided to return to Mesquite today, to clean up the rig, put it away, and enjoy each other a bit. Jeff and I cooked up a Putting match for Wednesday with Lloyd, my hiking buddy, and his South African girlfriend, Juanita.

Later, we played Golf, a card game, with Jeff and Carol for a couple of hours.

Wednesday:

We left early this morning for Gunlock, Utah to hike “The Vortex”. It is a large formation of petrified sand dunes, with large sink holes near the top that are filled with water this time of the year.

There’s been a lot of rainfall over the past five months up in this area, and the Gunlock Reservoir is filled to overflowing. Here is some of the water that has spilled over the top, cascading through red rock sandstone cliffs. Very pretty.

We chugged up The Vortex trail in probably 45 minutes. Great views, Jeff and Carol loved it, nobody got hurt, and the weather was perfect. Here are some photos:

When we got back to Mesquite, Jeff and I cruised over to the putting course and put the wood to Lloyd and Juanita. We actually tied the first 18 holes, thanks to a lucky ass hole in one by Lloyd on the 17^th hole. But, in the 18-hole playoff, Jeff and I kicked ass, beating them 3 and 2, and it was only that close because Lloyd had another luck-out hole-in-one. HaHa.

Hail to the Champions!

While we were putting, Charlie and Carol spent several hours at the Eureka Casino playing slot machines.

They had lots of fun, and Carol won $23.

Thursday:

Jeff and Carol are going home this morning.

Charlie and I have an appointment with the vet to investigate Jayjay’s gastrointestinal system. He’s normally the most regular guy, with firm, hard poops. But, ever since he began the special eye medicine for his eye ulcer, he has had loose stools…at best. Something is awry up his poop chute. We’re going to find out what it is!

Jeff and Carol’s excellent adventure has ended.

Out here in the desert near Boulder Dam, Arizona (about 8 miles north of Mesquite, just off of (Interstate 15) is what’s left of the Old Spanish Trail. Me and my buddies drive by the traces of the trail on the way to various day hikes in the Beaver Mountains.

The trail was created by Spanish colonists back in the 1700’s and was used by American explorers,frontiersmen, trappers, cattlemen and Mormon settlers in the mid-1800’s.

One of the early American users of the trail was Richens Lacey Whooton, a legendary frontiersman of the early American West. “Uncle Dick”, as he was known by contemporaries, was an acquaintance of fellow mountain man, John C. Fremont, and was a lifelong friend of “Kit” Carson.

Uncle Dick was also my great-great Grandfather on my father’s side, if I can believe the family lore.

One would only have to have met my great uncle Les Enz (brother of my father’s mother) and compare to old picture of “Uncle Dick” from his University of Nebraska autobiography to see the resemblance. It is uncanny; Les was an identical look-alike.

Uncle Dick lived to a ripe old age of 77, which is amazing considering the adventurous and dangerous life that he lived. He also married five times and sired twenty children.

According to family lore, one of his wives was a Spanish lady who was related to the Dominguez clan which held a large land grant in what is now Southern California (present site of Cal State Dominguez Hills). One of their children (daughter?) presumably hooked up with an Enz (which is a Basque surname) fellow, somewhere along the way. My grandmother, on my father’s side, was Lila Mae Enz.

My father, Richard “Dick” Manning, met some of the Dominguez clan via the Enz side of the family when he was a youngster. .

Needless to say, it appears that I have some Latin blood in me, courtesy of Dick Whooton and his Spanish wife.

Anyway… old Uncle Dick Whooton had a very interesting life. At age 19, he took a job working on a wagon train, which landed him in Bent’s Fort (Colorado territory), which was the only white settlement on the Santa Fe Trail at that time.

Whooton spent several years trading with the Sioux, Ute, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and Comanche Indians. A few years later, he led a trapping party across the Rocky Mountains, eventually reaching Vancouver, where they sold their furs, and continued south to California and Arizona. It was a 5,000 mile trip.

In the 1840’s Whooton was a buffalo hunter, a cattle and buffalo rancher, and a scout for the U.S. Military during the Spanish-American War. In 1852, Uncle Dick drove a flock of 9,000 sheep from southern Colorado to California in 107 days to feed hungry gold miners, losing only 100 sheep en-route. In 1856, he operated a freight train between Kansas City and New Mexico, each train consisting of 36 wagons pulled by 5 pair of oxen. The trip in one direction would take 100 days.

Whooton later built one of the first commercial buildings in the frontier town of Denver, Colorado. It was a general store, later to be followed by a hotel and restaurant. He wasn’t very successful at these enterprises, but was there long enough to be one of the signers of the articles of incorporation of the new city of Denver.

Later in life, Uncle Dick came to Trinidad, New Mexico with the permission of the territorial governments of Colorado and New Mexico to build a toll road over the Raton Pass, a critical bottleneck of the Santa Fe Trail. He and his Ute Indian laborers successfully completed the project, as well as a stagecoach stop at his home (where he operated an inn), and he began collecting tolls for people using the new road: $1.50 per wagon, $0.25 per horseman, Indians FREE).

This lasted for about a dozen years, until the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad (AT&SF) bought out Whooton’s right-of-way so that they could construct a rail line through the pass. The AT&SF offered Uncle Dick $50,000, but he settled for one dollar…plus a lifetime railroad pass and small pension for his wife.

The AT&SF later honored Whooton by naming one of their brand new freight locomotives “Uncle Dick”. At the time, it was the largest freight engine in the world.

(I don’t know if it is connected, but the good relationship of Whooton and the AT&SF may have paid dividends down the road. The Enz clan (offshoots of Uncle Dick’s daughter) did quite well with the AT&SF. In fact, my Dad told me that the Enz’s, their relatives and friends, were able to “get by” during the Depression because one of the Enz family members was a big shot at AT&SF headquarters in Los Angeles and was able to dole out patronage jobs at will. Les Enz, my father’s uncle who was a dead ringer for Uncle Dick, enjoyed a very long career with AT&SF, being the engineer on the Santa Fe’s “City of Las Vegas” run from Los Angeles to Vegas for decades.)

The AT&SF tracks through the Raton Pass eventually became less popular than other rail routes, and nowadays the non-toll Interstate 25 runs through Whooton’s old property near Trinidad.

Uncle Dick died in 1893, having outlived 4 of his 5 wives and all but three of his twenty children.

Thanks for the memories, Gramps!

We have visitors for the next couple of weeks.

Our RV’ing friends, the Quinns (Dan and Peggy) are here now, staying at the nearby Sun Resort RV park in town. We are lounging in our new backyard, kicking back at their spot in the RV park, eating, drinking, and shooting the bull. Very nice; we’ve missed them.

Dan Quinn is a master barbequer, who works wonders with his Big Green Egg grill/smoker. Here is some pizza that he made; it was delicious!

Dan also likes beer. He found a good deal at a local sports bar: 5 brews for $11.

Dan and I went to the local 18-hole putting course to show off. The place, which is free, spacious, and features real grass, kicked our asses. It’s like a Par 3 course; nobody’s holing one out, that’s for sure.

Dan and Peggy had Boston Terriers (Biff and Cliff) for a long time, but they’ve both since passed. I think they missed them.

When we’d meet up with the Quinns on the road, they ask if Booger could do a sleepover in their rig. Booger loved it and hated to come home. The Quinns love Booger, for sure.

Peggy brought Booger a gift: a portable cave to hide out in.

Don’t know if Booger had anything to do with it, but the Quinns recently bit the bullet and got a new Boston Terrier, named Katie. She is 5 months old, super sweet, and a bundle of energy. She wears out Baby, and that’s saying something.

Here she is giving me a wet one on the schnoz.

Our three dogs and Katie have been cavorting in the backyard here on Buggy Whip Court. Lots to do, games to play, a swimming pool to wade in, and fake grass to wrestle on.

It’s Spring here in Mesquite, and lots of desert vegetation is flowering, just in time for next week’s visit with our son Jeff and wife Carol.

We finished up our visit with the Quinns by having dinner at the Virgin River Casino. Pretty good Chinese food; I was surprised. Lots of cigarette smoke, though. Charlie invested $20 in a slot machine, and got bupkis.

Tomorrow, Charlie and I will dust off the RV and get it ready for Jeff and Carol’s visit. We plan to head up to Hurricane, Utah for a few days and maybe do some hiking in Zion National Park.

Or, alternately, just kick back, have some drinks, and shoot the bull.

It’s nice to have visitors.