12 Oakdale

I have 7 layers on and am still cold here at Bryce Canyon National Park, but it is worth it. This morning we got up at 3:45 and saw the Milky Way at Sunrise Point. 22°. We were the only people there. Just as we got out of the car, I saw a meteorite. We walked out to the overlook and sat for a while on the bench. Then, throughly frozen, we drove to Farpoint to see the sunrise. Thank goodness for the heated seats and steering wheel in the Jeep Compass we rented. And thank goodness I made Grant buy a park sweatshirt since then he could give me his red windbreaker. Even with tights under my pants and 2 pairs of socks, my legs and feet are cold. Yes, we could have packed bulky warm clothes but we are only here overnight to see the dark skies. We started our trip flying into Salt Lake City 4 days ago to see new granddaughter Hazel Maeve and to attend the Great Salt Lake Bird Festival. 2 birds… Hazel is absolutely darling. I know, I know, a doting grandmother would say that, but she is. And s...

Getting there:  At 3:33 AM, there were the fewest cars I’d  ever seen on I-4. Our drive to the Marriott Lakefront to park and the bus ride to the airport were easy, unlike for the people traveling on Sunday. Our driver said it took him 54 minutes from the hotel to the terminal.  Once there, an outside skycap grabbed our big bag and checked it. Inside, as he said, was a madhouse. I hadn’t gotten around to make a reservation for TSA, but the lines didn’t look too long. As we walked over, an agent said the position in front of him was open. Not a person in line. (Like lemmings, everyone had just gotten behind someone else. We were going to too.) We waited less than a minute. At the X-ray machine, an agent told me to take off my boots since they had metal zippers and would set off the alarm. Nope. I said I was old and had metal in me and would likely set it off anyway. I got patted down, not for my boots, not for my knee, but something suspected in my shoulder. Who knows....

It wasn’t raining when I left the house, however 3/4 of the way through my 20 minute jog, it began to pour. Since there was no lightening, I decided just to slog along even when I got to the 5 minutes of cool down. I was already soaked, so there wasn’t any need to rush. I’m certainly not going to get hypothermia this time of year. In fact, I was a little warm in my long sleeved Goofy race shirt. It has been raining for the past two days. We got 1 1/4” Wednesday and 3” yesterday. Today is supposed to be clear, which the Town of Windermere is certainly hoping. Tonight is Light Up Windermere when they ceremoniously turn on the “seasonal” lights. Not to be outdone, several families in town have already put up and lit their Christmas decorations. What happened to Thanksgiving?  I am quite pleased with my progress with my Couch to 5K app program. Five weeks down, 3 to go, then I plan to run the Santa Twilight 5K in downtown Clermont, December 13th, amid the twinkling lights. Today was th...

A quick trip to California for Bella’s birthday party, flying Alaskan Airlines nonstop out Thursday evening and the red eye home Sunday night. Travel is getting back to normal with some people still wearing masks, most not. I’m just hoping the kid in the seat behind me who threw up was airsick, not contagious. Too late to do anything. On the other hand, if being around 6 kindergartners and their younger siblings Saturday afternoon didn’t do us in, I’d say our immune systems are working fine.  For the party, Mary made mini cupcakes which I frosted. The kids decorated them with sprinkles as a party activity. She also had small white paper bags which they colored on and stuck on stickers for their take-home goody bag. In it, we tucked a paintbrush and their plastic pallet which had held their sprinkles. She’d decided no candy since everyone had so much left from Halloween.  Ryan had planted big bubble wands in a couple of large pots of dirt so they didn’t dump over and lose all t...

Ten days visiting Mary. Lovely weather, a little cool, with one day of what the weather app called drizzle: I felt 3 small drops. With all the rain here a month ago, the wild flowers are beautiful. Yellow asters-like flowers, invasive ice plant and mustard, nasturtiums cover the roadside. We dug Bahia grass out around the plants on the front  corner, making the bed twice as big. Crazy hard work. Then we planted some purple-ish plant, name unknown, and the mountain mahogany they got for free at the Water Conservation Park. Mary had rescued a lantana from a previous planting, which turned out to be two plants, so we separated them and added them to the plot. I collected up all the succulents waiting a home, and we planted them on the street side. With coconut coir mulch and some bark chips, we deemed the area done. Except for the rest of the Bahia grass between the original 2 plants. Mary sprayed weed killer on it, and I covered it with cardboard held down with bags of mulch. With an...

I subscribe to a website that scours state park’s reservations listings and sends me notices about ones I’m interested in. February 1st, I got a notice of a cabin open Presidents’ Day weekend at Blue Spring when Mary would be visiting with her children. I jumped on. Time to show Bella and Remi what manatees look like. They would visit Ryan’s dad and sister in Fort Myers while we birded in Belize. Then they would come to Orlando, Ryan would return to California and work, Mary et al would visit us for 10 days. Perfect. This has been a hard-fought decision with Mary anxious about traveling with children, especially the return by herself. We’d agreed on the basic dates before I’d made a commitment and put down our deposit for Belize. They couldn’t come until Ryan had taken an important test at the beginning of February, then he would have time for leave. All good until mid-January when she suggested she come before Ryan rather than stay after. I was already booked with events I couldn’t ch...

Three days before I was to fly to California, a Florida judge vacated  the CDC’s nationwide mask requirement on public transportation. Immediately, all the airlines and TSA said they wouldn’t enforce it while the Biden administration decided whether to appeal (they did, updates to follow). I was so happy. The New York Times readership was aghast. The couple sitting next to me on the plane wore their masks periodically, I guess to cut their odds of catching something, without actually having to wear their masks all the time. Didn’t seem rational to me, so absolutely appropriate to these crazy times. In any case, off to see Mary and grandbabies. I am still hobbling, considered getting a wheelchair at the airport, and would definitely used one at the zoo, but we decided to skip that this trip. We did go to Bella’s dance class, then picnic at Balboa Park and a short walk through the rose garden. A medium sized hawk with a striped tail landed in a tree there, perhaps a red shouldered. M...