Day One-hundred-and-fifty-three: Beautiful country

Today's traveling was so beautiful, I decided to take the more scenic route another day.  I've been in three states today, Arizona twice.  The first time I entered Arizona, on I-15, I thought sure I was going to have to go into a tunnel but instead there were several curves through some beautifully sliced rock walls.  After I was through the slices, it was difficult to see much change as the canyon walls were just as shear but perhaps a little further from the road.  Both were spectacular.

Even though I had only gone 139 miles, I decided to get gas in St. Georges.  Then I changed my Prius navigation system to area three and my destination as the Zion National Park Visitor's Center.

Zion was spectacular as well.  Since I had to pay $25 just to drive through it, I decided to take the shuttle all the way to the end of the road and walk another mile into the canyon.  The pictures I took on the walk were good but cannot show it well.  (While at the end, I did my guided meditation with the roar of the water as the background.  I could hardly hear the voice on my ipod for the water.)  I didn't stop anywhere else in Zion National Park because I couldn't have seen it all and one more wouldn't make that much difference.  I'll just have to go back.  (Yet another place that Marilyn would have really loved.)

Leaving Zion, I set my Prius up for a Best Western in Farmington, New Mexico.  I figured I could get there before midnight.  Then as I drove through more and more spectacular scenery, I decided to stop before dark, which finds me in a Courtyard by Marriott in Page Arizona.  Their restaurant isn't open for dinner and I didn't feel like driving to a less than satisfactory non-vegan restaurant.  (Although a hot meal is becoming more attractive the further in time I am removed from my last one, Thanksgiving Day.)

I was surprised at some of the sizes of the towns, well one town, Kanab, on this side of Zion.  I think it had everyone of the fast food standards.  Glen Canyon and Escalante were also spectacular.  I didn't even bother taking pictures of all the beautiful swirling and layered red and pink and white rocks.  I just enjoyed them.

I'm going to have to travel more in my Life after Layoff.  I wish I had done so in my life before layoff.

I finished listening to the Garrison Keeler CDs.  The last one, number five, had a long skit on jokes with guest Paula Poundstone.  The last two came from one of the musicians:

• What is the definition of a "perfect pitch?"  It is when you throw a banjo in the dumpster and it doesn't touch the sides.
• Son to father:  "When I grow up I want to be a musician."  Father to son:  "Son, you can't have it both ways."

Day One-hundred-and-fifty-two: Nevada Backcountry

I didn't look in the Atlas for the "as the crow flies" distance between Reno and Las Vegas, but I followed the short route on my Prius navigator.  This had me going NW, SE, E, and S.  It also had me on a wash board dirt road for what turned out to be only 14 miles.  The maximum speed I could go on that road made me believe the Prius' navigation estimate of 11 hours.  It was actually closer to eight hours.

The scenery before it got repetitive was really great.  Even the repetitive parts were great, but literally two or three hundred miles of high desert caldera looking land.  Every once in a while I had to cross the rims that it looked like the caldera through up.  I did take some pictures.

I had my doubts about the dirt road that got worse.  About a mile from Alt 95, right at Fortchurchill, it became paved again. I thought that I was coming up on a town but it turned out to be a Nevada Auto Test site.

The mountain tops were dusted with snow but the road level was clear, even at the plus six thousand feet.  While still on the dirt road I passed a formation that looked like a small version of the Devil's Postpile.

The dirt road ran along Carson River.  I took a picture but all that can be seen are trees.  Of course in a desert, the only place a tree can grow is where there is water.  This route took me through Virginia City.  Marilyn and I did make it to Virginia City once because she wanted to see the city that the Cartrights rode to from the Ponderosa.  (We drove by the Ponderosa a couple times near Lake Tahoe but never stopped there.)  We toured "The Way It Was" museum and I thought about stopping and taking a picture but that was when the Prius was telling me it would take 11 hours to drive to Las Vegas.

I'm sure Marilyn would have liked Tonopah and Goldfield.  She probably would have had me pull into the 20-mile beach at Walker Lake.  There were long stretches where we couldn't have stopped for a rest break and I made it all the way to my exit in Las Vegas, which was surprising, given the amount of water I drank.  The air is dryer.

I set the Prius up to take me to a Whole Foods in Las Vegas to post my flyer for the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund.  As I was leaving Reno, I happened to be driving right by a Whole Foods, so I stopped in.  They didn't allow customer postings.  All the way to Las Vegas, this stuck in my mind.  But when I got to the Las Vegas Whole Foods, as I was checking out, I asked the clerk about posting it.  She said, "Sure, just put it on the bulletin board over there."  There was a perfect open space for it.  I'll still have quite a few left when I get back to Ohio and West Virginia so I will have to take a different way back to California.

Early tomorrow I want to leave for Zion National Park.  I don't intend to stay there long as I also want to get all the way to Gallup.  I had thought to take a more northern route into Taos but that would be even further on roads that zig zag as much as my Nevada travels today.

Even though I have not burned through all the money I set aside to gamble with, I will not be going out to a casino tonight.  Conflicting desires mean that I'd prefer to go to sleep early to be able to get up early over getting all smoked up again.  Tough choices in my Life after Layoff.  Oh well, there are Indian Casinos in New Mexico and River Boat casinos in Saint Louis.  And there is always the return trip.

Day One-hundred-and-fifty-one: More memories

I'm staying in a hotel in Reno that Marilyn and I once stayed at.  I had forgotten how bad it was but at least it is reasonable, and has free WiFi.  I walked over to the Peppermill casino to have dinner but their only likely source of vegan food was a Chinese restaurant that will open the middle of December.  So, I gambled before I walked back to hotel to eat out of my traveling stash.  (I'm limiting myself to $100 per casino unless I'm using their money.)  However, I decided not to reinvest $30 in winnings and the original $20, which means that I only lost $50.

At this rate, my Den of Inequities tour will be very short.  Cigarette smoke and losing take the luster off of it.  I can tolerate the cigarette smoke much better if I'm winning but to have to pay for the punishment...

This trip so far is a series of memories of Marilyn.  Auburn and the Grass Valley turn off all the way to Grae Eagle.  Auburn itself.  Truckee.  She loved to poke around in Truckee's stores.  We were there more than once.  One time we even went skiing at the downtown Truckee ski slope.  She said it reminded her a lot of Mansfield.

Even Reno has several memories, our first or second Thanksgiving on the road was a trip to Reno to stay at the Flamingo Hilton.  As we were walking up to check-in, my son, who was no older than five, was jaw dropping amazed at the machines that gave real money.  Someone had just hit a minor jackpot and the machine was paying out.  Now they are all paper.  It definitely takes the fun out of it and makes it easier to go through money.  There's no slowing to look for double dated, 1976, quarters or pulling out state quarters.

Life keeps changing.  I guess that's what makes it Life after Layoff.

It is a longer drive to Reno from Pacifica than Fremont anyway and the stop, stop, and go around I-680 didn't help.  I think I will try and stop while it is still daylight tomorrow, which means that I need to get to bed early enough to get up and get out early.  So, its off to the shower and then to bed.

Day One-hundred-and-fifty: Give love

I still read the Huffington Post although my topics have expanded somewhat.  On an economic article about how the retail stores are in a pricing death spiral, a short comment just jumped out at me:  "Give love.  It costs nothing and the payback is enormous."

It is late and I have an early day tomorrow, just not for the reason I had originally planned, but that is the nice thing about a Life after Layoff, my plans can change without impact to my life.

To make a long story manageable, my youngest daughter and her spouse and in-laws arrived just as the bread came out of the oven.  So they packed the Prius with their hiking/camping gear and we took both cars out on the way to my oldest daughter's in-laws.  Along the way they parked their car at the sea end of the "skyline to the sea" trail and the five of us completed the trip to my oldest daughter's in-laws.

There we had too much food disguised by the amount of time it took us to eat it.  They had made several dishes for me to eat and where there were non-vegan equivalents, like the mash potatoes, gravy, stuffing, ... I was the only one eating from "my" foods' serving bowls.  Before I knew it, I had eaten far too much.  Even the walk before dessert didn't make any appreciably additional room.  For dessert, there was once again several vegan options, a couple of which I had brought.  But the piece de resistance was the vegan pumpkin pie, which my oldest daughter's sister-in-law made.  Others ate pieces of it and some claimed to prefer it.  All I know is that I ate two pieces.  It was good.

(Describing my daughters as oldest and youngest exaggerates their actual age difference, which is three and one half years.  They have a brother in between them.)

After sitting around the food for an inordinate amount of time we spent some additional time looking at digital pictures.  My oldest daughter's sister-in-law's husband takes extremely high quality digital pictures of some very great wild life.  He is to send me his Flickr url.  His 10-megapixel camera is professional grade.  He sold his motorcycle to buy a lens for it.  I truly am surprised that he is not making a living with his photography.

At about 8:30 PM, we left for the camping site so my youngest daughter, husband, and in-laws could hike the "Skyline to the Sea" trail.  At one of the day use pull off spots we discovered a map that showed the camping site was a good mile hike off the road.  By then it was 9:30 PM and well dark without a moon and overcast besides.  None of the hikers were willing to hike in the dark to a strange campsite.  So we rode back to Pacifica.  I will take them to their trail head tomorrow morning and drive back to Pacifica to pack and get on the road myself.

I'll play it by ear and not be upset at all if I decide to start my trip on Saturday instead of tomorrow.  It's far better to not leave anything critical, eat rather than throw away good food, and have fun on this trip, than to worry about any specific start time or for that matter day.  If I do end up starting tomorrow, it may be perfect timing to stop in Reno as the first stop on my Den of Inequities tour.

Day One-hundred-and-forty-nine: Domestic Day on steroids

This morning has been just like I dreamed it would be, a nightmare of work but without the horrible feelings or ending.  Right off I did the dishes.  I started unloading the dishwasher only to realize that I had not in fact run it yet.  So, I quickly put back the things I had already taken out and added what I could.  Then, while really running it, I hand washed the remaining.

While they were drying I mowed the back yard, but only in one direction rather than cross-hatched like I normally do, and put my kitchen garbage and the clippings in the compost, along with the shredded newspaper and compromising documents.  Since I had noticed that the agapantha blossoms were all now seed stalks, I decided to cut them off and stuffed them in the green bin.  (Another reason never to take the compost from the recycling yard and agapantha seeds aren't likely to be the worst seeds in it.)  By this time it had started to drizzle but I decided to go ahead and vacuum out the Prius' deck.  It held off the serious rain until I had done so.  As I forgot to water down the compost, with its covering of paper, it is fortunate that I also did not put the cover on.  Now the rain is watering it down.  Hopefully I will remember to put the cover on before I leave.

Next I went inside and did the syrup for ginger bread and made two dozen vegan chocolate cupcakes.  Of course this required additional dish washing because I needed the mixing bowls and measuring spoons later today.

After a quick lunch of salad, a mix of the Fresh Herb Salad, green onion, garbanzo beans, radishes, and my flax oil apple vinegar vinaigrette, I took off for Whole Foods and REI.  After mailing the last of the Christmas Letters for which I had addresses, I remembered that I didn't have anything to hang the flyer with.  So, I turned around and went back to my house for the push pins.  Whole Foods approved its posting.  I almost wish I had a hammer.  It was not a cork board but one of those wood chip ply boards.  I also bought stuff from Whole Foods.

Then to REI for my Trekker Sleeping Pad and if I had stopped stopping there, I would have been home much sooner.  Instead I went to Macy's looking for a memory foam cushion.  They didn't have one but I did get a memory foam pillow on sale with a 20% discount on top of that and a 15% discount, if I used my Macy's card.  I didn't have my Macy's card and thought the card that Marilyn had was her card.  When I entered her SSN, there was no card.  (Yes, I still remember it.)  When I entered mine, it found one.  I don't know whether they have the right address or not.  I'm sure Marilyn didn't use her Macy's card since we moved.

As I was leaving Macy's my oldest daughter called to ask me to get some MandMs and a can of Fosters for the grilled beer turkey they are making tomorrow.  I went to Costco for them.  I'm glad I called back to find out which kind or I would have only bought Peanut M&Ms.  Since they wanted Plain MandMs, I got both, after I found them.  I had to walk all over Costco and ask a couple of people, unsuccessfully, before I found them.  However, I did find Beano.  A vegan diet that is heavy in legumes should use a lot of Beano.  The alternative isn't pretty.  Of course, MandM's and Beano aren't all that I bought.

Since Costco didn't have Fosters, Australian for beer, I stopped at Safeway.  There again I bought more than what I stopped for.

Finally back at home I mix up the Gingerbread and set the timer for 30 minutes.  While the Gingerbread was cooking, I completed the flyers by attaching the card holders.  I plan on giving my daughters a few, leaving me with nine or ten for posting across the country and in Columbus.  After I finished the flyers I realized that my timer should have gone off.  I hadn't started it.  The Gingerbread was done.  It may be dry but it doesn't appear to be burned.  Then I mixed up the whole wheat olive bread and whole wheat bread that I am baking tomorrow morning.

Some where in all of this, I fixed and ate my dinner.  Surprise, surprise, this leaves me with a kitchen of dirty dishes full circle back to this morning.

Still to go tonight, after this posting, I will vacuum the floors, which will require a decent amount of picking up, and clean off my HP laptop.  Today has been quite fulfilling, possibly the most so in my Life after Layoff.

Day One-hundred-and-forty-eight: Retirement costs!

I was not given the opportunity to enroll in my former company's benefits for next year.  This means that until June I will continue my health coverage through Kaiser Permanente, my dental coverage through Delta, and not have any Health Savings Account.  (I'm not too concerned about the latter as I didn't use all of my reduced amount this year.  About the only thing it goes for is dental deductibles and Kaiser co-pays.)

What was disturbing is what I was told about the cost.  After June, my out-of-pocket cost to continue with Kaiser will be $602.41 a month.  That's over $7,200 a year and I'm not eligible for any retirement subsidy, which makes it the full COBRA cost.  At that rate (pun intended), I should go self-insured, or at least look into catastrophic only insurance, which at my desired level of health would be the equivalent of self-insurance.

Of course, a book I'm reading tells me that a person in my situation is more susceptible to heart disease.  I'm hoping that doing all the other things will mitigate the negative impacts of the situation.

House, vehicles, health insurance, food, ... Life after Layoff is expensive.

Out for a haircut and the first posting of my new flyer, back home for lunch, then to Staples for some kind of holder to attach to the flyer for the take away business cards, and then to Whole Foods.  I was going to buy something but the real reason was to post the flyer.  Unfortunately, Staples didn't have anything so I went home to make some of my own.  It is slow going but I can do them.  I don't know how many I can make for the trip between now and the time I leave, with everything else I have to do.  The second one went better.

My oldest daughter was a tremendous help with her editing of the flyer.  I'm planning on taking two or three for her to post when I see her on Thanksgiving.

Normally I'd welcome rain and it looks like it really will but I was planning on washing the Prius.  I vacuumed out the floors but forgot to do the hatch deck.  I also held off washing the windows because I wanted to wait until after I washed the car.  With my busted trip down to Whole Foods, I don't know whether or not I will get that posted before I leave or not.

I had a full dinner:  asparagus, baked potato w/ chili beans, and salad.  I have a lot of food to go through before I leave.  I also have purchased some travel food.  Of course, I'll have to ration the travel food or I could eat it too fast.  With all that I've purchased, I don't think that even I could eat it all on the first day, even if I didn't eat anything else.  Some of it is even good for me.

I'm doing both a list and a collection point.  The guest bedroom is my collection point and the list is my backup.

When I was looking for the double-sided Scotch tape, I found another card that Marilyn had addressed and stamped the envelope.  For this one she had drafted its contents but had never put them on the card itself.  I stopped looking for the double-sided tape after that. 

Day One-hundred-and-forty-seven: Vehicular manslaughter

My title for this entry is "vehicular manslaughter" because it kills me to clean cars.  This is one good reason to do it as infrequently as I do.  I'm not even sure that I put it on my list but I know I needed to do it.  How creepy is this:  an apostrophe and a space converts manslaughter into man's laughter.  I would not want to be around anyone who could laugh at something like that.

I'm also cleaning the truck.  A friend of my son's, in fact a groomsman in my son's wedding, is going to run it for me while I'm off on my road trip.  Since it hadn't been run since the middle of September, it needs it.  It also really needed cleaning, a real good cleaning.

I found a Mother's Day card that I never gave to Marilyn.  I don't know what year I bought it but I remember buying two, one for Marilyn and one for my Mother.  It was the last time I did Mother's Day cards and had to have been earlier than 2007.  Marilyn always bought her Mother's Mother's Day card, whether or not she remembered to send them.  I didn't know I suffered from her card memory, but I'm sure they were for different reasons.  If she were doing the Gerson Therapy at the time, it would have been the reason I never got it filled out.

I also found a parking receipt for March, 2007.  We went over to Berkeley to eat at an organic burrito bar.  I was of mixed emotions for doing so but since she couldn't do Gerson Therapy any more, we both thought we needed to live in the time we had left to do so.  There were so few times in the last two and a third years of her life that we could be the couple rather than the care giver and the patient.  I do so wish that I had been laid off earlier.

I did stay up until 1:30 AM last night signing, stuffing, sealing, and stamping 37 of my Christmas Letters.  I was hoping to finish them up this morning for a combined mailing before 1:00 PM at my local mail box but other things intervened, like vehicular manslaughter.

I also ended up cleaning up a trash mess.  While our trash people are really sloppy and don't do anything extra at all, I think this was really my neighbor's fault.  He must have put something in his trash that was attractive to animals.  All I saw this morning was some items that needed sweeping up and one large item that either was deemed hazardous and not taken or had been dumped and not separately picked up.  What's worse, all of this trash residue was on my drive.  Trashy, a way of Life after Layoff.

The place looks a lot better with the truck out of the drive.  If I could get the garage cleared and put the Prius in it, it would probably even look better.  In the few days I have remaining, before I leave, I may park the Prius on the gravel just to make it look like I'm parking it in the garage.

I'm done with this round of Christmas letters.  I'll drop the last of them in the mail tomorrow or Wednesday.  I know I don't have a lot of addresses and hope that those who don't receive one and should have are understanding.  I didn't send it to one person whose address I did have.  These were people we met in 2004 while hiking on Mt. Baker.  The husband was a college professor and the wife was receiving treatment for a very serious cancer.  The wife took our pictures and sent them to us.  Marilyn emailed back and forth with the wife for a short while, letting her know of her own cancer but I can't help but think the worst has happened for both of us.  As I really didn't know the husband well, or either actually, I don't know what to say.  I've chickened out but they were part of a very special day and with the pictures have given me some great reminders.