July 5
My Colorado Travelog
Well, I said that I would compare my plans for the trip to Colorado, with what actually happened, and here it is; I saved it for last. Our trip to Colorado went as follows. Actually, for the most part, we did stick to the plan, but it was a very interesting trip regardless. I put the pictures on a separate webpage here.
On the first day, I planned to go to Cedar City, Utah. However, Eunice kept on talking about going farther, so we wound up about 50 miles farther on at Beaver, Utah, and found a nice, inexpensive motel called Eagle's Landing. This was our first departure from our plan. The next day featured a major departure from our plan, at least in terms of timing. I probably drove farther that day than I had ever before in my life, as we ended up in Denver (Wheat Ridge, actually), at the American Motel, where we would end up spending a total of 3 nights (not consecutively). The next morning, Eunice asked me to look in the phone book for a beauty shop that might belong to a friend of hers named Judy who was also from Taiwan. Sure enough, I found one named "Judee Beauty" so I told Eunice. What happened next was really strange. She called the beauty shop and asked if they could speak Chinese there. Sure enough, they could. After talking for about a half hour, Eunice wrote down a phone number and said goodbye to the Judee Beauty employee. She told me that they knew of no Judy or Judee (then why the name?), but that they gave her the phone number of a man from Taiwan who had lived a long time in Denver and might know her. As it turned out, she never called him. I think she felt it was a real longshot, and meanwhile, we were busy with our trip. She also felt that if we did find Judy, everybody would have to buy gifts and go to an expensive restaurant, so it would be costly and troublesome. From the circumstances, however, I suspect that Judee Beauty may have been Judy's shop at one time in the past. (Judy moved to Denver something like 20 years ago, so a lot of thing could have happened.)
The following day, our 7 consecutive days involving at least some fishing began. We got 5 day out of state licenses at the Sports Authority which we found nearby, but before fishing, we drove around town (Wheat Ridge) looking for and finding some beautiful Peonies (Eunice's favorite flower), some of which we took pictures of. Then it was off to Jefferson Lake, which was chosen by me because I read that Lake Trout could be caught from shore there (a rarity in the lower 48, plus neither of us had ever caught a Lake Trout). The elevation there is 10,685, which accounts for water being chilly enough year around for Lake Trout to cruise its shorelines. It turned out to be a successful day. The road approaching the lake was so steep at one point, that I had to put the car into low gear (not second, but low) in order to keep going up the hill. Once we got there, the lake was actually pretty crowded, but beautiful, fish filled and with room for everyone. There turned out to be hordes of small Rainbow Trout near shore which both of us kept catching and releasing on artificial flies. I soon figured out that they must have just been stocked there as part of a put-and-grow program (to be hopefully caught when they grow bigger). Before long, the Hospanic fellow next to us, who was very friendly and helpful, and had relatives in California, caught a Lake Trout of about 12 inches. He was very pleased with it and so were Eunice and I. He set me up with salmon eggs such as he had on his line, I casted out, and... snag! The whole thing was lost. I put on another salmon egg rig, only to quickly lose that as well, so I put on a Krocodile lure, my favorite for catching larger, more predatory species, of which the Lake Trout is one. I lost it in the rocks on the first cast. Things weren't looking so good at this point, so I headed over to the right a ways where I could see a cove. The cove looked deeper and less rocky, and had even greater hordes of small Rainbows. I hooked a pretty good sized Rainbow there on a fly, but it came off near shore. I reported back to Eunice, and we both went to the cove. After a while, I noticed a teenager with a good sized fish on the line. It turned out to be a Lake Trout, and he gave it to us. I also noticed that he caught it on a lure, a Dardevil lure somewhat similar to my Krocodile. Thus, I found another Krocodile lure in my equipment, and began casting it. After about 10-12 casts, I had a real jolt while retrieving the lure, and hooked what turned out to be my first Lake Trout, a 16 incher, which would also become part of dinner. A while later, I caught a 15 incher on the same lure. I only had two strikes on the Krocodile lure, but both were real jolts, and each resulted in a Lake Trout, so I was more than pleased. Eunice also tried the lure for awhile, and one time had an apparent strike from a fish, but missed it. She also missed a couple of good sized fish on flies. Eventually, she told me she had a headache, either due to the rickety dirt road to Jefferson Lake, or the altitude, or both, but she didn't want to spoil my day. I felt badly about Eunice's headache, and it was getting late, so we left. On the way back, a couple miles downstream from the lake, I briefly stopped to try some beaver ponds along the creek which were supposed to be full of Brook Trout, but I could find no sign of life there, strangely enough. I was able to catch the elusive Lake Trout, but not the normally easy to catch Brook Trout. In any event, I definitely would settle for a day like that anytime.
The next day, we went to Fort Collins. I wanted to get a motel room first, then go fishing, but Eunice wanted to go fishing first. As a consequence, I just kept driving... and driving... and driving up the Cache La Poudre canyon, all the way to the "Grayling place," Joe Wright Reservoir and creek -- Lake Trout yesterday and Grayling today seemed like a good plan. However, when we finally got to Joe Wright Reservoir, we saw that it was mostly frozen still. We did manage to fish it in two spots which were not iced-over, but there was no sigh=n of life there, despite reports of the lake being rife with Arctic Grayling. I guess either they were still "hibernating," or they were up in the creek spawning, and that section of the creek was closed to fishing until the end of June in order to let the fish spawn in peace. (This was June 15.) The day did make a good "photo op" though, and we got plenty of nice pictures. Also, I tried fishing in another reservoir farther down called Barnes Meadow Reservoir. What an unpleasant experience! I stopped at a cove about 30 feet away from some old guy, and started to talk to him about fishing. He promptly yelled at me to the effect that I had the whole lake to chose from, so why the @#@$#$#% did I chose to fish near him? I only had that sort of experience once before while fishing, at Crowley Lake in California, when some sleeping guy with a line in the water woke up to yell at me that they had that he and his buddies had that entire area for the day even though I was 30 feet away and casting in a different direction. Anyway, it happens sometimes. I had heard a guest on NPR talking earlier in the day about how you can tell politically conservative neighborhoods because they have a much greater distance between houses. I wonder if the same is true of politically conservative fishermen. I also got to hear a nice interview of the songstress Jewel on NPR. (She is one of my favorites.)
The following day was cloudy but not raining. I decided that we would try for Walleye, and Eunice was agreeable to that too, since Walleye are one of her favorite fish to eat. We went to a natural lake near Fort Collins called Watson Lake first, but it was a bust. I saw occasional fish surfacing there, but absolutely nothing bit for some reason, no matter what we tried. (Maybe we should have tried dynamite -- no, just kidding, ha ha. I wouldn't do that.) Then we went to the large local reservoir, Horsetooth Reservoir. On the way there, however, we found a nursery called the Plantorium which had Peonies and many other interesting plants not found where we live. The owner's house had some really beautiful Peonies, in fact, which we took pictures of. When we got to Horsetooth Reservoir, it rained a little, but nothing major. That turned out to be the only rain of the entire trip. The rain was okay, anyway, since we just sat in the car and ate while it rained. Afterward, just to sum it up, I had the best Smallmouth Bass fishing I had ever experienced, but no Walleye. (Eunice joined me a bit late after studying her books in the car and rock collecting, and when she did, she kept getting bites, but didn't set the hook vigorously enough to hook the bass, which have a tough mouth.) I wound up catching about a dozen Smallmouth, including two keepers (over 12 inches) for dinner, plus a lone good sized Bluegill, which bore a scar from some encounter with a large, predatory fish, also kept for dinner. After leaving Horsetooth Reservoir, we drove back to the American Motel in Wheat Ridge (near Denver). But before getting there, I needed to keep a promise to Eunice, so I took her to downtown Denver. I also said a prayer for the Democrats and their convention there in August; maybe that will help to give Barack Obama and the other Democrats some good karma. I don't know, but it couldn't hurt.
The next day, we drove back over the Continenetal Divide and eventually made our way to Grand Mesa, the world's largest (in area, not highest) flat-topped mountain, in western Colorado. The drive up there was a real long uphill slog, and by the time that we were there, my engine thermometer was nearly in the red zone, and when we stopped at the first lake, my 1992 Toyota Corolla's engine was making boiling noises. We let the car cool down while went fishing. Fishing was not very inspiring there (hatchery "stockers"), so we continued up the road. As it turned out, Grand Mesa was a very impressive place that I would like to return to. Grand Mesa isn't really flat. It is higher in the middle than on the edges, and it is very volcanic, with a variety of volcanic peaks. It was also very wet, with all meadows and depressions in the lower areas being filled with water, and in the upper areas, with snow. As a matter of fact, the road continued uphill after the first lake, so it was a good thing we stopped there. The upper area, where I had wanted to go, was completely snowed in, including Island Lake, and Carson Lake, the two prime fishing destinations on my schedule. Oh well! We just kept driving and started down the other side of the mesa (the south side), and soon came to a lake with a sign calling it "Ward Creek Reservoir." What a beautiful place! It had a beautiful inlet stream which looked ideal for spawning trout. Eunice thought the inlet looked too soggy, though, so she found a nice place down the shore a ways. At first, we kept getting bites (or strikes on flies) but missng them. Eventually, we caught 4 fish there, in the following order: a nice-sized Brook Trout for Eunice; A fair-sized Cutbow (Cutthroat-Rainbow hybrid) for myself, another personal first; a small Brown Trout I caught on a fly, and a good sized Rainbow I caught on a fly. It was quite a variety of trout, and they were clearly all wild; in fact, the Rainbows and Cutbows were actively spawning in the creek. We kept all of the trout except the baby Brown Trout for dinner. However, as it turned out, we did not eat them for dinner. Grand Junction turned out to be a problem. Basically, all the Motels were full or nearly full, and quite expensive. I do not know why Grand Junction is so popular, but I guess it is because it is the only place with many motels for many miles in any direction, plus, it is on a major freeway to Denver, etc. We finally got a motel room at Motel 8 after midnight, having still not eaten, and got to bed utterly exhausted around 1 in the morning (which is very late for me).
On Wednesday, June 18, I wanted to go back to Ward Creek Reservoir, especially since Eunice and I had been getting the hang of how to catch fish there before we left. However, the calmer, in this case, voice of Eunice prevailed. She really didn't feel like overheating our car again going up to Grand Mesa, and I agreed. Instead, I suggested that we go to an area reservoir I had read about called Vega Reservoir, which was not on the mesa and at around 8 thousand feet, is not as high up (the mesa is around 10 thousand feet high.). Vega Reservoir turned out to be a good choice. We drove around the lake and finally found a campground by the lake with some public parking. I simply gallumphed the short distance down to the lake from the parking spot, put on a sliding bobber filled with water (in order to cast farther and sink gradually), put a worm on the hook, and heaved it out there as far as I could. Eunice also came down and did the same. I ended up catching 4 good sized Rainbow Trout, all of which had good coloration and were in good condition, indicating that they were either wild trout or put-and-grow trout (mostly the latter, I suspect), not worn-down looking hatchery trout that had just recently been dumped there. Since 4 tout is the limit in Colorado, I stopped then. A fellow down the shore gave us another trout. Then Eunice soon caught her third trout (al Rainbows) to complete our limits. Eunice's first trout was the biggest of the day, I guess around 14 inches, and a real beauty, by the way. Afterward, we drove all the way to Green River Utah, and stayed in a Motel 6 there (much cheaper than in Grand Junction). Little did I know that my beloved Siamese cat Kona died that night. My heart sinks when I think about it.
The following day, we drove through much of eastern Utah and as planned, found our way up to a large, beautiful natural lake, appropriately enough called Fish Lake. We found our way to the marina there, I went to the store and got a fishing permit, and we proceded to catch probably over 60 Yellow Perch on the outskirts of the marina where fishing is allowed. I lost track of how many we caught, but Eunice said she counted 31 that we kept, and I think we released even more than that. The only down side was that they were on the small side; the larger ones were around 7 inches long I would say, so we only kept relatively large ones, as you might imagine. Anyway, the ones we kept certainly were tasty. I had hoped to catch Splake trout (a hybrid between Brook Trout and Lake Trout), but they were not in evidence there, at least not from shore. We did catch and release several small Rainbow trout there which apparently had just been stocked. These little ones are supposed to grow up to be big trout like the 2 pound specimens we saw one boat fishing group with. Almost all of the fish we caught at Fish Lake were on Crappie Jigs (small plastic lures with a metal head to make them dance like minnows). In fact, the perch were so gullible, that if I let the lure fall to the bottom near shore, I could see perch approach the lure and pick it up off the bottom. Then I would hook the fish and reel it in. Actually, I caught several of the "larger" 7 inch perch that way. We were pretty hooked on Utah fishing by the time we finished fishing at Fish Lake. We ended up the day by driving to Beaver, Utah once again and staying at a rather cheap but nice motel.
On Friday, June 20, we had one more day for fishing and exploring Utah, which had not been in my original plans. I decided to head up to an area called Duck Creek which I had read about on the internet. I must say, the drive there was one of the most spectacular that I have ever enjoyed. In fact, it seemed even more scenicfor the most part than pictures I have seen of Zion or Bryce Canyon National Parks, which are in that area. Perhaps it was just the difference between photos and actually being there, though. Basically, there were red sandstone cliffs and slopes on the way up there, but once we made it to the top, it was completely volcanic, much like Grand Mesa. Eunice had her best rock-collecting day up there. Meanwhile, the fishing was good, but not what I had expected. "Duck Lake" was a small, shallow pond of about 2 acres with a lot of fishing pressure. It was an interesting place, though, Apparently, there is a large spring that comes up in the lake, which is the origin of Duck Creek. There is no inlet stream, but a large, clear, beautiful outlet stream. On my second cast near the outlet stream, I caught a good-sized (10 inch) Brook Trout there, so I was happy with the place initially . However, further efforts yielded no other fish in the lake, and other people only caught a few hatchery Rainbows. Thus, while Eunice was collecting rocks, I fished in Duck Creek and caught two hatchery Rainbows of my own there which I promptly put back. (Neither Eunice nor I like the flavor of hatchery trout; the hatchery personnel feed them Purina Trout Chow, and that is what they taste like, approximately like dog food, while trout which have been feeding on natural food usually taste delicious and often have pink, red or orange meat from eating crustaceans such as small shrimp.) Eventually, I tried another spot far down the creek, where there was a sort of pond with no outlet (underground again), and caught 3 better looking Rainbows, of which I kept two. (The limit in Utah is also 4 trout, and I wanted to save room for 1 more.) Our final spot was a place called Navajo Lake, which from what I had read, was not a very good fishing lake, but we decided to drive there and take a look since it was nearby. Navajo Lake is a large, natural lake, even more beautiful than Fish Lake. Reportedly, it has two underground outlets, one of which is Duck Creek. I found that strange, because, based on the downhill road which took us to Navajo Lake, Duck Creek Pond appeared to be at a higher elevation than Navajo Lake. Things aren't always what they appear, though. Navajo lake certainly wasn't. We had used up all of our drinks by the time we got to Navajo Lake, so we went looking for some drinking water. We found a lakeside campground with some public parking, and a fountain, plus lots of pretty wildflowers. The only problem was that when we turned on the water, it came out looking white, as though it contained some chalky substance, even thought the lake water was a beautiful clear turqoise color. After some initial reluctance to drink the water, a ranger or some such happened by the fountain, and explained to us that the whiteness was just caused by air bubbles in the water. Sure enough, after waiting a while, the whiteness worked its way out of the water, and it was fine to drink. In fact, Eunice raved about it and filled up several containers with the stuff. (I think we were both very thirsty by this time.) Meanwhile, I noticed a few fish splashing around in the lake, as well as a few fisherman along the shore. I took my equipment down to the lake, and used the same rig I had at Vega Lake, since Navajo Lake looked rather shallow and I figured that long casts would help. The only difference was that, I only filled the bobber about halfway, so that it would still float, since there seemed to be fish near the surface of the lake. Meanwhile, my lure fishing neighbors (father and son) were telling me that most of the fish in the lake were "Brook Trout" and that fish on the stringer was a "Brook Trout." (Notice the quotation marks.) Almost immediately after casting in, a got a good bite, missed it but stopped my bobber to wait for another bite. The next bite came almost immediately once again. I suspect it was the same fish that had chased my bait to its new location. I set the hook and felt a solid hookup this time -- very very solid. This was no small fish. Eventually, I could see the fish, and it looked like the largest "Brook Trout" I had ever hooked. In fact, it looked about the same size as the Lake Trout at Jefferson Lake, I would say, around 15 inches. (Usually, a 10 inch Brook Trout is a really good-sized one, at least in California; they tend to be a fairly small trout species.) Unfortunately, this large specimen thrashed around and somehow managed to spit out the small hook I was using as I was trying to land it. I continued fishing, and after about half an hour or so and a few missed bites, hooked another fish, not as big but not too small. I brought it in thinking I had a nice sized Brook Trout. It was about 10-11 inches long. But when I looked at it closely, I could see that it was not a Brook Trout, but rather another personal first, the hybrid Splake Trout which I had been hoping to catch the day before. Thus finished the fishing on this epic trip. Eating dinner that night in St. George, Utah, I had a very strong sense of deja vu. I am not sure why, but I get those sort of feelings from time to time. Eunice nicely gave me the Brook Trout adn the Splake Trout, while she ate the two Rainbows. The two fish I ate that night were very delicious, the two most delicious of the trip, with both of them having very pink meat. By the way, the Lake Trout, the Brook Trout from Ward Creek Reservoir, and most of the fish from Vega Reservoir, also had pink meat, but these two Utah specimens were even pinker.
The following day, we went home, but on the way stopped in Las Vegas, at the Stratospere, to have lunch at the all-you-can-eat buffet, gamble a little, even though neither of us is into gambling, and wait out the hottest part of the day. As it turned out, Eunice lost $5 on the slot machines, but I more than compensated for that by winning $11.75 on the poker machines, for a net gain between the two of us, of $6.75. By the way. I have some gambling advice. 1. Don't do too much of it. 2. Try to quit while you are ahead (if you ever get ahead). 3. Learn to play poker if you don't already know how, and play it instead of slot machines, since poker, if one uses good strategy, affords much better odds of winning than do the slot machines. 4. Never get obsessed with gambling. 5. Remember, the proprietors of gambling establishments as a general rule gets rich by playing the customers for suckers, so as a general rule "gambling is for losers."
From Las Vegas, we headed home, where we heard the bad news aboiut Kona, leaving us heartbroken, but satisfied with the trip. Thus ends my epic post on our epic trip, my longest post to date.
July 4
The Eighty-Five Octane Story
When Eunice and I were on our trip to Colorado, gasoline was naturally a big issue. We discovered something very surprising in other states. There were gas stations called Conoco and others called Phillips Conoco which we do not have here in California. They had relatively cheap gas, although it was expensive everywhere. Furthermore, I noticed that their lower octane gas was 85 octane. I do not recall ever seeing 85 octane gas before. In California, the lowest octane we have is 87 octane. The first time I saw the 85 octane gas, I thought, "Oh well, I might as well try it. I'm sure it works." Indeed it did work. As soon as I started using the 85 octane gasoline, my mileage went up considerably. Instead of getting about 30 miles per gallon, I got something like 37 miles per gallon with 85 octance gas. Instead of having to stop and get gas every 250 miles, I could go about 330 miles before I had to get gas. Soon, I began looking for Conoco stations and 85 octane gas to put in my little old 1992 Toyota Corolla. Eventually, I seem to have recalled (but I am still not sure about this) that Toyota cars were built for 85 octane gas.
Thus, my question on this Fourth of July Holiday is this. If cars (at least Toyotas) get better mileage by using 85 octane gas, why isn't it available everywhere? Why is there none in California.? I am not an expert on gasoline and gasoline law, admittedly. Perhaps 85 octane gasoline causes more pollution. I know that California has many environmental regulations involving automobiles. However, common sense tells me that having considerably better mileage is a good thing not only for the consumer's pocketbook, but also for the environment. It stands to reason that the less gasoline used, in general, the less pollution should be generated. And having less pollution is good for all of us -- good for our environment, good for our nation, and good for the world. Perhaps if we had 85 octane gas, we would have less pollution, and lower gas prices, and have to import less gasoline from other nations. Ultimately, of course, we will have to completely wean ourselves off of fossil fuels. But for now, better mileage would definitely be a step in the right direction.
Thanks to the 85 octane gasoline, I was able to make it to Colrado and back with money still in my wallet waiting to be used. (Eunice also had money, but we did not need to dip into that.) Meanshile, back in California, I am having to purchase inordinately expensive fuel, which provides me with mediocre mileage. In other words, things are back to the status quo. But now I know that we can do better than that, so I implore all Americans, and especially the gasoline companies, let us please do better! Ultimately, this is not just a matter of how much money the average consumer has in her purse or his wallet, but rather, a matter which affects global climate and climate change, world peace and humanity's well-being. As Americans, we should be trying to lead the way away from oil dependence.
June 30
Eunice's Rock Collection
My wife Eunice is a quirky individual. For example, Eunice has a habit of collecting rocks for yard decorations. I have checked this topic on the internet, and find that it is perfectly legal, as long as one does not collect rocks from a national park, or someone's private property. In fact, it is even legal to pan for gold in streams on public land. Thus, Eunice feels free to collect pretty rocks, sometimes hefty ones that are difficult to carry, and other times, filling up the backpack that I carry fishing equipment in, with rocks. Oh well! Our trip to Colorado was no exception. In fact, she found more beautiful rocks on the trip than ever before, given the great and often rockbound scenery. The only restraint was that our car's engine had a tendency to become very hot on uphill stretches, so I warned Eunice not to get too many heavy rocks that would further weigh down the car, and she obliged.
It seemed that everywhere we went, Eunice was saying "very beautiful" or "how beautiful." Then she would get out camera out of its container to take pictures. She must have taken around 80-100 pictures from our moving car, despite my warnings that pictures from a moving car rarely turn out well. In fact, nearly every picture that Eunice took from our car has a prominent reflection from the dashboard. Without the reflection, some of them might actually make good pictures, but I don't know how to remove these reflections, even with my picture-editing progams such as Adobe Photoshop. By the way, I do plan to put some pictures from our trip in a separate webpage. Once parked to go fishing, sometimes Eunice would join me right away, but other times, she would "study" in the car, which somehow would wind up with Eunice transferring a load of pretty rocks to the car. Most of them were light red, as one would expect, but the last place, near Duck Creek in Utah, was extremely volcanic, so Eunice was able to bring back several good-sized but light, bubbly (swiss-cheese like) very dark red rocks, which are my favorites from the trip. Also, when we went fishing, if the action was a little slow (which was not very often) Eunice would collect a few more pretty rocks.
"I am borrowing these rocks from God," Eunice kept repeating. "All things belong to God; we just borrow them and make good use of them." I think Eunice has a good point there. I agreed and let her borrow these beautiful rocks from God, as long as it is legal, that is. Our yard by now is adorned with various rocks she has collected (many of which she has relied on me to carry) from various places, mostly red ones, some nice-looking, polished granite, and some fluffy volcanic ones (my favorites). Some of the larger ones are used to prop up roses, as well. That is in addition to the many bags of pebbles we bought to place in the rose garden in front of our house. Eunice has already added the larger rocks from our trip to Colorado to the wall of rocks surrounding our compost area in the back yard, although as attractive as they are, I would think there could ultimately be a better use for them. There are still two boxes of smaller red rocks (about two inches in diameter) which are lying nearby, waiting to be placed in the yard. Maybe Eunice is waiting for a reply from God about what to do with them, but I hope not. I think God trusts her to decide for herself.
June 26
Limbaugh-Land
On our trip to Colorado, Eunice and I drove through a great deal of "Limbaugh-Land." That is, the only talk shows that I could find on the radio through much of the trip were conservative ones by local Rush Limbaugh talk-alikes. It was not Rush Limbaugh himself, but it was the same brand of talk. Furthermore, the most common news stations on television were the conservative, Rupert Murdoch owned FOX news, along the the somewhat conservative CNN news. This happened throughout Nevada -- even Las Vegas -- Utah, and western Colorado. In contrast, the Denver area had a plethora of radio stations. Although I do not recall listening to any progressive radio stations there, I am fairly sure that they exist. I do remember listening to National Public Radio from Fort Collins. They had a progressive on their show who had written a book about how individual communities in the United States have become increasingly homogeneous in terms of politics, religion, and lifestyle, and at the same time, more at odds with each other. The lines are being drawn, as this post attests. After that, they had the very progressive songstress Jewel as a guest. ("Who will save your soul, if you don't save your own?") In California, even in the desert, the only talk show that I found was a progressive one hosted by someone named John Elliot. (I had never heard of him before.) Thus, it was very apparent how culturally different California, where I am from, and Denver for that matter, where the Democratic National Convention will be held in August, are from Nevada, Utah, and rural Colorado. Although I consider John McCain to be a weak candidate for a seriously weakened (of their own doing) political party, it helped me to realize how he could win many states, especially rural ones dominated by white folks, even though a McCain administration would basically mean the continuation of the Republican Party's failed policies, and people voting for McCain in all likelihood would be voting against their own interests.
I wound up feeling sorry for people in Limbaugh-Land, especially those who are growing up there. To be are bombarded with conservative propaganda constantly throughout their lives, must be terribly burdensome. To not have choice in terms of the type of verbiage one is exposed to, not only political verbiage, but religious and educational verbiage which serve to reinforce the political verbiage, is apalling in a society which promotes itself as a beacon of democracy and freedom. In fact, I saw some evidence of rebellion among the youth of the region, especially in predominantly Mormon Utah. (Yes, it's "mormons behaving badly.") Smoking, cussing, rock-throwing, fish-smashing teenagers were definitely in evidence in Utah, although to be fair, I do not know whether or not they were Mormons. I do know that 70% of the population in Utah is Mormon, and the non-Mormon lady who ran one of the hotels we stayed at told us that everyone, Mormon or otherwise, were pretty-much compelled to follow their 7 rules if they wished to be welcome there. (I don't know what the rules are, but I believe they include no liquor, no smoking, and no cussing, for example, which are rules that I agree with, but they are applied in a rather heavy-handed fashion in Utah.) Even more revealing, was the choice of music in Utah. The only radio stations that I could find, were basically hip-hop stations. Many of the songs had offensive lyrics which I probably would not hear in southern California where I live. I suspect that youthful rebellion is one reason for the popularity of hip-hop type music in Utah. Perhaps another reason is that such music reinforces stereotypes about African-Americans (since most of the music was presumably by African-Americans), and about city life in America. To be fair, we did not go to Salt Lake City, which probably has more diverse choices in radio and television, but the cultural atmosphere in Utah, as well as Nevada an western Colorado, was strikingly different from that in California. even though these states are not very far from California.
The worst bit of radio that I heard was by some woman talk show host in Utah. She did a racist spoof of Barack Obama, calling him the stupidest member of the Senate, (with John Kerry the second stupidest) and playing a type of a moronic sounding African-American, childishly and incoherently babbling. In Utah, apparently, a person can get away with such scurrilous media propaganda. Perhaps radio talk show hosts can get away with this in most parts of the United States, for that matter. They have been for years. However, it is easier to do in a place where such attitudes are the norm. And such attitudes are becoming less the norm in most parts of the United States. We need to take the power of words seriously, very seriously, for they have serious consequences. As a society, we need to do what we can to ensure that words are used responsibly, by ourselves and others, as vehicles of the truth, rather than vehicles of biased, self-serving propaganda.
June 25
Everybody Loves Kona
I don't love Lucy. I don't love Raymond. But I do love Kona. In fact, everybody seems to love Kona. I mean Kona the male Siamese Cat, not Kona coffee. As mentioned in the previous post, our cat Kona, who had been lethargic but not deteriorating as far as we could tell, died while we were on vacation. Kona had been spending the great majority of his time in our neighbors' yard, and it was our neighbor Ben who also loves Kona, who took him to the animal emergency room, clearly to no avail. Perhaps the fact that Kona was spending so much time in Ben's yard made it more difficult for me to assess Kona's condition. I do know that he had shown signs of peeing too often or having trouble peeing, but that stopped. Another time, he hissed at me when I petted him, so it must have hurt. That was the only time he ever did that, but that stopped and he was enjoying being petted again before Eunice and I went on our trip. Kona seemed comfortable, though lacking normal energy, when we went on our trip. I knew something was wrong with him, but I thought he would probably recover on his own, and if not, either Ben or I would take him to a veteranarian who would sucessfully treat him. As it turns out, about 1/3 of cats with his condition, Feline Infectious Anemia, die from it if not treated. Unfortunately, he was among the third that dies from it. When it happened, I think Ben and his family were just as distressed as I was. In fact I had written a few weeks ago about my concerns about Kona's health, and how my neighbor Ben had told me he would take Kona to a veteranarian. Instead, both Ben and I were very busy, and neither of us actually did take Kona to the veteranarian until it was too late, adding to our collective sense of guilt. Of course, Kona himself must have been in much distress, but he did not show it. Cats tend to be stoic, and Kona was one of the most stoic that I have seen.
Kona was a very special cat. First of all, he was a Siamese cat, a large, strong, handsome, and previously healthy specimen. But his breed and physical characteristics were not the reason he was so special. His personality was. Everytime someone came to visit our house. Kona would come to the person, especially if we were talking to the person, and while purring, invite the person to pet him. Kona loved everybody. Kona even loved other cats, much unlike the jealousy which so often prevails among cats. He would frequently "kiss" Gorjilina, our homebody beauty queen cat, and play with her, as well as with Smurfull, our younger male cat, as if Smurfull were his own son. Even the fearful and elusive Beautricia, our other female cat, did not mind being around Kona. Kona was even protective of other cats, especially Gorjilina. That is why I called him Kona Pridekeeper. He was the big daddy kitty of the family. One time, a neighbor's large dog, a Great Dane type dog (like Scooby Doo but much more vile) that had already killed a kitten we had named Maxwell ran into our back yard. I saw Gorjilina on the roof, wanting to jump down onto the brick wall and greet me. However, Kona stood on the end of the wall where Gorjilina wanted to jump, preventing her from jumping down. I believe he was protecting her from the dog. If the dog had come his way, I believe he would have jumped on the roof, as well. It was also an example of his unusual intelligence for a cat and cognizance of what was going on. Despite all of this, Kona was a very quiet cat who never announced his presence, and rarely vocalized.
Kona wandered over the yards around our street, and made friends with various neighbors. In the past couple years, Kona had settled more into a pattern of dividing his time between our yard and Ben's yard, however, since we were the people who took care of him and loved him the most. Sometimes, Kona got into places he wasn't supposed to. Once, after coming home from fishing, I was not paying attention as I put away the equipment in our garage. The next morning, I could find neither Kona nor Gorjilina. Eventually, I found both of them lying on the bed in our guest room, which is beside the garage. More recently, I was not able to find Kona for an entire day. On a hunch, I asked Ben's wife, Doreen, to open their garage. As soon as the door started going up, out ran Kona as if he were shot from a cannon. A few weeks after that, I could not find Kona again. This time, opening the neighbors' garage did not do the trick. Eventually, Doreen's mother, Mabel, informed me that she found Kona in Ben's car. We had to rouse Ben from his slumber in order to unlock his car door and let Kona out. Ben had no idea how Kona got into his car. Apparently, he had jumped in unnoticed when Ben came home from work and opened his car door.
Kona also used his intelligence to be a successful hunter. I had never seen a cat who was so proficient in hunting as Kona. A few years ago, after a very rainy winter, there was a profusion of rodents in our area. It seemed that everyday that spring, we would have a couple of gopher heads, or mouse or rat heads, deposited on our front doorstep, mostly courtesy of Kona. Since those animals are pests which eat plants, and possibly carry disease, we were glad to have Kona engage in this form of population control. He seemed to prefer eating natural food to that provided by humans. But what really astounded me, was the several times that I saw Kona leave the front yard for only a few minutes, only to return with a full-grown rabbit in his mouth, which he proceeded to eat in entirety. Apparently, cats find rabbits to be exceptionally tasty. Thus, Kona loved rodents too, at least for eating.
However, what I remember the most about Kona was the way he loved being around people and other cats -- his gregariousness, the way he would stand up and put his paws on a person's legs, something I have never seen any other cat do, the way he would happily walk around, purring and rubbing against people's legs, or playing with other cats when there was a gathering of cats. Kona loved everybody in his 7 or 8 years on this planet, and everybody still loves Kona. May he be happy and with loved ones, both human and feline, wherever his cat soul may go.
June 23
An Epic Journey
Eunice and I are back fron our epic journey to Colorado -- and also, Nevada and Utah. I think we saw more impressive scenery during this trip than we had ever seen before. Tonight, I have to go back to work, teaching Developmental Psychology with a new textbook, which complicates things.Yet, today is my 49th birthday. It is a somewhat surreal feeling birthday, since we are still recovering from the trip and trying to do the things we could not get done during the trip. To make things worse, it is also a sad birthday, especially for me and my neighbotr Ben, who gave us the news that my Siamese cat Kona of whom Ben and many others were also very fond, had his journey in this world cut short. When he was finally taken to the verteranarian, he was diagnosed with a disorder called Feline Infectious Anemia, which is caused by a bacteria which attaches to blood cells, leading to severe anemia. I plan to have Kona be the star of tomorrow's blog, so I will have more information about him then. Meanwhile, I have so many ideas for blog posts that I will have a hard time finding the time to get to all of them. However, I will start with a big one.
It seems to me that life itself is a sort of epic journey. Although people often say that life is short, or that time flies, those of us who live long lives are like time travellers on an extraordinarily long journey. At least, life seems that way to me. Hearing the news about Kona made me think of the "powers that be" i.e., "God" and wonder, how does an all-knowing entity deal with the fact that the universe is teeming with events, both good and bad. As I write this, people are being murdered, raped, dying young, being born, getting married, having sex, conceiving children and so forth, and that is only human beings. Animals' lives are also happening, beginning and ending eventfully. And that is just on this Earth. In the vastness of the universe, the processes which led to life here also exist on other planets, so life should as well. We are all caught in the web of life. It seems to me that there must be something that ties all of us together, a transcendent being which sets the parameters of the universe and intimately knows the entirety of the universe (but not necessarily specific future events.
By the way, I heard an insightful, humorous quote from George Carlin today, who just died, about God. I found this simillar qote from George Carlin on the internet. "Religion convinced the world that there's an invisible man in the sky who watches everything you do. And there's 10 things he doesn't want you to do or else he'll send you to a burning place with a lake of fire until the end of eternity. But he loves you!... And he needs money! He's all powerful, but he can't handle money!" That does not seem much like love (or like any sort of spiritual reality) to me, and apparently, it did not to George Carlin, either.
To get back to the topic, perhaps it would be too emotionally overwhelming to be aware of all the good and bad events going on. It would seem to take an entity of great, universal understanding of this web of life in which we are all caught, in order to comprehend all that is happening without being incapacitated with emotion. In other words, it would take God (and not a man or women-like entity acting as God). For each of us, as an individual biological entity, life is a series of encounters with experience -- encounters with other people, other animals, activities, plans, events, etc., each with its own associated emotion, which form a great journey through time. Each has his or her own personal perspective, because each of us experiences life as an individual, although we can experience many of the same things together. Each of us lives life from the relative safety and blissful ignorance of a personal sphere of experience. However, it is through empathy, compassion, and love that we can connect with each other, understanding a common reality, and it is through the spiritual experience of love made possible by the source of life, that we can transcend personal experience and our own personal biases. This is how we can all connect.
In my humble opinion, God does love us, our own personal epic journeys, and what we learn in the process, especially when it leads to peace, love, understanding, harmony and growing closer to a true understanding of God and the nature of the universe, but various other, specific aspects of conventional religions, the people who made the religions got wrong. (The very fallibility of religion is evidence that they were made by humans and not by God.)
Of course, it would be too time-consuming to describe the entirety of my own epic journey here, which has lasted 49 years, as of today. However, over time this blog will help me to do so, and hopefully, help people to connect in very real ways, so that each of us can appreciate and understand the epic journeys of others.
June 11
Rocky Mountain High
Greetings to all out there in Cyberland. My wife and I are preparing for a trip to the land of my ancestors -- well, sort of. We are going to the state where my parents met and used to live, one known as Rocky Mountain High --- (You fill in the blank). Remember John Denver. My parents used to live in Denver, although they met in college at Boulder. It's really the fish and the scenery and cooler weather that are drawing us there, though. Grayling, Lake Trout from shore, Walleye from shore, -- these would be hard to imagine here in California. Plus Colorado offers assorted other fishly goodies like Brook Trout and Cutthroat Trout, etc.. I hope to come back with lots of material for this blog or our other websites. I am also going to upload a bunch of material to the internet for safekeeping, but it will not be viewable to others yet; hopefully it will be viewable to everybody in the future.
The upshot of all this is that I will not have time to post anything until after I come back. We are leaving tomorrow, and returning June 21, so my next post will probably be Jnne 22. After that, summer session classes begin on my birthday, June 23, so you could say this is sort of a birthday trip for me. Actually, I told my wife, "you can catch Arctic Grayling in Colorado," and she replied, "let's go then." I just hope I'm not too "broken" financially by the time we get back, but then again, the way Eunice has been spending money (on plants and things for the yard, and department store sales), it might be cheaper to go to Colorado. We are real cheapskates. We plan to stay in Motel 6's or other cheap motels, and we rarely eat at restaurants. We will bring food, and an electric cooking pan, and catch what we don't bring (fish to eat, I mean). It's sort of like backpacking except we stay in a motel room instead of a tent, and drive from one destination to the next, with a little hiking thrown in for good measure. I have the trip pretty well planned out, just like I used to plan backpacking trips, in fact. Major destinations: towns include Grand Junction, Fort Collins (I have a student applying to go to school there, so I better check the place out first -- not really, it's just a coincidence), and Denver; Fishing spots include Grand Mesa (the world's largest flat-topped mountain, so it is also a very interesting area geologically and scenery-wise, Joe Wright Reservoir (the Arctic Grayling place), Jefferson Lake (where Lake Trout bite from shore), plus maybe some Walleye and Whatever Bites fishing around Fort Collins or Denver, or some fishing in the Rocky Mountain National Park area. Also, we may stop by at Fish Lake in Utah on the way back, which is supposedly a very beautiful large natural lake with good fishing, or we may fish in a creek nearby there.
Well, that is probably at least as much as anyone wanted to know about our itinerary, but the good thing about writing it down, is that, after we come back, we can compare the itinerary to what actually happened. If my other driving trips with Eunice are any indication, we will probably have a flat tire on the way there, get rained on when we try to go fishing, get caught in a snowstorm and have to delay going over the Continental Divide, perhaps have to deal with a tornado or two, and spend most of our time looking for Peony flowers and Eunice's old friend Judy in Denver. Plus, we will be spending a lot more on gasoline than before. But on the other hand, if we go in some future year, gasoline will probably cost even more. Well, we'll see. At least, Eunice and I will be adventuring and "honeymooning" together, so "it's all good," as people say.