Monterey Bird Watching

Maureen doesn't do water. No swimming or hot tubs, bubble baths. After the last great Northrup attempt to sink a pontoon boat at Lake Tahoe, she's averse to anything less in size to a cruise ship. She declined to join me on my trip to the Farallon Islands, 30 miles outside the Golden Gate Bridge; after enduring eight-foot swells in a 57-foot boat, my traveling companions agreed that Maureen would have divorced me if I'd convinced her to go. I was surprised and delighted, then, when she agreed to join me on a bird watching trip to Monterey Bay. The idea of taking a road trip and the possibility of seeing whales convinced her; that the 57-foot boat left with half the number of maximum passengers was gravy.

Pups safely deposited at Pet Camp for a few days of romping, we headed south on Hwy. 101 to scoot over to California State Route 1, the All-American Highway. I would have stopped multiple times and filled up the Nikon's memory card but, aware of Maureen's preference to get where we are going, limited myself to one stop, pulling off on impulse alone. Standing near the edge of a cliff, we watched brown pelicans fly past us, feet away at eye level, then sail along the surf going back the other direction.

 

We watched for some time, fascinated, and took in the classic Pacific Coast view. 

We stayed at a Motel 6 in the smaller town of Marina, 10 miles north of Monterey after I discovered that staying at that chain's Monterey location costs nearly $200 a night. For a Motel 6? I think not. Our motel, conveniently located next to one of our fine dining favorites Denny's, was a tenth of a mile from the Marina State Beach.

We drove into Monterey to scope out the parking and location of the Monterey Bay Whale Watch Company. A music festival of some kind kept us from parking anywhere near Fisherman's Wharf but we found a city lot across the street. What a zoo, even more crowded than our own San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf. We located our sailing departure point and fled back the the van only to find ourselves driving up and down and around the lot trying to get out. I won't go into how confusing it was to then escape back onto Hwy. 1 to return to the safety and quietude of our room.

Early that Sunday, I parked in what I thought was the Fisherman's Wharf parking lot. I had an attack of being very hungry so we veered off to the Starbucks I'd noticed the before to wolf down a bacon and egg sandwich. Once at the boat's pier, it wasn't long before we spotted my East Bay Nature birding buddies sauntering down the wharf, coffees in hand.

Underway, slowly leaving the sound of the honking sea lions behind, what do you think we saw first? Sea lions. Mercifully quiet and distinctly auburn-colored Steller Sea Lions.

A young boy threw fish parts from the stern, chumming, attracting many sea gulls (I've given up attempting to distinguish the varieties but the on-board naturalist told me we saw Western, Herman, and California Gulls) and, of course, pelicans.

Just after our boat separated from its sister whale watching boat, we saw a few humpback whales, making the trip worthwhile for Maureen.

Maureen's whale shot.

As the four-hour trip went on, we saw: Common Murres, Shearwaters (Sooty, Black-vented and Pink-footed), Auklets (Rhino and Cassin's), Jaegers (Parasitic and Pomarine) chasing terns (Elegant and Common), Red-necked Pharalope, and Black-footed Albatross. I was happiest to see the later, long enchanted with the sea-faring bird as I am.

As I moved from port to starboard and back to the stern, trooper Maureen found relief from the cool breeze. I staggered back and crashed down to join her from time to time. Even though our naturalist said the chop and sway of the boat was nothing, we landlubbers had a tough time moving about.

I filled up my large memory card with photos, the following being a few of my favorites:

Shearwater

 

Immature Gull

Cormorant

Tern Diving

Common Tern

 

No idea. Cute, though.

Our captain throttled back so we could see the tealish blur beneath the water, a Bola Bola fish. I Googled it so I could say more about it but found mostly Filipino fish ball recipes.

 

As we came back closer to the Monterey coast, a small pod of Pacific White-sided Dolphins joined us to play beneath the boat as birder friend Linda and I almost went overboard trying to get pictures of them.

Our naturalist saved us by calling out attention to a few Bottlenose Dolphins in the distance.

Our friends the sea lions greeted the boat as we rounded the jetty.

Back on shore, our Bay Area bird group decamped to the London Bridge Pub, across the main Fisherman's Wharf parking lot, to compare bird lists and recover our wind-whipped energy with some great food.

Maureen, back right, perked up after a Chardonnay.

The food and company was great. So great that I didn't really mind getting the $35 parking ticket.

Maureen says she had fun but is back on the only-cruise-ships bandwagon.

Las Vegas Trip - All About Me

And now a blog post about me. Las Vegas is my “hometown.” Mind you, in the first 10 years of my life, I lived in 15 different abodes – some houses, some apartments, some base housing. My first home is what my mother always described as, “The Hovel.”

After marrying my mother, my father took her far away from her family and home in Long Island to the great and untamed American desert where he was assigned to Nellis Air Force Base, outside of Las Vegas. It had been Las Vegas AFB until 1950, one year after military installations began being named after dead heroes. In this case, Lt. William Nellis – who flew P-47s in World War II in support of General George Patton’ 3^rd Army, in the Battle of the Bulge and, finally, in support of the U.S. Army 101^st Airborne Division – survived being shot down twice before guns took out his craft in Luxembourg, this time flying too low to bail out.

The now 11,300-acre base looks nothing today as it did in 1954 when I was born in the Clark County Hospital, just renamed from the Clark County Indigent Hospital and now the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada.

Wikipedia Photo

 

For that matter, when I was born, Las Vegas was nothing like the glaring and blaring place it is now.

The Las Vegas Strip in 1954, photo by Eloff Perez

Between 1952 and 1957, the Teamsters and Mormon bankers came together to build Las Vegas’ first casino hotels:  The Sahara, The Sands, and The Tropicana. The Riviera, first of the high-rises on the strip and in which the Marx Brothers had an interest, opened the month we left Nellis to follow my father to his assignment in Japan. These were the early days of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Andy Williams, Liberace, Bing Crosby and Carol Channing. It wasn’t until a year after we left that the first “integrated” (as in racially) hotel opened.,, The Moulin Rouge.

I intended to attempt to track down places I lived as a baby but found the horizon-to-horizon dirt-colored housing tracts to be far too intimidating. 

Let the Reunion Rock On

From the first emails and phone calls planning the reunion of women from Marian Central High School’s Class of 1966, every life decision Maureen made hinged on that one early week in April 2014. While Maureen needed dental work, she made it clear to both dentists involved that no appointments would happen until after Las Vegas. Carol’s looking for a job? As long as it starts after Las Vegas. I got roped into jumping on the early planning bandwagon with a call from organizer Chris after everyone sorted out that we’d all stay at Caesar’s Palace instead of the more expensive Bellagio, where Gerri planned to stay. As the departure date neared, Maureen reported a flurry of emails with everything from meeting up times to, of course, oh-what-to-wear.

I mentioned in the previous post Gerry’s very gracious hosting of dinner and cocktails on the first evening in Las Vegas. A couple of things struck me as an observer more than a participant. First, the smart phones – showing photos of kids and dogs to each other and snapping picture after picture of each other. 

Then there was the din of so many conversations starting, changing course and coming back, invariably to much laughter. And the stories:  Gerry, a newcomer to the grade school being told by a nun that she would share a locker with Maureen, who pointed out exactly what spaces to use, traumatizing Gerry to this day; tales of various hijinks in vehicles traveling at excessive speeds down country roads, fueled by alcohol, as it were; and the sadder recounting of classmates lost or vanished. All of which reflected the camaraderie going back for more than a half-century. And the accent. Everyone sounded like Maureen and her accent became more pronounced after every passing moment. The accent is hard to describe – it isn’t quite the movie Fargo, nor as distinctive as that of min-eh-SOH-dans (who hate the Cheeseheads – Green Bay Packer fans – even more that do Illinoisans).

The party in the suite continued for some time after Maureen and I Ieft, tired from our days of driving. The group convened for brunch on Sunday morning, our northern Midwest friends marveling at the flowers and warmth of the day, all but Pat and us having all just emerged from an unusual and hideously cold and snowy winter.

I got the group to pose for a group shot. Introducing (left to right):  Pat (Santa Fe), Maureen (Oakland), Kathy (Chicago), Chris (Crystal Lake, Ill., near the Wisconsin Border), Nancy (Wisconsin), Teri (Woodstock, Ill., Maureen’s original home), Gerry (also Crystal Lake), and Diane (Minnesota).

Moving this group of strong-willed girls took a firm hand. Most often, Gerry and Kathy knew where we were going and former teacher Chris led us, two-by-two. Often lagging in the back, I wondered about the seemingly amoebic movement of the group as it would ooze along, stop and clump for no apparent reason, start up again I disorder, then fall back into its decisively moving phalanx.

Maureen and I enjoyed meals with the group and some day time gambling. 

Mon Ami Gabi at the Paris Hotel/Casino

Hash House A Go Go in the Quad Hotel

Hash House A Go Go in the Quad Hotel

Our server next to Gerry and her "Man v. Food Favorite," Andy's Sage Fried Chicken.

The rest partook of much of what Las Vegas had to offer – the Bellagio fountain lights, the lights of Fremont Street in the old Strip, and a show – at least one arriving in the morning swearing off gin forever. It seems that everyone but me came out even or ahead in gambling on various machines (no tables for any of us, except the two who found an accommodating and bored roulette dealer who taught them how to play).

Far too soon, and with too early flights to reconvene on departure day, we bid farewell to the women of Marian Central High School’s Class of ’66.

Chris

Diane

Gerry

Nancy

Pat (with the "Enough with the camera" look)

Teri with yours truly, The Author (Thanks to Nancy)

Kathy

Maureen

Me, with white hair and shoes, impersonating a Q-Tip.

Maureen thanks everyone for the memories and looks forward to the next meet-up!

Death Valley Explored

We awoke early, as usual, rising from bed at Stovepipe Wells to a clear desert sky and reasonable temperature. 

I Febreezed the non-smoking room to within an inch of its non-life as we packed and loaded the van, sneezing at the smell of wood smoke coming through our open door. Our packing included all evidence of cigarette smoking, not wanting to pay the $250 “cleaning fee” that would have entailed the same Febreezing. We saw that I was fed before heading out to explore the valley while enroute to Las Vegas. I have to thank Maureen for her patience along the way as I braked hard over and over again to take advantage of photo ops. 

Maureen largely occupied herself rustling around with maps and trying, over and over again, to get enough cell “dots” to be able to view Saturday’s Santa Anita Derby on her iPhone. Not getting that and failing to know if the great race horse Zenyatta had thrown her third foal yet frustrated her to no end. When the guides to Death Valley indicate that cellular coverage is spotty, believe them. Most of the time, it is non-existent.

I couldn’t get enough of the color contrast, the vastness, the formations. On the Borax Twenty Mule Team loop of a couple of miles, I was also taken by evidence of rain runoff. The structural photos are of the Harmony Borax Works. Although I found some evidence of glass bottles broken long ago, I was impressed by the lack of trash and grateful to our fellow visitors for their respect of this National Park.

Telescope Peak from Death Valley

We stopped near the Furnace Creek resort to take a break. Dad and Pat stayed there when they ventured to and explored Death Valley. Hard to believe but it is true:  there is a golf course, of all things, in the hottest, driest part of the U.S.

I discovered, with my there's-an-app-for-that iPhone, that we were merely 73 feet short of the lowest point in North America.

Maureen was anxious to end the photo journey and begin our Las Vegas adventure so we motored from the emptiness to the outskirts of the city, marveling at the thousands of acres covered by houses, all painted in the same desert dirt color. More map rustling ensued as we neared downtown. At one point, I thought we needed to be six lanes across to the right of Highway 95 when we actually needed to be six lanes to the left. By the time we got to Caesar’s Palace, I was exhausted and very grumpy (which tend to go hand-in-hand for me). The solution? Feed me, of course.

As I stomped through the lobby and Maureen wandered around behind me, we entered the small restaurant just off the registration area of Caesars and heard a familiar voice call to Maureen. It was Pat, who’d just stayed at our house to attend the Napa memorial service for the husband of another of Maureen’s high school classmates. She was seated with Nancy at the outside restaurant bar area. Hugs, of course, followed by tales of travels between them as I slurped my French onion soup.

Feeling somewhat restored, we parted ways with Pat and Nancy to settle in to our room. It turns out that we had the best room, complete with view and jacuzzi. 

Relieved to be rid of the smoking Nazis, as we call them, and in a smoking room, I left Maureen to unpack to retrieve the van from valet parking to retrieve our six-pack of wine and bottled water. Nothing is free in Las Vegas, as we discovered when I called to inquire about the coffee pods that would fit the in-room coffee maker.

The time came to join the whole group of high school buddies in Gerry’s suite. She got it specifically for this gathering of dear (we won’t use the “old” word here) friends, and put on a feast of food and beverages for us. I took video when Diane, the last to arrive, finally got there.