Chapter 2.
Early Plans, A Busy Year
A huge project at work, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), was becoming increasingly demanding as the end of the trip with Viannah tailed out and as I worked on her book. After a brief break, I wanted to start training with Katy, but the overtime and extra time demands of work prevented anything but a little steady work on Viannah’s book. This continued for two years interrupted only by an August 1998 family driving vacation to Texas.
On June 28, 1998, the draft of Viannah’s book was finished, it needed only a single proofreading (which would take many more days worth of spare time) before it could be put to bed for a while pending a release “sometime later.” I did the proofing one chapter at a time and printed up one copy to take to Texas on that vacation. Viann read through it too as an additional check.
On July 28, we left on that vacation. The original plan had been for Viann and the kids to take a four-week trip, visiting relatives and sites. I would fly out in the middle and join them for the last two weeks. We worked to get Katy an amateur radio Novice license so that I could “keep in touch” with them in the van while I was still back home. We made grossly insufficient progress toward this goal. Of course, all important communications would be handled via telephone from hotel rooms and family homes anyway so it wasn’t critical, just another excuse to try for that license.
With only a few days left before departure, the van overheated one hot Saturday summer morning. Katy and I were out shopping for parts for a science project and, driving up Lake Avenue in Pasadena, I noticed knocking and steam coming from under the hood. The engine temperature was pegged hot and the service light was on. We pulled into a church group car wash at a fast food place and stood back, as instructed, while the volunteer car washers sprayed the radiator and engine to cool it down.
The following week, we had the van in the shop having a sticky thermostat replaced and all was back to normal, but now I was worried about Viann and the kids driving across the Great American Desert in triple digit temperatures without me. In a single evening, we changed our plans to a three-week vacation that we would all take together. Work would just have to tough it out without me. In the end, SRTM was generally successful despite this “outlandish” amount of time taken off in the middle.
On August 1, we left home on the trip and arrived at Bill’s Fish House near Waurika, Oklahoma just in time for lunch August 3 only to find that Bill’s was closed on Mondays! So, we went to Henrietta, Texas, had lunch at the Dairy Queen and did something that I had wanted to do for the 30 years since my family had moved away from there, locate and visit Mr. Montgomery who had once been the master of the Henrietta rail station. Though he lived only a block from that very Dairy Queen, it took an hour, an informative drive all around the small town, and several stops for directions to find him. He was there, still smoking a pipe well into his 70s. It was 104 F outside. After asking permission, I brought the kids in to meet him. It was like meeting a distant cousin, but they were polite. He didn’t seem to remember me, his wife kept trying to identify me with their son who was ten years younger, not the one I remembered who was a couple of years older than I. Still, they were cordial and chatted about other people around town that we knew in common, and about Mr. Montgomery’s experiences in the Navy, working at the railroad, and with landline Morse Code.
In Dallas on John’s eighth birthday, Katy, Viannah, and I got to do something that I had not always wanted to do, experience the Dive Devil at Six Flags. It had been intended as a birthday present for John, but he backed out at the last minute and I went in his place to reduce the cost for the girls. (The fare: one for $25, two for $20 each, or three for $16 each.) Viannah loved this, being hauled 170 feet up in the air and being let go to swing back and forth at 70 miles per hour, the three of us strapped together.
Aside from this we did the usual things, we spent time at the Skemps in Dallas, at my parent’s house in Hillsboro, with the Moers in Houston, and we went to Galveston and camped in the wet heat for a couple of nights at the State Beach there. We did our obligatory time in Austin visiting brother-in-law Michael and his new significant other, Mary Korman and while there attended a local amateur production of South Pacific staged at the amphitheater at Barton Springs. We swam in the Barton Springs, which, at around 60 F was 40 F cooler than the air. We made other sundry visits and recreations finally stopping by Marc and Susan Benson’s new home near Midland on the way back to California. We back at own home late on August 22.
With the vacation behind us, it was time to get back to work on everything else, including Adventures with Katy.
August 29, 1998 was hot, 108 F when we left the house about 1 p.m. We were looking for water adventure possibilities without much of a plan. It was my idea that with a little money we should be able to drive to some lake, rent some boat, spend an hour or so paddling around, and develop some ideas about what to do next.
Lakes in southern California are sparse and, like everything else, overcrowded, especially on 116-degree days like this. Lake Castaic, a few miles up Interstate 5, was one big loop of skiers behind big privately owned power boats but there was nothing to rent anywhere in sight. Several more miles north was Pyramid Lake which featured an interesting museum of California water history at the Valequero Visitor Center, a portable hot dog stand on the road side, and some private users of the lake, but no boats for rent at all.
I handed Katy a sheet out of my journal and said, “Start a list.”
We continued north to Lake Hughes, totally fenced in. No recreation at all.
“Bring Adventure Pass,” so we could park in the National Forest.
“Find out rental prices,” i.e., let our fingers do the walking next time.
We stopped at a Pizza Hut in Lancaster. One of these days I was going to bring John up here to the SR-71 museum. Somebody in the next booth was on a cell phone. I could call Viann on the radio. To make use of two meter links from over here, however, would require an intimate knowledge of 2 meter band planning, implementation, and maintenance states in the region along with associated politics; topography and radio technique. And, you’d probably have to wait your turn and the audio through five hops would be marginal. Or one could try short wave on 40 meters, but that would require sitting in the car at a mobile installation, and luck with the ionosphere. Or a cell phone and knowledge of your own home number. Well, and to be fair, an illuminated “Ready” light.
“Bring fishing pole.”
“Get Katy a Fishing License.”
There were more places to try up here, but it was already late. We headed back via Quail Lake and Elizabeth Lake. These might be places for canoeing, but even the park at Elizabeth Lake didn’t have a boat rental concession. Back across the San Andreas fault (which formed the valley for Elizabeth Lake), we drove back to town on mountain roads and visited Sport’s Chalet to price boat rentals there. Canoes and Kayaks were $35 per day with a $200 deposit. This could be a planning number.
We were home at 6:38 p.m.; it was still 102 F.
“Wear Swimwear.”
“Check out that water thing that Viannah belongs to.” (California Aquatic Center)
“Hat.”
“Towel.”
We hadn’t brought much but money on Adventure One. The primary goal for this outing was to get out the door and declare: “Begun.” In this respect it was a success.
Whatever we were going to do, it would involve camping somewhere wouldn’t it? I envisioned a test campout, but not one so grandiose as the one planned near the end of Viannah's preparations but missed due to her ankle injury. Maybe this one could just be a hike down Gould Mesa to Gould Campground. I walked through there going to work all the time, it was far enough to test the gear, but not so far that it would be a long walk or be terribly tiring.
If we were going to Channel Islands, it would be fun to hike or camp in the mountain range to the north, the ones behind Ventura and Santa Barbara. We could look across the channel to the islands and then later, when we were on the islands, look across back to where we’d been before. I usually thought of this sort of thing as fun.
And, as always, there was the test campout in the back yard, an equipment shakedown. I had managed to do this with Viannah, except for the “sleep in it overnight” part. Everything you didn’t test like that made the real thing harder to negotiate. Another approach, however, was to just admit that the real thing was going to be different and hard to negotiate anyway and to just go for it. Some degree of balance between testing what could be tested and being wary for the unknown was needed.