Half Dome…..Our Adventure, Our Quest

Posted on by kwundrow

Yosemite National Park has always held a special place in my psyche. From my first visit to the park in 1985 to my last trip and the story this narrative will tell, I was continually drawn back to the park. In the 1970’s, my sister moved from Wisconsin to California and found work with the National Park Service as a resident nurse in the Yosemite National Park hospital. The stories and pictures she sent back to us, pulled me west to see the park. I vowed that once I got through college, I would discover the park for myself.

Founded as a National Park on October 1, 1890, Yosemite encompasses a grove of giant sequoias, Tuolumne Meadows and the Yosemite Valley floor carved out by the Merced River. Upon entering the valley floor, you are greeted by majestic waterfalls and sheer granite walls; El Capitan, Glacier Point and the iconic Half Dome are among its most famous. The park is a haven for some of the best climbers in the world as well as amateur climbers utilizing alternative ways to reach the peaks high above the valley floor, leaving the technical climbs to the professionals.

In 1985, I finally realized my goal of visiting Yosemite. I was accompanied on that trip by my wife and my just barely one year old daughter, Bailey, who due to her diminutive size, spent much of the trip riding in her carrying frame on my back. From the moment we entered the park, the majesty of the park took my breath away. We were surrounded by sheer walls of granite rising from the valley floor and holding us captive within the canyon carved out by the glaciers of eons earlier. Everywhere we turned, we were greeted with yet another waterfall. From the slender strands of Bridal Veil Falls to the incredible power of the twins, Vernal and Nevada Falls, we were drawn into the allure of Yosemite. We knew long before we left the park, that we would return. Hiking the Mist Trail to the top of Vernal Falls with Bailey asleep in my backpack, I made a promise to her that we would one day return and she would hike this trail with me, and maybe, just maybe, we would climb to the top of Half Dome towering some 4800 feet above us.

Yosemite 1985

In July of 1996, we were back. This time we were a family of four as my youngest daughter, Kathryn, was along for her first taste of Yosemite. Bailey, after years of hearing the story of that earlier trip to the park, was holding me to my promise. Without much planning, we had decided that Bailey and I would attempt the hike to the summit of Half Dome. After a road construction delay entering the park, followed by a fairly long hike to reach the trailhead, we began our climb. We managed the top of Vernal Falls and after another hour or so of hiking, had reached the top of Nevada Falls. This is the moment reality set in. Our first sight as we crested the trail, was a sign explaining that unless you had reached this point before noon, you should not attempt to reach the summit of Half Dome. As it was well after noon, we heeded the warning and after just enough time to enjoy the view, took a solemn oath that we would return one day and finish this adventure.

Yosemite 1996

The years passed but we hadn’t returned. Oh we talked about it. Every year as we planned our summer vacation, the topic would come up. Suddenly it was 2009, Kathryn was now eighteen, graduating high school and an avid amateur climber. As we discussed summer plans, she looked at us and stated, it’s time. Bailey and I were all in, their mother, not so much. She had been envisioning a beach somewhere but after sensing our resolve, she capitulated. The trip was planned and Bailey and I dug out the photos from our 1997 trip. One stuck out for Kathryn. It was an image of Bailey and I standing atop Nevada Falls dressed in shorts and sandals. This might explain why it took us so long that morning to get where we were in this photo and too late to finish what we had started. I still remember Kathryn’s response, “Look at you. Did the two of you do any research at all?” Sheepishly looking at each other, we confessed that the thought had never crossed our minds. And then, in that moment, Kathryn took over the expedition.

To be continued………………

It seemed like a good idea at the time …. II.

Posted on by kwundrow

It seemed like a good idea at the time …. II.

We have the pleasure, or should I say the obligation of an above ground swimming pool in our backyard. It is in version three of its thirty-three seasons. The deck surrounding it has been there in part all thirty-three years along with a lot of cobbling along the way. Last fall, as we were getting ready to close it for the winter, a vote was taken as to whether it was going to continue to be this monument in our backyard. My vote was for its retirement. After all of those seasons serving as cabana boy, constantly monitoring the chemical balance, keeping the water levels right and often biweekly vacuuming, I was ready for retirement myself. Since I seldom vacuum inside the house and only grudgingly, I was instead vacuuming a tank of water. Of course, I lost the vote five to one when my wife recruited my two daughters and both grandchildren to swing the vote.
Deck 8

And so, I conceded and prepared for closing. After struggling with a way too old structure, it became obvious that the deck, at the least, needed to be resurfaced. After a bit of investigation, it was further decided, by a one-sided vote, that the rails and stairs would have to go as well. This was now a major job. Time for negotiations. It was decided, after a family meeting, that the rebuild would be done in the spring prior to opening the pool. My crew was recruited and now consisted of my two friends and neighbors as well as my son-in-law and soon to be another son-in-law. All four had been vetted and were skilled enough to make this a doable job.

Like all plans laid out too far in advance and dependent on multiple variables, we crossed our fingers and set April 16th as our start date and wrap up by May 1st. What could go wrong? Why Coronavirus pandemic and social distancing of course. As April 1st approached, it was clear there was going to be no crew working on my deck.

Now a sane man would have thrown in the towel. If it lasted thirty-three years, why couldn’t it last another one. That is what a sane man would have done, but after a month and a half of isolation, that’s what I wasn’t. I was itching for something on which to focus all that pent up energy. And so, the decision was made. It was now a one many crew, me. The problem I was facing, besides the one-man crew thing, was the pool opening date of May 31st. That gave me a month and a half to get it done. And so, as the calendar rolled around to April 1st, appropriate date, the materials were ordered and demolition began.
Deck 6

Demolition took the better part of four days as the old deck and rails were not ready to come off easily. Eventually, the old deck was gone, the underpinnings trimmed back to the original frame and the rails dismantled and removed. They now formed a sizable heap of debris on my lower deck, where I would continue to stumble over time and time again as I started  the rebuild. At this point, quarantine and social distancing was a good thing as far fewer people were subjected to the all too frequent colorful metaphors emanating from the job site.
Deck 5

The first of four truckloads of materials arrived on day five just as I was ready to start phase two, rebuild. After what seemed like four hundred trips from the driveway down the side hill to the deck area, I had managed to get the framing materials and most of the decking down to my one-man construction site. I think this would be the appropriate place to remind my readers that I am, by AARP standards, old. I was clearly not in the shape I was in my twenties when I did my construction stint. Four-hour shifts were the plan and on those days when I reached six or seven hour runs, my body reminded me of my misplaced confidence.

But I soldiered on. When attempting to do framing alone, one must be creative on how to cut, hold and attach eight to ten foot long 2 x 8 planks. Without bragging, I used every technique I could and did develop some very ingenious ways to accomplish the task. Day 6,7 and 8 saw the new frame begin to take shape. Decking was next. Day 9,10 and 11 were used to get the majority of the deck boards laid and secured. All that now remained was the rail system.
Deck 4

As I am writing this, I have completed day 14. Except for the stairs and gate, still waiting for delivery, the deck is pretty much complete. At the beginning of this project, I was concerned that I might not even survive. Ironically, I would have avoided COVID-19 and then succumbed to my quarantine project. When I view the completed deck, I can’t help but soak in this sense of pride for the accomplishment. Not bad for an old guy.
Deck 2

Now, if only this quarantine would be lifted, we could actually have guests over and use the pool and its grand deck. Unfortunately, until that day, it remains a piece of art. An impressive piece of art but still, an empty deck begging for a post coronavirus party.
Good news, just for reading this, you are invited to the party. Bring a suit.

How I Spent my Coronavirus Vacation

Posted on by kwundrow

I don’t know if they still do this but when I was in school, and vacation came to an end, and classes began again, we were tasked with our first writing assignment; “How I Spent my Summer Vacation.” Mine was usually how I baled hay, stacked the haymows, picked stones and milked cows. This when I wasn’t pulling weeds and tending to our one-hundred acre garden, okay maybe one acre garden. Most days it just felt like a hundred acres. Thus the reason when my dear wife asked for a garden in the back yard of our little house, I handed her the hoe and a bag of seeds and said go for it. Once in a while I could throw in a week at Lutheran Pioneers Summer Camp. As I grew older and got to move out on my own, it was a little less work and a little more travel and play. Eventually, it was trips with my wife and children, forgeting about lesson plans and unruly students for at least a few months of summer. The journal was now filled with road trips to National Parks, camping, hiking and long bike rides. It was filled with people we met along the way and the shared experience of crowds and tours.

So what have we just gone through, and don’t doubt for a minute that it is over. We might only be half way through this coronavirus vacation. When it started, and we were hopeful, some of us thought this would be a short stay away from work, at worst a forced seclusion with our family and loved ones, on a vacation of sorts. As it dragged on, we started to realize that we had to continue on in a very foreign environment. Where prior to this virus, we strived hard to not bring our work home with us. Now, in the midst of this distancing and closures of our offices, it seems not only the work came home with us, the entire office came home to us. Where a meeting meant leaving my desk and assembling with my coemployees, Zoom now brought their desks into my house via my laptop.

Oh there were some bright spots in this experiment. For one you only had to dress the half of you people could see from your camera angle. I find myself hoping the other people in the meeting wouldn’t suddenly stand up and show off what I was trying not to imagine. Ties and professional wear has given way to something well beyond business casual Friday. Fridays will probably become business casual sweat pants, you know, your comfy sweat pants not the dressy sweat pants you were wearing the rest of the week with a sport coat and dress shirt on the top half.

Another bright spot was all this time we got to spend with our famiy. We all finally got the chance to teach our children the right way, you know the way we did it when we went to school. How’s that working? If I believe Facebook, teachers are going to, at least for awhile, be greatly elevated in social status. Driving is easier with nearly empty streets and finding a parking spot is a breeze. My car sits idle in the garage. Where I would have put on several hundred miles a week going somewhere, I have barely logged fifty miles in the last month. You know somethings changed when the insurance company drops your rates instead of raising them. And all this while gas gets cheaper every day. If it could, I’m sure my car is weeping in the garage wondering why our love affair has suddenly ended. We just don’t talk to each other anymore.

So what have I done with my coronavirus vacation? I replaced going to a museum with watching every available episode of ‘Mysteries at the Museum’. I have visited several National Parks, virtually. Amazon, Hulu and Net flix have replaced five buck Tuesdays and Friday night fish frys. I’ve gotten projects done, some that were necessary but I had been putting off. Some that were just to get my butt up off the couch. I replaced my Zoom virtual background with a beach scene just so I could believe I actually went. And I have worn out several pairs of shoes, and the sidewalks for that matter, walking in aimless circles around my neighborhood, waving politley and staying six feet away from everyone. It’s been a strange vacation. Cheap, but strange.

Hopefully you have read this with a dripping sarcasm in your voice. I can tell you, that’s the way it was written. Unless you were fortunate enough to somehow fare better or were just more in tune with the solitude of this crisis, the rest of us have gone a tad stir crazy. My heart and my respect does goes out to those that had to risk everything and work through this pandemic. While many of us were isolated in our homes, there were countless others who soldiered on through the storm; health workers, essential business service providers, delivery people and others just hanging on to survive. Heroes all. I guess my coronavirus vacation pales when you consider the big picture, but it was fun to write about it.

I have to go now. I am going to go wrestle alligators in the everglades and then do a little swimming with sharks off Madagascar. Who needs reality when virtual is so much cheaper and hey, safer.

Stay safe, stay well and stay connected. It’s physical distancing, not social. Just think of this as a vacation from the other reality, the one we all want back.

I Need a Drink

Posted on by kwundrow

When this is all over, this Coronavirus thing, I need a drink. Not that I can’t have one in my home and not that I haven’t. Just last night, with the temperature dropping toward the upper 30’s, my wife and I set up lawn chairs, six feet apart, invited our neighbors, no more than four, to set up their chairs, six feet away, and we shivered through a COVID 19 style cocktail party. For now this appears to be the norm for social gatherings. Save for the strange process of passing ten feet to the right and waving to anyone you meet on your walk, all other interaction has been relegated to the internet. I have zoomed and duo-ed to the point of being a disinterested third party and have listened to every classic song sung to new lyrics on Facebook. I have avoided the news like a, well…. plague, and finished my house projects well ahead of their time. I am a little worried I’ll end up creating a to do list for my neighbor’s house.

So back to my opening tirade. When this is over, I am going to spend every chance I get going out to eat in crowded, noisy restaurants. Going to drinking establishments, be they bars, saloons or even corner taverns where I can watch sports on their wall to wall TVs all the while talking to total strangers about everything and anything while sitting mere inches away from my newest friends. Isolation can be a good thing for introverts and for flattening the curve, but for me an extra extrovert, it is becoming a death sentence. Death by isolation. I saw a Facebook rendition of Adele’s “Hello” sung to COVID 19 lyrics and I totally identified. The only difference being that the singer had abandoned even the act of wearing pants while I still have mine on, at least at this point. Check in on me in another two weeks of this, and I might have followed suit or the lack of. Apologies for that visual.

There is a point here, isn’t there always? The economy is going to need an incredible boost when this is over. I for one am going to cease on-line shopping for at least a little while. I will avoid take-out where possible and I will do anything in my power to single handedly drag the economy back from the edge. I will never again complain about a crowded restaurant or a noisy bar. I will drink in the ambiance of foo foo boutiques and volunteer to go to grocery stores and even go shopping with my wife.

These are desperate times. In short, I need the old normal…..I need a drink…..preferable with friends…..lots of friends…..maybe friends with hugs.

Adventures in Coronavirus Quarantine, or how my past gave me hope for the future

Posted on by kwundrow

I am entering week three of social distancing. The isolation can get a bit overwhelming at times but it also brings out the opportunity to do things you always thought about but never followed through on. We have all been finding time to do some of the things we never found time to do before coronavirus, or Covid-19 as it has come to be known. I still find it interesting that its original designation had to be changed. In the meantime, the “safer at home” rules have created an opportunity for binge watching TV and in my case some nostalgic surfing.

Earlier tonight we enjoyed our third “stay at home virtual get together”. If anything good has come out of this pandemic, it might be that baby boomers have gotten comfortable with live streaming and that we figured out that we could get together with friends for whom the distance between us, had gotten in the way. After spending a night reminiscing with a friend from Arkansas for whom I hold many fond work memories, I found myself longing for just a little more nostalgia.

Enter any one of a host of cable TV apps. I am a child of the sixties. For those of my readers too young to remember those times, think the birth of Star Trek, Bonanza and I Spy. Think the birth of technicolor! The creation of color TV. It was an era of innovation for the baby boomers. We had cut our teeth on Gun Smoke, Have Gun Will Travel and Lassie, all presented in stunning black and white. Suddenly our world exploded with color and our movies gave us something breathtaking, something called Living Technicolor. It was as if God had recreated creation for us right there on the big screen.

I was eleven years old in 1962. I was impressionable and yes naive. Girls were just entering my sphere of awareness and I admit, I had begun writing notes to many of them. This might in fact have been the moment I fantasied myself as a writer. At the very least I was pouring my poetic self into those notes. For you in the world of texting, tweeting and Instagram, I can only express pity for the joy you missed out on in the creation of writing a note and then finding a way to secretly pass it through what was then our crude version of the internet. It was, back then, the friend to friend to friend net. And we never signed a privacy agreement, ever.

It was at this time that a movie came along that to this day remains one of my favorites. I am sure it was not for the acting, though it starred Jimmie Stewart and Maureen O’Hara. It wasn’t for the plot, after all they all followed pretty much the same story line, Jimmie the easy going dad with the mixed up kids trying to define the perfect family. It wasn’t necessarily the acting. What it actually turned out to be was the setting and the girl. The setting was always somewhere you had never been and only imagined you might one day be, and all brought to you in the splendor of “living technicolor”, somehow brighter and clearer than your actual life. The movies took me to a Hollywood Eden and beckoned me to follow. And then there was the girl. She was always the perfect girl, the one you knew one day you would eventually meet, fall in love with and then magically end up with in one of those perfect movie scenes. She was cute, borderline beautiful or as beautiful as an eleven year old could envision, and somehow available if only you knew the right lines. You had to compete with Fabian or Paul Anka but then they were no match for the charm you were imagining you could muster.

My movie was Mr Hobbs Takes a Vacation. I probably had seen it half a dozen times already and each and every time I fell for the daughter. In my defense, she was only a couple years older than me and she checked all the boxes, cute, sophisticated and looking for her true love, aka, me. The fact that Jimmie Stewart was her dad only enhanced the relationship. Who wouldn’t want Jimmie Stewart as your dad?

So I have definitely digressed, but you needed the background, whether you wanted it or not. I had just ended our virtual get together, I had enjoyed a scotch or two, and I was waxing nostalgic. When my wife suggested we find a good movie with which to end our evening, who was I to let the opportunity pass me by. She had never heard of the movie, deprived childhood I suspect, and she trusted my opinion. After all, she loved Jimmie Stewart and I convinced her it was a classic. To my sheer delight, two phenomena occurred, it turned out she loved the movie and my memory and expectations were not disappointed. My wife enjoyed the nostalgia that only a Jimmie Stewart movie can bring and my crush was still as idyllic as I remembered her to be.

There is a point here. Coronavirus has forced us into isolation. You would be lying if you weren’t longing for at least a bit of the old normal. I needed an escape. We all need an escape. For me, tonight was all about that escape. The virtual get together gave me a sense of being with my friends even if it was only virtual. Mr Hobbs took me back to a time when life was simple. No work to stress about. No virus for me to worry about. No crashing market and no isolation. Just a moment in time when an eleven year old could imagine a life beyond their everyday existence and a future where the boy meets the girl of his dreams and spends a lifetime getting to woo her. And all in living technicolor.

Playing Chicken Covid-19 Style

Posted on by kwundrow

Having returned seven days ago from the island paradise of St Lucia, I have been spending the last week exiled to my not so exotic island of Covid-19 here on Valley Road. It hasn’t been all bad. I have discovered new rooms of sanctuary in my own home, you know, for those moments when togetherness becomes, well a bit overwhelming. Don’t miss read that, I love my wife and I am more than willing to have long conversations gazing into each others eyes across our kitchen counter but there is also only so much HGTV I can take. I secretly fear that I may come into the kitchen one morning and find Chip and Joanna, sledge hammer in hand, removing a wall and putting up ship lap all over the place. Guess you had to have seen at least one of those house flip shows to get that last one.

I have also discovered the art of binge watching that my children have tried to coerce me into. In the past week I have relived the history of New York City and its immigrant history, I have tracked down and prosecuted the Unabomber and watched all three Men in Black movies. I have rediscovered my conspiracy fed belief in aliens and there impact on ancient history and uncovered mysteries in the museum I had never even heard of. The only thing I have resisted is the urge to continue to destroy Oak Island in search of the money pit, which I am convinced is simply the seemingly bottomless pit of money the producers of A&E have to throw at the search. Just imagine if they ever do find it. The show will have to end and not get to break the record for the longest running documentary ever, that record being held by the search for ancient aliens.

In the total lack of sports to watch, I and my wife have taken up walking around the block in our twice daily sport of Coved-19 Chicken. You know, that moment when someone turns the corner or comes out of their house and is now walking toward you on the same sidewalk. Who folds first and dashes across the street to the other side? We have turned it into a betting game as to not only who folds first but at what point and whether they flee diagonally or straight across. I am feeling like an extra in one of those zombie movies. Fair warning, if you are the opponent, Deb and I don’t fold.

The other night, desperate for our Friday night out and shared cocktail with friends, we instituted a virtual couples party courtesy of ZOOM. We had virtual wine and cocktails, music and food. We shared pictures, you can actually do that live, and toasted each other’s health and most importantly shared laughter and for a moment forgot our isolation. Thank you ZOOM for making this all possible. Just imagine the flu pandemic of the early 1900’s, doing that same thing via telegraph. Something like nice to imagine seeing you, stop. Hope the kids are enjoying time off from school, stop. Just toasted you with a nip of grog, stop. That party would have lasted a lot longer than the forty minutes we got from my free version of ZOOM. I am sure we will be repeating the process with our friends, the ones we don’t meet on our street in the game of chicken, and in fact have a family ZOOM get together in a few minutes.

Seven days to go before I have completed my mandatory fourteen day exile / quarantine. I won’t miss the isolation but I will miss the slowing of the pace of life. I will miss the excuse to just sit back and relax. I will miss the me time. We will go back to life the way we knew it pre-corona but I suspect that some things will never be the same. I hope that for one, it will be this sense of togetherness we currently feel in the midst of the self imposed isolation we are all in. We should do everything we can to foster this sense of closeness, of all being equal that we have experienced in the face of dealing with this crisis. We are strong enough to do that. We just need to commit to that as much as we have committed to hand washing and hoarding toilet paper. Together we can emerge better than we were.

Hoping you are staying safe, six feet apart and healthy.