Chaos Leaves Town

Even More from Catemaco…

Posted on November 20, 2006 by Jim@HiTek

We’re hanging here at the La Ceiba RV park in Catemaco (Caw-tea-maw-ko) another day or so, it’s Sunday, Nov. 19, 2006 and I’m trying to catch the NFL games today. I have ordered streaming audio of all the games over the internet and then I’ve got the TV tuned to an early game, Oakland vs. Kansas City, shown on a local station (with audio in Spanish). The sources are out of sync by about a minute so I watch the play on TV, and a minute later, listen to the play by play from the computer. Strange, but no stranger then the stuff you do. Yes, I can see you through your computer screen.

Anyway, here are some more pictures of the ancient city of El Tejin.
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They tell me that there are 17 ballcourts here but I only found two so I am no longer sure what I’m looking for when it comes to ballcourts. Most of the hoops that are traditional on either side of a ballcourt have been stolen and the rest removed to be placed in museums. But still, I would expect to see a wide narrow area with viewing stands on either side of any ballcourt. I suppose you folks should come here and see for yourselves. Why is the hoop stolen so often? It’s because of the macabre history of the hoops, and their artistry. During ritural games, sometimes lasting for days, the teams would use the head of someone bested in battle or the head of a sacrificial victim. The human head pushed or tossed through the hoop would count as a score, sometimes ending the game. Much like todays basketball. Every member of the loosing team could be killed. Kind of an inducement to play really, really hard. Many players died during games. Other games appeared to be just for practice where the teams tossed handmade balls of flora through the hoops to score. Thanks to the Spanish, we can only guess at most of the daily history since they destroyed all the written codicies and we only have bare sketches and their biased opinions of some of the daily life here.
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Thought that I would take my own picture with the neat structure in the background but I miss timed, that’s why I have a stunned look, it’s called the Pyramid of the Niches and is said to have 365 niches (it’s crumbled some). The pyramid was painted red and the niches black. It would have been impressive when built for sure:

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The pathways and plazas shown here are original. Very comfortable to walk on, not the bumpy plazas of old Europe or the ancient roads of the Romans (I’m told), though this place has some roads like those too, the main road into this complex is rough cobblestone:

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Well, that’s all the pictures I have of El Tajin. Tomorrow we are getting back on the road so I’ll not be on the web for a few days. After that, I’ll put up pictures of this place, Catemaco, quite the lake they have here. It’s been raining heavily for the last couple days so we’ve kind of stayed indoors mostly. But the first whole day we were here, I got some good shots.

If you can’t get enough of the ruins, here’s a link to another site that has more pictures:

El Tajin Archaeological Ruins

Posted in On the road in Mexico | 4 Comments

Down in Catemaco…

Posted on November 18, 2006 by Jim@HiTek

We settled here in Catemaco next to a large lake and have spent a couple days relaxing and checking out the town. It was overcast when we got here, the day after a major wind storm that caused lots of fallen trees and power lines, etc. It’s been intermittently raining most of the day so I took this opportunity to do some budgeting and computer work while trying to figure out why the Oregon Ducks football game was on the radio for 35 minutes and then after a glitch on my end stopped playing. Then all I could get from the radio station was a commercial loop. Very maddening but the Ducks are loosing big time anyway so no biggy to me I guess. Damn it.

I’ll get some more of those 100 pictures I told you about up here today while I’m enjoying the Prairie Home Companion. Here’s a link especially for you foreign readers, since you may have no idea what the show is about. Each show is 2 hours long and they are mostly comedy and music with some old fashioned monologues thrown in. Anyway, the shows are archived and available for free as streaming audio in English on-line:

Prairie Home Companion

The first day in Mexico it was getting wet and that evening we stopped and stayed at a Pemex station for the night.

Here’s a shot of our rigs and the weather:

The next day was more of the same weather:

We passed this huge statue in a grape growing region:

Here’s one of the many swollen rivers we passed over that day:

Finally we arrived at the El Taj’in ruins in the highlands:

We were sort of mobbed by salespersons as the weather was poor we were among the few that visited that day.

Here’s a view of the museum from where we parked for the night. Since we got there late in the afternoon, we stayed on the museum parking lot for a mere $6 US. Next morning we headed into the site thankful that it is free on Sundays.

A look at the booths the vendors use to sell you all sorts of trinkets:

The walk to the museum:

The entrance to the site:

Another view of a couple pyramids:

The following pictures speak for themselves, note that these ruins are over a thousand years old, and were inhabited then abandoned then re-inhabited then finally abandoned for 800 years. Anyway, enjoy:

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Ahh, I’m finally here, the place I’ve studied and read about and seen pictures of nearly my entire life. It does not disappoint. The Mayans built this place, I believe over a thousand years ago:

A shot of Sam to give you an idea of scale, plus she’s cute. Here she’s pointing out her great dimples to me, as if I didn’t know already:

One of the several ball courts (17) here at the site, this one is the most well defined:

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Here they (archeologists) are protecting the place with a roof since there are a lot of fresco paintings all around this building. The thatch roof helps keep it dry:

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A view from the hill top, where the elite lived in the cooling breezes, looking down over the city. Even up here, in the quiet part of town, there appear to be plazas where the elite could stand high over groups of people and lie to them, just like today:

Up in the elite part of town:

Look carefully at the lower half of the picture, those are frescoes painted over a thousand years ago:

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Sam talking to the scientist we found up on the bluff sweeping up around the covered building. He knows five languages and kept Sam occupied for 40 minutes. Since I don’t speak Spanish, I wandered off after 20 minutes or so:

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These following shots are just a few other buildings I happened to pass while wandering the site:

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This shot is of a stair well that I thought was particularly interesting. Seems meant to be intimidating:

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Well, I’m kind of tired so I’m going to take a break. I’ll put up more tomorrow before the football game.

Posted in On the road in Mexico | 1 Comment

Back into Mexico…

Posted on November 13, 2006 by Jim@HiTek

We’ve been on the road in Mexico now for a week, we crossed the border on Nov. 7th and today is Nov. 13th. The first travel day we went to a small town right on the Caribbean coast named La Pesca and stayed right there on the beach for 3 days. It’s a Mexican tourist destination and the beach we stopped at has hosted as many as 70,000 on vacation weekends. But it was nearly deserted while we were there.

The first set of pics is of three of our four rigs and the RV park we stayed at in Mission, Texas:

This next picture is of two of the group members, Woody on the chair and Sam there in the foreground. Woody was born in Panama, joined the US Marines there and spent his 30 year career in the US. He has a thick accent, speaks Spanish first and English second and is driving back to Panama to visit all his relatives. He wanted to travel with us for a while since he had never driven an RV in Mexico and wanted to know the ropes.

Sam was born in Colombia, moved to New York at 1 & 1/2 and speaks both Brooklynese (though she grew up on Long Island) and Spanish. She is traveling down to a remote place in the Yucatan to stay a few months and maybe take a management job, if it’s offered.

Not shown is Kathe, she’s a land owner in Mexico and has been across the border at least 20 times, speaks fluent Spanish and English and will be trying to sell homes on her property to women that would like to retire down in Mexico.

We’re all traveling together to sort of help each other along with accumulated knowledge and mutual assistance.

Our first stop inside Mexico after we passed the border and border checks, this is what passes as a rest stop, we had lunch here. That’s Kathe there in the middle of the picture and her rig behind:

Just a random shot of the roadway and the typical flora and fauna, lot’s of moisture in this area. Nothing like the West coast of Mexico at this latitude, which is basically a desert:

Late in the day we arrive at the beach in La Pesca for some boondocking:

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Just a shot of my rig:

Then the jetty:

Then there is that finger of ocean water that was creeping up the beach while we wandered around, and patterns of wetness all the way up the beach. There was a friend of Kathe’s that came by and told us the dredging done recently in the channel was causing this problem, so we move to another nearby beach:

Here was my first overnight boondocking place:

And a general shot of the area, note that on busy weekends there are nearly 70,000 Mexicans here, obviously, this is the off season for this beach. If you look carefully you’ll see all those little grass covered shelters in the picture all the way up the beach. They’re rented for $50 pesos per day:

After settling in a little, I wandered over to the beach, it’s around 100 yards from where I parked, and took the following four pictures. It’s sunset and these are mostly looking somewhat east:

As you can see from my shadow, I’m very tall:

Dawn the next morning:

Still dawn, but you can see there are some tourists, Sam & Woody. We did see a lot of Mexicans drop by. In fact we helped a family that had dropped their car alarm remote into the ocean, so they couldn’t get their SUV started to drive home. I silenced the siren and Sam was able to activate the starter with the same secret procedure as works with her alarm. We got hugs:

That’s Kathe’s little 4 wheel drive runabout. I added a little hidden switch to deactivate it so a bad guy would have trouble hot wiring it:

A couple days later and we leave the beach and pass through La Pesca. It’s a typical little town of 3000 near the beach:

Posted in On the road in Mexico | 1 Comment

Psychology of a riot…

Posted on November 9, 2006 by Jim@HiTek

While I was stationed at Treasure Island, I occasionally went over (aka ‘went ashore’) and wandered around looking at stuff. I’ve used the trolley so many times that now it’s nostalgic for me. Spent many hours in fine restaurants in downtown San Francisco as well. Also many hours on fisherman’s wharf. This predated the Height Asbury stuff by a couple years but that by no means precludes activism. More on that later.

One of the things I did was to visit a burlesque show. I was from a pretty small town…Walla Walla, Washington…population around 30,000 at that time…and hadn’t been to many large towns except to pass though. Anyway, at age 18, I went to this show. I had to smile the whole time because it almost exactly like the old movies I’d seen about burlesque. The theater was obviously very old, late 1800’s or so. Very ornate with red velvet everywhere, including the seats. Lights were pretty dim so the place looked very clean. It was hushed and with the ornate and amazing architecture, seemed stately. While I was sitting there waiting for the show to begin, I glanced around and laughed out loud when, 5 or 6 seats to my right, in the row behind me, I see a guy making himself comfortable, wearing a trench coat, just slipping his hand into his crotch under the coat. I couldn’t believe that all those jokes I’d heard about pervs in big cities were based on fact.

Then the comic came out, did a few jokes and then started introducing the girls. I have to tell you people, six of the seven women that came out and did classic strip tease dances were six of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. Beauty queen looks, movie star good looks. I was blown away. I expected skags. When I glanced back at the guy in the trench coat? Yep, yanking it. I had to laugh again, and as I glanced around the theater, there were like five or six of those guys going at it. The theater had 100 or so seats and it wasn’t full or anything since it was the first show, like around 4:30pm.

During every one of my shore leaves, I always went to the USO in downtown since they had free snacks, pool tables, and a piano there and I liked to tinkle…since I’d taken lessons for several years. Most of the pieces I knew by heart were classical and you need to practice allot to stay on top of them. One afternoon when I went in there, there was another guy already playing. He was brilliant. So talented that he had a crowd around. He was asked by a curious onlooker why he was playing a piece in a different key then the asker had learned it, the player said he just played in his favorite key and with a musical flourish, changed keys. Then I asked him to play the piece in four flats…his hands just danced around until he was playing that same piece in four flats. Wow. And he did that kind of stuff for the next hour.

That’s when I decided that all the practicing in the world would never make me as good as he was. Basically, then and there, I stopped playing or caring about practicing. Wonder what happened to him.

Another day, I was wandering around SF, I don’t remember the day of the week or anything but I remember knowing that there was going to be some kind of war protest that day after a parade. So I watched the parade and after it ended, there was a lot of people just standing or milling around while the families left. Then it got ugly. Shouts of protest, banners started flying, and cops started arresting, people pushing loud-mouthed hawks, doves asking for hugs, and on and on. Hmmm, I was thinking, just getting interesting.

Pretty soon, there was an impromptu antiwar march going on. And a half hour later, from where I stood on the street, I could see probably 15,000 people marching down the hill toward Fisherman’s Market. This amazed me. I had never seen that many people marching for anything, and this was an antiwar march! Pretty cool being 18 years old and seeing all those people my age all against war and hate and such.

Well, I sort of followed along on the sidewalk as the march got bolder and bolder, then the whole group got angry with the cops that were trying to stop this unauthorized march. I have to say how weird it was to get swept up in this march. I was just wandering on the sidewalk along with them, then I felt an urge to step onto the street to march along, it was a mental thing, palpable, Jung’s overmind control or something. Then I got very angry, I could feel and sense the anger sweep up the street towards me, I wanted to kill something, or at least knock it down and stomp on it and I had no idea what or why. Then, as we, thousands of us nearly running now, passed an alley I ducked into it. Deep down, I didn’t want to stomp on anyone, didn’t even know why I’d wanted to to begin with. As I stood there in the alley, watching all the marchers shouting, fists raised, angry, rushing to kill something, I got a hold of myself and calmed down. Wow, mob rule. Now I knew what that meant.

Went back to the base shortly after, with a lot to think about. Mobs, war, peace, free love.

Posted in Active duty... | Leave a comment

Way Back When…

Posted on November 6, 2006 by Jim@HiTek

Back when I was in the US Naval Military Drill Team of Treasure Island, California, our team was invited to several out of town parades where we would perform our drills for trophies and bragging rights. If there wasn’t going to be a trophy, we wouldn’t accept the invitation. Usually we wouldn’t be far from San Francisco but one parade we were invited to be in was in Carson City, Nevada.

The staff arranged for a military plane and crew to fly us over there and when we got to the air base we were surprised to see waiting for us an old WWII vintage DC3, we had expected a more modern plane…maybe even a jet.

Twin engines roaring, the thing was a tail dragger with a proud 30-40 degree angle of attack while it sits on the ground. Probably seats 30-50 people. We clamored up 3 steps into the fuselage and found webbing seats waiting for us. These seats suspend you in an uncomfortable sling type fashion with little room between riders. Everyone sits facing the aisle, which isn’t very wide, so we’d be scuffing each others shoes while we rode. The plane was set up for soldiers heading for battle. This didn’t go over well with the DM (drill master) since we had spit shined and all. Wearing our dress blues too. Couldn’t turn back of course. None of us wanted to lean our backs against the wall because of the dress clothes we were wearing so most sat straight up.

The plane smelled of oil and fuel and the inside was that drab army green color, all the webbing, the walls, the equipment, the metal floor, everything was green. There were those hook rails on the ceiling that ran to the door for parachute pull cords. Up in front was the door to the cockpit and it was left open the whole flight but the plane was so old there wasn’t much interesting in there in any case. The engines were running while we boarded and when we got seated you could feel a harmonic vibration run through the metal of the ship with your feet. The noise in there barely tolerable.

Eventually the pilots received clearance and the plane screamed down the runway, bouncing two or three times before liftoff like she didn’t want to leave the ground that day. I tried to watch the pilots but there was so much vibration I couldn’t focus on them. It was pretty exciting…I’d never been on a plane that rustic before, that smelled of fuel, or on one that had probably fought in the war since there were patched holes in the body. The windows were so small as to be pretty much useless so there wasn’t much to watch. Engine noise was so loud we could not hear each other.

After two hours of being abused by the plane, we arrived at an air base in Carson City, climb onto a bus and get dropped off near the staging area for the parade. After a half hour of brushing off the dust, it’s almost 10am and we’re all ready. The parade was uneventful since we used drills we all knew pretty well, lots of cheering and applause followed us around and the officials weren’t on our backs the whole time about speeding things up. We did one of our best drills before the viewing (judging) stand and ended the parade a few blocks later.

Our nemesis drill team was there too. We’d faced them in parade judging several times and usually beat them but once in a while they would get first place. While we were a precision drill team, they were not. These were all black guys with a kind of jazzy, laid back, high-flying jitter bugging type routine. They were good all right, and were pretty flashy, what with their jumpin’, jivin’, slammin’, bangin’ and tossing of pieces way up in the air…their uniforms were kind of non-military flashy too.

Our style, on the other hand, was slow, deliberate and precise. Every movement exactly replicated by each member of the team. We would spin our pieces but not toss them. In some towns, the judges liked those other guys…because they were sort of ‘hip’, ‘with it’ and ‘modern’. While at other parades, we were liked better for being ‘traditional’, ‘precise’, ‘sexy’. Both teams got lots of applause and cheers so we considered ourselves equals on the parade route, and we’d hang out jive talking with them while we awaited results of the judging, but our guys thought the precision of our drills overshadowed their jazziness. We WERE a military drill team after all. If they beat us, we’d just try even harder the next parade, no hard feelings. Secretly, I really liked their drills! Lots of rifle spins and tosses, and syncopated rhythms of clattering pieces and such. And the cool part was they could toss their pieces 10-20 feet, both up in the air and across to another column. I would have joined them after I mastered the drills I was learning, but there weren’t any whites on their team, so I figured I wouldn’t be allowed or at least be heavily discouraged. (This was in the late sixties so I’m probably wrong about that-but I never asked either).

So, this time we won…got first place trophy and all so we wanted to celebrate somehow. Nearly the whole team was under 21 but we all wanted a drink. We had several hours to kill since the plane wouldn’t take us back to Treasure Island until the next day so we wandered around the casinos causing trouble. At one casino, four of us just walked in and sat at the first blackjack table inside the door. Three of the guys were adults, then there was me. Don’t know why, but the dealer flipped us all cards, (I was planning on just sitting there and not playing so I could watch). So we all flip out some money, get some chips, and begin playing. Now, I’m no expert, but I have a brain and it didn’t take me long to notice that she (the dealer) was cheating. Palming cards, badly, calling her hand BEFORE she had looked at it, sweeping up money from winners as though they had lost…that sort of thing. So I whisper to ‘mother’ about it and he starts watching her closely, and sure enough, he sees it too. So I get bolder and start pointing to her hands when she tries to palm cards or deal from the bottom and laughing. She gets flustered and starts doing badly. We start winning, eventually getting back nearly all of our lost money. Then the pit boss comes over, the place was pretty quiet when we came is since it was early afternoon or he probably would have been there earlier, we complain about her cheating and he kicks us out.

So, feeling cheated, we decide to cause them some trouble. Understand that we’re all kind of happy about winning the competition, we haven’t really lost much money to them, we’re not in a physical fighting mood, so what WE did, (I know, it was silly), was stand outside their door, and sing protest songs. In 6 part harmony with twelve voices. HAH! Take that you casino you!

A couple of us bitched at the floor manager whenever he came out about the cheating dealer, and he ran inside, meanwhile we are just belting out a pretty good rendition of ‘Micheal rowed the boat ashore’. We’re all laughing and carrying on and waving at people wandering by and on the streets. It was pretty much a laugh riot…and lots of fun. Anyway, the big guy came out and told us that the sidewalk right in front of the casino was private property and he was going to call the police. So while mother bitched at him for 10, 15 minutes, we’re still belting out songs. I’m still chuckling about that. Cheating bastards. Just as the cops arrived, we walked across the street. We were already outside so it was easy.

(One of the members of the drill team, the most sensitive one, would be accorded the honor of being assigned as & called ‘mother’. It was a position of honor. He would be the one that if you had a problem of the kind you’d normally talk to your own mother, you would talk to him about. Remember that most of the team was made up of teenage boys. Our team ‘mother’ was around 25 or so).

It’s now dusk and we still all want a drink. We’re walking down the main drag, where all the casinos are, and we stop in at a bar or two on our way. They shoo us out since we’re mostly underage (we are in uniform).

Then…after we’d tried 5 or six bars, we wander into a small hole in the wall Pullman style bar. The place is empty because they had just sent everyone home because they were out of food, and in that town, a bar had to stop serving liquor if they don’t have food. Since it was a parade day, they had just sold out. That’s what the bartender told us, as he flipped the OPEN sign over to CLOSED and returned it to the window, then closed the blinds on the windows and door, then closed and locked the door. All the while telling us what a great job we had done that day, asking where we were from and that sort of small talk.

‘Well’, says mother, ‘you might be out of food, but we just want to drink and if you’ll serve us, we will certainly make your work worthwhile’. Mother then pulls out a wad of bills and plops them on the bar. The DM does the same thing. I’m standing next to them and do the same. He has $75 or so in front of him and says, ‘Sure, what the hell’. Then everyone cheers and they all pull out their money and slam it on the bar. Time was around 6 pm.

Pretty soon the bartender was drunk with us and was serving us free drinks. So was the owner. It was the uniforms, for sure, since they were both ex-navy.

When 11pm rolled around, the DM called the base and asked for the bus, then got cussed out for taking so long to call. EVERYONE except me and mother and another, older guy were the only people that appeared sober (though I was also hammered, I can fake sobriety). Even the DM was hammered. If you’ve ever had to pour 10-12 teenage drunks onto a bus at midnight in downtown, you know what I had to do. But for some reason, I had perfect luck that night and though there were several that hurled, I was missed each time. My perfect dress blues stayed that way.

Back at the base, we stayed in an air force barracks. I can’t remember much about that. Next day we fly back to Oakland and bus back to Treasure Island.

All in all, a pretty good journey.

Posted in Waiting to cross... | 2 Comments

From Rosamond to Texas…

Posted on October 27, 2006 by Jim@HiTek

I left my brothers house the day after I received the power supply (PS) I needed for the used LCD monitor I bought on eBay. As soon as I plugged it into the PS and turned it on, I could see defects in the screen display. Damn. Then I went back to the documentation I had about the product to see if I’d missed something in the description of the monitor or in the pictures the seller provided. There was no mention of the blue blotches that were large and obvious on the screen. And both were on the right side of the screen but the pictures provided by the seller only showed close up pics of the left side. Hmmm. Interesting. I had time to shoot off a complaint email to the seller and got on the road next morning by 9am.

I took the shortest route to Fort Stockton Texas with a stop in Benson Arizona. I pushed it that first day since I was fresh and drove until around 9:30pm or so with a couple stops to stretch my legs. I parked the rig across two, three parking slots used by truckers at a truck stop. I felt safe doing that since when I got there the place had 50 to 100 empty slots and I wanted to park in a way that would minimize the parking lot lights getting into the rig and disturbing my sleep. Next morning at 6am I get up and find I’m blocked in by two semis. I slept right through their arrival. After breakfast and some coffee, I seesaw the rig back and forth a few times before I can make it out. A couple hours later and I pass a large wind farm. It was the first time I stopped to take a picture or two. The first day was over familiar ground so I didn’t bother to take more pictures of the same places I’d passed and taken shots of before.

A giant wind farm just inside Texas:

More wind farm:

That night I stopped in Fort Stockton, Texas and spent the night. Next morning at around 10:30, way out in the boondocks, the weather began to change and I liked the patterns of light in the clouds so I stopped here and there and got a few shots:

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This part of the trip was really out there in the country (I headed south from Fort Stockton on US285), I only passed two or three small towns and a handful of farms. Most of the farms I did see were falling down and had the look of better days long gone. Not to say that there weren’t any newer farms or ranches, there were, but they were just well off the road mostly.

Out in the boondocks:

The remnants of a pacific hurricane showed up:

I liked the look of these strata. Millions of years of deposits right there exposed:

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Anyway, at around 2ish that day, on my 3rd day of travel, I get about 60 miles from my next stop, Hondo Texas, and I call one of the RV parks there in town and ask if they have cable TV. I want to watch the Seahawks play and hope that cable will at least give me the choice to watch it. “Sure we do”, he says. When I get there and hook up to the TV style cable sticking out of the ground, all I find is one channel. Walk over and talk to the guy that has already taken my money and ask about cable, “Nope”, he says, “We don’t have cable”. When I point out I had called and asked about it, he starts backtracking and pretending he didn’t really know whether they had it or not. Jackass. Lying Jackass. And the place cost me $20 for the night. No laundry, no cable, and bathrooms (filthy) without doorknobs and doors you have to jamb with logs to keep closed! Well, I called two other parks and they didn’t have cable either, I was tired, and it made no difference at all anyway so I stayed there.

Here’s the catfish pond:

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My rig there, no other guests, hmm, wonder why:

Nice old tractor:

The office. Don’t stay here unless you can’t find anywhere else. I’m told that there is an Escapee’s park 8 miles east of Hondo, but I didn’t visit it. They say it has all the amenities.

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Next day I moved to another park. Again, $20 per night, no laundry, no cable, no trash bins…etc. Stay out of Hondo, Texas. Not RV friendly. The parks I stayed at were the Hondo Catfish Lake & RV and Countryside Mobile Home & RV. Both ask too much money. If they were $8 per night, maybe. But not worth $20, at least not in my experience.

The day I drove to Hondo, I noticed that the voltage meter on the dash was reading higher then normal. Still in the OK range but high. Around an hour later, the voltage dropped to well below normal. Symptom of a bad alternator. So I shut everything off that might use the battery and limped into Hondo. Next morning I move to the second RV park in town and ask if they know any RV repair people in town. I make some calls and no one seems to want to work on it. So, the day after that, I leave town and head on south to a much bigger town, McAllen, running my genset the whole way so as to keep the batteries topped up since it charges them all. I got down here in the late afternoon, stopped in a parking lot and called around to find an RV park worth visiting.

I’m now at a nice park just to the west of McAllen in Mission, Texas called the Twin Lakes RV. It does have bathrooms, showers, laundry, and free WiFi. I’ve done some work on the alternator and should have it fixed in a couple days. I take my time with these things.

Posted in Back on the road...Oct. \'06 | Leave a comment

Dreams & other Things…

Posted on October 14, 2006 by Jim@HiTek

I did not leave the Sea Bird RV park in Brookings very early in the day because I was hoping that a used LCD monitor I’d purchased via eBay would arrive before I left. I knew from the tracking system that it was suppose to be on the truck from Coos Bay to Brookings but you know how those things go. Anyway, I’d kind of developed a relationship with the owner of the local mail forwarding service and he knew how antsy I was to get the package before I left. I had to leave today because if I didn’t I’d miss my connections with my brother and probably miss the Oregon Ducks vs. the California Bears at Berkley. That relationship helped because I tried to call FedEx but ended up in phone loop hell. I called the mail guy and explained that I needed to find out if the package had made it onto the truck and he gave me the driver’s cell phone number. Wow, great luck. By now, it’s 4pm and I have to leave by 5pm, 6pm at the latest. I call and the guy answers, checks his route sheet and “Yes, it’s here”. So we make a plan to get together at a local parking lot. I meet him about 20 minutes later, grab my package, thank him profusely, he tells me that if I hadn’t called he wouldn’t deliver to the RV park until 9ish. Then it would be returned to the shipper (since I’d be gone by then) and I’d have to pay for re-shipping plus waiting another week or two.

So, I leave town at exactly 5pm. Whew. Great load off my mind. Now I’m in a hurry because I’d like to get to the RV park in San Leandro at a decent hour. I didn’t get any pictures while on Hiway 101 heading south because you need to pay attention to your driving. Too many cliffs and such along the way, and very curvy-swervy and upy-downy. Moreover, there are places where the road narrows and winds through giant redwoods. A lot of places I could only do 20-30 MPH.

I arrive at San Leandro around 1:30AM, tried to park in my reserved RV space as quietly as possible (that’s impossible since I have to back into the slot), shut everything down, relax a few minutes, and went to bed.

Next morning (Saturday), I take BART and then a shuttle to the airport (Oakland), and then jump on the rental car shuttle, which fills with a gaggle of giggly girls, the cheer squad of a nearby high school heading for a big game, and just seconds before we get to the rental place brother calls. He’s standing at the curb when I arrive. Nice.

So we head back to the RV, dump off a bunch of crap brother doesn’t need, and go back and park at the BART station, then ride downtown to Berkley. We walk until we arrive at the bar where the Ducks fans hang out before the game. Had a few beers and almost had a hot dog but when I asked the guy where the other condiments were for their $6 hot dogs he tells me that the mustard and ketchup where all they had. Off I go down to a local college type hot dog place that was so crowded it took nearly a half hour to get my dog. However, they had many condiments…and it only cost $3.50.

When I got back to the bar, there had been a little trouble with someone sneaking in and there was a cop there. He parked his cycle on the street in front of the bar…

Nice bar that must have had 200 people there for the pregame:

Here’s Dan and me (on the right) just about ready to go into the stadium:

The ‘Bear’ facade:

The tennis courts – they were all spongy like, nice to walk on:

And an interesting old building:

The field from our seats:

The poor replay screen:

After the stands had filled a bit:

Those folks up there get to fire off the cannon when the Bears score:

And we’re off!:

The game didn’t start until 5pm and here it is late in what turned out to be a very bad day for the Ducks:

We straggled home, dejected and all. Sniff. The Ducks lost! No, they were beaten, and will drop in the standings. However, if they beat USC the weekend of Oct. 14th, they’ll still get a bowl game. The next day, we drove the rental around from where we were in San Leandro, through Oakland, across the Bay Bridge, around San Francisco, and then back home. The circle route allowed us to visit five breweries. After visiting the first two places on the Oakland side (I’m not much for drinking in the early part of the day so I didn’t taste the brews like Dan did), we took the Treasure Island exit off the Bay Bridge to get a few shots of the bay. There had been a weekend long air show over the bay so all the boats were out there to watch the Blue Angles and such. Pretty neat. These first shots are from near the older Treasure Island apartments where, back when I was a sailor, the married junior officers lived.

The Bay Bridge crossing over to San Francisco:

My brother trying to convince me that “Here’s a good shot” right into the sunset, yeah, right, a good shot:

In that general direction but lower and farther to the right:

More of the bay, that’s the Golden Gate Bridge over there:

And a few minutes later, a view of San Francisco:

Here we are heading down to the navy base down below the hill we were just on…took us a second or two to realize that it’s not a Navy base anymore and we can just drive in there:

There’s the main gate:

Just beyond the gate and that white building, (the old Navy Admin building), there is a christian church. One fine Sunday morning I was walking by the church when a Lt.JG (Lieutenant Junior Grade) stops me. I salute and stand at attention. We know each other vaguely from shared work details around the base. He then proceeds to ramble on how I’m suppose to be in church, how it’s good for my soul and other crap. While he’s talking I think “Whoa, what if I was a Jew, would he, could he, be ordering me to a christian church?”. When he says, “I think I’ll order you to church, sailor”, I say, “No sir, I don’t think you can sir”. He starts sputtering, eventually ending the conversation with “Well, you certainly NEED church”. To which I answer, “No sir, I don’t think so sir”. He turned and stomped off. You can get away with most anything if you say sir. When I told this story to friends later, they say that it’s good I didn’t go into the church because it surely would have burst into flames. I disagree.

Further into the base are now hundreds of condos and apartments where there use to be 10’s of military style barracks that housed thousands of sailors. This base was mainly a school and I went to electronics school here. I also got involved with a drill team here, and earned a nickname. This place is prime real estate now since it’s only around 5 minutes from downtown San Francisco. We saw hundreds of apartments, no reason to take pictures of them. But if you lived there, you’d probably love the place…until the fog sets in. Months of fog. Makes sunlight feel like liquid gold.

The drill area and a nice view of the other part of the Bay Bridge. It’s getting a face-lift and some new lanes added, plus some needed repairs because of the last big earthquake here:

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There’s my old barracks, in the shot directly above. While I was there waiting for my orders, I would muster out in front of the building at 7am with everyone else. Then the CPO (Chief Petty Officer) would ask for volunteers for various jobs all over the base. I’d wait until a large group had agreed to some job and then, when they were marching back up the stairs to get ready, I’d follow them into the barracks, and right out the back door. Then I’d spend the rest of the day just goofing off. They called me ‘Super Skate’ because I was always ‘skating’ out of duty. Never peeled one potato. The day I got caught was the day I got my ship orders so I lucked out and didn’t get a ‘court marshal’.

When I was here, I was waiting for my assignment to a ship. I’d volunteered for Viet Nam and they were having trouble finding me a spot so I spent several weeks here. The year before I’d gone down to San Diego for boot camp, I’d been here for Electronics school (I flunked out – it was too fast for me, I needed a slower pace). While here, I became a member of the “US Naval Military Precision Drill Team of Treasure Island California” (that’s really it’s name), which is the main reason I flunked out, too much time with them practicing drills instead of studying. We practiced after school and on weekends went and marched in parades. One parade we were invited to was in San Francisco. We only had two speeds, slow & slower, and when we did a drill, that also took time. The parade officials were yelling at our drillmaster but each time we stopped in front of a crowd and did a drill, people would go nuts! Screaming, standing ovations, riotous applause, the whole bit. The officials would lay off us for a few more blocks. Eventually we got to the reviewing stand and while we did our drill, the news people were looking for quotes from members of government and all. The stand had the SF mayor, US & state dignitaries, big wigs & family members. Since we had been causing such a ruckus with the crowd & the officials, the press swarmed around the stands asking for quotes about us just after we had done a special drill in front of them all. The mayor’s 22-year-old daughter happened to be asked what she thought of our drill team. She called us a “moving sex machine” that quote was in the nightly news and appeared in nearly all the next days’ papers so the drill team staff had many phone interviews. Then just after we had been reviewed, the parade officials kicked us off the parade route for marching to slowly. But we made the news. Hah! It would be cool if someone that works at a SF paper could look that up for me and email me a link…yes, very cool.

Weeks later, we were invited to be the ‘entertainment’, along with a band, at a party for Admiral Nimitz. This was after we had been on several trips to local area parades, each time either winning or almost winning the drill team contests. During that time, we also developed several unique and thrilling drills that just wowed the crowds. I’m pretty sure that we only received one 3rd place trophy. All the others were 1st or 2nd, the majority 1st place. We tossed the 3rd place trophy.

The party was his birthday party, I believe, so we would have performed for him near Feb. 24th, 1965. We performed at the Hilton in downtown SF on an upper floor, in a large room filled with friends of Adm. Nimitz. Since he was such a respected navy guy, as you would expect, the place was filled with naval officers and their wives and families. I think around 500 people all sitting around tables surrounding a large dance floor in the middle of the room, bandstand at one end.

We staged out in the hallway while they finished dinner and before the band was to play. Several famous senior officers came out to give us encouragement and calm our nerves (we had never performed in such a small space before, before such a distinguished crowd, and most of us were teenagers). At the end of the dance floor was a raised bandstand. We entered, in our dress blues, perfectly pressed, with spit shined and polished shoes and rifles since the team prided itself on such things. With our pieces (rifles – plugged so they couldn’t be fired), clothes and shoes being perfect, we entered through double doors marching four columns of four abreast.

We had practiced modified drills, since we usually marched outdoors, that we could do in such a tight space. Just after starting in that small space, we did a drill where we rapidly drop our pieces from our shoulders down to waist level, WHAM, into our palms, like slicing the air with a sword. Then we get it to where we can slam the butt on the floor twice, drag it up and spin it like a propeller before dropping it on our shoulder. Our second drill, with many of the same moves, was very close to the bandstand, I was directly facing the drummer and was around 12” away. He started sweating as we did our drill, knowing that he was probably in the wrong place. We never talked during a drill, using numbers to communicate. I expected a shouted ‘ONE’ from the drillmaster which was the ‘everyone freeze’ command since I didn’t seem to have enough room for the sudden and sword like arc my piece would make during the maneuver…I thought I could whack the guy on the head, if I wasn’t sharp. But the drillmaster (DM) trusted me and during the drill, stone-faced, I watched as beads of sweat formed on the drummer’s forehead. When I got to the part where I slam the piece down into my palm, I pulled the butt of it way back and just caught the end of the barrel in my palm, just missing him by an inch or two. The drummer was visibly relieved. (Remember that he was navy too, he was standing at attention, and he wasn’t supposed to cut & run). Anyway, we did several drills to thunderous applause, and exited after about 15 minutes of drilling to take a break (very hot in there with all those people, very loud too with the applause and us in our tapped shoes and what with banging the butts of our pieces on the hardwood floor several times). When we returned to the hall, it was to do two very special and spectacular drills for Nimitz.

We had practiced our hearts out…since we knew how special a guy he was and our respect level for him was so high. We marched onto the dance floor, four rows by four columns, and did a rather nifty drill where the columns do a syncopated drill with pieces twirling and being slammed on the floor and such. After that, we took a couple steps and needed to do a turn around. I wasn’t the best at this, and when we took two steps we were suppose to stop, I took another step. That put me right at the edge of a table with two officers and their wives. My next drill move was supposed to be to slam my piece into my palm, do some fancy drill moves, then spin the piece. I knew that I didn’t have room to do the spin without hitting the table, so I shouted ‘ONE’ in mid step. Every one on the team, except the drillmaster, froze in position. My piece is held by both hands, across the middle of my body at a 45 degree angle, and my next move is suppose to be a twirl of the piece, and I’m in mid-stride. The drillmaster matches over to where I’m standing. Makes a big show of looking me and my hazardous position over. Whispers in my ear, “May I touch your piece”. I say, “Yes”. He removes my piece from my hands. Then he barks an order to me alone to resume the drill where I left off…sans piece. I resume. Since we are a precision drill team this means I behave as though my piece is still there, eventually, my forearm is parallel with the floor, my hand appearing to cradle the missing piece and I stop. He orders me to ignore the following portion of the drill (we had single digit orders for this sort of thing). Now that I’m at attention, he turns to the rest of the team and orders just them to resume. Meanwhile I’m standing still as ordered, facing straight ahead, into the crowd. At just what he deems the right moment, he shouts ‘ONE’ and the team instantly stops in mid drill. Then he turns his attention to me. I’m facing away from the team and at attention with my arm positioned as though I was holding my piece. He looks at me, looks over at the squad, and looks back at me. Marches over to a naval officer, asks him to hold my piece, and then returns to me. Wraps his arms around my waist, picks me up, walks me over to the squad and plops me in place. Then orders me alone to commence a drill, when I get to the right part, he barks ‘ONE’ and then returns my piece to my hands to a roar of laughter, applause and murmurs of approval. Then he orders the entire team to proceed. We are now all in sync to a roar of approval from the crowd. Now we have turned completely around and we’re all 16 of us marching slowly to towards the bandstand. We had just three steps to take before we started our most spectacular drill.

When the DM barks the command, the outer two columns immediately stop and began a drill while the inner two columns march one more step. They then stop and began a drill sequence. If you can see this in your mind, picture 16 young men, in dress navy blues, with white spats and impossibly shiny shoes and guns (pieces) while we all do a drill in cadence but seemingly at odds, inner columns with the outer. The nature of the drill routine is to always be in cadence and during this drill two columns would always be slamming the butts of their pieces on the wood floor while the other two were doing some other maneuver. Then it would revert to the other columns. Very satisfying noises.

Suddenly, after we have done this entire routine at odds while in cadence, we turn to face the other columns. So now we have the two outer columns facing the inner two columns. We are all now in sequence and doing the same moves during the drill with the inner columns one-step beyond where the outer columns are positioned. The last sequence is; remove piece from shoulder and drop it over the chest to the left hand, swing piece so it is straight up and down in front of the body, move the right hand to the upper portion of the piece and grab, drop the left hand smartly to the side while simultaneously with the right drop the piece to the floor and tap the floor smartly twice in cadence. Pull the piece back up over the chest and grab with left, drop the right hand to your side then back up under the piece. Remove the left hand and…(this is the big finish and happens all in cadence, all 16 of us at the same instant, it’s called a Queen Anne Salute)…spin the piece 360 degrees into our left hands while dropping to a one knee stance. The four columns mesh into two columns as the shiny and chromed pieces spin towards each other, like airplane propellers. Sort of like shuffling two packs of cards in a blender, only cooler. And with spinning, flashing guns. Then, when we all get our knees on the floor, we precisely and smartly move all 16 pieces so the butts are pressed to the center of our chests and the barrels are all pointing at a 45 degree angle up to the ceiling, our left hands resting on our left legs (our right knees on the floor).

Whew, we did it. You can’t imagine all the things that can go wrong with a drill like this. It was a new drill for us, it had only been invented a few weeks before, we’d only performed it in public 3 times, we had foreshortened the movement to account for the small space so that was new too, and most of us were teenagers not accustomed to that kind of performance pressure. But we did it and did it perfectly in every possible way. While we were all marveling at that, we were getting a standing ovation. Most of us said later that we didn’t even hear it for a while, we were so astonished at the beauty of the drill in that setting and at doing it perfectly…in practice, we had screwed it up many times.

The standing ovation went on for several minutes. When it quieted down, we continued with the end of that spectacular drill and smartly marched out of the room to the sound of continuous applause that went on long after the doors closed.

While we were out there in the hall amazed at our success, with the DM slamming me on the back for my screw up that everyone in the audience loved, Adm. Nimitz (and some of his staff) came out and congratulated us his own bad personal self. What an honor. We were all so stunned, I can’t remember if he shook my hand or not…seems he did. Later we were invited into the hall where we mingled and met with many senior officers who were amazed that they really didn’t know much about their own Navy drill team.

And then, sadly, I was sent to San Diego to meet my ship. I wouldn’t meet any of the people from the drill team for months. But it’s something I’ll never forget. I’m pretty sure I can still do most of the drills. I know I can still do a Queen Anne Salute.

Click here to read some history of Adm. Nimitz.

“Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz died at his home on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay on February 20, 1966. He would have been 81 years old on the day of his funeral at Golden Gate National Cemetery at San Bruno. He was the last surviving five-star admiral.”

While I was waiting for orders, after I’d flunked out of school, I was still in the drill team and once when I’d skated out of duty, I found that there was a blood drive going on at the mess hall. So, I went to the building shown in the picture below, walked in the back door you see in the picture and tell them I’m from the blood drive picking up donuts for the donators. The petty officer asks me a few suspicious questions, which I answer with aplomb, then allows me to fill a large paper sack with fresh donuts. I wander over to the drill team quarters, plop them on the table, eat a bunch, and then take a morning nap on the couch. Super Skate strikes again.

Posted in Down the Oregon Coast | 2 Comments

More from Brookings – ‘06

Posted on October 5, 2006 by Jim@HiTek

I’ve been working on various RV projects and haven’t gone on many trips around Brookings except a time or two. These are some of the pictures of those trips.

Standing on the cliff overlooking the beach on a cloudy day (looking South), the following pictures are all of Harris State Park, this is the south portion of the beach, then you can stumble your way through a tide pool section, until you get to the north portion:

The shear number of driftwood logs in this part of the country is amazing (looking North):

Looking South, note that this beach can be crowded, I just happened to come down on a day when everyone was off doing other stuff, I like how wide the beach is here:

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It wasn’t uncomfortable on this day. It was around 65F with no breese to speak of and a mild smell of salt in the air, long sleeve shirt weather. We haven’t had a good storm around here in a while so everything seemed to be sort of ‘waiting’ for another storm to come.

This portion of the trip was a tricky part since there isn’t a trail and you have to worry your way over and around slimy boulders and tide pools and such, did meet two or three other photographers that were getting close up shots of the tide pools, I don’t have the kind of equipment that would do a good job of that:

Then you run into this about midway through the difficult hike part, just think what it would be like during a storm:

These guys were hunkered down for no apparent reason, probably had their fill of shrimp and were just hanging out, waiting for a party:

A few days later and I took a bike tour near the RV park where I’m staying. The park is just south of the Chetco river, shown here:

Here’s the bridge that heads North to Brookings. It’s one mile away (I’m staying in Harbor):

There’s the ocean over there:

There’s all the boats and such in Harbor. There are several new buildings going up down there but the state says that the Harbor itself is in deep financial do-do:

I thought that this was a pretty good shot of the bridge. Taken from the northwest end of the bridge:

Posted in Brookings \'o6 | 1 Comment

Hanging Around Brookings, Oregon

Posted on September 24, 2006 by Jim@HiTek

I stayed at Harris Beach State RV Park for a few days and took the trail down to the beach on several occasions. The beach and small park is about 300 feet down hill and the road is pretty steep. After you get down around 250 feet I had to drag my bike down the last remaining section of trail onto the very wide beach. The sand isn’t compacted like I would prefer for bike riding but it was good for a workout around 90% of the time I was riding, the rest of the time I’d have to drag the bike through the loose sand.

One of the off shore hills:

And more random images of the beach:

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Here’s the bitch that decided I was a threat and chased me (on my bike) down the beach finally biting my leg. My calf is pretty strong and I didn’t really feel much for a 1/2 hour or so…thinking that my pants prevented any real bite. But when I stopped and checked I found that the bitch drew blood. Not much mind you but enough that I returned to cuss out the owners. They were gone. Two weeks later and the swelling is just about gone.

One of the many interesting jumbles of huge rocks dotting the beach:

More random ocean & beach shots for you land bound readers:

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This little section is looking north from the ocean side park. I remember this area well because 16 years ago, my very ill mother, who we had talked into coming down here to Brookings from her home in Walla Walla for a previous Xmas, (eventually that visit caused them to move here) was down there climbing on a log, scampering around like she was a kid. That was just after she and dad had moved down here. The weather here, along with the scenery, was a major factor in the quality of life for her and dad’s final few years. I can see her there on the beach, climbing, trying to balance herself, ignoring my shouts, running along that log, big smile.

Here’s some friends I made while resting at the beach side park:

Posted in Brookings \'o6 | 2 Comments

Family in Brookings…

Posted on September 12, 2006 by Jim@HiTek

After my brother and I hung out here in Brookings for a couple days, we drove up the Chetco River to a state park – Leob, in order to meet my sister and bil for some family time. I was able to score a RV pad right on the river with a view of the southern sky. So I could get online. I didn’t post because, well, I never got around to it. We were all hanging out and talking, hiking and the like. Not enough time to blog.

Here’s a view of the river from my camping spot:

And upstream:

My sister over there:

Our hike took us upriver for a while, the dog enjoyed it greatly:

My brother in law standing on a tree that once blew over but kept on growing:

Just a few random shots of the most northerly redwood forest in the US, the trail we took is just a couple miles long. When we reached a fork in the trail, my sister guessed that Dan would be coming the other direction so we could meet him. Turned out her guess was correct:

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