Switch to Worms: Part I

Since I was about nine, I’ve been going with all of the males on my Dad’s side of the family on the annual Opening Day Fishing Trip.  Last year saw the end of an era with the closure of our traditional destination.  This year, the older generation sought to kill it completely.

The ritual itself is actually more like 65 years old.  I’m not sure if it’s always been the way that I’ve known it – I would have to assume not.  The men of the Costanzo, Galante, and Bellomo all get together, at least just this once, every year.  The last Saturday in April holds Opening Day for Trout Season.  Our journey begins on that Friday.

Aunt Peno prepares an enormous breakfast to keep us satiated during our five hour car ride to the Eastern Sierras.  For whatever reason, and much to our detriment, we Bellomos usually fail to attend in time.  From there the trip continues up the 5, to the 14, and finally the 395, our vehicles slipping in-and-out of caravan mode at various points throughout.  There’s typically at least one stop before reaching Bishop, whether it be for a bite to eat in Mojave or a bathroom break at a rest stop between Independence and Big Pine.  There are a few essential stops upon reaching Bishop though…

The first is Culver’s Sporting Goods, where we re-stock supplies and buy our fishing licenses, typically a Two-Day’er – only a few of us are actually avid fishermen.  Next stop is Schat’s Bakkery – not unknown to many Mammoth bound travelers.  Stocked with pull-away and “Chili-Cheeze” breads, we make our final stop at Mahogany Smoked Meats to buy our supply of jerky.  I highly recommend “Western”-style Buffalo.  Then it’s straight on through to Alpers’ Owens River Ranch…

Or at least it was until last year.  In December 2007, Tim Alpers sold his ranch to John Gottwald, who had also purchased the neighboring Arcularius Ranch.  It was no longer open to the public – reserved for “private use.”  This immediately sent our plans into disarray.  The trip was off for 2008. 

Around March, I discovered that the troops had been rallied and our tradition would carry-on.  We’d make our base at a condo in Mammoth (which is kind of ironic), and drive in to fish the Owens.  By this point, though, I’d made other plans, and for the first time in 15 years, I missed the fishing trip.  Somebody missing a year wasn’t unheard of – many of us had missed a year here or there.  But this was the first time I wasn’t going, and it was kind of a big deal for me.

While I hear it was fun, 2008 was evidently not the same.  The condo lacked the charisma of the cabin that had kept us returning year after year.  Our fathers had ended their love affair with the process a few years earlier, and it appears that without the traditional grounds, they finally had enough to rationalize its cancellation. 

2009 was officially canceled.  They told us that the economy was too poor; that we’d just reschedule for June – as if skies would be brighter then.  This trip is what grants the sanity and relief that allow you to deal with the woes of the real world for the rest of the year!

We rebelled.

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Carpeteria – Day Four

(See also Day One and Days Two & Three)

We rose on Sunday morning eager to hit the beach before packing it in and heading home.  Ang and Lucila went for a “10 minute walk” (we saw them an hour later). I started in on my breakfast, and Grandma asked me for an aspirin – she wasn’t feeling well.

Relaxing in the morning sun and enjoying my old fashioned donut, I was quickly snapped to attention by Meg – Sophie needed a diaper change…  I proceeded to do the needful.

Suddenly, I heard my Mom call over to me for help.  I looked over and saw her panicked; Grandma was slumped over on the picnic table, seemingly unconscious.  Meg took Sophie as I ran over to determine what was going on.  Was she choking?  Had she passed out?  As I picked her up, I noticed her body was rigid, and her hands clutched the checkered table cloth.  Her jaw looked clenched and her eyes glassy – was she having a stroke? A heart attack?  No sooner had we laid her on the ground, did she sit back up and assure us everything was fine.  What ever had happened, she had snapped out of it.

While all of this was going on, a ranger happened to drive by.  She asked Meg if we needed help, and proceeded to radio for paramedics. 

Grandma was not happy about this.  She didn’t want someone to check her vitals or, God forbid, make her go to a hospital.  My mom and I assured her that they were just going to check her quickly and let her go.  We’d still have a nice day at the beach.

We were wrong.

What we’d assumed was just a low blood-sugar episode turned out to be much more severe.  The paramedics assessed her symptoms (while confirming that her blood-sugar levels were normal) and diagnosed cardiac arrhythmia.  A hospital trip was in order, but she wasn’t going down without a fight.  The paramedics relayed her status to Uncle Pat (a firefighter) who was ultimately able to convince her.

Off they went in the ambulance.  I was sure she’d never for give us.

Mom followed the ambulance and Meg and I began to strike camp.  Although mom implored us to enjoy the day as if everything were normal, It didn’t seem right to relax at the beach with Grandma in the hospital.  Still, mom told us to proceed as normal until we heard from her.  Yeah, ok…

After packing up, we were pretty hungry though.  Ang and Lucila had finally returned and we filled them in on what had happened.  We decided to grab lunch at “The Spot” and wait for news from mom.  Truth be told, we decided to grab lunch to go, and bring it over to “Island Brewery” across the street.  If we were going to be waiting around, at least we could be sampling beer. (The inconsistency of drinking alcohol rather than lying on the beach while your grandma is in the hospital is not lost on me.)

The brewery was a neat joint, and friendly with kids and dogs to boot.  The patrons vary from sandaled beach-goers to Harley-Davidson mounted bikers.  Sophia was frightened by the latter – the bikes were simply too loud for her.  Truthfully, the motorcycles were nothing compared to the horn-blaring Amtrak train that passes by with uncomfortable closeness.  In her panic to be rescued from the “scary choo-choo monster,” a glass of beer was knocked off the table and shattered on the ground.  In other news, Meg sampled a beer against her better judgment.

As it happened, Grandma ended up be discharged a few hours later.  She had some infections that had gone untreated for a few weeks.  They led to dehydration, which subsequently caused the arrhythmia.  They gave her some antibiotics and told her to follow up with her regular doctor.

Mom and Grandma returned to the beach and got in a few more hours of sun.  The rest of us decided we need to get home and unpack before the work week began again.

It was an exciting day in all of the wrong ways.  We made the best of it and it worked out.

NOTE: Grandma’s doing much better.

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Carpeteria – Days Two & Three

(Continued from Day 1)

Day 2

The next morning was Meg’s birthday – following their family tradition, I played The Beatles “Birthday” for her upon waking up.  Patty made “birthday pancakes.”  Megan opened her presents.  Joe loves his mom like a bee likes “neckter.”

After breakfast, we made our first trek to the beach.  Upon arrival, we turned the little ones loose.  Joe and Sophia promptly got to playing on a mound of tar.  Unbeknownst to me, the mound was actively seeping and Sophie got stuck.  I had to pull her off of the tar, leaving her little sandals behind (if only for a short time).

I took Lilo for a walk (really, a run) down the beach.  She fetched the tennis ball a few times before running far, far from me.  Yeah, yeah, I caught up and leashed her.  I can’t blame her – It’s not too often that she gets to run that free.  Even after catching her, I wanted to help her (and me) get some exercise.  We took off at a full sprint, which something I don’t do all that often.  That section of the beach had an occasional “pot hole” – two inch deep pools of water that you can’t really see until you’re right on top of them. 

Yes, I hit one.  What followed was one of those moments that occurs right before someone falls…  You know, those long, lunging steps as the knees buckle under gravity.  In retrospect, it would have probably been better to have just gone down – I wouldn’t still be aching under strained muscles.  The mildly-sprained ankle was unavoidable at that point though.

Back at the towels, the kids sat down for a snack and I rested my hobbled body.

I relaxed under the umbrella after burying Joe in the sand.  Some accented beach-goers and their little girl stopped by and struck up a conversation.  Their occasional flips to foreign language piqued Patty’s curiosity and she couldn’t help but ask if they “were from around here.” “No. We’re from San Jose,” the woman replied to Patty’s disappointment.  This was obviously not the answer she was looking for…  It sounded to me like Dutch, but I was getting a South African vibe, so maybe it was Afrikaans.Their little girl, who was the same age as Sophia (20 months), was instantly intrigued by Joe’s head popping out of the sand.  She went over and started playing with him after some coaxing from her mom.

After our visitors departed, Sophie was eager to reclaim her brother.

The day went as beach days go, and when dinner time rolled around, we went to The Palms.

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Part of me feels like it’s the icon of a by-gone era.  The atmosphere was similar to The Sizzler during it’s decline.  The receptionist was rude, and the wait staff aloof, but when push came to shove, they gave us four raw steaks for a reasonable price – that’s their thing: you grill your own.  Also on the “plus” side were the croutons, which were pleasantly crisped with copious amounts of butter.

Day 3

The next day came and it would be Mike and Patty’s last with us.  Whereas I lost in-laws, Meg gained hers as my Mom and Grandma Doris made the drive up to spend a day/night/day with us.  I made bacon during breakfast.  As a treat, I tossed Lilo’s food in some of the drippings.  Don’t do that.

We again loaded up our beach supplies and headed toward the beach.  Joe went right back to being buried again.

The seals were birthing at the rookery, causing a section of the beach to be closed off.  We walked over in the designated area and took a look.  I don’t have any pictures for you because you really couldn’t make anything out – the seals camouflaged so well on the rocks.  Funny thing, evolution.

My Mom and Grandma arrived around noon and laid with us in the sun for a few hours.  Grandma talked about how much she loved bringing my mom (and uncles) here when they were younger.  She napped on a towel dressed in long pants, a long shirt, and a wide brimmed hat – the sun touched no part of her skin save the soles of her upturned feet.  You’d have to know her to understand that it wasn’t that weird.

Meg and I went back to camp to get started on planning dinner – penne and sausage in some kind of configuration.  We still needed to figure out the sauce and ultimately settled for jarred.  Hey – it’s camping… you’ve got to make some sacrifices!  The trip to the store faciliated another run by Robitaille’s – and this time milk chocolate honeycomb was on the menu, and Megan got her annual fill.  The Pyromid again served as the heating device for the meat.  Great little thing that is… 

Ang and Lucila showed up after a long anticipated arrival.

We all argued politics (really, economics) around the campfire until we bored Megan to sleep.  We settled off to bed eager to get another beach morning in before having to trek home.

See you in Day Four.

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Carpeteria – Day One

Throughout my childhood, I was confused about the name of the beach that my family often visited.  To this day, I often misspell it “Carpenteria.”  I’m convinced that a local flooring retailer is the root of the error.

We spent the past few days camping in Carpinteria for Meg’s birthday.  We loaded up the CR-V on Wednesday night, and the next morning – filled to the brim with supplies for four days and crammed with two adults, two kids, and a dog - we set out for a long weekend in Santa Barbara county.

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Carpinteria is a great destination for many Ventura county families, so it wasn’t surprising that Meg and I both had fond memories of this place.  Still, it was Meg’s affinity for the beach that got us there.  My in-laws, Mike and Patty, met us up there through a strange automobile arrangement that unnecessarily extended their carbon-footprint.  I guess that  was fitting given our destination. (WORD-PLAY!)

There was some concern about bringing Lilo along.  While the campground did allow dogs, there were obvious logistical problems.  Primarily, you can’t go anywhere without bringing your dog along. That taken with the fact that all of the information I found online indicated that dogs were not allowed on the beach (pdf warning) created a tricky situation.  In the end, we didn’t have any other option.

After dropping off a package at the UPS Store, we took the “back way” to Carpinteria – the Old 118 to the 126.  The drive went smoothly and we pulled up to the campground around noon on Thursday.  To my immediate relief, the campground host informed us that there was a “dog beach” at the far-South end of the campgrounds – phew!  It wasn’t smooth sailing, but at least it was possible that we might have some success.

We had initially planned to crash the beach prior to setting up camp, but the dog situation had complicated things slightly.  Camp setup went smoothly.  To my satisfaction, we were able to assemble our new tent without issue. 

After setting up, we took a walk to check out the dog section of the beach.  We parked at the very end of the campground and walked a short distance to the cliff that overlooked the beach.  Joe wandered a little too close to the edge for comfort and scared the shit out of us.  I wouldn’t use such harsh language if the possible consequence hadn’t been so severe.  We proceeded to explain to Joe that being young didn’t make him immortal – a concept he hadn’t put together up until that point.  It was a nice enough beach, and close to the tide pools to boot.  Things were looking up for Lilo (and me).  We strolled the trails in that area of the grounds – a little hike/walk through the surrounding “wilderness.”  Not wanting to waste too much of the day, we turned around and headed toward camp.

Since we’d dropped our beach ambitions for the day, we all set out to walk the “Downtown T” of Carpinteria – we’d heard there was a farmer’s market every Thursday.  The farmer’s market and craft faire didn’t have much to offer us – we thought about a flat of fresh strawberries, but quickly realized that we had nowhere to put them since our ice chests were already packed full.  Before departing, we stopped by Robitaille’s – but they were all out of Meg’s favorite.  Joe was able to score a balsa wood and rubber band airplane from the small toy section – thanks Papa!

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While Joe and Mike tried out the airplane that they bought with great success, the rest of us started on dinner – Pineapple Teriyaki Burgers.  We barbequed on the Pyromid, which is a really cool product if you ask me.  The burgers were great – the only low-point was discovering that the cooked burgers had been placed back onto the same cutting board as they laid on in their raw state.  Still, no one got sick.

We settled into our new sleeping bags for a good night’s sleep.  We didn’t get what we were looking for – how could it have been good with a terrified baby girl, a blaring train horn, and a new sleeping bag with “vent” holes that you weren’t aware of causing you to freeze your butt off?

See you in Day Two (and Three)

P.S. Raccoons obviously like dog food…

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This Is Just To Say

I wasn't honest
with you
throughout
our childhood

and you believed
every word
I said
with confidence

Forgive me
it was exhilarating
to make believe
with impunity

With apologies to William Carlos Williams, inspired by NPR’s This American Life, and for Darren Edwards (among others).

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My Costco Saga – Canon HG20 Camcorder

This deserves a post, but I don’t have time yet.

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