WAKE UP, IT ISN'T A DREAM.
But it seems like it is. Two or three years ago we began to think about what we would do with ourselves during our rapidly approaching retirement. Many people dedicate themselves so fully to their work, and have such heightened passions for what they do, it is very common for some just to keep working past their available "healthy golden years" and into the rocker on the porch with satisfaction. Truth is, we were never caught up in that kind of a paradigm. A displaced commercial fisherman from decades ago when low fish populations and escalating regulations demanded a change in our approach to "reasonable harvests", my transition to a government career was never more than a job and never less than a way to contribute to society, and earn a living. Despite the fact that Diane had always worked in a clerical position since graduating from high school at one place or another, the field chose her, not the other way around. So the bottom line for us, notwithstanding the fact that we both valued the careers we had as public servants, and the wonderful folks we worked with every day in our different capacities, "cutting the umbilical cord" wasn't a difficult decision to make. Years ago, we had planned it that way. Our problem was, there are just so many different things we like to do outside of work, the question would become "where to begin".
NATURE, IT ISN'T A VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE
We've both always been about "being real". Because it's natural, and so are we. And when I say that, I don't mean it in a sense of "no sweeteners added", or "without comfort". We believe God, or Natural Selection, or Karma, or (insert your own idea into the blank provided) whatever, gave us brains, and thumbs, for a reason, to use them, and make things better! We love the outdoors, and everything about it, like a crisp morning below freezing in a down parka, or a hot triple digit afternoon next to a cool pool in the shade of a tree. We like to be thirsty because it is so fulfilling to drink, and we like to be hungry as it motivates us to feast. Naturally, and without remorse. And so while identifying this trait which we share did not give us a specific direction, it did provide some guidance, clear enough, allowing us to pursue activities naturally in the outdoors, as comfortably as we desired. With that, we began making plans to live out our remaining years with purpose, and deliberately set out to establish goals focused on satisfying our inner and outer selves. We began to realize that life could show us the way if only we listen to our own yearnings, and we seek to become a bit less responsive to the yearnings of others. So be it, as we truly believe we earned it the old fashioned way, and we are unapologetic for feeling so inclined.
HIGH SODIUM PLASMA
It's always been about boats for me. Big boats, small boats, fast boats , tall boats. I think it can be said with some truth that I talked my father into buying his first boat. More truthfully, I likely begged him. Like so many of us that suffer from this ailment of boats, I haven't a clue where it came from. Maybe they'll find a genetic cause some day, I don't know, but I'm as sure as there is a tomorrow, it is an addiction. I remember well the very first time I jumped in a rowing skiff. I was at a private lake where my family frequently picnicked as a child of seven or eight years. I had been admiring the skiff at a distance for a picnic or two previously, and vowed to myself that the next time I laid eyes on it unattended at one of these boring affairs, I would put it to good use. As fate would have it, the very next outing, there it was , nestled on a beach next to my uncles cabin, begging to be launched. I waited patiently for the perfect opportunity to sneak out from under the watchful eye of my mother, and sneaked down to the boat. She was a typical build for the era( mid1960's) of plywood over sawn wood frames with a planked bench seat across mid-ship beam, and a pair of oarlocks mounted slightly abaft of the seat. Flat bottomed and heavy as a freight car, shoving her in alone was going to take some effort. As luck would have it, there were the oars, inviting me to hold hands and dance. Then reality struck home with a cruel vengeance. Strain as I did, as hard as any could imagine, I could not budge her from the beach.
A scrawny but stubborn kid, I had never in my oh so few years, failed to execute. This I vowed to myself, would not be the first time either. I struggled and struggled, and then, as it happens, I had an idea. I had seen my father use this technique before with success, so I began combing the small beach for a downed limb. Soon enough I was dragging a derelict limb that had been lying on the beach for some time up to the skiff. I rolled a somewhat large rock off the bank, and began to use the limb and rock in an attempt to crow hop the skiff into the lake at last, and it was working. ...and that is when my father showed up at my side, with that look, and that voice which I knew so well by then to ask "what in the hell". But, but............"Well", he said, "If your going to steal Glen's boat, put on this life jacket first". Half scared, with a heart of glee, I did, and he talked me through a rowing lesson from the beach. I was alone, and making way over water, in a boat. I was in heaven, and at the same time became cursed and possessed by the maritime disease, and have suffered the consequences ever since. There is salt in my veins!
Don't get me wrong. I have backpacked, bushwhacked, hunted big game, skied and all other things related to the back county as well, but a ship is my drug of choice, and will always be. I voted to sail into retirement, that was my dream.
MOUNTAIN GIRL - SNOW ANGEL
It's hard to say when she "went that way" as she says she can't remember. Only that her family always took the usual summer camping trip vacation. River rafting the white water of the Kern river was natural to her. After all, her father was a part time river rafting guide there for a time, and his raft was aptly named "Olaf". A tall, thin, blond and blue eyed beauty of Swedish decent, she looked my way once, and I was putty in her hands, and proud of it. Aside from the raging river, she was climbing rocks, cross country skiing, and backpacking her way into my heart and my life. Talking her into hunting, and later fishing with me was as easy as the asking. We thrived in the outdoors, heck, she thrived in the natural world. And along with that outdoor enthusiasm, she brought a wisdom that had never occurred to me, and it took her some time to "indoctrinate me" to her ideology. Cleanliness and comfort, IS natural! It's been said a time or two that I can be a fast study, but I'll admit here and now that I was dumb as a fence board daffy as the duck, and it took her years to make me understand that a soft bed and a hot shower ARE ESSENTIAL. But now I get it, and enjoy it as well. Good job honey!
One day years ago, after a long week or so of bushwhacking in the back county of the High Sierra near the headwaters of the North Fork of the San Joaquin River, we stopped at her insistence at a little hot spring mineral bath house still high up the mountain. Point made, and I would never again pass by that bath house with crusted elbows and sticky pits, without languishing for a time in a hot mineral shower for a dollar. .............and from there it was all downhill until we found the little log cabin near the edge of the lake full of mountain trout, and made it ours.
A trip to the mountains used to be packing sleeping bags tied to packs on our back filled with dehydrated carbohydrates and pumping water from a creek full of giardia deposited from animal crossings. Now, due in no small way to the wisdom of Diane's teaching, we have evolved into indoor evening campfires, and cross country ski trips out the back door of our log cabin into some of California's most beautiful and pristine landscapes, where the north end of the mighty Sierra adjoin the southern most volcanic mountains in the Cascade Range, our little piece of heaven on earth. Yes Lord, she's still a mountain girl.
COLLABORATION - THERE'S PLENTY FOR ALL
Worlds apart perhaps, but worlds have been known to collide before, and so it has always been with us.
In our vows, we agreed always to add for the other, and never to ask one give up for the other. After all there is plenty for all! And so it was , once settled in with the cabin, and all the big projects completed to make the place a suitable house to live out our days, we began the hunt for a boat. Not that we didn't have a boat. We've always had one boat or another. But as we began to assess our capabilities, and needs, and wants now too, the image of THE boat began to form in our minds, and on the pages of a notebook we assembled to organize our search. We wanted a vessel large enough to live aboard for long periods, but not so large we couldn't afford to keep it. We looked into trawlers at first as the basic design and operation of them were second nature to me as a "once upon a time" fish'n boat Cap'n. But the price of fuel these days and the uncertain future of the carbon based lifestyle philosophy quickly emerging, I began to rekindle my lifelong desire to one day hoist canvas, we revisited the possibility of sail. Although I had dreamed of it since a child, life's roads lead me astray, and I had long since shelved the idea as too late in life's plan.
Once again, along came Diane to the rescue. Why is it too late, she asked? A short year later we were enrolled in an eight day live aboard sailing course, and bound for ASA certification. And although I expected to "breeze" through, and did, Diane was the champ. She went from a day one "Tentative Tessa" to a day 3 "Docking Queen", stuffing the little 32 foot Catalina sloop perfectly into a back isle squeeze slip barely wide enough for a canoe while levering a cross current. It was amazing! No one even thought "fend off" for one second. As well, her day at the helm was a full blown gale off the coast of Santa Cruz. She stood fast, put the boat to weather, commanded the crew (me and the instructor) with a confidence, and close hauled us port tack, then starboard tack, then port tack again at just the right angle into the weather, that the little Catalina heeled up at 20 degrees back and forth across the foaming wind streaked chop with ease, and we slid into the harbor as if we had been at it for a lifetime.
With that trial passed, we began a fever pitched search up and down the coast for the perfect boat. I was on a mission, and hell bent to make a mistake, no doubt, when a long time friend pulled up my reins and said "whoa there". His words still ring in my mind "Remember, It's All About the Process". And so it was, and so it came to pass. It took a long time, and we travel afar in our pursuit of that boat, from San Diego, all the way to Anacortes. But one day, in a little harbor, in a small private marina behind a group of waterfront homes on Whidbey Island, we met Wanda.
PACIFIC WONDER - AKA - "WANDA"
As we pulled up our rented car to the address the owner had given us over the phone, and peered down the walkway between the houses, there she was. She looked just as good in person as she did in the photo's on the ad we found on the Internet. The owner said she would, and he wasn't embellishing for the sale, and he was right. So the nasty part of it all began, just as it is with anything where money changes hands and deals are struck or lost. There were negotiations, and dickering, the usual posturing, and scheming, the tit for tat, the surveys, the estimates, the reconsideration and reconciliations. But at the end of it all, weeks later, and exhausted, it was done. Wanda was ours! We placed her on the hard to wait for our return. Now we again had a purpose, a goal, and a plan to make.
PERSPECTIVE
It's an interesting concept, perspective. You stand at one place and assess the landscape. Move to the other end of the field, and look back at the same place, and it is no longer what you thought you saw from yonder. So it is with all else in life. Were we setting about to plan the end, or putting an end to the beginning? Or were we finally just emerging, and about to begin, as the previous chapter was only the necessary introduction to what was new to come? We'll agree to let Plato or Aristotle figure that one out, as we now have the two worlds, mountain and sea, set to collide. Managing that collision is going to be all consuming. We know that, as we have found it too difficult to manage juggling the enjoyment of the collision, and the emergence of our newly found self indulgent attitudes with serving the public in our previous capacities as County employees. We have reclaimed our sense of self worth, seen a vision of the value of our creator endowed proclivities which are detached and a world apart from our dutiful assigned tasks at work, and we have now executed our retirements in an effort to pursue our real paths in this world! In short, we have come to realize that this time, the time in which we now exist , IS OUR TIME!
With that, we hope you will enjoy following us through all our little adventures, as we have a lot to learn, a lot to see, and much to share as we experience....Pacific Wonder. And we vow to never forget my friend Richard's words of wisdom. It's all about the process....................
HIGH SODIUM PLASMA
It's always been about boats for me. Big boats, small boats, fast boats , tall boats. I think it can be said with some truth that I talked my father into buying his first boat. More truthfully, I likely begged him. Like so many of us that suffer from this ailment of boats, I haven't a clue where it came from. Maybe they'll find a genetic cause some day, I don't know, but I'm as sure as there is a tomorrow, it is an addiction. I remember well the very first time I jumped in a rowing skiff. I was at a private lake where my family frequently picnicked as a child of seven or eight years. I had been admiring the skiff at a distance for a picnic or two previously, and vowed to myself that the next time I laid eyes on it unattended at one of these boring affairs, I would put it to good use. As fate would have it, the very next outing, there it was , nestled on a beach next to my uncles cabin, begging to be launched. I waited patiently for the perfect opportunity to sneak out from under the watchful eye of my mother, and sneaked down to the boat. She was a typical build for the era( mid1960's) of plywood over sawn wood frames with a planked bench seat across mid-ship beam, and a pair of oarlocks mounted slightly abaft of the seat. Flat bottomed and heavy as a freight car, shoving her in alone was going to take some effort. As luck would have it, there were the oars, inviting me to hold hands and dance. Then reality struck home with a cruel vengeance. Strain as I did, as hard as any could imagine, I could not budge her from the beach.
A scrawny but stubborn kid, I had never in my oh so few years, failed to execute. This I vowed to myself, would not be the first time either. I struggled and struggled, and then, as it happens, I had an idea. I had seen my father use this technique before with success, so I began combing the small beach for a downed limb. Soon enough I was dragging a derelict limb that had been lying on the beach for some time up to the skiff. I rolled a somewhat large rock off the bank, and began to use the limb and rock in an attempt to crow hop the skiff into the lake at last, and it was working. ...and that is when my father showed up at my side, with that look, and that voice which I knew so well by then to ask "what in the hell". But, but............"Well", he said, "If your going to steal Glen's boat, put on this life jacket first". Half scared, with a heart of glee, I did, and he talked me through a rowing lesson from the beach. I was alone, and making way over water, in a boat. I was in heaven, and at the same time became cursed and possessed by the maritime disease, and have suffered the consequences ever since. There is salt in my veins!
 |
| Unloading Rock Cod, Port San Luis Obispo, 1972 |
Don't get me wrong. I have backpacked, bushwhacked, hunted big game, skied and all other things related to the back county as well, but a ship is my drug of choice, and will always be. I voted to sail into retirement, that was my dream.
MOUNTAIN GIRL - SNOW ANGEL
It's hard to say when she "went that way" as she says she can't remember. Only that her family always took the usual summer camping trip vacation. River rafting the white water of the Kern river was natural to her. After all, her father was a part time river rafting guide there for a time, and his raft was aptly named "Olaf". A tall, thin, blond and blue eyed beauty of Swedish decent, she looked my way once, and I was putty in her hands, and proud of it. Aside from the raging river, she was climbing rocks, cross country skiing, and backpacking her way into my heart and my life. Talking her into hunting, and later fishing with me was as easy as the asking. We thrived in the outdoors, heck, she thrived in the natural world. And along with that outdoor enthusiasm, she brought a wisdom that had never occurred to me, and it took her some time to "indoctrinate me" to her ideology. Cleanliness and comfort, IS natural! It's been said a time or two that I can be a fast study, but I'll admit here and now that I was dumb as a fence board daffy as the duck, and it took her years to make me understand that a soft bed and a hot shower ARE ESSENTIAL. But now I get it, and enjoy it as well. Good job honey!
One day years ago, after a long week or so of bushwhacking in the back county of the High Sierra near the headwaters of the North Fork of the San Joaquin River, we stopped at her insistence at a little hot spring mineral bath house still high up the mountain. Point made, and I would never again pass by that bath house with crusted elbows and sticky pits, without languishing for a time in a hot mineral shower for a dollar. .............and from there it was all downhill until we found the little log cabin near the edge of the lake full of mountain trout, and made it ours.
 |
| Our Mountain Home |
 |
| My Mountain Angel |
COLLABORATION - THERE'S PLENTY FOR ALL
Worlds apart perhaps, but worlds have been known to collide before, and so it has always been with us.
 |
| Play Together, Stay Together |
In our vows, we agreed always to add for the other, and never to ask one give up for the other. After all there is plenty for all! And so it was , once settled in with the cabin, and all the big projects completed to make the place a suitable house to live out our days, we began the hunt for a boat. Not that we didn't have a boat. We've always had one boat or another. But as we began to assess our capabilities, and needs, and wants now too, the image of THE boat began to form in our minds, and on the pages of a notebook we assembled to organize our search. We wanted a vessel large enough to live aboard for long periods, but not so large we couldn't afford to keep it. We looked into trawlers at first as the basic design and operation of them were second nature to me as a "once upon a time" fish'n boat Cap'n. But the price of fuel these days and the uncertain future of the carbon based lifestyle philosophy quickly emerging, I began to rekindle my lifelong desire to one day hoist canvas, we revisited the possibility of sail. Although I had dreamed of it since a child, life's roads lead me astray, and I had long since shelved the idea as too late in life's plan.
Once again, along came Diane to the rescue. Why is it too late, she asked? A short year later we were enrolled in an eight day live aboard sailing course, and bound for ASA certification. And although I expected to "breeze" through, and did, Diane was the champ. She went from a day one "Tentative Tessa" to a day 3 "Docking Queen", stuffing the little 32 foot Catalina sloop perfectly into a back isle squeeze slip barely wide enough for a canoe while levering a cross current. It was amazing! No one even thought "fend off" for one second. As well, her day at the helm was a full blown gale off the coast of Santa Cruz. She stood fast, put the boat to weather, commanded the crew (me and the instructor) with a confidence, and close hauled us port tack, then starboard tack, then port tack again at just the right angle into the weather, that the little Catalina heeled up at 20 degrees back and forth across the foaming wind streaked chop with ease, and we slid into the harbor as if we had been at it for a lifetime.
 |
| Ready About! |
PACIFIC WONDER - AKA - "WANDA"
As we pulled up our rented car to the address the owner had given us over the phone, and peered down the walkway between the houses, there she was. She looked just as good in person as she did in the photo's on the ad we found on the Internet. The owner said she would, and he wasn't embellishing for the sale, and he was right. So the nasty part of it all began, just as it is with anything where money changes hands and deals are struck or lost. There were negotiations, and dickering, the usual posturing, and scheming, the tit for tat, the surveys, the estimates, the reconsideration and reconciliations. But at the end of it all, weeks later, and exhausted, it was done. Wanda was ours! We placed her on the hard to wait for our return. Now we again had a purpose, a goal, and a plan to make.
 |
| Our Boat and Home, Pacific Wonder |
It's an interesting concept, perspective. You stand at one place and assess the landscape. Move to the other end of the field, and look back at the same place, and it is no longer what you thought you saw from yonder. So it is with all else in life. Were we setting about to plan the end, or putting an end to the beginning? Or were we finally just emerging, and about to begin, as the previous chapter was only the necessary introduction to what was new to come? We'll agree to let Plato or Aristotle figure that one out, as we now have the two worlds, mountain and sea, set to collide. Managing that collision is going to be all consuming. We know that, as we have found it too difficult to manage juggling the enjoyment of the collision, and the emergence of our newly found self indulgent attitudes with serving the public in our previous capacities as County employees. We have reclaimed our sense of self worth, seen a vision of the value of our creator endowed proclivities which are detached and a world apart from our dutiful assigned tasks at work, and we have now executed our retirements in an effort to pursue our real paths in this world! In short, we have come to realize that this time, the time in which we now exist , IS OUR TIME!
With that, we hope you will enjoy following us through all our little adventures, as we have a lot to learn, a lot to see, and much to share as we experience....Pacific Wonder. And we vow to never forget my friend Richard's words of wisdom. It's all about the process....................
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