June 25, 2013--Staying in Monterey and seeing Dale Ditsler in Carmel

June 25, 2013--Tuesday

        Taking a day off today from driving, fighting traffic, photo taking, etc. Staying at the motel, working on the blog, resting, going to the free continental breakfast, and having a chicken Caesar salad made here in the room is recharging our batteries…badly needed even if we didn’t realize it. Also recharging batteries on cameras, computers, and cell phones.

        We have also emptied the Teardrop and the truck of all containers and refuse and piles and bags, and will attempt to organize things a little better. Also will attempt to look through a bunch of magazines I brought to look through and which weigh a ton. The handle ripped off my Trader Joe’s bag (impossible!) and I nearly  got a hernia carrying it from the car to the room. This morning we also brought the truck and Teardrop up to our room from the large parking lot, unhooked the Teardrop and manually (me and Roy pushing it) put it into a parking spot right near our room, then parked the truck in the handicapped space next to our room. Just didn’t have the energy to do it last night, but could have as it has become a very quick and simple maneuver for us now.

        Fibromyalgia seems to worsen with stress, and last night after the stressful afternoon we had culminating in saying to heck with the budget, let’s get a motel, had me hurting everywhere. Roy had experienced angina the night  before, and last night I wanted a morphine drip. But a good sleep, a soft warm bed, and being quiet and peaceful today, has been a good thing.

        At least up until now. A few minutes ago Roy was putting something into his jeans pocket and a minute later there was blood streaming down his hand. Seems the skin had been torn and was bleeding away. We dressed it and chalked it up to old man’s skin that is thin and his blood thinners which promote excessive bleeding.

        Then I’m sitting here finishing up the blog from a few days ago and posting it, and I had an itch on top of my left foot. I scratched it with my big toenail on my right foot and thought nothing of it. A minute later I felt something warm running down my foot. Low and behold there is blood everywhere…running down the top of my left foot down the arch onto the floor, and all over the toes of my right foot where I had them crossed. Roy got me some t.p. to stop it, I checked it out and realized it was the wound from my shoe rubbing a hole in my foot a couple days ago, but was completely taken aback.

        So Roy, being Roy, has decided this is the beginning of a B horror movie. I have named it “The Hemorrhagic Hotel--You can check in, but you will bleed out!!!  (Definition of B Movie per Wikipedia---A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an art house or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature. Although the U.S. production of movies intended as second features largely ceased by the end of the 1950s, the term B movie continued to be used in the broader sense it maintains today. In its post–Golden Age usage, there is ambiguity on both sides of the definition: on the one hand, many B movies display a high degree of craft and aesthetic ingenuity; on the other, the primary interest of many inexpensiveexploitation films is prurient. In some cases, both may be true.)

        Tonight we met Roy’s long time friend (from Air Force days, about 40+ years ago), Dale Ditsler (aka Dits) in Carmel. He took us to dinner at a fabulous Italian restaurant called Vesuvio. Beautiful place, great bar (we were early so I had a peach belini...yum), and delicious food. Roy had manila clams with squid ink pasta, I had Sanddabs Picata with gluten free pasta with

pomodoro sauce, and Dale had Petrale Sole Picata with vegetables and mashed sweet potato. We sat and talked while having a leisurely dinner, conversing and catching up for over 2 hours. It was delightful. Felt like the first time I’ve actually sat and enjoyed myself with no worries about packing up, making camp, breaking camp, or whatever. Sometimes a night at a nice restaurant can just make your day…certainly did mine.

        Dale is following the blog and has suggested the purple lettering is difficult to read, and it would be better in black, especially for eyes that do not see as good as when young. Roy said he’d thought the same, but didn’t want to get into it so hadn’t said anything (good thinking). So I have decided to be “reader friendly” with black instead of purple printing.

        Contacted our wonderful friend Iris. She and husband Dave will be hosting us while in Santa Cruz. Her sister and nieces are in visiting also, but she insists it’s no problem. We’ll sleep in the Teardrop, and we will shower, use the toilet, use the laundry, and do family dining with them while there. Plus we can use it as a base and leave the Teardrop untethered and thus be able to park easier as we go around to lighthouses for photos and to see other friends. I am hoping we can get most of the lighthouses in the San Francisco area too, as getting a state campground spot in which we can turn around easily may prove to be a pain…or we will get fog and drizzle and be miserable again. We’ll play it by ear, and sit down and make a plan of attack once we get to Santa Cruz.

        Not sure what is going to happen on the lighthouses, though, as Roy is not pleased with the time/effort/cost that may be needed in order to do it. But unless it’s absolutely impossible (aka they are on a military base that will not let us in, or they are at the end of 3 flights of steps and a 3.5 mile hike), then I really would like to photograph them, but I guess we’ll play it by ear.  That was the original intent of the trip and the fun of it…sometimes it will push us into doing things we’d never do otherwise. But his negative assessments are making me feel like packing it in and just going home. Sometimes I think my retirement road trip would have been better alone. Oh well, we’ll have to discuss this further and see if there can’t be a compromise that doesn’t compromise my entire premise for the trip and leave me feeling like I’ve been cheated out of my dream, and yet doesn’t make him feel like he’s doing things he absolutely does not want to do. Being married really sucks sometimes…being alone and selfish works out for the better in some circumstances!

        I am really looking forward to seeing old friends in SC and old haunts. It’s been too long. And even though Bill and Priscilla are in Canada (we’ll see them later on the trip), there are plenty to see….Steph and Maureen Betita, Dan and Cathy Blake, Patty Talbot, Robert Jaramillo, Nikoletta Yukich, Donna Seda, Mary and Darren Luther….more than I can list.