New trick!
Well, it's sort of new. I've done this as a flyer before, tonight was the first time I'd ever based it. It was pretty easy, though I had to learn a few things that are different from flying, not the least having another person (or a mini person, as someone pointed out) standing on my shoulders. I'm particularly proud since I twisted my left ankle during warm-up and still managed the full class, including this. The ice I'm using right now feels really good.
I think it's possible that this year will never be topped for me...but I sort of knew that as the year started given that this is my full year in Command. The highlights are mostly ship-related, but the family figures in as well.
January
I started the 2011 having been in command for 16 days, many of them eventful, thanks to our deployed state and our missions up close to the Iraqi oil terminals and Iran. This photo came at the end of the first Underway Replenishment where I was able to show my guys exactly how I planned to handle the ship...flank speed and full rudder, whenever possible.
February
We got to spend some time ashore in February. The three or four days in port Bahrain where lovely and showed me what a pretty place it could be. I even took a crummy iPhone picture of the Pearl in the Pearl Roundabout, about a month before the place went down the tubes and the Pearl was torn down. We also opened some lovely Valentines from a group of students in CA, my favorite featuring a Valentine's Hippo.
March
We departed the Persian Gulf in March, after five months in theater. Our first port visit was to Chennai, India where I recieved an amazing greeting. It was new to me given my most only visits to India had been in the north, the most recent when I was seven years old. I am looking forward to another visit - check out the pics on the sidebar for more on our visits to Chennai and Phuket, whch was also in March.
April
April marked our return to San Diego, complete with a lei for the ship, tugs spraying water in greeting, and family and friends on the pier.
May
At the very beginning of the month, my mom and I made a short notice trip up to the family ranch in Oregon, where my grandfather had been dealing with two bouts of pneumonia. He recovered and I rediscovered the beauty of the place I spent so many of my summers as a child and teen. Going feral in this neighborhood was better than any summer camp (and I went to summer camps, too.)
June
The ship spent the month of June participating in Joint Exercise Northern Edge, but before that we got a three day visit to Homer, Alaska. I fell in love with the place and the people. And the animals, but I'm not entirely sure all of them liked us...the little bear that charged us on the beach. This is another place I can't wait to visit again!
July
We returned to San Diego at the end of June and in July I hosted my sister and her kids for a few days. We had a great time exploring the Zoo, Legoland, and ship and generally hanging out together. I introduced them to burgers at my favorite burger and beer place, and we had several meals there.
August
For the Navy in San Diego, August means Surface Line Week. Because we'd entered the shipyard at the beginning of the month, we didn't have the time to participate as much as I'd have liked to, but we still performed admirably. These three won the Professional Seamanship category - taking first place in line throwing and piping and second place in knot tying.
September
In September I found myself back up on the ranch for Rodeo Weekend. My cousin's youngest daughter was the Rodeo Queen and the kids had never seen a rodeo, demolition derby or the Rodeo parade, so the whole family went north. There's four generations in that photo: my grandfather, my mom, my brother and his two kids.
October
My India-visit earned fame got me a story in the local newspaper, which got me a few speaking engagement requests. I avoided a handful thanks to my schedule, and accepted a few, but speaking to the reunion of USS PICKING crewmembers was a highlight - they ranged from WWII to Vietnam era veterans and all seemed very supportive and happy to have me. I thought they were a neat bunch of people.
November
In November I turned 40. I'm not sure how that happened or if I'm supposed to feel any differently, but I don't. I'm having a great time and I have a hard time seeing how any year could top my 40th. I spent the day of my birthday with my family, and the weekend at the drag races. Then I got the best birthday present EVER: got out of the shipyard (finally) and got to test fire my brand new guns.
December
Celebrating the holidays is a little different when you're not deployed...holiday lights go up on all the ships that aren't getting underway or in the shipyard and the competition is fierce. I was one of the underway ships (hooray!) so we didn't compete, but we did get some colorful up and overs on the ship and a tree on the quarterdeck.
2012 won't top 2011 since I will be neither deployed nor in command every year, so I'm actually looking forward with a little dread. Still, this past year will sustain me for a long time.
As part of my exercise routine, I've been steadily expanding the type of classes I take. I think cross-training is great and since I'll never be a performer, I don't mind not specializing deeply. This weekend I took an handstand seminar and did some things that I've never done before.
Like this, which is the beginning of what's called a lever. In the end, I won't have an instructor helping support me and that forward hand will be up level with the rest of my body, with one hand supporting all of my weight. I suspect there will be a spectacular bruise on my right hip by this evening, but I am so excited to have tried and made progress towards doing something that I never would have considered within my reach.
My aerial silks instructor call this pose "Tahiti" because it looks like you're relaxing into a reclining position...
Don't believe the hype...this sucker hurts!
on Friday nights?
I'm nowhere near as good at hand balancing as my training partner tonight, but I did manage to hold my handstand for 10 seconds, so that's progress!
Well, I'm still struggling to get my ship out of the shipyard, but every day is one step closer to heading back to sea.
In the meantime, I'm doing lots of training at the local flying trapeze rig and the circus arts studio, and it feels like I'm making real progress. I skipped my usual Sunday afternoon at the rig this past weekend to go to the drag races in Las Vegas. And to drag my mom off to a couple of Cirque Du Soleil shows, which was really what convinced me to fly out there. We saw Ka at the MGM Grand and Mystere at Treasure Island. Ka has an actual plot, though not so much of one that you don't have to think about what's going on between scenes. And the massive hydraulic lift sometimes steals the show, at least if you're a mechanically inclined person. Definitely an amazing experience; I was surprised that the show wasn't sold out. I'd go see it again and ask for different seats so I could see it from another angle. Mystere was a much more traditional Cirque and circus-style show, with individual acts divided by bits of clowing to distract you. Weird and beautiful and captivating. Mom really loved the Chinese Pole act and thinks it's cool that my circus school teaches that.
At the races, and on the plane, I actually knit. Not only that but more surprising since I have been afflicted with a complete lack of ability to pay attention to anything crafty lately, I finished something.
It's a pretty simple wide ribbed hat that I will send off for the Hat for Sailors drive. This one needs a good soak and it will be ready to go. I might even have another one done before the due date (7 November!), though that might be a stretch given that it's still not cast on yet.
As I usually do on Sunday afternoons, I took myself up to Escondido for a little flying fun. The advantage of taking the late afternoon class is that the regulars are all at about the same level - it makes for a quick class and lots of swing. (This also means lots of deep blisters and bloody hand rips, but that's not really the point.) Today was much the same, but with the addition of one young beginner...
an 8 year-old who was absoutely adorable and caught his knee hang on the second go-round, which you can see he thought was pretty awesome. While we were flying his little sister ran around generally being adorable and wanting to join the fun.
So she grabbed herself a belt and tossed it on, then headed for the ladder to join us on the platform. Yeah, we didn't let her get far.
She did, however, get a chance to swing on the low bar with a little help from her daddy.
I didn't fly quite as much as I would have liked thanks to a lovely deep blister on my left hand, I will spare you that visual, but at least I got to play with this lovely little one while I was taking a break.
Last weekend I did something I haven't done since maybe high school - went to the family ranch in Oregon for Labor Day weekend, which coincides with the Lake County Round-Up - rodeo and county fair. After a two hour flight to Reno and a four hour drive to the ranch, the next three days were packed full.
My cousin's daughter showed her pig for the 4H Showman competition...
The four year old discovered the joy of hay bales in the barn (note the handful of hay there destined to feed the horses.)
The two year old with incredible balance found the best perch for animal watching.
The city boys tried out the Western Wear look.
Four generations gathered to watch the parade and the collect candy thrown from the floats.
At the rodeo I helped my aunt run the kid's watermelon race.
We spent as much time watching tomorrow's cowboys perfect their skills...
...as we did watching today's cowboys perform feats of bravery and daring.
And most importantly, got to spend a lot of family time with everyone, including my Papa.
I keep waiting to tell this story until I have the time to do it right; when I can focus on the pictures and the sequence of events and the like. But seriously, if I keep waiting, it's not going to happen. It was too hard to do anything with the minuscule bandwidth we had underway and my week and a half at home have been exhausting at the very least. (Part of that is my own doing, with a long drive to northern CA and lots of family time, but that's part of living near family.) So, I'm just going to tell the story. And then send you to the nice people who hosted us up in Homer.
When we knew for sure that we were going to get our Alaska port visit, I started looking up things to do, bear watching seemed like to coolest thing on the list; after all, I can hike and kayak here in San Diego. So, I did a little research to see which of the several companies was the best fit for me. After looking at a few websites, I found and e-mailed the Hallo Bay Bear Watching folks and it turned out that I was a pretty good fit for them, too. Clint, the owner, was very kind and it turns out that his father was a Navy veteran and had fought at Leyte Gulf, among other places. Some of you may remember my transit through Leyte Gulf at the beginning of my deployment last year. We made all the arrangements, and our wonderful guide DeWaine picked us up early in the morning and took us off to the airport.
We were warned as we left that the weather at Hallo Bay itself was bad, visibility-wise and that we might end up going to an alternate site. No problem, we Sailors know full well what it's like to have your plans depend on the one thing you can least control. We boarded the plane and headed out. The interesting thing there is that while it's a reasonably short distance from point A to point B, the plane actually has to go to point B via points C and D; because the bay is just wide enough that there are areas where if the plane lost power, it couldn't glide to a landing safely and the water is too cold to plan for a water landing. At least that's how I remember the explanation. I didn't mind though, the views from the plane were pretty spectacular and I'm glad to have had the time to enjoy them. Like this lake, for instance.
As we had been warned, we ended up going to a secondary spot, which was a little less pristine and much less isolated than Hallo Bay. We did see some bears.
But they were on their side of the river and we were on the opposite, which honestly, isn't really a horrible scenario. Respecting the boundaries of a wild animal strikes me as being a completely logical and appropriate choice. We saw several family groups and were enjoying the view when several other groups, also weathered out of their normal locations, arrived. (As a side note, most of the guides/naturalists for the other groups carried firearms while ours carried a flare - something I noticed and that confirmed my choice of company.) It got crowded quickly, so we left.
While we walked back to the plane, we saw a trio of bears way down the beach and sort of meandering along the water towards us. We decided that we'd wait and see what they did rather than head into the plane for lunch. Well, except the pilot, who being smarter than the rest of us, hopped into the cockpit out of the rain and had his lunch. In the meantime, our bear family headed along the beach in our direction. Mama bear and what we decided was a female cub were interested in the water and the grasses along the edge of the beach. Little brother bear though, he had to do some checking out of the Things on His Beach.
The airplane belonging to one of the other groups, for instance. That required some serious checking out. Then, he caught sight of us. So did Mama and Sister Bear, but they still weren't interested. Brother bear though - either he wanted to check out the plane we stood in front of, or he wanted to run us off. Either way, the little bear came right up to us. Close enough that DeWaine, after a few shouts (imagine yelling "No" or "Bad!" at your dog or your two year old and you'll get the general tone) pulled out his flare and got it ready to pop at the bear.
That little bear charged right at us. He paused briefly when DeWaine yelled at him, then decided to come right back at us! I can't say I was particularly frightened, because the two main parts of my brain were (1) laughing at the way DeWaine was yelling at the little bugger and (2) hoping that if I kept snapping the shutter, one of the pictures would turn out okay.Eventually, between the shouting and Mama Bears calls (she was uninterested in us and was going to leave him to his own devices if he kept being a little dummy, or at least, that's how I interpreted her behavior and grumblings,) he turned and headed the other direction. But not without shooting one last dirty look at us, to tell us he was only leaving because he wanted to leave and not for any other reason.
And of course, the old Ops Boss and I looked at each other as DeWaine paced off the distance (15-20 feet) to see how close he'd gotten and decided it was an amazing experience. (Or, we said "That was SO cool!" like 12 year old boys, but it's all the same, right?)
So there's my bear story. It didn't really end there, because we headed back and then the wonderful DeWaine drove us around downtown Homer to show us what was what, and patiently waited while I bought Wild Berry chocolates (yum!) and tea (also yummy) and then took us into the office. Where they wouldn't let us pay because the trip had been cut short. Mind you, I don't think that many who paid full price have ever had quite the experience we did, and we thought they'd earned every penny of it, but they refused. I did provide a couple of ship tours, because really, how can I resist showing off my baby to anyone who shows even the slightest of interest? (No really, come to San Diego and visit the ship; I mean, why else would you visit???)
I should note that my mother, who is going to be working with a search dog from Anchorage in the next week or so has been won over by my claims that Homer is the best American port visit I ever made (yes, even better than Key West) and has convinced the dog's owner that when she brings the pup home, they need to visit. And I think I have them planning to call Hallo Bay and have their own adventure in paradise. And I'm going back, for longer than three days. Not this year because my schedule is enough to drive anyone insane, but when I've moved on.
And here's a really neat article on the Hallo Bay folks from Alaska On the Go- which looks like a neat adventure log for the state.
With our serious bandwidth limitations, I can really only upload a few pictures at a time, and those have to be small. Fortunately, I have some smaller file sizes, so that's what I'll share first.
Puffin! There were lots of them, but they all had their backs turned to us.
Saw this guy from the bridge wing as we pulled in. I have more pictures from different angles but the otters are pretty much all adorable from every angle.
A family of bears - most of the ones we saw were at a distance, which wasn't great for photographs, but did give a great sense of scale.
