Travel and Family

All my life I've looked forward to someday going up in a hot air balloon. I think it all may have started with my early obsession with the Wizard of Oz. When we were kids, there were no videos and when this movie came on TV once a year, it was a big deal. We carefully laid out blankets in front of the black and white TV (we knew that OZ was in color but it didn't matter to us), popped popcorn, and nothing could drag us away. Last year, I bought a prepaid discounted balloon ride package from Zozi and intented to use it last summer. When William got so sick, we completely put this out of our minds. Finally, a couple of Saturdays ago, John and I finally found ourselves stepping into a big wicker basket ready to go up in a multi-colored balloon, lifted up by nothing more than hot air, to float where ever the breeze happened to blow us. On that early morning, after a week of sky-cleaning Santa Ana winds, we met at the Perris Airport at 6 am. We got into a big Ford passenger van and...

One of the crazier challenging things I chose to do this year was to go on national (possibly international) TV and very probably make a fool of myself! Each year, over 100,000 people take the Jeopardy on-line test and of those, only 400 people are selected to be contestants on the show. I was, depending how you look at it, one of those fortunate or one of those deluded people who think they’ve got a chance. But, let me tell you, being a successful, winning contestant is not as easy as it looks at home. First of all, the people you’re playing against are no dummies and those darn buzzers are impossible to master – at least for me. I went in with a fear that I’d be one of those poor schleps that were in the red when the game got to Final Jeopardy and had to leave the stage. When the real game began I was totally challenged by not being able to ring in many times (you’ve seen those players going crazy with their thumbs – I think that was me), ringing in too quickly or hesitating just a m...

It was such a beautiful day today that John and I decided to go out to the Riverside County Fair and Date Festival in Indio. Of course, we enjoyed a date shake -- I've been wanting to try one of those for at least 20 years. And, as I thought I would -- I loved it. We also had fun in all the display buildings. We saw some agricultural displays, a big train set, lots of arts and crafts, paintings and photographs...and we just sat and people watched for quite a while too. We both played with some world musical instruments. I got to ride a camel (check out my guide there with his gold turban). And, I had my picture taken with Randy Caballero...a bantam weight boxer. (I wish I was bantam weight....)