Thanksgiving Holiday

For the first time in recent memory, Pat and I traded in our annual Thanksgiving Camping Trip (AKA Annual Sufferfest) to visit my family over Thanksgiving.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinnner with all my mom's great comfort food.

Can you guess where we went the next day? Hint: check out those street lights. Yep, Hershey, PA. My mom was running a walk there, and we went out and did a quick 5k before being pressed into service at the registration table.

On our walk, we saw the World Famous Kissing Tower.

And no visit to Hershey is complete without going into Chocolate World where you ride in a little cart and hear the story of how chocolate is made. And, get this, it is free!

The line wasn't even too long, and, before we knew it, we were on the ride. This picture is funny because of the windmill painted on the wall in the background.

Here is the Kiss Depositor!

And the chocolate bar molds.

The weekend was so busy. After leaving Hershey we went up to Millersburg where my brother and his gal live for their tree lighting ceremony. It was a slice of small town Americana. A far cry from LB, CA, that's for sure.

Pat and I were freezing, and, of course, everyone was making fun of us. I don't know why...it was 40 degrees! Brrr.....

The next morning, two long-time friends from home came over with their five children. It was total mayhem--my mom's house is not made for kids. Of course, they found all sorts of ways to entertain themselves.

Morgan and Ellie, both about eight-months old, were hilarious.

Then we took a group shot.

And bundled everyone up to say goodbye.

The next day it was time for us to say goodbye. My sister Judith brought her five foster kitties down to meet us. She knows our weakness for kitties, and I am pretty sure she was hoping we would take a few home.

We were very tempted. They were so cute.

Who wouldn't want this kitty?

Here is who!!! My mom's cat Simon was not enthused.

Next Up: Christmas trip to Puerto Rico!

Katie Goes Hollywood

Even though we have lived in Southern California for two years (can you believe that?), I haven't done a good job of seeing all the show biz sights. So, a few weeks ago, I set out to hike up to the Hollywood sign.

We started in shady Bronson Canyon, a place made famous by the many TV shows and movies that have been filmed there. Little House on the Prairie and Bonanza, to name just a few, were taped here. BTW--this isn't our dog--he just jumped into the picture!

And, look, here is the bat cave from the old TV series!

At first, we couldn't even see the Hollywood sign but then it came into view. It looked very far away...

We hiked onward and upward and got closer to the sign.

The trail was full of very friendly people, and we asked a cute fellow to take our picture. My old college friend Rose is on my right, and Mardie, a new friend is on my left. Mardie has lived in Hollywood for 23 years so she was a terrific guide.

After about two miles of hiking, we came to the trail's terminus and as close to the sign as we could legally get. There were lots of tourist milling around...

Including this girl who was posing in front of the sign in a bikini while her friend took pictures. We were laughing so hard at this--I couldn't resist a clandestine photo of my own. Never a dull moment in Southern California.

Nine is Fine

This month, Pat and I celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary. Interestingly, we were not much struck by the fact that we have been married nine years. However, what did strike us is the fact that we have been together 14 years. Now, that just seems like a very long time. Now, I am sure that all of KUWK's faithful readers are thinking "Fourteen years? How can Pat and Katie even be old enough to be together 14 years?" Funny, that is pretty much the same thing we thought. Okay, I probably am not fooling anyone. We thought exactly the same thing you did: Pat and Katie are OLD! Even if we are not quite sure where the years went, we are sure that they were happy and full of adventure. We wouldn't have it any other way...

Before we went out to dinner on our anniversary, we amused ourselves by taking a family picture like the ones our friends with kids are always sending us. Aren't our kitties the cutest thing ever?

Spur of the moment trip to San Diego

A few weeks ago, Pat and I decided to take a spur-of-the-moment trip down the coast to San Diego. Our original plan was to head down Sunday morning, see a baseball game, and then drive back. However, we decided Saturday to go down and spend the night. We got a nice hotel room in Old Town and had a nice dinner but I wasn't much for taking pictures that night so no evidence.

We stopped for bagels Sunday morning and then ate them at the convention center next to the baseball stadium.

Here is the view from our breakfast spot. Every time I go to San Diego, I think "this is a much nicer place than Long Beach--I wish Pat would get a job here."

Then we headed to Petco Park which is right downtown and easily accessible.


Here is the scoreboard in the first inning.

Our seats were very nice--just 15 rows up. Seats are cheap in September when the home team is way out of the pennant race.

It was a very beautiful day although we kept hoping those clouds would cover the sun--it was HOT!

I was rooting for David Eckstein of the Padres--one of my favorite scrappy players.

And Pat was rooting for Troy Tulowitzki of the Rockies because he went to Long Beach State.

But, neither of us really cared who won. We just had a nice time watching the game. There is something about baseball that always makes me feel relaxed and nostalgic...

I am Nuts (and Cookies)

After spending the last two years working in the Membership Department at Girl Scouts, I had been looking around for a new challenge. When our Director of Product Sales resigned, I thought it was the perfect opportunity for a job change. It all happened pretty quickly, and, before I knew it, I was in charge of nut and cookies sales. I didn't realize there would be a literal transfer of power between the two Cookie Queens but, on her last day, Sharon bequeathed her Cookie Queen crown and wand to me. Coincidentally, I just happened to be wearing my Girl Scout Cookies T-shirt that day! Perfect...

Highpointer's Quest-Arizona

It was late August when I realized that, with all our traveling, I hadn't managed to climb any of the 50 states' high points this summer. Since the summer was quickly winding down, I felt I had to do something immediately so I talked Pat into making a crazed, 48-hour trip to Arizona to climb Mount Humphries. All I can say is that he is a great sport!



On Friday afternoon, we found ourselves sitting on the 91 freeway, allegedly heading for Flagstaff. The traffic was so terrible that it ended up taking up about 9 hours just to get to the national forest outside of Flagstaff . Of course, the only campground was full so we parked the car along a gravel road and set up camp. It was almost midnight, and the next morning, we were relieved that we weren't in somebody's backyard!

Luckily, we weren't far from Mount Humphries. It is the peak on the left in this picture.

There were lots of people at the trail head, and a very nice sign announcing that we were about to climb to Arizona's highest point.

At first, the trail gradually traveled upward through a shady, cool forest. It was very nice and easy walking.

But, then, around 11,000 feet, we emerged above the treeline. It was very windy and cold! Neither of us felt too great since we had just been at 60 feet of elevation just 20 hours earlier.

There were several false summits, so we went up and then up again.

And, did I mention it was windy? I was freezing, and I had forgotten my hat.


But, there were some nice views, and we could see a few fires in the distance.

And, then we were on top. Interesting, it was not very windy on the summit. We were able to sit for a spell and enjoy the sunshine. Humphries Peak: 12,633. Four down and 46 more to go!

This is the view to the west.

See the smoke from the fire?

We didn't linger too long since we still had a lot of driving left to do. It was down, down, down. Sometimes the downhill hurts worse than the uphill. The hike was about 10.5 miles roundtrip.


This is a view of the parking lot--tantalizingly close! However, we still had three miles yet to go. But, soon enough, we were back at the car. Then, we had the long, hot drive through the desert back to Long Beach. We ended up stopping in Needles for the night and arriving back in LB Sunday afternoon. We drove 1,200 miles and climbed to 12,633 feet in less than 48 hours! What a whirlwind.

Stupidity Rules the Day (and night)-Scandanavia, Part 5)

I'll start this post by saying that if my death ever makes the front page, the headline will probably go something like this "Experienced Hiker's Novice Mistake Leads to Ultimate Price." For those of you who have embarked on our outdoors adventures with us, you might nod your head in agreement and think back to a time when we shared an Epic Adventure. For those of you who haven't had the "pleasure" of these Epic Adventures, this post is a pretty clear example of the sort of thing that we get ourselves into.

It all started right here at the Besseggan Ridge trail head--Norway's most famous and most popular hiking trail. The trail is 9.5 miles long one-way, and most people take a boat from the trail head at Gjendsheim to the far end of the lake and hike back to the trail head. However, we arrived at about 12:30 p.m. and had missed the last boat heading to the trail terminus at Memurubu. We consulted the boat schedule and determined that we could do the hike from Gjendsheim and then take the last boat back from Memurubu at 4:45 p.m. We figured that it would be no problem hiking 9.5 miles in 4 hours--we can usually reel off 20-minute miles with any problem. So, off we went...

The trail climbed immediately, and the views were stunning.

The first part of the trail was a steady uphill but had fairly even footing.

However, as we progressed up the ridge, we found ourselves doing more and more time-consuming scrambling.

We kept reaching what we believed to be the apex of the ridge.


Only to discover shortly thereafter that the trail lost elevation and the gained even more.

Then things got really sketchy. The trail became a series of chutes that required intense concentration, careful foot placement and lots of scrambling.

It took us almost an hour to navigate this ridge, and when we got to the bottom, a nagging thought formed in my mind. It went a little like this: I think we might miss that last boat!

When we finally got to this point and realized the boat dock wasn't in sight, we knew we might be in dire straits. So, we started discussing our options. We figured we could turn around immediately and face the prospect of a 9.5 mile hike turning into a 15-mile hike, including the terrible ridge we had just traversed (but uphill). Or we could try to increase our pace and catch the boat. We decided to quicken our pace and try for the boat.

So, off we went, practically running up and down all the never-ending ridges, but still not making great time. These sheep watched us with interest as we stomped by. Meanwhile, I joked with Pat "Did you bring the credit cards?" since I knew there was a hiker's lodge at Memurubu. He answered in what I thought was the affirmative.

Each ridge seemed to be followed by yet another downhill followed by another steep uphill. The clock kept ticking and soon it was 4:30, and still no boat dock in view.

Finally, we came over a ridge and there it was--the lodge tantalizingly close.

And, there it was: the last boat of the night motoring away from the dock! We estimate that we missed it by less than 15 minutes.



We walked down to the lodge and discussed our options. Even though we had little food, no extra clothing or toiletries, we decided that we should try to stay at the lodge and take the first boat back in the morning. Pat went to the front desk and discovered that it would cost $200 for us to book a shared room with five beds, dinner and breakfast. After a discussion, we decided to go ahead and do that. I told Pat to just charge it on the credit card--we could deal with that later. At that point, he said "I don't have the credit cards!" I had actually grabbed all our Norwegian cast out of the car and stashed it in my jacket at the beginning of the hike but I just didn't know if we had enough. It turned out we had exactly enough to spend the night and purchase the boat fare back. Whew...


Our hopes for having the room to ourselves were dashed when we discovered two out-of-shape overweight Norwegian women already ensconced in our appointed room. The common table was littered with cigarettes and beer cans. They were; however, quite friendly, and we soon struck up a conversation with them although we were too ashamed to admit that we had missed the last boat. Finally, Pat looked at them somewhat dubiously and asked "so you guys hiked over the ridge today?" "Oh, no," one answered, "we took the easy path by the water--it only took us two hours." Pat and I looked at each other incredulously: there was a path by the water? Who knew? We could have hiked back to the trail head in two hours!

After dinner, we walked down to the lakeside trail and took a picture of the sign!


We actually ended up having a nice time at the lodge and got to meet lots of interesting people at the communal dinner. So, I guess all is well that ends well...

The next day, we took the boat back to the trail head. And, of course, we had gotten an overnight parking ticket! From the trail head, we would drive to Oslo, see a few sights there and fly home the next day.