Decemberween 2024: Part 4 - White Christmas and Ping Pong Realizations

It worked out! It wasn't a blizzard, but it was snowing when we got up at 7 am on Christmas Day. It snowed off and on over the course of the day, and it was magical.

I didn't get any footage of walking around and catching the big flakes on my tongue,  because I spent my phone time, eh, facetiming my folks.

The place had a ping-pong table, and while it had been a decade-plus since I played, and the paddles were of substandard quality (they had no rubber at all, just hard plastic uniformity on both sides), I got back into playing easily, and even discovered something:

That's Cass playing Corrie. But I learned that Cass has an incredible innate skill for the game of table-tennis. His grandpa is a good pon player, and so is his dad, and his mom has a fundamental ability with nearly any form of sporty or physical activity.

On the first day he played, his ability to get to the ball was natural, but his paddle play was erratic and his spray percentage was high. On day two, his returns were surprisingly good half the time, his strike form had vastly improved, and his spray percentage had been halved. On day three, his serves were getting seriously good, and not just for an 8 year old---for most anybody, his backhand (which I was trying to coach him on) was improving, his spray percentage was nearly zero, and basically unforced errors were his only problem. His ability to read my spins and English-on-the-ball were hampered by my ability to actually accomplish them---the low quality paddles were to blame for that issue---but overall, after three days, he was a very competent ping-pong player.

I was both very proud and mildly surprised, but I'm not sure I should have been surprised. Cass and his mom share some taking-to-a-sport gifts.

Merry Christmas to me.

Decemberween 2024: Part 3 - The Place, and a Visit to Dolores

We all kinda arrived to the house at the same time, which is some cool stuff, as the caravans were coming from different directions. The house was located on some property nestled between Cortez and Dolores, themselves less than twenty minutes apart.

Cortez is like a large-ish small town, popping over 9000 in population just recently. It had little neighborhoods and a Safeway and even a Wal-Mart. Since the Safeway bosses bought up Vons in the recent past, shopping there was surreal, as the generic brand is the same, so seeing name brands next to the same generic as we see at home was a moment.

Camille and the twins got right to it:

The next day, Christmas Eve, we ventured into Dolores to visit with Corrie's cousin Anne, another guest at our Mexican Wedding all those years back. Now, having lived in San Luis Obispo for a time, I had the experience of living in a fictional place, as the case was made years back about the similarities between SLO and Springfield, where the Simpsons live. A few points:

• Rolling green hills;
• Beach vicinity but not on the beach;
• Sun sets on the ocean;
• Nuclear plant in vicinity;
• Similar looks for downtown skylines;
• Similar under-50k population sizes;
• Both an engineering university and an ag university in town...

Even back in 1998, the local news anchor was a white dude with white hair, resembling Kent Brockman. Living in it, you kinda shrugged and said, eh, sure, sounds good.

Well, having visited Dolores, I can say I got the same feeling, only this time it was for the fictional town of South Park. Nestled between two conifer studded mountains, it had the same street layout and landmarks I remember from watching the show.

Corrie's cousin Anne has a place up steep sloping road to the top of one of the mountains, and her son took some of us on a hike to the cliff overlook, and again it reminded me of South Park:

The picture doesn't do justice to how close it all felt.

It was a great time, and eventually we made it home for Christmas Eve, hoping that the precipitation estimates and temperature guesses would work out, and we'd get a White Christmas...

Decemberween 2024: Part 2 - Navajo Monument and Four Corners

I felt like breaking these parts up into easy to find photo bombs. After visiting the Grand Canyon, we drove on to Kayenta on the Navajo Nation reservation, stayed the night, and the next morning backtracked a few miles to the Navajo National Monument.

That monument is a large cliff dwelling settlement. A few notes about it, bullet-point fashioned:

• It was far larger than the Tonto National Monument I visited back on '09, and unlike Tonto, you're not allowed to walk around the settlement;
• By "far larger," I mean it likely housed over a hundred people at the height of it's existence;
• The people who lived there farmed in the valley below, and by that we mean, they had some kind of agricultural means that sustained them;
• It was abandoned by 1300, and the people who loved their mostly joined other tribes that helped build the basis of the Hopi, Anasazi, and Navajo.

It was a rather spectacular view, but it was only a view:

It was like a tiny town down there. Ruins are always fascinating.

Heading around you could get a view that helped explain why folks would make a home there---it was exceptionally beautiful:

From there, we drove to the four corners monument. Below I got my chance to snap a picture of the spot where the four states come together in one place:

And then I stepped in all four states at once:

After hitting up Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado all at once, we did a perimeter walk and perused the stalls that were there a few days before Christmas. I found a very nice pendant for a necklace, but it was too rich for my blood right now.

After all that, we took off for points north-east, for Cortez, Colorado and our big AirBnB.

Decemberween 2024: Part 1 - Williams and the Grand Canyon

We started the trip like we would have headed to the Fram, only we'd decided to make it easy and stop in Williams, AZ, the "Gateway to the Grand Canyon". Williams, still six hours away, is usually a dinner stop on the way to Flagstaff or one of the other I-40 hotel-town stops on the way to Texas every summer.

But Williams was 29 degrees and all dressed up for the season:

We stayed in a tiny, darkened motel that may have been creepy if you were into that kind of thing, and the next day, after breakfast, we left for the Grand Canyon, an hour due north from Williams.

So...the Grand Canyon...

Like Venice in Italy, nearly every direction you look is postcard worthy beauty. It's breathtaking, stupefying, and outrageous all at once. Later you look at your pictures on whatever device you use to capture them, and there are hundreds...all beautiful and crazy and in that moment completely devoid of the context you were thinking when you took it. Here are some:

Ot's not that they don't all blend together...but they kinda do. Each is spectacular on their own, and I've got dozens more. Many with my peeps in them.

We checked out one of the museums, and got to play with the model:

We gave Cass my old point and shoot cannon, and he took a bunch of his own pics. He had a hefty amount of anxiety about the "edge," and below is about as close as he was willing to get on his own:

It was great and amazing and wonderful and I love that we brought the kids. Camille won't remember more than impressions, but that's life when you're almost 5.

We drove on to Kayenta, a town in the middle of Navajo Nation. We wanted to spread our money around, and this seemed like a decent way to do it.

Decemberween Adventure Intro

Okay. This year for the gift-giving Decemberween holiday we went walkabout. More like ROAD TRIP!

We had an AirBnB outside of Cortez, Colorado, between Cortez and Dolores, where Corrie's cousin lives. We were hoping to find snow, even if it meant driving some ways to get there, and we wanted to see some stuff along the way.

Did we ever! We took the kids to the Grand Canyon, stayed on the Rez in Kayenta, went to Four Corners and the Navajo National Monument, got snow on Christmas Day (white Christmas!), went up to elevation and played on a sled, stopped at Natural Bridges before everyone getting sick, staying in Vegas, and bombing home. It was amazing.

More to come...

AGA Holiday Show 2024

Camille had her gymnastics show before we went on our Decemberween trip.

The official introduction to this event was startling. Last year Camille had said that she didn't want to participate. This year her tune changed. The folks at the organization said, Great. You'll be allotted six tickets max. The tickets will be bracelets, and if you don't have one on, you will not be let in. Make sure to arrive at least thirty minutes early. Parking in our normal lot will be by valet only, so either come with money or park in the neighborhood somewhere.

Ummm...what? 

Apparently, this holiday show, the American Gymnastics Academy (AGA) Holiday Show 2024, has grown into quite a gymnastics event. And this year's edition was the 35th anniversary. The pamphlet mentioned that all of the music was from 1989, or inspired by 1989, which made the choice of Camille's recital song being an extended clip from Under the Sea.

This was, to my surprise, an enormous event. Check an establishing shot of the early crowds:

The grandstands were brought in, as I've been here before and there are no bleachers normally, and we're almost never allowed those mats.

Cass and I stationed our extended party up at the top of one of the bleacher blocks. We were waiting for Corrie to return with one of our guests, tante Delphine, but out hair was flowing:

The show event itself was a series of demonstrations and performances. 8 of the youngest gilrls like Camille would come out and perform the "Under the Sea" routine. Then the next step up in age gorls would do their performance. Then the next age group. Then a young lady gymnast would do their routine---vault, balance beam, floor routine, or uneven bars---and then the whole things would repeat. Camille was in performance number 18, and there were four more after her, and still it was all over in 55 minutes.

Here's Camille waving at us as they get set, and you can see the sea of kids waiting in the wings:

Corrie told me that they added 750 extra tickets for sale, which likely added to the madness.

Watching a 13 year old perform a balance beam routine in the same room as you causes all sorts of anxiety, and I can't imagine how her parents manage it. (Shudder)

All in all it was a wonderful afternoon. We went to lunch afterwards and then went to the library for fun and frivolity. Camille really enjoys the whole thing---gymnastics, and maybe we'll stick with it, but, you know, not long enough to jack up her body's development.

I guess that's just a me concern?

Happy New Year 2025!

Whoa, the numbers got cool!

I'm going to be finishing up stuff from the 2024 calendar year before ignoring getting back to this sporadically in the coming weeks and months.

Auld Lnag Syne!