Thanksgiving 2018, Part Three

Thanksgiving day came and went with the fun of it centering on finding food for dinner that evening (a Korean joint) and navigating the milling frenetic chaos of Black Friday, on Thursday night, to get a cake for my nephew for his birthday party after our meal of Korean BBQ.  That impromptu party dispelled the lingering gloom on the holiday caused by the very serious medical condition of my sister's husband's mom who had been moved to hospice in the hospital.  The next day dawned and I took a frigid walk at dawn in the nature preserve a few blocks from my sister's house.

Then I drove to the nursing home to say goodbye to Jimmy's uncle there, glad that his condition was noticeably improving, especially with the advent of the visit from Jimmy, who was already present at his bedside, cajoling him into arising from bed to walk the hallways as part of his rehabilitation so he could return to his house soon.  I returned to my sister's house midmorning and she and I went to the hospital to visit her mother-in-law who was still unresponsive as my sister read to her from a book but seemed to stir when her daughters, and son and grandsons, arrived soon afterwards to be with her.  Discussions were resumed to have a traditional Thanksgiving meal in Dublin at the house of my sister's sister-in-law the next day and my sister and I returned to her house to do a little meal prep for that upcoming meal.

I was driving back to DC the next morning so I packed to get ready to depart early in the morning; then Jimmy came over to visit and stayed for an enjoyable hour.  He had never met my sister before and he too, was leaving early the next morning to fly back to his home.  Later in the evening my sister and I drove her husband's webber grill over to her sister-in-law's house in my truck, about fifteen miles away, so that the cooking of the turkey could begin early the next morning.

I left at 6 a.m. on Saturday on the nine hour drive home and it was a miserable trip as it rained the entire time and there was pea soup fog in the West Virginia mountains, where for about forty miles visibility was reduced to about 60 feet, or three lane marker stripes.  Regretfully, my brother-in-law's mother passed away peacefully last week.  Although I am sad at her passing, I am glad that I was able to see her again, even though it was in a hospital setting, after not seeing her since my sister's wedding in the eighties.

Cover

I changed my cover picture from a view of Crater Lake (OR) in 2012 to one of the highway bridge over the New River (WV) in 2013.

And all's right with the world...

A Seasons Greetings card to my friends and relatives for 2013.

peace

Actin' funny
But I don't know why
'Scuse me
While I kiss the sky

Jimi Hendrix

New River 2013

Minor League Baseball in West Virginia

After my second day of rafting on the New River last summer, I drove to Princeton in West Virginia to catch a doubleheader where the Princeton Rays were hosting the Bluefield Bluejays in the Rookie Short Season league, an entry-level class of minor league baseball that is one step below Class A.  The stadium, as it were, was hard to find as there were no signs anywhere indicating where it was.

The ballpark was hard to see until you were right on it because it was basically a chain link fence enclosing a field with a few bench seats in the traditional horseshoe pattern enclosing the backstop from third base to first base with a low concrete causeway behind that. The two teams split the games, I don't remember much of the game beyond that, although I recall that sundown as seen from the stadium was nice.

I did have my picture taken with Roscoe the Rays' Rooster and that was fun.  The only other thing I remember is a motorcycle endlessly and noisily circled the stadium on the street outside all game long during the second game and that grew to be annoying.

After the games I drove down to Wytheville, Virginia to spend the night in a motel there.  The next day I arose to a misty mountain viewing splendor right outside my front door.

West Virginia State Capitol

(Abe Lincoln in front of the West Virginia State Capitol, depicted in his night gown during nocturnal wanderings while pondering how to save the country which had torn into two irreconcilable halves upon his election.  Sound familiar?)  

After seeing the minor league baseball game in Charleston on the first day of my summer vacation in August, I went over to the State Capitol to wander around some before I retired to a motel for the night in preparation for rafting the next two days in the New River National Gorge.  The capital grounds had lots of memorial statues which I always enjoy, in addition to having the Governor's Mansion right next door overlooking the river which flows by just across the local highway.

(West Virginia pays homage to the working men and women who made the state great.)

A long time ago I was a Colorado State Trooper assigned to the Governor's Executive Security Detail in Denver for a couple of years, stationed at the Governor's Mansion there, which was about five blocks from the State Capitol which we also patrolled.  One of my most notable moments on that detail was when then-Vice President George H. W. Bush (Bush the First, father to the Decider) came to speak at the Capitol and he went right by me on his way to the assembly chamber.

(West Virginia honoring the modern American soldier.)

(Abe overlooking the river as seen from the Capitol steps.)

(The instrument of the country's salvation: A Union soldier.)

(A harbinger of greatness to come: A Revolutionary War volunteer.)

Charleston

I started my driving vacation (in August) by taking the scenic route to the West Virginia capital through the Shenandoah Valley and then through hilly terrain in the Mountain State.  The final stretch to Charleston is along a river so it is naturally beautiful.

I was going to attend a minor league game in Charleston but I got a late start and despaired of making the game in time.  However when I got within 15 miles of the state capital I found the game on a local radio channel and it was in the fifth inning.  I hoped there were plenty of hits and pitching changes as I drove closer.

I drove by the Capitol eventually and took the next exit for the ballpark.  With about half a mile to go to the stadium, according to my GPS device, I parked for free and walked the rest of the way.

As I walked up to the park, I saw that all the ticket booths were closed.  A cop and a stadium attendant were lounging by the wide-open gate and I walked in, for free, while they gave me nary a glance.  (I would have gladly purchased a ticket if I had been able to.)

It was the seventh inning but that still gave me ample time to roam around the stadium of the West Virginia Power, a class A minor league team.  The vantage points were interesting, you could see the gold-domed State Capitol from the third base side seats and up the nearby steep hillside, above the noisy traffic going by on the Interstate halfway up, was a cleared patch of hilltop with a cemetery up there with several large monuments.

I had a hot dog and a beer, and the home team won in the bottom of the ninth when the opposing shortstop fielded an ordinary grounder near the second base bag with the bases loaded and two outs and as he went to toss the ball to the second baseman for an easy force-out to end the inning of the tie game, he just dropped the ball.  He stood there thunderstruck as the winning run scored.

The losing visitors trudged off the field glumly while the home teamers all gladhanded and high-rived.  Apparently it was the fourth straight loss for the visitors because a stadium attendant got atop the visiting team dugout with a broom and slowly swept off the dirt up there (a sweep, get it?).

Minor league baseball, it's fabulous.  The stadiums are so homey and hospitable too, with some hokum mixed in.  In this stadium they had the visitor's bullpen lined up on folding chairs set out in the blazing summer sun in the dirt along the stadium wall down the third base line while the home bullpen was in a shaded spacious area under the stands on the first base side.

The New River day 2

(National memorial to Project Overlord in Bedford, Virginia.)

In August I took a car trip for my summer vacation through West Virginia and extreme western Virginia, rafting for two days on the New River and seeing three minor league baseball games in two different stadiums in West Virginia.  In Virginia I saw the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford and the Natural Bridge.

(Natural Bridge in Virginia.)

The second day on the river, with another outfit, was just as much fun as the first day.  We rafted the rapids, swam in the river, jumped off a tall rock and paddled under the tall suspension bridge, with nary a mishap, although I am certain that we came within a hairsbreadth three times of flipping the raft over.  The guide later allowed as to how, once, he too thought for a moment that we were going over.

(It gets busy in a hurry in the rapids.)

Afterwards, during happy hour at the lodge, they played a videotape of a boat in some rapids from earlier that morning, which was truly spectacular (canoeists precede the raft groups down the river and tape them shooting each rapids).  It was so good I'm going to describe it because, well, that was the same river we went down an hour later.

(That day's swimming hole.)

A boat went into some boiling water in the standard setup--four rowers on each side and the guide across the back gunwale calling out rowing commands, back-rowing and sliding across the back as necessary for balance.  The boat went into a hole in the water, flexed, turned sideways and virtually stopped.  In came the next tall roller that the bottom of the raft rolled up on sideways (the establishment slowed the video action down here for effect) and suddenly the raft was broadside straight up and down.  The four rowers atop this anomaly clung to the upper gunwale momentarily and then started cascading down the open side into the four bottom rowers and took them all with them over the lower side of the boat into the roiling water.

(Different day, different rock, same long ways down.)

Here the boat slammed back down, fortunately upright, into the water.  The only one left in the boat was the guide who stood up, looking incredibly shocked.  His boat was now empty except for him!  The guides in the bar observing this on the tape started cheering and someone said excitedly, "Look, Norm got rid of all of them!"

(Yeah, it was cool on the river.)

As the tape rolled on, you could see the guide immediately get down to business once his initial shock passed.  He ignored the one rower who, though in the water outside the boat, was clinging to the gunwale.  He reached out for the closest person in the river who was detached from the boat and pulled her into the boat.  Then he reached out for the next closest detached person and pulled her in.  Those two started pulling remaining swimmers into the boat as the guide went back to rowing to get close to the remaining swimmers.  The last one pulled into the boat was the bedraggled swimmer who had never once let her death grip upon the gunwale go.

(It's a long way down to the river from the modern suspension bridge.) 

Fortunately the boat never went over which would have made the rescue a lot more difficult.  Also fortunate was that most rapids on the New River, although quite vigorous, are short.  It was fascinating to see how quickly and professionally this rescue unfolded.

(The old and the new: The old 2-lane highway bridge, front; the new 4-lane highway bridge, back.)

The New River

(Above:  "Row, row, row your boat... .")

I have a coffee cup which I picked up in a thrift store which extols the New River in West Virginia as the Grand Canyon of the East for rafting.  Ever since a class 3 rapids just about snuffed out my life during a bucket trip in 2010 underneath a wrapped boat in Utah, I have found rafting in rapids interesting.

(Above:  The New River National Gorge High Bridge.)

I hadn't rafted since then (I finished that trip which required 3 more days of rafting).  I'm pretty sure my fellow bucket trip college freshman dormmates think that experience so unnerved me that I lost my nerve.

(Above:  "Bail!")

I'm not so sure about that; my seven years as a Colorado State Trooper had a few harrowing moments.  My nerves are fine.

(Above:  Our tour guide Zach kept us all safe and no one got rubbed out of the boat.)

Anyway, this summer I signed up as a single for two day-trips down the New River, the aforementioned Grand Canyon of the East.  The first of our bucket trips went down the Grand Canyon on a raft in 2008, conducted by professional river guides, and I know the Grand Canyon's the real deal.

(Above:  "We're going in!")

It was fabulous.  The water was three times its ordinary flow and I found myself idly wondering as we drove down to the riverbank the first day whether I tempting fate by returning to the river.

(Above:  Swimming in the New River.)

But I took a seat in the first bench up front and paddled for all I was worth throughout the day in subservience to the commands of the boat master.  There was a lot of water that rolled over and through our boat, one wave of which nearly washed me out into the river on a class-2 rapids called Surprise! and I had a ball.

(Above: "Oof!)

I went swimming through a rapids in the river, pulled or pushed with my oar for all I was worth in the higher-class rapids and jumped off a twelve-foot high rock into the river.  That was the "Growing Rock" because in reports home it becomes a twenty-foot ledge.

(Above:  The Growing Rock.)

I hope you enjoy the accompanying pictures because I enjoyed the trip.  And I showed up the next day with another outfit for another trip on the New River.

(Above: "Hey, where'd everyone go?")

More Rafting

Another four foot tall roller ran over my head, submerging me for the third time despite my lifejacket. I was in the Potomac River, in water over my head, traveling down a class three rapids called White Horse. The current was sweeping me downriver through the rapids' forty foot long tube of roiling water.

Passing through the churning wake above my head, I surfaced and sucked air in greedily. I swallowed some water and started to cough. The boat that had preceded me through the rapids was in calm water ten yards away and its crew was calling to me to swim to it. (Right: A boat momentarily disappears in the spray as it navigates the rapids between two rocks on the Shenandoah. Compare this to the picture in the post immediately below of the boat plunging from sight in rapids on the Colorado.)

I had lost a watershoe in the active undertow and it popped to the surface ten feet away in the other direction. I swam to it and grabbed it as a fourth foaming wave rolled over my head, thrusting me underwater again.

On Sunday morning I had driven to Charles Town, WV, with a friend to go rafting on the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. After spending eight eventful days two weeks earlier going down a series of class four and five rapids on the Colorado River where it passes through the Grand Canyon, this outing with its class one, two and three rapids was supposed to be a walk in the park. Still, I was on a seven-person paddling boat instead of an 18-person motorized boat, and there were half a dozen series three rapids in the seven mile trip.

(Left: Approaching whitewater on the Shenandoah.) The mid-summer water was low in the Shenandoah and many large river rocks we went over were near the surface. Unlike in the deep Colorado, the bottom was always visible. Whenever a boat got stuck, the guide would hop out into thigh-deep water and manhandle the raft free.

My friend and I had been stationed as paddlers in front because we had taken the trip before and hence, we were considered experienced with rapids. I didn’t tell them about my week in the Colorado rapids.

On one rapids, a half-foot drop into deeper water off a long flat rock just under the surface, we actually got splashed. A few times we were rocked back and forth as we were propelled into submersed rocks by the current. That was how Chris, our veteran guide, was getting us downriver, by catching the front of the raft on underwater rocks and having the flowing river swing the rear of the boat around in a spinning maneuver to get us off obstructions.

He explained it was like being inside a pinball game, pinging down the river. It was fun if uneventful. (Right: A series three rapids on the picturesque Shenandoah.)

When we passed by Harpers Ferry near the end of our ride and slipped into the Potomac, the water got deeper and faster. Coming up on White Horse, which was the fastest, deepest and best rapids, I had asked Chris if I could swim it along with the guide trainee in the boat who was going to swim it as a training exercise. Chris said sure.

I had stepped into the water and after the boat entered the rapids, pushed off into the slipstream. The current had swiftly taken me into the narrow maelstrom.

(Left: Chris. He asked us what was the difference between a river guide and a stock portfolio. Answer: Unlike the guide, the portfolio will actually mature in ten years and make money.) When I came up from my latest immersion, I was past the rapids. Even though I was sputtering from my rough passage through the cresting waters, I had my shoe and I swam to the boat. I took hold of the paddle handle that Chris was extending and flopped into the boat. Wet, bedraggled and coughing, I rolled over and looked up. My friend was looking down at me worriedly.

I smiled at her and thought, Man, life on the rivers is great!

My Virtual 20K Race

What is a virtual race?

That's what I call a "race" I run of a real event that I don't attend due to cost, distance or circumstances. It's a run that I do by myself in a local venue of equivalent distance as the actual event. My "race" starts on the same date and at the same time as the specified program. Later I look up the results and see where I would have placed.

Although it's more than a tempo run, I rarely go at actual "race pace" because when I'm running alone it's hard to force myself to go at that effort for the entire distance. That's why I'm always slower in a virtual race than I would be at the real race. Or at least that's what I tell myself.

I do two or three "virtual races" a year of real races that I wish I were actually running. Although my times are unofficial, of course, and I don't count them for PRs, I do record them in my personal results because my running mindset during them is different from even a hard training run. I call each one the "Virtual [insert name of actual race here]".

Virtual races are fun. They enable me to participate in any race in the world. One rule I have is that I always try to approximate the actual terrain of the race.

For instance, last May 21st, I "went" to Wheeling, WV and "ran" in the Ogden Newspapers 20K Classic. Only I ran it on the last half of the first National Marathon course here in the DC area. This superseded course is devilishly hilly, as I imagine any race in West Virginia must be.

I remember it was already hot on that Sunday morning when I pushed off at 8 am from the "starting line" at the John Philip Sousa Bridge on Pennsylvania Avenue. I ran over the shimmering water of the Anacostia River and turned north at Minnesota Avenue. That was the end of any level running.

Running alone through the blighted streets of SE and on the soulless highways in PG County was depressing. I didn't see one other runner during the entire time and pedestrians seemed surprised to see me running by. Several cars honked and drivers gesticulated at me to get out of the way.

I wilted on the hellacious hills east of the Anacostia, especially the gargantuan one in Fort Dupont. I hit it in my third mile and could barely manage it. As I ground up it, I reflected on my friend Bex's first marathon on the same course two months earlier. I pictured her running up the same hill in the fourteenth mile, alone, hair flying, right knee severely gashed from a fall, with the seven hills of hell on Central Avenue still to come in the last six miles. I wondered if her first marathon had scarred her for life, then I remembered her tremendous resolve and decided, Naww.

An hour later I was on those same infamous hills, only I thankfully reached the "end" of my 20K race on the third hill. I barely shuffled over the imaginary finish line in 1:59:47, a gruesome 9:38 pace. If it hadn't been a "race" I would have quit the run long before that. I gratefully boarded Metro to ride back to my car in the District.

Oh, I placed 402/617 in the Virtual 2006 Ogden Newspapers 20K Classic. Not a good showing at all.