thedaveandkimmershow

[thedaveandkimmershow]

We went to The Crest last night to see Freakier Friday and it was a very sweet experience. Like spending time with an old friend.

Of course seeing movies like this never captures the original experience because the original was unique to its time in our lives. It landed right there... and was a family classic ever since.

Now, Kimmer'll tell you she saw the original orignal movie with Jodie Foster. I don't know if I ever saw it, but, as a reminder, here's its trailer:

Me, I think of the original as the one with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan... and revisiting the lives of these characters was a welcome retreat from our daily schedules. It was funny and clever, never unwelcome. It's not going to be one of our family classics we watch every year or more. Those movies tended to appear during Linzy's childhood and teen years, for whatever reason.

Still, I want to plant a flag in the experience to say yeah we did that. We enjoyed hanging out with this mother/daughter duo again to enjoy their moments together, laugh the laughs, and enjoy riding the story.

To future Dave: here are some clips from the movie followed by interviews...

[thedaveandkimmershow]

We attended a wedding yesterday for the daughter and now son-in-law of dear friends who go back to when Linzy was around 8 years old.

A long time ago, is my point (sorry Linzy) :-(

The wedding was at Woodland Meadow Farms out in the wilds of Snohomish county. I say"the wilds" even though it's only 35 minutes away from our place in proper civilization.

Still, we left kind of late-ish. The mother of the bride confirmed 4:00 p.m. as the start time for the wedding ceremony, suggesting we be there by 3:45. Fair enough and a good plan. Only, because we left late, we arrived in the parking lot mere minutes before four.

Whoops.

I had called ahead to Linzy to see if she and her boyfriend would score us seats when they arrived... so at least that was covered.

Anyway, we pulled into the parking lot, observing the wedding ceremony and reception areas were tucked into a bit of woods. Good old-fashioned woods that kept this summer's day 84° wonderfully comfortable with all that cover and shade. Then. We get out of our car, walk along a stand of trees that act like a giant exterior wall of the wedding site and reception space. As we come closer, we hear orchestral music playing in those woods.

Orchestral music.

You can hear a bit of it in the video above after we settled into our seats... but for quality of recording, you listen to the youtube clip of the song:

So yeah. The waltz from Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire. The waltz for the ballroom scene. What we were hearing was part of a playlist of welcome to our wedding music. And when we arrived, this was the music playing at that exact moment. It really defined that moment for us, it defines the moment of our arrival. It invokes such a celebratory scene.

If you haven't guessed by way of my slight clue, this wedding was colored and informed by Harry Potter references from the house colors worn by guests to the music, to the Butter Beer, to the Golden Snitch Ferrero Rocher chocolates, and so on. These choices reflect the favorite book and movie series for both bride and groom (in the wedding invitation, the groom is referred to as "The Boy Who Lived, Married".

I just looked it up about the music, by the way. When we took our seats, Linzy quizzed us on Harry Potter trivia just to confirm in her mind that we're Potter Heads even though we willfully deny it. She asked which movie the music's from and Kimmer accurately places it in the fourth movie at the Yule Ball. The part I just looked up that neither of us did know, is that the piece, a waltz, is called Potter Walz.

And no.

We are not Potter Heads. 😉

By the way, we arrived just a breath before the ceremony was to start, thankfully to realize it was in fact not nearly upon us. Big sigh of relief. And so we had time to have a modern-day Polaroid taken of us that Kimmer taped into the guest book. She also signed it for us.

Then we mosey through the woods until we find Linzy and her boyfriend and our seats. In the grand scheme, we were in our seats at 4:06 with time beyond that to chat the kids up a little, take a coupla selfies, and snap some pictures of this beautiful setting that was an actual gift for us to experience.

At some point, the MC announced this to be an unplugged wedding and so we all put our phones away, eyes front as the groom takes his place with the officient... and then toward the back as parents then members of the wedding party, bridesmaids and groomsmen, make their way up front.

As a nod to the bride's Hawaiian heritage, both bride and groom wore green tropical garlands around their necks that dangled to their hips on either side. The ceremony itself was very sweet with the officient struggling to tell the story of these two. You see, the story was so touching to him that he was on the verge of tears a number of times.

The wedding vows themselves had already been exchanged previously and in private. So this ceremony served as an affirmation of that truth.

Funniest part of the ceremony? When it was time for the exchanging of rings, "The Bestest Man", the groom's older brother, took forever fishing it out from the inside of his suit jacket. While he was doing that, I heard someone behind me, probably the wedding coordinator, say "Oh it's in there. We made sure of that."

It was, of course... of course the ring was ultimately located within the apparently deep recesses of an inside suit jacket pocket. Like I said though...

Finding it took.

For.

Eh.

Ver.

Still, the heart of the ceremony, the story, the two of them in front, hands held as they face one another standing with their best friends, surrounded by even more best friends and family, well... it was touching. They are a team, these two, with plans for a present and a future, a home, a life they are now pursuing with passion, with intention, with a healthy sense of adventure.

After the ceremony, as soon as the applause died down, we all folded up our light, white folding chairs and took them over to the dining area where tables were already arranged, a buffet line setup, a dance floor, a games area, a cake and party favors area where the Golden Snitch chocolates were on display, and an open bar featuring Butter Beer drinks, Butter Beer being one of the most tasty features of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. :-)

For Kimmer, Linzy, and Linzy's boyfriend, after we settled on our table and our places at the table (closest to the drinks, end of table next to the wall shared with the bride and groom's dinner table for two) , the three of them joined the quickly formed drink line whilst I–and here we run into part of what made us late earlier–I went back to our car to retrieve our wedding card and the gift for the bride and groom.

Now.

This is not an off-the-shelf card. It's crafted from many such cards and creatively assembled into a unique construction and, of course, themed toward The Wizarding World. Kimmer finished assembling it about 15 to 20 minutes before we had to leave. While she was doing that, I drafted our thoughts to be written inside the card itself, across the multiple pages Kimmer carefully put together. And while I did figure out all the words, we simply ran out of time for me to write them into the card.

Oof.

So I printed what I had, threw everything and a coupla new pens into a blue plastic folder, and off we went.

Fast forward to post-ceremony pre-dinner, Kimmer, Linzy, and Linzy's boyfriend are in the drinks line, and now I'm sitting at my place at the table with pens, printed sheet of thoughts, and the card Kimmer so expertly crafted. She's also about to bring me a super lovely cold tropical drink. 😁😁😁

It took a little bit of time to figure out how to spread our thoughts for the newly minted couple across multiple pages. It also took me a little bit of time because I indulged that thing Kimmer does that I hate: some of the text I wrote follows the wavy lines that are part of Kimmer's construction. If she crafted large circular spaces, I allowed the text to wrap around and around so that, writing it, you have to continuously rotate the whole card and, reading it.

Same deal.

It's a style that works exceptionally well for The Wizarding World, infuriating as that can be. ☺️

Afterward, we manage a quick conversation with the newlyweds at their table for two... and quickly the wedding coordinator is summoned so she can take possession of our newly crafted wedding card and the gift that goes with it.

And then, after that.. dinner.

Huzzah!

The buffet dinner, by the way, was assembled by the father of the groom, a caterer perhaps? He wore a black full apron while tending to the food as he let us know that it was all nut-free, egg-free, and gluten-free so that every one of us could partake of any of the deliciousness spread out before us.

A helluva thing, that. 😁

Back at our dinner table, Linzy attention was relentlessly captured by a playlist blowing through the big speakers onto and over the dance floor/game area side of the building. It was a playlist ripped from her own school days. In fact, songs from High School Musical featured a lot. 🥳 Because of that, she felt compelled to at least mentally sing along, every so often breaking out into a brief moment of actual sing-a-long. She just.

Couldn't.

Help it.

Later, at my urging, she asked the bride Who cooked up the playlist?Sure enough, it was her husband who's about Linzy's age. Turns out they both grew up on that same list of songs.

After dinner, we all move outside to the dance floor for the bride and groom's first dance. I don't know what the song was but it was definitely a Josh Groban song. She was always such a big fan. She must have had a poster (or posters) of the guy on her wall growing up.

After that first dance, married couples were encouraged onto the dance floor for what I didn't realize was a tradition.

A tradition?

Yeah. Basically getting to who's been married the longest.

First up, Anyone who's been married less than a day, please leave the dance floor.

That was curtains for our bride and groom.

Then the bar started moving up in 5-year increments. Looking around, I knew there was no way we were gonna win this thing. Some of these couples were seriously old. So we tapped out at less than 35 years. We're actually 32 years just a month shy of 33.

And then everyone else was suddenly out at less than 40 years married. Not sure how they crowned the winning couple. Must have got the wedding date of every couple still standing (four or five, I think).

Later, Linzy's boyfriend asked me if that's the kind of thing you don't want to win because you have to be really old to win it. And I get that. I really do. But whenever it's winners and losers, I don't care who you are...

You want to win. 😜

We felt fantastic, by the way. We represented the colors of our houses from The Wizarding World. Kimmer found a beautiful dress and scarf to embody Gryffindor in reds and golds. She found me a brown tweed jacket, tan silk slacks, a tan long sleeve shirt, a yellow and blue Hufflepuff tie, a yellow Hufflepuff scarf, and yellow and blue Hufflepuff socks that actually read Hufflepuff along the sides.

I even had a 9-3/4 pin tacked to my tie.

So yeah. Nailed the house vibe. :-)

What we appreciated most this summer night in the woods was a series of meaningful conversations we had with different people across the evening.

There was a young woman who, back in the day, we knew from summer camp when she was a punk kid. Kimmer was running the med cabin while I was running around capturing video to be shown that night.

There was the sibling of the bride who I hadn't seen in, I'm sure, a crazy number of years. My brain had a hard time with the juxtaposition of the boy I knew and the adult in front of me. And, with Linzy there, we talked old times when a gaggle of them played hide and seek in the house. We talked the last time this group of kids had all been together (there's a photograph from another wedding way back when).

And so on.

We easily found ourselves in meaningful conversations across the property. In the dining area. Along the buffet (believe it or not). INear the drink stand. Even out in the grass parking lot at the end of the evening as the sun disappeared... and powered paragliders appeared overhead fully catching the deep yellows and reds of the setting sun.

When it was time to leave, we cut across the valley, taking in more of those deep colors being pulled down below the horizon as if by an invisible hand. This was a drive we did on the regular once upon a time and, with windows rolled down, we enjoyed this drive across memory lane and basked in the absolute loveliness of it.

In the end, it was ceremony. It was conversations. It was even the number of guests in this large wood. Because the combination was peaceful. It was relaxing. No rush. We got to take in each moment and savor it. We got to be fully present in each moment and be touched by it. We got to enjoy. We got to laugh. We got to be part of something bigger than ourselves.

Trust me when I say not all weddings are like this. Some are downright overwhelming in scope. But last night, in the woods?

Felt like home.

☺️

[thedaveandkimmershow]

Either we navigate the river or we're carried away by the river.

That's the truth we all face. Every one of us. Since I've been poking around unsolicited marriage advice, though, I wanna enter through the lens of being married because this is two people, lives newly bound, entering the world together. And that world is a mind-boggling cacophony of complexity and responsibility and aspirations with which we wrestle.

It's not hard to lose your bubble in all that messy confusion, is my point. The raging waters of the Present will certainly see to that when the life you lead together is perpetual whack-a-mole each and every day. And allowing ourselves to be carried away by the river's chaotic flow is how we become something less than our strongest selves.

The truth is that we exist in fullness of Time not just the Present. That is, we can learn from what we experience after the experience. We can interrogate our memories, we can compare notes with our partner, we can together seek the lessons, the alternatives, the pivots embedded in our pasts. And we can carry those understandings forward with us.

We can also visualize the future. Ish. We can reasonably project from past to present to future likely outcomes across a number of circumstances and events based on our own understandings and experiences. We can set all manner of destinations in that likely future, among those likely outcomes.

In this version of ourselves, we don't merely perceive our lives through the lens of the present, we are informed by our past, we make predictions about the future, and we use the present either to set course or to course correct.

The result is we gain some control back. We become more action and less re-action. You're dumbfounded less. You're disrupted less. There's much less whack-a-mole in your days. There's less opportunity for anxiety and frustration and being overwhelmed. Overwhelmed, by the way, is when the tsunami is in front of you. Control is when you know it's coming when it's still a hundred miles out.

And this.

The magic trick of any relationship is its ability to shed the world, its chaos and all its infinite moving parts, and just be two people setting sail in a little wooden boat across a vast ocean. To be adventurers, to be perpetually curious, passionate in themselves, about each other, and the breathtaking voyage before them.

Two people. Navigating uncharted waters.

Their strongest selves.

Together.

You see, it really is the destination that defines the journey. For two people setting sail in their wooden boat, it is the reason for their journey, the lighthouse to which they commit themselves to being drawn. In a way, the destination is their center of gravity that draws them back onto course even through the biggest, most unpredictable storms.

And it all starts with a simple question:

Where are we going?

[thedaveandkimmershow]

In a bout of writing some unsolicited advice on getting married, there was some other stuff I wanted to stuff in there and managed, thankfully, to not.

It's the part where I talked about preparing for the experience of getting married as opposed to experiencing the final act of planning a wedding. To fully breathe in a ceremony for two.

After that, it turns out, it helps to keep that approach to life in place across the days, weeks, months, years, decades that follow.

Why?

Because being married is easy when life is easy. Anyone could do it.

But marriage involves two people forming themselves around each other as well as navigating together the chaos of the world around them. A world that relentlessly surprises in not nice ways.

It's astonishing the challenges married's face that are not of their own making and yet.

And yet they have to deal anyway.

And to do that successfully requires the best versions of themselves. Or maybe the strongest versions of themselves. Their strongest at 18. Their strongest at 25. Their strongest at 31. And so on. Because it's really hard to topple a pair of human beings who are passionate about each other and who are also at their strongest. Even when they're surrounded by chaos. Especially when they're surrounded by chaos. When individual partners are strong, mentally, emotionally, healthy, when they've developed internal strength and work from that strength as a team, they can navigate chaos and still sustain themselves and grow their relationship. They can still fulfill the promise of love and peace and joy... of kindness and patience, of laughter and adventure, of grace and encouragement. Of pursuing this life together as a team to the ends of their lives.

It's an epic pursuit, I won't lie. It's a Worthy pursuit. It's also a pursuit that's not for everyone. I won't lie about that, either.

Because I said before marriage is easy when life is easy? The "easy" I'm talking about represents peaks where, like a roller coaster, inevitably will, well, plummet. Not that dramatically all the time, of course. Just, the lives we all lead exist in a wild, wild world. And the world always has a say. 'Challenge" doesn't even begin to describe that experience.

So.

Being married is easy when life is easy? What about when life is something less than easy? What happens when one of you is having a bad day; one of you is overwhelmed; one of you is struggling. Now add Time.

Rinse.

Repeat.

Or this:

Under the banner of The Nearly Impossible: both of you are having a bad day; both of you are overwhelmed; both of you are struggling. Add Time.

Rinse.

Repeat.

My point?

Marriage is a team pursuit. And the ability of the team really does rest on being both mentally and emotionally strong. Living healthy (not that easy, it turns out). The ability of the team relies on maturity, the ability to learn, to commit, to implement, to pivot across wild terrain. The ability of such a team to prevail against Time depends on their strongest selves and nobody waltzes onto stage as their strongest selves.

You spend your whole lifetime pursuing it.

[thedaveandkimmershow]

We're going to a wedding on the weekend which is always cause for a touch of memory lane, a bit of asking friends "hey, did your wedding go exactly to plan?" "was it a drama-free experience?" "was it everything you wanted it to be?"

Across the years, such questions prompt a number of gone-wrong stories, overwhelmed stories, glad it was over stories.

From my perch today, it strikes me that after the proposal and before the vows it's all logistics all logistics all logistics 24/7. Every meeting, every gathering: somehow logistics. It's necessary, of course. You're both setting plans for a wedding as well as plans for a life together. At the same time, that sustained effort can make it emotionally challenging to leave all that planning behind and simply be present in the moment.

There's just so much to do and so many opportunities to be frustrated. It's hard for any of us to simply let that all go just because we set foot into the space in which we're to be wed.

Now some individuals, some couples, navigate the process into and through the wedding itself, no sweat. If that's you, well done. Even on a good day, though, depending on the moving parts in play, it's terribly easy to be caught up in the mechanics of getting married as opposed to the experience of bonding your life to the life of someone you love deeply.

It's easy to forget what this is all about.

So.

It's helpful to bake into your experience the kind of experience you both wanna have. That can mean a lot of things to different people... but if you need space for peace or to relax or to re-energize together, even if it's only in the week leading up to the day... take it for yourselves. Easier said than done, of course, but the alternative is arriving on the day completely exhausted. Mentally. Physically.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that the engagement isn't only for preparing a wedding, it's also preparing yourselves for the wedding. Preparing yourselves for an experience you'll share. Navigating your mental and your physical abilities maybe like athletes do for their games or musicians and actors do for their performances.

They're guiding their mental and physical abilities towards a specific experience. They're preparing themselves for the people they need to be, want to be, on the day.

When you're getting married, the point isn't the spectacle. The point isn't all the moving parts even though it desperately seems like it must be. The point is to be fully present in every moment of the ceremony, your ceremony, focused on the breathtaking commitment you both are about to make.

And realistically?

You are in this place with only one other person with whom you're about to embark on a Life.

That's what weddings are all about, Charlie Brown.

The experience of two people as if the world has dropped away and there are only two people who love each other deeply and are committing themselves to each other through words and deed.

The experience, at its very heart, is a ceremony for two.

☺️

[thedaveandkimmershow]

Last night at the Everett Marina, The Little Lies were full throttle as ever. They were meaningful as ever. They were fun as ever. A high energy ride featuring wild musicianship.

They were always ever thus from the jump.

What struck me last night was their stage presence. Don't get me wrong. They've always had stage presence. This has always been a kinetic band with a mastery of instruments including voice. They've always performed with a certain pop and sizzle.

So what's different now?

Time, I suppose. Experience. Challenges. Opportunities. The fire, if you will that takes a band and makes it tight. This is a band fully in sync within itself. This is a band wielding presence among all five members who radiate that seasoned rock band vibe in the way they enjoy themselves and each other on stage. They have certified moments of casual Rock coolness captured in a smile, a hand brushing back long hair, the way sunglasses are slipped on after the vocals are done. Yes, defining the specifics of "cool" is a fool's errand but you know it when you see it. More importantly you feel those moments.

Beyond the vibes, the snatches of conversations between band members on stage and between band members and the audience is fully realized with quips, witty exchanges, playfulness, cheekiness, teasing. There's more fun packed into these exchanges. And more insight strategically offered.

Beyond what's said on stage, there's also the nonverbal performance, band members deploying with wicked effectiveness body language perfectly tuned to specific song moments that dials up the dramatic tension, the dramatic power of these songs. It's acting in its own way to a script fashioned from lyrics and music. It's perhaps even more so moments improvised by musicians deliciously in tune with each other. The ultimate effect conjures a presence that flows freely from the stage, energizing the audience, this mass of summer's day humanity responding to what this band conjures beyond the music itself. These are moments that demand, that compels the audience to respond almost involuntarily with cheers and shouts and whooooooos of ever increasing volume, adding that final layer of magic energy to an already powerful stage performance, this mass of humanity arrayed behind the stage, on both sides of the stage, in front of the stage between the street and the dock all the way back to the condos where people gather to listen on their balconies, in front of which people are lined all across the dock back there, also on boats packed into the marina's waters, on stairs spiraling up the Grand Avenue pedestrian bridge maybe three stories up, along with all those fans in the park above the stage who can't see the band but can hear them just fine.

A lot of fans out there, is my point, A sea of 'em reveling in something new:

The essential Little Lies.

Now, the band's performed on this stage a number of years now. The difference this year is how audience members responded. They were grabbing band set lists from stage right after the show, actively seeking out band members in order to get all five autographs on those set lists. And more than ever, a lot of people wanted their pictures taken with members of the band. At one point, I think there were six people huddled around the keyboard player for a selfie.

Just to be clear:

This is a tribute band.

They're not impersonating the individual members of Fleetwood Mac. There are no costumes or wigs involved here.

And yet.

And yet the experience they unleashed on thousands of Fleetwood Mac fans was so powerful that after the show was over people sought anything they could beyond photographs and videos of the performance. People sought a personal connection not only to the music but to the musicians themselves.

Because.

Because that's the magic of a transcendent concert experience. We're moved to such depth that compels us to fulfill that experience in any way we can with the people who just breathed that music into our souls.

We're still talking about a tribute band here, of course. Not even a note for note re-creation of the original songs. What it is, though, is a kinetic, a powerful, a meaningful celebration of these classic songs that is unique to this group of five wildly gifted musicians:

The Little Lies.

LITTLE LIES TRIVIA The Little Lies took the stage for the first time on friday March 4th, 2022, at the Lime Bar & Grill in Kirkland, Washington. Their sound check was Gold Dust Woman that many in the crowd mistook for the actual start of their set because the performance was so polished.

The Little Lies were officially introduced to the public on saturday March 19th, 2022, at Tony V's in Everett, Washington: a sold-out show with a line from the front door to the end of the block then up Rockafeller.

SOME LITTLE LIES EXPERIENCES 3/2022 In The Beginning...

6/2022 A Relentlessly Energetic, Engaging, Charming, And Most Of All, Impressively Enjoyable Band.

8/2022 Fun, Energy, and High Octane Rock 'n Roll

3/2023 Igniting A Passion For The Music

5/2023 A Band That Continues To Find New Heights

SPECIAL THANKS Music at the Marina is presented by the Everett Events Foundation in partnership with Everett Music Initiative. Thank God for people and organizations like these.

Seriously.

This music and these musicians are a genuine gift to the community. Good for the heart. Good for the memories. Good for the soul and bringing us all...

Together.

☺️

[thedaveandkimmershow]

Tonight, Linzy took us to https://www.shibuyahifi.com/ where we listened to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon on vinyl through super hi fidelity speakers.

We arrived shortly after 9 at a nondescript entrance somewhere in Ballard.

Once through those doors, we order some drinks and settle into the lounge where some definite Pink Floyd vibes are traveling through the speakers.

But it's not Pink Floyd.

So I point this out as a bit of classic rock trivia: Who sounds like Pink Floyd but is not Pink Floyd.

The answer?

David Gilmour.

David Gilmour, lead guitarist of Pink Floyd and the voice you hear in Floyd classics like "Comfortably Numb", "Money", and "Breathe".

Soon, 930 is upon us and we're ushered into the HiFi Room, shoes off and placed at the back of the room.

The room?

Yeah. This room:

Linzy basically paid for all of us to hang out in someone's living room.

But what a living room, though!

☺️

Yeah but what about the hi fidelity bit?

Well... I don't know what to tell you about that other than the thing they told us: Marantz 2325-powered mint condition Klipschorns in a vintage HiFi Room.

Here's what they have to say about it:

"Our goal at Shibuya HiFi is simple: To place our guests in the midst of a high-fidelity sound experience that offers a reset from the static and the noise of the modern world."

And this:

"...kick back in our HiFi Room, an unparalleled vintage audiophile experience where guests are invited to kick off their shoes and make themselves at home in a room appointed with fine textiles, custom-made furniture, a luxurious hand-knotted rug, rare Louis Poulsen chandeliers and a large-scale commissioned artwork by Christy Hopkins."

It's a helluva experience, is what it is. There's such clarity, such a clean sound. So crystal. I don't know how else to say it other than the sound is a revelation after listening to mp3 files all these years not realizing what's hidden beneath all that compression. It amazes me what I heard in this album in this way, especially an album I listened to for years.

Before the music started, we were made aware that the vinyl we would soon hear is a 30th Anniversary pressing of the album from the original analog tapes. There are multiple pressings of Dark Side of the Moon, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

So.

With that information safely tucked away in our brains, the table turned, the needle dropped, the crackling crackled and, with the sound of a familiar heartbeat, we were reintroduced to an old friend.

The Dark Side of the Moon album is an amazing piece of work. From the first time I heard it through all the different ways it's been recorded, mastered, and pressed, the underlying work is a breathtaking creation. Certainly, it's a gift for any creative with ears. A gift for any writer, composer, creator who lives for the creative pursuit.

There's a lot here to consume, is my point. By which to be inspired. By which to be challenged and filled with wonder both intellectual and etherial.

Most of all, this:

The experience was a gift from my daughter, a musician/composer/performer herself who, well...

Good grief.

She sure does know our love language, don't she?

☺️

[thedaveandkimmershow]

Usually when we go to the movies we come out knowing the movie we just saw was good or not, funny or not, adrenalin rush or not. We know whether it lived up to its buzz or if, once again, that buzz is on a directly opposed path from our own judgement. We love certain movies that were panned. We hate certain movies that were praised.

Tonight we went to see Superman at the Crest Theater in Shoreline... and you know what?

We had a good time.

We just had a good time.

There's lots to talk about, of course. Tons to review and dissect. Plenty to analyze.

Right now, I just wanna luxuriate in this:

We sat there together in the dark enjoying our large bag of buttered popcorn.

And had a good time.

☺️❤️❤️❤️

[thedaveandkimmershow]

There are times, not often but there are times when I think up couples tests like vacationing domestically by airlines. Vacationing internationally.

It's a test of critical thinking, strategizing, and team work.

There's a ton of logistics involved. Lots of moving parts.

Of course there are more circumstances than just these to test a couples' ability as a team.

In light of recent circumstances at our homestead, I can definitely add to the list of possible tests the limbing of trees.

This is a test we had to pass recently because it was clear a number of our trees were outgrowing/overgrowing their welcome.

We started by using a variety of wood saws we have on hand until I looked up what we should be using for this job: a pruning saw. So I ran down to Home Depot, picked one up, and our efforts became instantly easier, reliable, and, you know, successful.

Weeks later, today, in fact, we faced a limbing job we put off for a while because of how imposing it seemed to us. You see a while back, Kimmer planted a row of pyramidalis trees along one edge of our property that grew and grew over the years but not uniformly. Because they were planted next to our giant dogwood, what happened is that the ones closest to the dogwood grew slowly whilst the ones farthest from that tree grew swiftly. I think there's a fifteen foot spread between the shortest and tallest of those trees and Kimmer wanted the row cut to the same height across all of the trees.

Cool.

No problem. So...

How do we do that?

Well, we started with the easiest tasks: thin limbs and branches that, of course, were no problem. When we were done with those, that left four trunks on the end that were significant. The first two I was able to cut straight through no problem while on our ladder. The third was thicker and therefore heavier and, the millisecond I fully cut through it... it fell straight down right in front of me, branches brushing my face on their rapid express way down. Not a huge problem, of course, but it was a demonstration of how little control I had of the process at this point.

So.

Again.

How do we do that?

Because, you see, the last trunk was gonna be the largest in diameter, the tallest of all the trees in the row. The most weight we would bring down.

How would we maintain full control of this beast?

How would we make sure it falls exactly where we want it to?

"You use a wedge cut" says Kimmer.

"Cool" says I. "Which side does the wedge go on?"

She wasn't sure... so I called a YouTube break and looked for videos about situations similar to ours.

Right off the bat, of course, everyone in their YouTube channels has gas powered chainsaws so there's a lot of finesse and speed I don't have with my pruning saw. Not even close.

Still, the cut goes on the side on which you want the tree to come down.

Awesome.

Plus, the wedge only takes up half the trunk. You don't cut it so it almost goes all the way through. Just halfway.

Also awesome.

So now I'm twenty feet in the air, cutting a wedge with my left hand 'cause we can't have the tree falling into our neighbor's yard. There's also a storage shed on the other side of the tree so, you know, that's just how it is. So that's one full half of a pie chart that's a No Fly Zone, cut down the middle by the property line, structures, and plants on the neighbor's side. Add to that another quarter of No Fly Zone because the trunk can't be allowed to fall into our backyard either because the angle the tree trunk has to fall in that direction allows for the possibility that it clips the neighbor's storage shed on the way down. Also, the trunk can't fall toward our house because in that direction it would crash into our house. Add another eighth to the pie both because of that and because the trunk can't also fall onto the row of trees beside us. All of which leaves us with about an eighth of a sliver of our pie chart on which the tree trunk can land without crushing or crashing into anything.

So.

The tree's gotta come down onto a sliver of our side yard between the house and this row of pyramidlis. At an angle.

Fortunately, we're packing a long, thick, white and blue striped nylon rope, courtesy of my parents as a long ago house warming gift for a swing set.

From the ladder, Kimmer ties the rope as high as she can reach on the piece of trunk we mean to lop off. She then climbs down and takes her spot on the grass beyond where she expects the trunk to land whilst I assume the process of sawing awkwardly with my left hand in order to establish a wedge cut that will assure the 10-15 ft of trunk above me will fall exactly and in the only place it can.

Our plan is for me to cut the wedge then cut straight across from the exact opposite side of that wedge meeting up where the two edges of the wedge cut converge. The plan is to almost sever the tree right there and then have Kimmer pull the upper part of the trunk free with the rope that's tied to it.

Here's the thing though: as my pruning blade approaches the point of the wedge cut halfway into the trunk, I ask Kimmer to give the rope a smooth, easy pull to see if the trunk can now be pulled down like that. Initially, nothing happens ( it's amazing how much of a trunk you can cut through and the part you're trying to remove doesn't budge, like, at all ). As I cautiously pursue the cut to within a quarter inch, an eighth of an inch, I notice that, while the upper trunk begins to move toward Kimmer... it also recoils in the opposite direction as she releases tension.

Whoops. In that "opposite direction" definitely lies the neighbor's house.

So...

After a bit of conversing about our predicament, with me up on the ladder, with she down below holding the rope taught, we decide for me to continue the cut a tiny bit further—another sixteenth inch maybe?—and then climb down to join Kimmer.

Which I do.

Now I'm standing in front of her, holding the rope and, the two of us now, pulling the upper trunk free in our direction with a smooth and sustained pull.

It worked, by the way. The trunk came down under our full control right in front of me, landing just shy of Kimmer.

HUZZAH!

That's right. It worked. We figured this thing out right down to that final decision and managed to not hit ourselves with this really big heavy bit of tree, let alone cause it to crash into the neighbor's house.

Or our house.

Once again: HUZZAH!

So there it is. We passed with.... not flying colors, exactly. We passed yet one more of those couples tests that show up randomly during the course of our day to days.

Whether we want them to...

Or not.

🤔

[thedaveandkimmershow]

JUNE was a bit of summer vacation for Kimmer. Okay not full blown summer vacation but, at the very least, since she finished the paper she worked on for months by May, that part of her life was off the table so now she could better focus on seeing clients, charting and, you know, having a life. She won't have to revisit serious academic pursuits until the end of July when she begins preparing for a major test in the fall.

In the beginning of June, I continued my explorations in post-production AI tools at Small World Productions... an endeavor on which I've been involved one way or another most of this year so far. For this project, I was given some narration to try out an AI assisted process helmed by a writer/producer. Basically trying to make good on someone else's vision according to their standards.

So... notes.

I opened this process up to notes.

It's a pretty legit process, by the way. Characterized by a lot of making good on what we hoped the footage would be when it was originally shot. For example, fixing an encoding problem in GoPro footage captured from a hang glider above alpine mountains and lake by recreating the shot so that it was perfect. Maybe even with a better sky. In other cases, conjuring colorful alpine fields. Creating "photo" stills of artists painting in nature... then animating those stills, bringing them to life. Conjuring a scene of an 18th century carriage complete with driver and passengers crossing a mountain pass. Same deal with an 18th century sailing vessel battling raging seas, a shot that starts on one side of the ship and smoothly arcs around to the other side. Back in the realm of what we hoped shots would be when they were originally shot, I indulged a bunch of weather fixing. I replaced shots captured with camera and tripod with the same shots using a camera crane. I used post production AI tools to create depth in paintings as virtual cameras moved across the surface of the canvases. And, oh yeah, I used AI tools to create a group of 18th century ghosts walking across a courtyard we shot a long time ago.

That last one was a producer request, by the way. 🤩

Friday night, July 6th, Kimmer 'n I dressed all fancy and traveled down to Fremont Studios to celebrate the accomplishments of colleague and friend Richard Marshall. The event is part of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences that honors industry professionals with 25 and 50 years of experience. It's called The Gold and Silver Circle and I was not only glad to celebrate Richard, one of the best broadcast photographers in town (for reasons communicated during the ceremony), I was also proud to have crafted the tribute video that tells his 50-year story in 5 minutes, 14 seconds. :-)

The next evening, we're right back at Fremont Studios for the northwest regional Emmy Awards representing the efforts of small, medium, and large broadcast stations and production companies in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.

We were there in hopes I might accept an Emmy for long form editing but, alas, that was not to be. 😕

Still, the evening was impressive as hell. Under the category of "it's SUCH a small world" I sat next to the dad of one of the music students my daughter tutors. The idea that we're both at the Emmy's is one thing.. but that we' we're sitting right next to each other as strangers, only realizing the connection through natural conversation, well.. let's just say the moment when we all realized that connection was mind-blowing.

🤯🤯🤯

Once the host of the evening started announcing winners, it quickly became obvious that no one who accepted their Emmy was too young or too old to publicly thank their mom and dad. No one was too young or too old to publicly detail the ways their parents supported them from the beginning of and throughout their careers. The most touching moment was a big man in his late 50s, early 60s, full beard, cowboy hat, suit, and boots, tearing up during his acceptance speech when he shared a conversation he had with his dad who's in hospice. They talked about the possibility of his winning this very award and it killed this big man to not know if that was the last time they'd ever speak again.

The event was more touching and insightful and humbly thankful than I might otherwise have imaged.

In the end, it's as I said to my daughter:

It's cool to be nominated. It's even better to win. But it's most important, I think, to every so often share the same space with as many people who do what you do and are passionate about it. To see what they do and how they do it. To watch them be the kind of professionals worthy of both praise and aspiring to.

To watch them take a moment, a breath, to revel in what they do and the people with whom they passionately pursue this profession we share.

☺️

At UW video, I spent the beginning of June crafting videos for a show called Purple Carpet that precedes the live broadcast of the University of Washington 2025 Commencement Exercises. The work took me right up to the end of June 12th with finishing touches on the commencement open at which point I was invited to observe production rehearsals the next day for both Purple Carpet and Commencement.

Now, the Purple Carpet production includes studio hosts, video packages, and a pair of reporters in the stadium. The studio production takes place on the sixth floor of the south deck of the stadium with a row of windows looking down onto the field. Here I spoke with some of the crew, I spoke to the hosts about the fires that wiped out Altadena, California, and I got to sit through the full table read.

Six floors down or so is what I think of as the machine room for the stadium where there are racks upon racks of inputs and outputs from every location in the stadium. Through that machine room, every camera whether wired or wireless, every mic, every bit of communication is routed to the control room and then to the internet as well as to the massive LED screen mounted at the east end of the field.

The screen, by the way, is so massive and bright that you can see every detail displayed on it perfectly from every vantage in the stadium even on a bright, sunny day.

The entire operation, including the SkyCam rig—

—and an interface that allows the control booth to stream live video from any smartphone in the stadium is really, very much, impressive as hell. 🙂

Father's Day this year, June 15, and we brought lunch over to my parent's place in the city. It was a spread we all enjoyed, especially the Kimmer-crafted dessert. The visits are always an adventure for all of us when we get together. For my folks, I have news and photos from Holland from which I often ask for identification of a person, place, or a year. For me, my dad's the family historian of Ris family photographs dating back to the 1930s. What caught my eye this time was the photo album documenting the day of their wedding. These are photographs from another era in which my parents and all my aunts and uncles are in their twenties.

Which is just. crazy.

Now, this Father's Day was about my dad so we didn't spend time and effort attempting to make good on the logistics of two separate Father's Day events on the same day. It gets a little nutty when you have to do that kind of juggling during a single day, especially when you have to keep paying attention to what time you have to leave. In July, then, Linzy will treat me to her gift and a bit of celebration. And since I'm writing this in July already, I can tell you what her gift is: a listening party for the 30th anniversary pressing of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album in a large cedar walled room with plenty of comfy chairs and an exquisitely HiFi sound system through which we experience the original sound on vinyl.

It's breathtaking, the experience.

And the perfect gift. ☺️

Definitely check it out when you have the time. https://www.shibuyahifi.com/

As for Linzy herself, June was a busy month. Aside from her regular schedule of private music tutoring, she performed at the Palisade Restaurant in Magnolia three times across the month, once at the Fireside Lounge at Willows Lodge in Woodinville, once at The Cottage in Bothell, and then performing vocals keys and acoustic guitar for The Little Lies, the Pacific Northwest Fleetwood Mac tribute band of which she's an original member. If you will, she's part of a classic lineup of a classic lineup. They performed at Summerfest 2025 in Olympia on June 20th.

We asked her the following morning how the gig went and I'm sure the audience loved the show as all audiences inevitably do. The only thing is that the band uses in-ear monitors, earbuds that contain live band mixes set for each individual band member so they can hear themselves clearly in their personal mix.

Normally, the system works flawlessly. But this night, for whatever reason, the system was fraught with problems all night long despite their tech's best effort. So this ended up being one of those gigs audiences love but isn't so much fun for the band. :-(

Now.

While all this was happening, Kimmer 'n I were putting the final touches on packing for our camping trip to Huntington Lake, California. Our departure plan was to Lyft out to the Lynnwood light rail station and take that train to the airport. Unfortunately for us, on the weekend we were leaving, in fact Saturday the 21st the very day we were leaving, there was a scheduled disruption in the line requiring riders to get off the train at Capitol Hill station, board a bus taking them to Sodo station, and then get on another train to the airport.

That was absolutely a hard No for us so we asked if Linzy would drive us to the airport on the morning after her tough gig.

We definitely got the full story as she drove us to SeaTac airport. And so we were off on our vacation.

We traveled Saturday the 21st and returned the following Saturday the 28th. Sunday was a free day and Monday we took the Metrolink train from Irvine to Union Station in Los Angeles, then a Lyft to our RV pickup location courtesy Roadsurfer camper & RV rentals, a European company that, among the kinds of rigs we're looking for, prefers newer model converted Sprinter vans with low mileage. The one we rolled in had about 47,000 miles on it. By comparison, the last rig we rented was a cargo van with somewhere north of 350,000 miles on it.

The rest of Monday was all about the long drive that turned into the sloooooow road to camp involving mountain roads, a five thousand foot climb, high elevation narrow and wind-ee roads without guardrails, along with the full blown dark of night.

We rolled into our camp parking slot at 10:00 that night. Interestingly, when our time at the lake was over, we found ourselves hitting the road again at 10:00... Friday morning.

Meaning...

Meaning we had three full days to spend at the lake, days that were characterized among our group by, yes, the Wonder of nature, peace, relaxation, talks around the campfire both night and day, asking strangers both old and young if they caught any fish, talking to fellow campers about where they're from and what their plans are. It was meals from the grill, watching adults and kids enjoy the water, especially the sheer brilliance of peacing out on a paddle board whilst your child paddles about randomly. Seriously, you're sleeping on the largest waterbed there is under a perfectly lovely sun. What do you care where you're going?

Also, listening to all the things kids say while they're at play or even just walking about with each other. Plus...

Ice cream sandwiches.

Fly fishing.

Kayaking.

Wilderness walks.

And so on.

Oh yeah—

And stargazing. Looking up at the diamonds in the sky and marveling at their nearness, their clarity, their brilliance. At 7,000 ft of elevation, not only do the stars, the constellations, the satellites appear closer to where I'm standing, for some reason it feels really good that they are that close. It feels really good that they are more personal to me, in a breathtaking and wondrous way.

And then, like I said, Friday morning we leave for Irvine. Saturday morning we leave for home.

And I miss those stars.

The ones above our home are so far, far away.

In the end, I would say that nature adds a certain scope to our lives as well as its own pace that's set by the waves and the wind, the sound of feet on dirt and sand, and especially moments of stillness and quiet. I will also say that having zero cell service, zero wi-fi, zero internet, email, and texts, like, at all provides for additional peace, additional stillness that otherwise wouldn't be there. It is very much a different life, a different reality in those woods, on that lake, for those reasons. And the experience is now and forever nestled into the recesses of my brain as a treasured memory.

So.

That was our June.

Onward!

☺️

[thedaveandkimmershow]

July 5 marked our (maybe) 35th dating anniversary, our first date having occurred on July 5, 1990 (maybe). The math of our relationship has never been the best, so... it's either our 34th, 35th, or 36th dating anniversary and our first date happened in 1989, 1990, or 1991. Something like that.

July 5 for sure, though.

We started the day making cards for each other and wrapping gifts much like we've always done. This time, however, in order to get us out the door and into the world in a timely manner, Kimmer suggested we hold ourselves to an hour each for making cards.

I actually set a timer, by the way, and actually took a single hour.

Kimmer, on the other hand, kept resetting her timer until she stopped resetting her timer until not only one, not only two, but three hours go by.

She was very proud of that card, though. And I don't blame her. It's magnificent.

After that, we read each other's cards, opened our presents, and set about a breakfast of fruit and toasted croissants.

By the time we're out the door, it's definitely passed noon as we make our way to that GoodWill in Edmonds for some perusing before making our way down to Sprouts on 130th & Aurora to score a Greek Pita Platter, a Caesar salad, and red grapes that we take down with us to Tapster in South Lake Union. We actually sit outside on the patio, enjoying our drinks and lunch, enjoying the afternoon sunshine along with the breeze coming off the lake.

After that, we're off to that GoodWill in Ballard before deciding to drive over to Magnolia for a trip down memory lane. Part of our plan for today is to recreate some of our earliest dates that were all about photography. Not so much selfies but all manner of scenes and objects we chose to capture with our 35mm SLR cameras slung from the back of our necks. With that in mind, Kimmer detours us to the Ballard Locks just before we reach the northern most bridge onto Magnolia, the right turn just after Chinooks.

Now, it's been a long, long time since we've been to the Locks. Because of that, it's easy to assume the roles of tourists because, basically, that's what we are. Exploring everything, taking photographs. We start with the Salmon ladder, make our way to the smaller of the two locks to observe the process of boats transitioning from lake elevation water to sea level water. After that, we make our way across the larger lock (where there is no traffic) and walk the grounds and gardens on the west most edge of the property. After that, we cross the locks, the fish ladder, make our way back to the car, continuing west toward Fort Lawton.

I think we were at the locks from maybe six to seven thirty or so.

The road towards Fort Lawton eventually hooks a left, traveling along the east edge of the fort. Eventually we reach what once was the entrance to the fort where there was a manned guard on duty at all times. From there we head east on Government Way, find our way to my childhood home and the streets we used for football, softball, flying kites, and playing Capture the Flag. From there, left on 34th to Magnolia Village, a long stretch of road with lots of memories from block to block to block. Once we reach the village, we turn right up McGraw, take a left at the top, heading back toward the village. Then a right on West Viewmont Way West until 'til we reach Armour. Left then left passed an old high school friend's house... and then a block further (also on the right) the former house of the minister from our old childhood church. Eventually, we take a right onto the boulevard.

More memories, of course. :-)

And one magnificent view of the city waterfront and Mt. Ranier, making a lovely appearance.

On our way off the hill, we pass Magnolia Park where I have tennis memories and we have memories of a family birthday here plus I also have boyscout memories. And then we're off the hill and down Magnolia bridge.

At this point of course we're heading to Pub70 for drinks. We get lucky and catch parking less than a block away even though cruise ship traffic is clogging the street. Drinks and fries is how we roll this time around. Drinks, fries, and some fun conversation with Polly the bartender.

By the time we're home again, it's 930. Just in time for our new favorite summer dessert: key lime ice cream sandwiches.

No joke. These are the real deal. :-)

And we top the night off with two episodes of Department Q.

☺️

[thedaveandkimmershow]

So.

According to my schedule, my alarm hits at 6am and I get up.

615, Kimmer fires up some hot water for coffee and tea and starts packing/repacking our carry-ons.

After goodbye's all around, we begin the journey home at ten to eight, twenty minutes behind our expected 730 take-off.

Traffic's pretty reasonable this Saturday morning and we slide into the Chevron gas station an hour later, arriving at the Road Surfer HQ a few blocks away fifteen minutes after that.

With no one in front of us, we check in immediately and indulge some Q&A about what we observed this time around and what we have planned for a future trip to Death Valley.

By the time the Lyft driver picks us up, it's 935. Now we're down to five minutes behind schedule.

Okay.

So what I assumed in my schedule from the previous night is that we'd be dropped off at LAX-it, next to the terminal. Turns out that's a false assumption based on the fact that's where we have to catch our rideshares after arriving at the airport.

When you're leaving, though?

They drop you right off in front of the terminal.

Because of that, we're checked in by 10:15 (despite some computer problems on Alaska's end) and we're settled in at the tech stations right next to our gate at ten minutes to eleven. Boarding to happen an hour and fifteen minutes after that.

Niiiiiiice!

Because our flight's full, the airline's looking for anyone who'll check a carry-on. We already checked one for 45 bucks but hung onto the other one because of this kind of thing: sometimes you carry on the carry-on; sometimes the airline checks it in for you for free. Plus, in our case, they bumped us up from the C group to the B group.

Once again: for free.

By the time we were in our seats on our flight, the time's 12:15.

One of the questions that comes up at the end of our trips is the one where I ponder when did our trip end?

You see, sometimes it's during a sunset at a wine bar at John Wayne Airport. Sometimes it's the Welcome Home sign as we enter our home. There are any number of times and places at which our trips end. In our case, this time around, I'm thinking our vacation ended at some point on the drive from Irvine to Road Surfer HQ when we started re-engaging with our live and responsibilities and plans back home.

After five days of no cell service...

We connected again.

Also, this version of our flight to southern California and back again very much has the vibe of a commute. When we're not RV-ing, it's fifteen/twenty minutes from John Wayne to Kimmer's cousin's place. Same deal on our end: from our place to the airport if fifteen/twenty minutes. You see, in the absence of the hugely logistical experience leaving from SeaTac, the fifteen minutes Lyfts wrapped around a direct flight of 2 and a half hours...

Feels like a commute.

So we land at 3, picked up at 330, dropped home fifteen minutes later.

BAM. Home again.

At which point we take stock of our cat situation, grab the mail, and make a grocery list for a quick run for tonight.

It's sunny and 71, by the way. Not hugely different from Los Angeles, so there's a continuity from our morning to our afternoon. Feels much the same.

Except.

Now that we're relaxing into being home again, we both realize we've got a lot of bug bites. Mostly feet and ankles. I've also got some on my left arm.

Boooooooo.

And like that:

We're back into our lives again.

[thedaveandkimmershow]

My Radar Love alarm goes off at 730. Kimmer gets up right away to throw her clothes on, grab our camp mugs, and joins her cousin who's cooking breakfast at the grill. He's just getting started so I take the time to dictate into my phone this involved dream I had about playing keys for a YES tribute concert with orchestra.

Eight o'clock I'm wandering around snapping some of the last photos I'll capture while we're here.

Twenty passed eight it's both breakfast time and time to tear down. While we're at it, the dad from 7 stops by to ask Kimmer for some show 'n tell of our Road Surfer RV 'cause he's either thinking about renting one or assembling one on his own.

Kimmer's quite used to these demos, by the way, usually, though, with the Escape Camper vans. Still, every time she does this I swear she should get a commission. She's so good at this.

I think I heard the dad say he's orginally from Minnesota. He's definitely traveling with his teenage son who's also into fishing. His girlfriend, likewise, is traveling with her 3- or 4-year-old son, Oliver, who really wants to play with all the other kids at camp and explore the lake and surrounding woods like everyone else. He gets away on his own, often, so we're always hearing someone call out "Oliver!!!". And we're also seeing him return with someone else all tantrummy.

It's tough being three.

Or four.

Ten minutes to ten, we're pulling out of our spot at camp site #6. Initially I'm worried about starting the RV 'cause it hasn't been run since monday night.

It fires right up, though, and we are on. our. way.

Of course we're heading the wrong way 'cause it's ice cream sandwiches first before hitting the road. East, we go. For our third stop at the general store at the resort to score a Bunny Ice Cream chocolate sandwich and a Bunny Ice Cream vanilla sandwich.

If you're keeping score, Thursday it was Bunny Ice Cream chocolate and Bunny Ice Cream shortcake. Wednesday it was chocolate for both of us.

After we pull into a parking spot in front of the store, Kimmer finds a tiny frog in the kitchen aria of our RV. She manages to move it from there to the bark along the parking lot. At this point, the frog's tiny and brown, the same color as the bark. Once I take my eyes off it, I can never find it again.

Gone.

By the time we're squared away with ice cream sandwiches, we're on the road (in the right direction this time) at ten fifteen, heading east to begin with, hooking around that end of the lake until we're on the other side of the lake heading west and up. As we ascend, I realize how this entire week I hadn't taken any vacation photographs of Oatmeal Bear, our trusted travel companion since we were married. He's been everywhere (ish) we traveled in all that time no matter where we went. He's an international traveler, is our Oatmeal Bear. So with my oversight fresh in mind, we stop above the long end, the south end of the lake to rectify my oversight.

On our way again, hwy 168, we pass Rocky Hill Park & Putt, southeast of Shaver Lake around 11.

Now, while the rest of our day should be solid driving, we have two items on the day's agenda.

The first is practical: before returning the RV, we have to empty the black and grey water from the RV's tanks. Black water's what runs through the toilet system. Grey water's what runs through the sink system.

Now, while we have used the toilet, we haven't used the sink. This is important because you dump the black water first then use the grey water to flush the tube all this liquid's running through into the dump station. Last thing at camp, then, I fill a coupla pots with campground water and dump them into our sink and, thus, into the grey water tank.

So basically we're looking for a dump station which they don't have at our campground. Or anywhere around Huntington Lake. They don't have a free one at Shaver Lake so we figure Love's RV Stop between Fresno and Bakersfield.

Our other agenda item is to do a bit of GoodWill browsing. We actually stop in Fresno around 12:30 at the GoodWill store there. Heading south to exit 85, we stop at Love's only to discover no dump station there. Customer service suggests, though, another RV Stop company across the street where, yes, they do have one... but you have to pay. Ten bucks.

Nope.

On the road again for a bit, we roll into the parking lot of the Bakersfield GoodWill a touch after 4. An hour later, we roll into the Outlets At Tejon, basically the last bit of civilization before heading into the mountains north of Los Angeles. Our first move is to check in at the TA Travel Center to find a dump station.

No luck.

So we pivot to dinner at Habit Burger for cold waters and Char Burgers with Cheese. This is coming up on 530, sitting in a booth at the front of the restaurant where it's both quiet and cool. While waiting on our order, we give my dad a call to report a little on what we've been up to this last week. :-)

On our way into the mountains, we stop at the Tejon Pass Rest Area in Lebec, the first rest area after Tejon, where we know for sure there's a free of charge dump station which we manage like champs. 😉

625 we're on the road again, making our way to Irvine.

Now, in the morning when we left, we were the first ones to leave. Because we stopped for ice cream sandwiches, though, and because the RV's a slowpoke on narrow and wind-ee mountain roads, everyone else passed us about halfway to Fresno. And because we were chasing dump stations and GoodWills and dinner... we managed to miss some very crappy traffic moving through L.A.. Our friend and family ran smack into it, though. Whereas we were always on the move, 50, 60, all the way to Irvine.

About forty minutes out from Irivine, Kimmer heads to the back of our Road Surfer and packs our bags, all of them, for traveling home the next day.

We arrive back at Kimmer's cousin's place about ten minutes shy of 9pm in the dark of night. Her cousin and nephew are out for dinner, on their way back, as we grab our carry-ons into the house then I park the RV up over the other side of the hill above us.

Back inside, I check us in for the next day's Alaska flight while Kimmer showers showers SHOWERS!!!! We've got five days of camp on us, after all.

Afterwards, she asks if I wanna have dessert before shower and I, of course, say YES. So we go downstairs where she grabs us the two key lime ice cream sandwiches left over from Sunday night as well as the two ice cold NA Coronas left over from camping. She finishes hers right away. I on the other hand get caught up figuring out what next morning's schedule should be, a schedule with elements including time to get ready, time to load up, travel time to the nearest gas station by Road Surfer HQ in L.A., time to fill the gas tank full, time to return our road surfer once they open at 9am, time (however long it takes) to check in the RV and settle up our account, time it takes to summon a Lyft then however long it takes to drive to LAX-it, the rideshare lot next to LAX. Then there's the time it takes us to muscle our gear to the terminal, the time it takes to check our bags, move through TSA, all of which leads to a boarding time of 11:55.

The magic number is six, by the way.

We get up the following morning at six. Which gives our morning a certain flexibility in the event of a less than perfect experience and (hopefully) no firedrills.

10pm we indulge three games of UNO with Kimmer's nephew, an experience involving back-stabbing, name calling, and the hurling of cards. Because family, you know? 🤣🤣🤣

Kimmer's nephew wins a pair of games, I take one, Kimmer doesn't win any... and we all have the best time ever, afterward talking 'til there's only fifteen minutes left in the day.

So.

We head upstairs and Kimmer goes right to bed while I jump in a hot shower to wash a week's worth of dirt off me, a process that's largely successful. And then, sometime after midnight, I climb into bed and fall into a serioiusly deep sleep while "Insurgent" plays from Kimmer's phone.

The part where Tris is being tested by Janine and her evil minions.

😴😴

[thedaveandkimmershow]

We wake up shortly before 9:00 and listen to "Insurgent", the part where Tris is deciding to turn herself in to Erudite HQ.

9:00 a.m. the alarm goes off and Kimmer gets up to join everyone at the picnic table for breakfast.

Now yesterday, Wednesday, we had a lot of new campers join us after others left . Watching these new ones explore the campground along the shoreline is a little like seeing new people who've moved into the neighborhood :-)

After that bit of ADHD, I finally get myself dressed and out the door around 9:30 at which I catch this piece of conversation with no context:

"It's called catastrophizing . That's different."

Okay then.

Most importantly, breakfast this morning is the famous Breakfast Burrito along with lovely strips of grilled bacon.

Now, I'm not sure exactly how our breakfast conversation landed here... but because our friend's involved in the housing market, we talked a lot about purchasing, renting, solar... a string of related and semi-related subjects that eventually wound their way to understanding what private equity is, how it works and, finally, a detailed explanation of how the 800-store retailer, Joann, completely failed.

10:30 finds all of us in Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading mode. That's a label I remember from 3rd grade (I think) that describes well this camp hour we're all taking to read, write, and/or study.

11:30 and Kimmer's nephew is fishing from the shore whilst his dad and Cookie the chihuahua are fishing from the kayak out on the lake.

Shortly after, our friend with the motorcycle speeds off to explore the mountain roads behind us on our side of the lake.

After that, I spend my time hangin' around along the shore, sometimes with Kimmer's nephew, sometimes wandering to either side of him to indulge more photography.

12:30 it's casual lunch time at the picnic table. After about an hour of that, it's quiet time all around. Fishing for Kimmer's cousin. Fishing for Kimmer's nephew. Sleeping for Cookie the chihuahua.

It's also study time for Kimmer while I hang out at the campfire with our friend, the motorcyclist.

Around three, Kimmer's nephew returns to feed Cookie than heads back to shore. Five minutes later, Kimmer's cousin returns.

We ask

"Did you catch anything?"

And he says

"Only disappointment."

So there's that.

Also this:

While he was out on the lake, he got a call.

He got a phone call.

Right out there on the lake.

Okay so why???

Why? Because our daughter isn't used to mom 'n dad with zero cell service so she called her uncle to ask, you know, what the heck?

Or words to that effect ;-)

She hadn't heard from us since monday night and, with this being thursday afternoon, wanted to make sure everything was okay.

Anyway...

He's telling us this story then hands over his phone on which we give the daughter a person to person phone call using a Verizon powered phone because Verizon actually has service here in the middle of nowhere. T-Mobile... not so much.

A 'lil after three, we leave for ice cream at the resort area west of us, our second time there. On the way, down along the shore, we see more little kids and teens at the marina. We see more people here in one place at the same time than we've seen so far.

After our ice cream run, we're back at camp about a quarter to 4. A few minutes later, Kimmer's nephew's on his way back to the lake to relax some kayking. While he does that, I wander around to the dock...

Actually.

You can't just wander there. You follow a path that's basically grass that's flattened by people who walked this way before. Quickly, you come to some planks that're set over a bit where you'd be walking through water. After that, pretty clear sailing. Not hard... you just have to watch yer step.

Okay. So I "wander" around to the dock to take some pictures and relax a bit while Kimmer's nephew paddles out toward the middle of the lake then comes back in toward the dock before eventually paddling out again.

Okay.

So let's back up to Tuesday 'cause on Tuesday Kimmer's nephew called it to my attention. It's a sound that's present here across each day:

Logging.

It's not an in your face sound, this logging. It's in the background. So you hear it whenever you're not actively paying attention to something else.

Here's what Kimmer's nephew asked on Tuesday:

"Wait. Was that an explosion?"

I'd heard the sound already by the time he asked the question. And I did know what he meant by "explosion". What I heard, though, was a sound with texture. It had a rumbly vibe that sounded to me like big rocks being smashed apart by tractors of a kind. Kimmer's cousin finally put his finger on it, explaining how the sound's the cutting down of trees that in the distance sounds a lot like an explosion, also a bit like boulders being crushed. So I'm aware each day in the distance the sounds of trees being felled.

I saw more boats on the water today. More that were not so much from around our campsite but from the marina west of us, most likely. Across the afternoon I saw sail boats, a pontoon boat, the kayak, and a little boat with a motor.

Quarter to five I see a motorboat towing some kids on the opposite side of the lake from me. The kids are on—not inner tubes really, but—something that floats on which they can sit as a group. And when the boat finally takes off with the kids flying behind it, the experience unfolds to the soundtrack of loud reggae music emanating from the boat.

Coming up on five, I get up from the dock as Kimmer's nephew makes his way to shore. So far, my attempts at capturing the scene in front of me has somehow failed to capture what this experience is like to just be here. Of course the essense of the experience is the feel of it. The air moving across the water and the grass and the trees and the me. The sounds of waves slapping against the dock. The sounds of the occasional birds. Even the sound of that bit of air moving about. And, of course, the superior wide-angle view that's achieved with biological eyes.

So yeah. My camera fails to capture the essential of being here. So instead I try to memorize the moment. The sunlight glinting off rippling waves. The birds. The dock. The wide eye view. The wind.

I memorize that moment, I try really hard to open all my senses in record mode... then I head back to our campsite.

Five PM we're back at the picnic table. All of us except our motorcyclist friend who's on his way to Thomas A. Edison Lake, maybe 2,000 feet higher in elevation Huntington Lake where we're camped. So... 9,000 feet t our 7,000.

By the way, here's a quick google maps comment about the road to that higher lake:

The journey getting here is as much adventure as it gets. The road is narrow and windy with pot holes. It was more like a paved backpacking trail. Once at the lake, one is rewarded with high country lake views with snow packed mountain backdrops. The water is cold!

Snapped back into reality from my wandering thoughts, I suddenly hear Kimmer say

"I don't need you to accelerate my early demise."

Huh???

Turns out Kimmer's nephew just offered her nut tainted M&Ms. Definitely a health No Fly Zone for Kimmer.

Real quick: the story of the nut tainted M&Ms is a Monday night story that happened before we arrived. Since it was obvious we wouldn't make it there in time for dinner, Kimmer's cousin and nephew elected to backtrack to Shaver Lake to hit the pizza place there.

Did I say backtrack?

Whoops. That's not what they did. They went east on Huntington Lake Road that connects up with the main road, hwy 168, at the top of Shaver Lake.

Here's the big deal: Huntington Lake Road is basically a one lane road without guardrails. West of the dam, the road gets unreasonably wind-ee. West of the dam, the road sheds 1500 feet of elevation before arriving at Shaver Lake.

And, oh yeah. They did this drive in the dark. No street lights, of course. Just the blackness of night driving through mountain forests.

And the M&Ms?

They were part of an open bag of Walmart trail mix the boys had between 'em in front. At some point on this crazy expedition, Kimmer's cousin got surprised by something and had to hit the brakes, sending the open bag flying. Sending the trail mix everywhere on the floor of the truck.

Afterward, they picked it all up, kept the M&Ms, got rid of everything else from the bag. Which is what I mean by nut tainted M&Ms.

Check out the Google Maps experience, here.

In the meantime, dinner prep's already in progress and I've given in to wearing my black hoodie 'cause yeah. Today's early evening does feel a little cooler.

By six the fire in the fire pit is roaring. Some kindling. A bit of stacked wood. A touch of bacon fat. Lit by a butane torch. I half expect something to blow up but it all works like a charm.

Oh, also the bellows. Well, not specifically bellows but for sure a blower set on its lowest setting that's filling the space below the fire with oxygen, adding volume to the fire and, therefore, increasing the warmth we all feel relaxing in our camp chairs.

Fifteen minutes later we're at the picnic table enjoying tri-tip beef stroganoff, veggies, and a chop salad. Seven, we're back around the fire. Fifteen after that, I walk Cookie to the water, Kimmer's nephew's fishing off shore in the kayak. His dad's patrolling the shoreline with his fishing line.

After a half hour, Cookie 'n I return to the fire. I pull her bed in between the camp chairs and she settles in for the night.

Around 830, the boys return and we have our last night around a blazing campfire together until ten when the campground turns off. No fires. No sound.

I'm always looking up when that happens. They sky's so legible up there. In fact, right away I'm seeing another satellite, a pinpoint, moving quickly across the sky. I also finally peg the Big Dipper which is my frame of reference wherever I am. Mostly, where we live, it's right overhead. Pretty much same deal here. I'm standing with my back to the lake in front of our campsite when I see it: in front of me and straight up. It's maybe at a 70 degree angle from where I'm standing.

And close. It's so, so close.

Of course I try to take a picture of it... but all I get is a photograph that's fully colored in black. So my memory'll have to do. And that feeling of how close it is to me.

Coming up on 10:30 we're back in bed listening to "Insurgent", the part where Tris tries to turn herself in right before chapter 29.

And then we're fast asleep.

☺️

[thedaveandkimmershow]

We wake up at quarter to 9am and lay there for a while. At some point we pick up "Insurgent" at the beginning of chapter 15 where Dauntless members are attacked by Dauntless agents sent by Janine. They're put to sleep and injected with something at the same time and Tris ends up stabbing Eric. Whoo boy!

After chapter 17 is done, we get up. 

It's 9:30.

Breakfast this morning is yogurt 'and 'n tea 'n coffee around the campfire and around the picnic table. Follow that up with freshly cooked bakon and hash browns and you've got yourself a thing of excellence!

1030 it's a morning time-out followed by really nothing in particular. Yesterday, as it turns out, was our introduction to peace.

Peace.

Peace.

Our days are simply more peaceful. We're just here. We're not driving anywhere. There's no cell service. No wifi. No internet.

We're just.

Here.

That makes time slow waaaaaaaay down, by the way. Making for more time to explore. To adventure. To Zen. To be curious. To be social. To introvert.

There's plenty of time to do all those things.

Interestingly, our conversations her are wildly different from the ones we have at the picnic table and around the campfire at Crystal Cove.

Not sure why.

The quiet here is definitely different from the quiet at Crystal Cove where the sound of the Pacific Coast Highway, the PCH, is always humming in the background even though our brains filter it out. There's also more air traffic.

At Huntington Lake, there's zero background noise. It's only the sound of other campers. The wind. The birds.

You can feel the underlying quiet. You can pin that to the understanding that our brains aren't filtering out anything. You feel the absence of what's normally there in the civilized world.

You can feel it.

At some point between breakfast and lunch, we're into a mid-morning session of red grapes, green grapes, cherries, and dates around the picnic table.

1130 Kimmer's cousin goes down to the shore to indulge some fishing. Kimmer joins him down there, pretty much straight across from us at our campsite. She's back forty-five minutes later after running into one of the women staying next to us in 7: two sisters, a friend, and their kids. From LA and San Jose.

Soon as Kimmer's back, it's lunch featuring crackers 'n hummus, celery, and whipped cream cheese with a Marguerita mix and ginger beer chaser.

Don't know what to tell you. It was all good.

In the meantime, Derek's not back 'til he's caught his lunch. In this case, we're coming up on quarter to 1 when he returns with a little trout that he immediately turns into a fried little trout for his noontime meal.

Later, around quarter passed two, Kimmer 'n I choose to walk a bit to the general store (the one out the front entrance and to the right). Her cousin 'n nephew drive over 'cause they've gotta score some more wood and ice whilst we've gotta score some ice cream to support the local economy. 😉

It's a short walk over after which we snap some photographs...

...lwhilst checking out the concert shore area and making our way back along a trail by the side of the road. Back at 3 at which time we duck back into our Road Surfer for a nap.

That's right.

A nap.a

Quarter after five, we're awake again, listening to "Insurgent" for a bit while Kimmer does her nails. In the meantime, our friend's arrived at the campsite after a long drive starting in the morning at 8. They drove their BIG truck all the way to the overflow parking spaces, then pulled his motorcycle from the truck bed and wheeled over to our campsite.

Shortly after, it's salmon crackers, whipped cream cheese, salsa, and different cheese squares around the picnic table. 6pm Kimmer 'n I go for a walk to find a little more sun and warmth as the sun begins its descent.

By the way, one of the things I noticed so far on our walks is that a lot of people greet each other her with the question "did you catch anything?" Just a thing I noticed. :-)

Our walk this time headed the opposite direction from our earlier walk to the earlier general store. This time we wound up at the general store of the Huntingon Lake Resort. It's basically the same distance as the other general store but in the opposite direction. Definitely more closer to camp than I thought because, apparently, I can't tell distance on maps. :-(

Six thirty it's burgers 'n beer at the beginning of which I managed to spray ketchup (the upside down kind) all over Kimmer's plate and hand.

Not a great look.

I definitely felt bad about the mess until, next thing I know, Kimmer's got the mustard in her own hand and it manages to blow up right. there.

That definitely made me feel better.

Seven thirty the guys head out to go fishing while our other friend puts on his motorcycle gear and does a few laps.

A bit later I'm down on the shore with Kimmer's nephew. Some new families arrived today and now there's a group of Asian kids exploring the shore. One of them reminds me of me when I was a kid. He's loud, he's brand, he yells lots of stuff. I'm this moment he's managed to build a "pier" from random sticks and branches and wood. It's maybe six feet by four feet and he's very proud of it. Let's everyone know. Next thing, though, he yells over at Kimmers nephew to get his attention. Now, Kimmer's nephew is standing hip deep in water whilst fishing. After the kid gets his attention, the kid yells

HEY!!! DO YOU WANNA FISH OFF MY PIER???

To which Kimmer's nephew replies "no... I'm probably too heavy." After which everyone moves on with their lives.

I'm not sure what I did next, I think I was just zoning out during the sun setting on the lake. While I'm doing whatever it is I'm doing, I hear little snatches of conversation, like one kid asks

"Has anyone ever had a crush on you?"

"Noooo..." replies the other kid.

In the meantime, a pair of 10/11 year old brothers arrive by rubber raft with a little motor propelling them about. When asked, they report catching six fish down lake. I later notice that they're a pretty self-directed, self-suffient pair 'o kids. They're not the only ones, of course. A lot of kids at camp are exploring and playing on their own.

These two are simply the most memorable.

Back at the "pier" the kid who built it's now yelling at his older sisters to some over to his pier. With a touch of disdain, they inform him that they don't need to.

"We're literally father out than you... and we don't have a pier."

They're not wrong, by the way.

Later, I don't see this but I here it:

"C'mon guys. Follow me!"

It's the pier kid again. And then not long after his directive, I here this:

"Why isn't anyone following?"

Yikes.

Meanwhile, Kimmer's nephew has been reeling something for over five minutes. After the initial rush of I CAUGHT SOMETHING he pretty quickly settles into doubt because of how long this is taking. And yes, once his dad paddles over in the kayak to see what's what... the line was snagged on something.

Boooooooo.

The drama officially over, I make my way back to our campsite and almost immediately run into those two brothers I saw earlier. Kimmer's cousin spoke with their parents earlier (campsite #5) and discovered they're gonna be here until July 6.

The brothers asked if we caught anything and I said no. I ask where they caught their (six) fish today and one of them tells me over by the marina. Then he says he enjoys fly fishing. I ask what their total haul is so far. Sixty-three fish, he says, over three days. I follow up asking if their family's eating fish around the clock and he said no. They throw the small fish back. I ask what's the longest one they caught and both indicate with their hands something between nine inches and a foot.

Dang.

They for sure kept that one. 😁

I ask if they're going back out but no. They're securing their boat and then heading off to start a fire. With axe.

By the way, they're both a touch older than I thought. They're twelve. Started fishing when they were two years old.

They've got fishing down, is my point.

🤯

Around 8:00, our friend heads off on his motorbike for a ride around the lake. Fifteen minutes later, Kimmer 'n I retreat into our RV with Cookie the Chihuahua in her bed 'cause her owners're fishing down at the lake.

However.

Cookie wasn't happy with the arrangement so I walked her back to the shore where her owners were fishing. On our way there, we run into the dad and son from next door (campsite #7) who arrived that day. They tell me about the two deer they just saw down by the shore, basically in front of our campsites. Then they head off to wash dishes.

When finally I reach the shore, Kimmer's cousin and nephew tell me they just saw a couple deer pass by on the shore right behind where they're fishing.

By 'n by our motorcycle friend shows up behind me. He's done with his 20 mile round trip around the lake and tells me that he saw family of deer while he was riding: momma, dad, and two kids.

At some point, with the sun mostly set, Kimmer's cousin sets off to shore in his kayak... so Cookie 'n I head off that way. When we getto that section of beach, though, the section pretty much in front of our camp site, I don't see him anywhere. My friend who joined us earlier catches up to me and points the dock off to my left, jutting out toward me, where Kimmer's cousin's fishing one of the brothers I spoke with ealier out of the water. He's fishing one of the 12 year olds out of the water.

Later, I hear the brother who's on his raft now tell his dad on shore that his brother tripped. Later, Kimmer's cousin tells me that the brother in the water told him that his brother pushed him.

Oof.

Before that occurrence of either tripping or being pushed, I saw the boy's parents enjoying the evening waters, still as glass. They were each rowing on a paddle board outfitters with rowing oars. They seemed to derive a lot of power from this combination, stroking occasionally while gaining a lot of smoothly gained distance with each stroke. The look of it was quite elegant, leaving barely a ripple in the water.

Very smooth.

Later, the dad's already along shore when Kimmer's cousin glides up with the man's boy at the bow of the kayak. As he makes eye contact with the dad, Kimmer's cousin cheerfully exclaims

"Look what I caught!"

Classic.

🤣🤣🤣

Nine o'clock and we're all back around the campfire again.

Ten o'clock the campfire ends, our fire's doused, and darkness and quiet descend upon the campground. Just before that lovely moment, I look up at the sky where I see what I think are two satellites traveling across the sky a few minutes apart. They're like pinpoint stars moving very quickly up there from left to right.

After that, we're back in our RV king sized bed, relaxing ourselves into the bed while listening to "Insurgent", the part where the two Dauntless kids throw themselves off a ledge before delivering a message to Tris.

((sorry if that's a bit intense... we're definitely fans of the movie so nothing took us by surprise here))

We're asleep by ten thirty or so.

Sound.

Sound asleep.

😴😴

[thedaveandkimmershow]

One thing I didn't mention yesterday is the woman who checked us in at Road Surfer HQ.

During the process, she asked us where we're going and we said Huntington Lake. Later, she mentions to Kimmer that Huntington Lake is where her family has reunions and, whilst there, the compete and receive awards for Biggest Fish, Smallest Fish, Ugliest Fish, Fastest Caught Fish, etc.. Which is actually a sweet and kinda funny thing to know about someone's family. Plus it made the lake seem like a great destination for hanging out which, turns out, it very much is.

Now I mentioned yesterday how the word "bear locker" was showing up in conversation. In fact, the phrase "bear country" was showing up in conversation since our first night, Saturday night, when he returned home.

Bear Country.

Which I sort of blew off until we were actually in, you know, "bear country".

Why?

Because there were also signs. And pamphlets. Not to mention the aforementioned bear lockers, free-standing metal cabinets painted brown.

On Sat night Derek described Huntington Lake as bear country. Now, when we stay at Moro Campground at Crystal Cove, that's squirrel country... where the squirrels are always checking our campground—anything we stashed outside, really—for food.

So it seems we upgraded.

Eight thirty in the morning, Tuesday morning, we realize it is, in fact, eight thirty in the morning.

Okay. The quick 411 on RV logistics: we actually do have a bathroom in the RV for nighttime bathroom use. For morning bathroom use, there's the camp restroom on the way to the entrance that has exterior lights so you can find it... and indoor plumbing so you can flush it and wash your hands.

That camp restroom, by the way, was always inexplicably clean. Talk about a blessing. 'Cause out here in the middle of nowhere (which I define to be any place where I have no cell service), I fully expect this to be very much like using a port-a-potty on the side of the highway on the way back from Mt. Ranier.

Nasty.

And smelly.

But this is neither.

It's nearly the best I can imagine in the middle of the woods far, far away from civilization.

So.

Back to eight thrity.

Kimmer gets up out of bed, throws on some clothes, opens the blinds, and leaves our Road Surfer to check on the boys while I (eventually) get out of bed myself, close our cabin blinds again, throw on yesterday's clothes and restore our cabin to not the master bedroom again.

It's about nine when I step out of the rig and absorb my first look at where we are.

Now I mentioned the thing about the temperature up here when we arrived last night. I don't know hold cold it is right now as I set foot only the campground dirt and grass... but I do still feel that bit of mountain coolness on my skin. I'm still wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and flipflops yet somehow I'm...

Comfortable.

Still comfortable. Like last night.

Nine thirty A.M. it's 55 degrees and I'm sitting out in the sun like it's 75.

This is definitely uncharted weather for me. And I'm loving it. :-)

Some friends of ours who were to join us up here weren't able to make it at the last minute. And since we arrived in Irvine still in need of a power source to recharge our electronics, they sent over a power source that we'd use all week without draining it to nothing. In fact, by the time we did leave, that power source was sitting at 20 percent.

Helluva thing, that.

It charged our phones, tablets, other chargers all week long. My phone that had been depleted the previous day after all-day Google Maps use was now fully charged and rarin' to go.

Again. Helluva thing.

Breakfast, as cooked on the barbecue by Kimmer's cousin, is its own special universe that exists beyond waking up to nature. During our experience this morning, Kimmer hits on "a Collison explanation" which is a way of characterizing how she and her cousin simply get louder and louder during an "explanation" without really changing any of the words each time through.

Not an argument. Simply a classic Collison explanation.

Oh dear God.

We also discover—

Okay not so much discover as admit... that Kimmer's cousin's "love" language is mockery. Not really a problem since we all come well-equipped to deal. Which simply means we're advanced versions of our junior high school iterations. Not necessarily something to be proud of, but...

There you go and there you are.

We're not much passed breakfast when I'm struck by how slowly time moves here. Not in an I can't bear this anymore kind of way but in a just checked my watch and not much time has passed.

Even though it feels like a bunch of time must've passed.

We actually spend the rest of our morning sitting in our camp chairs around the extinguished fire pit. Either there or at the picnic table under the awning.

At some point I get up to walk the loop.

Why?

To see what there is to see.

Like this chipmunk...

...a bunch of signs.

Some lodges across the street.

A tree that fell over and can't get up.

A little boy paddling a surfboard out on the lake whilst his mother lounges upon it. Maybe/maybe not asleep. For sure relaxed as hell.

Finally, a helicopter that lands halfway up the opposite mountain. We actually see it pop up from behind the ridge and slowly make its way above its destination and descend and descend. At some point it lands out of sight but the rotors are left spinning even though the helicopter must be on the ground. And then later we see it lift above the trees, make its way to our side of the lake, and continue beyond the tree line. My guess is that it just picked up something or someone.

And then it's lunch time.

Grapes, cherries, rice crackers 'n hummus, and water around the picnic table.

Our appetites really don't require anything more substantial than that.

Two o'clock we're hangin around on our camp chairs again having moved there from the picnic table. Fifteen minutes later I realize Kimmer's sleeping in her camp chair. Her newly declared afternoon nap.

In the meantime, the boys have moved on to inflating and assembling the pieces of their kayak as well as gathering life jackets, an anchor, and fishing rods.

At some point I catch Kimmer sleeping in the kayak like so:

She's over there on the grass between the picnic table and our neighbor's rig.

Fast.

Asleep.

You'll notice her hat poking up from the far end of the kayak.

I don't know how long she's out there like that but, by 445, we retire into our rig for our new favorite drink conjured from a marguerita mix and ginger beer mix.

Tasty as hell.

And then we fall asleep. Prolly around 5.

We end up sleeping from there through to 615.

By the time we're outside again, I realize that, for some reason, it actually feels colder this evening. More than when we came in last night. More than when we woke up this morning.

So I throw on my black hoodie for the first time this adventure.

Dinner tonight features the full-throated exclamation: WE CAN'T SAVE THE TUNA!!!!!

Why?

Because Kimmer's cousin brought a lot of food for each day. In fact tonight's dinner is sliced from a 200lb tuna. And these things look like great big steaks. Thick. Each one. Seasoned on our plates with Wasabi mayo sauce, accompanied by rice and Caesar salad.

And what was WE CAN'T SAVE THE TUNA!!!!! all about?

It was about the fact that Kimmer's "slice" seemed way more than she could eat in one sitting and, in the process of declining the full cut, her cousin explained to her that we had no means of saving each night's food. All of it simply had to be eaten... or tossed. Hence:

WE CAN'T SAVE THE TUNA!!!!!

After dinner, a dessert brain teaser: how do we divide the last of the cookies Kimmer baked Sunday night? The final 3, as it were. Chocolate. Chip. Cookies.

She actually bows out of the discussion having filled herself quite up with the tuna steak. Therefore. Her cousin proceeds to grab one while her nephew 'n I quickly descover that the remaining two are basically conjoined twins. I offer to divide them and have her nephew choose. This is an old solution that's biased toward a perfect 50/50 cut 'cause the other guy's definitely gonna grab the larger of the two should there be inequality created by the cut. In the end, I do a really bad job with it and screw myself out of a better cookie. Kimmer's nephew offers the better half out of pity, I'm guessing, but I insist on the other as penance for doing such a crap job on behalf of my own interest. 🤬

Seven o'clock we're back in our seats around the fire pit where Kimmer's nephew introduces a phrase intended to communicate how something he said is known by, you know, everyone.

Here's how he says it:

"Kimmer. Everyone knows it's a national classic."

To which Kimmer replies in that way southerners and the british do:

"Thank you Kyle. Thank you for educating me."

Seven thirty we're scattered. Kimmer's cousin's down at the shore fly fishing while his son's fishing out on the lake in their kayak.

Eight... Kimmer 'n I are listening to Veronica Roth's book "Insurgent" on Kimmer's phone. This is book number 2 of her "Divergent" series.

By nine the fishin's done. Kimmer's cousin returns from shore. Her nephew anchors the kayak to a bit of fallen tree on the shore then makes his way back as well. Finally: cousin catches three small fish; nephew catches nothing or, as he prefers the technical term, "jack shit". The three fish that were caught were small, though, and so released back into the wild as a matter of sportsmanship.

Aside from the fishing stats, I'm also informed that the tiny birds I've seen flying erratically low to the lake are actually bats trying to score flies during evening time. And they are, these bats: supersonic and erratic. Which does not make me feel better because, you know, bats.

Aside from that dark bit of information, I also learn that a conversation can be had in a normal tone of voice between someone along the shore and someone on a boat pretty far out on the lake. No yelling involved. And given the distance, you'd expect for yelling to be involved. Like the actual feel of the mountain temperatures, this is more physics that I find to be confusing.

Back at the campfire, there's an actual fire going on in the pit. So we're all quite nicely warming up. We were expecting another friend to show up today but they're feeling a little under the weather... so perhaps tomorrow. Wednesday.

Ten o'clock, it's time to shut it all down. Those are campground rules, by the way. Lights out at 10. Sound's out at 10. 10pm to 7am, are the rules for this imposed solid peace and quiet.

So now we're in the RV getting ready for bed. Eventually we tee up hot drinks to facilitate our end of day.

Taking one final look up into the night sky with not lights, no sound now in our immediate vicinity, I'm reminded again how the stars up above really do look like little diamonds in the sky. They're so close.

Back in bed, we close out the night listening to "Insurgent", the part of the book describing the aftermath of Tris publicly revealing that she's the one who killed her friend, Will, at the end of the previous book, "Divergent".

We end at the end of chapter fourteen...

And fall into deep sleeps.

[thedaveandkimmershow]

So Saturday was our travel day. Sunday was our lazy day.

And Monday?

That's our day to saddle up.

Up at 630 to purchase Metrolink tickets on my cell. Indulge Kimmer's chocolate chip cookies along with Trader Joe's yogurt for our breakfast. Hit the showers. Finish packing.

Now. If I haven't made it clear over the last two days, when we arrived at Kimmer's cousin's house, there was nobody there. Her cousin was out with friends all day 'til just before 11 that Saturday night. Her nephew was at his mom's house and wouldn't be joining us until just about...

Eight A.M. this morning. Monday morning.

So now this is getting serious because all of us are together now to hit the road. No excuses.

We put the finishing touches on all the gear we brought down with us and, by nine, we have it all loaded into the back of Kimmer's nephew's rig.

Now, across the morning so far, I notice the phrase "bear locker" keeps coming up in conversation. I mention that right now because this is gonna come up. Not quite as dramatic as when I sailed to Santorini not realizing the still active volcano the island faces in the Aegean.

But something like that.

Coming up on nine thirty with our gear officially ready for the road, Kimmer's nephew drives us out to the local Irvine train station where we make our way through the station, up the elevator, across the bridge, down the other elevator, and farther up the platform to our covered bench.

We relax our morning there 'til our train pulls up at 10:12 on its way to Union Station.

Actually, it arrives a coupla minutes before 10:12.

But it sure leaves at 10:12.

A little over an hour later, 11:20, we land at Union Station and make a bee line for Auntie Em's Pretzels, Kimmer's aunt Jacquie's favorites!, and on our way to the front of the station we happen upon the door to the courtyard.

Courtyard?

Yeah.

Now, we don't have to be on our way again for another hour. Our official pick-up time for the rented RV we scheduled with the Road Surfer group isn't until 1pm. The drive's something like a half hour or so... so we have time for a latte, a coffee, and two cups of ice. It's basically what we do to get iced lattes and coffees without getting cheated out of the normal amount of latte and coffee you normally get in a tall cup.

By the way. Their "tall" cup?

It's actually the same as a short.

So if you want "tall", you ask for "grande".

Just, you know, FYI.

By 12:20 we're out in front of Union Station summoning our Uber ride that gets us to Road Surfer HQ just a touch after 1. They're swamped right now, though. 90% of their clients are from Europe because Europe's their established market. They're actually just breaking into this one.

We end up waiting 25 minutes then end up pushing our check-in process into extra innings 'cause we made the reservation under Kimmer's name, in Kimmer's Road Surfer account, but when we designated me as the primary (and only) driver, all that information transferred to my Road Surfer account. A fact I didn't realize until we were nearly off the lot.

By the time we got that all sorted, it was 2pm.

Okay. So when we did the Google Map route instructions, hand to God it showed four and a half hours of travel for us. No sweat.

Here's what happened in real life, though:

We hit the other side of the mountains around 4:30, stopping in at Habit Burger at Trejo Mall for a pair 'o Char Burgers. Then back on the road again.

Somewhere around 7:30 if not earlier (maybe 7:00) we're in Fresno making our way to Sprouts after scoring gas for the RV. At Sprouts, we picked up some distilled water plus our now favorite ice cream: the key lime ice cream sandwiches with zero allergens and a killer sweet taste.

8:00 we're heading east from Fresno to the last leg of our journey that's all about narrow, climbing, twisting roads that we drive in the dark. Because of those conditions, of course, we throttle our speed back to 30 miles an hour most of the way. Because of that, it takes us a buck fifty to land in our spot at camp: College Campground.

950.

PM.

That was actually making pretty good time. Just ten to fifteen minutes behind the Google Maps estimate. Not bad given we started north of where we were supposed to be when we hit Sprouts in Fresno. We had to cruise 2,000 to 7,000 feet of elevation in the dark for eighteen miles before connecting with the main road that loops the lake and shoots by our campground. Along the way, you pass Shaver Lake. Before that, you pass Rocky Hill Park & Putt, the miniature golf place.

Definitely making our way through the woods along a narrow road reminded us of arriving at summer camp at night back in the day. It's a powerful memory, I've gotta say. Triggered just by the look of it.

Anyway...

We rolled into our slot, #6, at ten minutes to ten, finally meeting up with Kimmer's cousin and nephew who she immediately treats to an RV show & tell. She's got it down, I've gotta say. Enough so that she should get a commission. :-)

While we were on our way, of course, the guys set up their tent and put up their awning above the camp picnic table. We are pretty much ready for tomorrow morning. Another friend should join us later in the afternoon. Tuesday. Afternoon.

Being here right now, though, standing outside in my t-shirt, shorts, and flip flops, I'm reminded that on an earlier phone call Kimmer's nephew said the temperature was 47 degrees at the lake. Late afternoon. 47 degrees. Even then I thought for sure I hadn't packed for the overnight temps that's implied by that late afternoon 47.

However.

The dangdest thing, by the way.

I can feel the air on my skin is cold. I, however, do not feel cold.

I'm not cold.

Somehow. I'm not cold.

I'm guessing that must have something to do with a lack of moisture in the air that there's such a difference between a temperature that must be in the high thirties by now but doesn't feel like it.

Something about being here at 7,000 feet in elevation.

Go figure.

That observation, though, is quickly replaced by another as I happen to glance up at the sky. Because the sky looks closer to me where I'm standing. The stars, the moon, the galaxies. They're all closer to me right now. They're more legible. I can actually imagine them to be diamonds up there twinkling in the sky.

But the main thing?

The sky's closer to where I'm standing. Which is a helluva thing to perceive.

By 'n by, the day comes to a close. And as ten forty-five happens upon us, we retreat into our RV for a good night's, well-deserved, sleep.

:-)