Lake Tahoe - 2015

6-24-15

We left the house at about 10:00 AM and stopped for lunch at the Buddhist monastery in Ukiah for a tasty vegetarian meal.
The house, Mr. Big and the foster cats, Dusty and Rusty will be taken care off by Doris's house guests Skip and David. Skip is a retired college professor and David a retired high school teacher. They are involved in the Golden Rule project.

Dusty and Rusty live in the garage and have to be put in a cage when the garage door is opened. Rusty took off several times but she came back when it was feeding time.

We arrived at Mary Beth’s house, in Fairfield, near San Francisco, at about 4:00 PM. Mary Beth is one of Doris’s best friends.

Mary Beth has a beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright inspired home. It has a lot of windows and sliding glass doors.

At the end of the backyard runs a small creek. There are large trees and bushes and the landscaping is pleasing to the eyes.

The front door has a cast steel outer door which is matched by an opening in the opposing wall with the same cast steel design.

Mary Beth has her own paradise here.

After the tour of the house and garden we went to an Italian restaurant for dinner.

6-25-15

I woke up at 5:00 AM. Doris had left the sliding door in the bedroom open and the peacocks, who are roaming the neighborhood, made a lot of noise. The birds in the trees were chirping too. I rested for the next two hours.

In the morning we went shopping. Mary Beth bought Garage Sale signs. I have a feeling the Lake Tahoe trip will be a working one. I had planned to show Doris the Vikingholm Castle on Emerald Bay.

Early afternoon Mary Beth went to her physical therapy session. She had a hip replacement and still has problems moving around.

When she came back we packed the car. We had to move the back of one back seat forward to get a small ladder and some other items in the car.

In Vacaville we stopped at Kohl’s to buy some sheets for one bed. By then it was past four o’clock and the traffic on I-80 towards Sacramento was atrocious.

We arrived in South Lake Tahoe at about 7:00 PM and went straight to a restaurant which specializes in spare ribs. We all ordered a full slab so we had leftovers.

Then we went to Mary Beth’s house. It is another beautiful home. It is spacious and Mary Beth likes to decorate and it shows. Her daughter and husband have a house here. When they retire they will move here. They live now in the San Francisco area. Mary Beth will then move here too. In the mean time the house will be a vacation rental house. She has two more rental houses in Eureka.

This house has four good size bedrooms. The master bedroom has a large tub and a large shower.

6-26-15

Today was a work day. We cleaned, painted and helped move a new hot tub from the delivery truck to the back of the house. The driver did not have to do this, he only had to drop off the merchandise on the drive way, but Mary Beth talked to him and he agreed to bring the hot tub to the back.

It was not easy. The fork lift had small wheels and we had a difficult time in the grass and sand at the side of the house. I was pushing and Doris was on the side keeping the hot tub from falling off the fork lift.
This was not good for my back.

We also drove through the neighborhood and attached garage sale signs to posts.

Mary Beth has furniture and other stuff for sale. Some of it came with the house.

6-27-15

This was another work day. We moved the tables with the stuff on the drive way and got ready for selling.

Mary Beth had bought three television sets; I flattened the boxes and put the small packaging papers and plastic in garbage bags. I did the same with the boxes for the new BBQ grill and other items Mary Beth had bought. The garbage bags we can put on the side of the street, but we have to take the flattened boxes back to Fairfield. It seems they have no recycle center here.

The dining room table with six chairs did not sell. 

Mary Beth wants to hand over the house to the vacation rental company starting with the 4^th of July holiday. She could get $ 500.00 a day. I do not know whether we get the house ready.

We are leaving next Tuesday. The hot tub has to be still installed. The slab was finished this morning.

6-29-15.

Yesterday and today were working days again. I would have liked to have at least a free half a day for going to Vikingsholm Castle. I went there two years ago and was more interested this time in the hike one mile down to the castle.

The hot tub was moved in place today with people power. The guy brought three steel pipes to be used as rollers. They were too short. Luckily the gardener had not installed the poles for the new planted trees. We used the poles and they worked fine. 

 I had to go to the store to get some paint and drove along the lake. It was a beautiful sight. People were walking. I would have liked to stay there for a while.

This was not a pleasant experience. When we moved the hot tub to the back yard I hurt my back and I am still in pain. I get headaches very seldom, but the last couple of days I experienced them.

I did not say anything and just kept on plugging away. I am glad when we get home so my back gets a rest.

Doris was going again like gang busters. She cleaned, put new linens on the beds, prepared the meals and was unstoppable. Mary Beth cannot do much right now.

6-30-2015

Today we drove back to Fairfield. We had dinner at a nice restaurant and then enjoyed Mary Beth’s backyard.

Tomorrow morning we will be heading home.

Golden Rule Project - 2015

6-20-15

The Golden Rule was the very first of the Nuclear Protest Peace Vessels to go to sea in 1958. A crew of anti-nuclear weapons activists set sail aboard her in an attempt to interpose themselves and the boat between the U.S. Government and its atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the Marshal Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

The crew made it to Hawaii and they were arrested and jailed.

After this the Golden Rule had several owners.

The neglected boat sank in a storm right off the Zerlang & Zerlang Marine Services in Humbold Bay.

Today, at 12:30 PM we left for the marina to pick up Kitty, the daughter of Albert Bigelow the captain of the Golden Rule when they tried to enter the nuclear test area in the Marshal Islands.  

Kitty had gone on the Internet and found accommodation for two nights on a sail boat in the marina. Her two daughters preferred staying at the Eureka Inn.

We arrived early at the Zerlang Boat Yard, and so did many other people. Women were decorating the boat with flowers and streamers.

The Golden Rule was still sitting on a carriage, on rails.

At 3:00 PM the speech making started. Leroy, owner of Zerlang & Zerlang Marine Services, and a big benefactor of this project, told the story how he lifted the boat from the bottom of Humboldt Bay and was ready to burn it because of the shape it was in.

When he investigated and learned the history of the boat he changed his mind and the restoration started.

The president of “Veterans for Peace” came next and gave the reason while they stepped forward and adopted the boat, and helped refurbishing it.

Relatives of the original crew also made remarks.

Chuck Dewitt, the coordinator of the refurbishment, was honored. He spent a lot of hours on the project, and came many times to Doris’s house when Doris applied for Grants.

Kayaks, sail boats, motor boats, the Port District Fire Boat and a small tug boat were waiting for the launch.

Finally the speeches were over and the Golden Rule went slowly down the rails and into the water. The fire boat sprayed water and other boats blew their horns.

Since the engine did not start, the small tugboat towed the Golden Rule and the colorful flotilla took off for the Aquatic Center.

We loaded up our car and drove there. Many people had come to see the boat and the Golden Rule was hardly visible because of all the people on the board walk.

There was free food inside the building and I had the feeling that was a big draw.

Kitty was happy to be here. She came all the way from New York City.

There were more speeches.

After a while we went down to the boat. There were only a few onlookers and we were able to go inside the boat. It is not a big vessel and the four man crew has to be on a friendly basis in order to get along.

They will leave soon for the Veterans for Peace Convention in San Diego. The boat will be a floating class room to teach people about the horrors of Nuclear War.

It was a typical cloudy Eureka day. Not good for picture taking. At least it did not rain.
Doris has two house guests who are associated with the Golden Rule. David will be one of the crew when the boat sails back from San Diego, and Skip is one of the committee members.
Skip was already here when we went to Utah. He was house sitting and taking care of Mr. Big.

They are enjoying Eureka and the neighborhood. Some of our neighbors have a lot of flowers.

One neighbor has turkeys. We hear also roosters.

Back in Eureka

6-16-15

Life is back to normal. We are busy with our regular work, plus dental and other appointments.

This morning we had the pleasure of having breakfast with Barbara and Ron, friends from the WINs, at the Seascape Restaurant in Trinidad. They are on their way north.

After breakfast we watched a boat launch. The boat was lifted from the boat trailer and put on a carriage. The carriage was on rails and slowly let by heavy wire down to the water.