Author Archives: Maria Langer

THIS is What Life is All About

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Experiencing the wonder of the world with someone you love.

Last night, I went to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. While I’ll likely use another blog post to debate the wisdom of stretching Tolkien’s classic into a three-part movie, I cannot criticize the movie makers for the breathtaking scenery throughout the movie. Filmed in New Zealand, this — and the epic Lord of the Rings trilogy — showcases some of the most stunning backcountry locations in the world.

There’s a scene in the movie when Thorin’s Company (13 dwarves, a hobbit, and a wizard) are traveling along a ridge in the mountains, high above the clouds. The scene, obviously shot from a helicopter, reminded me of two other scenes, one from a movie and the other from real life:

  • One of the closing scenes in the 1965 classic, The Sound of Music, when the Von Trapp Family is escaping the Nazis by hiking through the alps.
  • A particular moment on my July 2012 helicopter flight over the Cascade Mountains, when I crossed a specific rocky ridge surrounded by low clouds within sight of Mt. St. Helens.

That entire July flight was amazing, but it was this rocky ridge that popped into my mind while watching The Hobbit in a crowded Florida movie theater:

Cascades Ridge

And it brought me to tears. Even as I write this, perched on a stool at the breakfast bar in my mother’s kitchen on a Thursday morning before dawn, I’m all teary-eyed thinking about the amazing things I see and experience almost every day of my life — usually alone.

As I blogged after that flight:

I also felt more than a bit of sadness. There’s no way I can describe the amazing beauty of the remote wilderness that was around me for more than half of that flight. And yet there I was, enjoying it alone, unable to share it with anyone. Although I think my soon-to-be ex-husband would have enjoyed the flight, he was not with me and never would be again. I felt a surge of loneliness that I’ve never felt before. It ached to experience such an incredible flight alone, unable to share it firsthand with someone else who might appreciate it as much as I did.

Over time, I’ve come to learn that it’s more important to experience life than to be a slave to the material things we think we need to survive. I’m not independently wealthy — I do have to work for a living. But I’ve learned to work hard and smart and to live somewhat frugally so my money goes farther. By staying out of debt — and I’ll be completely debt-free (at least for a while) when my helicopter’s final loan payment is made next week — I’m not stressed about having to generate enough income to make credit card and loan payments. I can take time off to enjoy the experiences that make life worth living. In a way, I’m in a sort of semi-retirement where I mix work with play and really enjoy life.

Unfortunately, I’m one of the few people I know who are able to do this.

Reflection Canyon
Another example of the great places I fly for work; this shot was captured by my helicopter’s “nose cam” during a photo flight at Lake Powell.

My choice of career has also enabled me to enjoy amazing life experiences while working. I can’t begin to list the incredible places my work has taken me — or the incredible things I’ve seen from the air and on the ground while simply doing my job. That dawn flight across the Cascades is just an example — I did it for work, to reposition the helicopter for a required maintenance. In other words, it was part of my job. Not only did it entail a pair of amazing flights on consecutive days, but it also included a day spent wandering around Portland, a drive along the coast, a great dinner of oyster stew and fried oysters in an oceanside restaurant, a walk along the beach with my dog, a night in a beachfront motel, a beautiful foggy dawn, breakfast in a historic hotel, and a scenic drive back to the Portland area. What some people might do on a pair of days off, I was able to do as part of my work. How great is that?

What’s not so great is doing it alone.

Although my soon-to-be ex-husband promised me he’d join me on the road during my annual migration to points north — and I worked hard for years to build a business capable of supporting both of us — he backed out with excuses about needing to save more for retirement. I always hoped he’d see the light — and I was somewhat patiently waiting for him to do so right up to the end. The end came, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this blog, when he replaced me with another woman — someone who apparently doesn’t mind watching him be a slave to his material possessions and debt, enjoying life on weekends and during two weeks of paid vacation time each year.

It’s a shame, really. While I feel that life is all about experiences, those experiences are somehow better when they’re shared with someone else. For nearly 29 years, some (but not all) of my best life experiences were spent with the same man who I really thought appreciated them as much as I did: A road trip down the Pacific Coast from Seattle to San Francisco. A motorcycle camping trip down Skyline Drive and the Shenandoah Parkway and back up the Atlantic Coast’s barrier islands. A dash across a mosquito-infested field in the Everglades to a rental car, followed by an intense swatting session. A sunset soak in abandoned hot springs along the Rio Grande, watching wild horses graze in Mexico. A jet ski journey up the Colorado River from Lake Havasu to Laughlin. A river rafting trip down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon. A horseback ride on the beach in Costa Rica. A hike up a slot canyon with friends on the shore of Lake Powell. Time trials at a Bridgehampton race track in my Toyota MR-2. A day spent exploring the ruins of Chichen Itza. A sunrise at Montauk Point, followed by a nap in each others arms on a flat rock overlooking the Sound. An afternoon spent snorkeling in Cozumel. A view of the broken clouds of a marine layer moving in beneath us during a helicopter flight down the coast of Oregon. Long walks on beaches in too many places to count.

These are all memories I cherished, experiences somehow made better at the time because I shared them with someone I loved. Someone I could talk to about them long afterward. Someone who could browse photo albums with me and reminisce about the scenes they captured. Someone who could say, “Remember when we…” and I could remember with him.

That’s all gone now. Yes, I still have those memories, but they’re no longer shared, no longer cherished. Instead, they’re a reminder of how things change, how people grow apart without even knowing it, how love dies, and how easy it is for some people to replace a “life partner.”

I’ll have new experiences and build new memories of the amazing places I go and things I see and do in the years to come. Maybe I’ll have someone to share them with. Maybe we’ll stay together for a long time — long enough for the word “forever” to have meaning to me again.

But I’m certainly not going to wait for that someone to continue enjoying what’s important to me in life: experiencing the wonder of the world. The world is out there now and it’s not waiting either.

Grandma’s Table Photos

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Lost photos, odd traditions.

I spent Christmas with my mom and stepdad at their St. Augustine, FL home. They do a great Christmas, with lot of decorations and gifts for everyone — even dinner guests! Very festive.

In addition to my sister and me, my mom invited some friends of hers: a couple slightly younger than me and their two college-age kids. That put a total of eight at their dining room table.

TableAs expected, my mom set the table with her good china and silver on a lace tablecloth. She also had gold plates under the plates, linen and gold napkins, and holiday napkin rings. And candles. The table looked beautiful.

It reminded me of holidays in years gone by. My grandmother, who passed away more than 10 years ago, always took a photo of the holiday table — no matter what holiday it was. She had an old Kodak 110 point-and-shoot film camera — the kind that took so-so photos because of its tiny negatives. She’d wait until the table was all set and then point the camera at it. Flash! An image was captured on film. Maybe she’d do a second one just to make sure. And if there was a turkey, it was always photographed before being carved, sometimes after staging it in the middle of that beautiful table.

The odd thing about this is that I don’t recall seeing any of the table photos she took. Come to think of it, I don’t recall seeing any photos she took.

Yesterday, I wondered about this. Did the photos ever exist? Had the film in her cameras been developed? Was there even film in the camera? If the pictures existed, what happened to them when she died?

These are questions I know I’ll never get answered.

But as I thought about it yesterday and I admired my mother’s beautiful table, I decided to take my own photo — sort of in memory of my grandmother and all those lost photos she took over the years.

I miss you, Grandma.

The Rules about Flying over Wilderness Areas

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My answer to a reader’s question.

ChartA week or two ago, I got an email message from a reader who had read my November 2011 post, “A Few Aerial Views from Today’s Flight.” That post shows off a bunch of photos captured by my helicopter’s “nose cam,” a GoPro Hero2 camera I sometimes use in flight. The photos include views of the Verde and Salt Rivers north and east of Phoenix, including some of the lakes along the rivers. My reader noticed, after consulting some aeronautical charts, that much of the area I’d flown over was designated as wilderness area.

This reader, who asked to remain anonymous and not be quoted verbatim, was wondering about “bending” rules. Although he mentioned the June 2012 wire strike helicopter crash in the Verde River area, he wasn’t interested in the safety aspects of maintaining a high enough altitude to clear obstacles. He was interested in my interpretation of the rule about flying at least 2,000 feet above wilderness areas.

The “Rule”

Before I interpret the rule, it’s a good idea to know exactly what the rule is and where it can be found.

It’s interesting to note that a search for “wilderness” and “2,000 feet” in the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) does not provide any guidance related to operations over charted wilderness areas. The FARs are the rules pilots are required to comply with.

A search of the Aeronautics Information Manual (AIM) for “wilderness” results in “Part 7-4-6: Flights Over Charted U.S. Wildlife Refuges, Parks, and Forest Service Areas.” Paragraph b pertains to this topic:

b. Pilots are requested to maintain a minimum altitude of 2,000 feet above the surface of the following: National Parks, Monuments, Seashores, Lakeshores, Recreation Areas and Scenic Riverways administered by the National Park Service, National Wildlife Refuges, Big Game Refuges, Game Ranges and Wildlife Ranges administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Wilderness and Primitive areas administered by the U.S. Forest Service.

A note adds this:

FAA Advisory Circular AC 91-36, Visual Flight Rules (VFR) Flight Over Noise-Sensitive Areas, defines the surface of a national park area (including parks, forests, primitive areas, wilderness areas, recreational areas, national seashores, national monuments, national lakeshores, and national wildlife refuge and range areas) as: the highest terrain within 2,000 feet laterally of the route of flight, or the upper-most rim of a canyon or valley.

First Glance Interpretation

At first glance, the “rule” seems pretty straightforward: you’re supposed to fly at least 2,000 feet above the ground in any charted wilderness area, etc.

User's Guide ImageCharts, by the way, make it very easy to identify these areas. They’re normally surrounded by a blue line that has dots on the inside of the area. This entry from the Aeronautical Chart User’s Guide shows what to look for. And this chart excerpt from the Phoenix terminal area chart (TAC) illustrates how two areas look on an actual chart: The Hells Canyon Wilderness area (left) and Lake Pleasant Bald Eagle Breeding Area (right):

Wilderness Examples

The Advisory Circular note goes a bit further to explain that the lowest point in the wilderness area that you should consider when setting your altitude is the highest point 2,000 feet from your aircraft in any direction. So if you’re flying over a 1,000 foot deep canyon and the canyon is only 1,500 feet wide, you should be 2,000 feet above the canyon walls — not 2,000 feet over the bottom of the canyon.

It’s important to note that a requirement like this is extremely difficult for helicopter pilots to deal with, primarily because helicopters normally operate 500 to 1,000 feet above the ground. We seldom fly 2,000 feet above anything — that’s nosebleed territory for us. That’s also where small planes might be operating — and we’re trained to stay away from them. So when you ask a helicopter pilot to fly 2,000 feet above the ground, we’re not going to like it.

But Is It A Rule?

But the real question should be, is this really a rule? Something that must be followed? Something that could get you in trouble with the FAA if you ignore it?

I can offer two arguments for why pilots are not required to fly 2,000 feet above charted wilderness areas:

  • The “rule” is not included in the FARs, which are the regulations governing flight in the U.S. Instead, it’s described in the AIM, which is informational in nature.
  • The language of the “rule” says that “Pilots are requested to maintain a minimum altitude of 2,000 feet above the surface…” Surely you can’t confuse a “request” with a “requirement.”

Before I go any further, I want to point out paragraph c of the same AIM part (7-4-6):

Federal statues prohibit certain types of flight activity and/or provide altitude restrictions over designated U.S. Wildlife Refuges, Parks, and Forest Service Areas. These designated areas, for example: Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Areas, Minnesota; Haleakala National Park, Hawaii; Yosemite National Park, California; and Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, are charted on Sectional Charts.

Note the use of the word “prohibit” in this paragraph. With a little bit of effort, you can find the rules for these areas in the FARs or Special Federal Aviation Regulations (SFARs). For example, FAR 93 Subpart U and SFAR 50-2 govern special regulations over Grand Canyon National Park. In the case of Yosemite the rule is printed right on the chart:

Yosemite on Chart

In case you can’t read it:

Public Law 100-91 prohibits flight of VFR helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft below 2000 feet above the surface of Yosemite National Park. “Surface” refers to the highest terrain within the park within 2000 feet laterally of the route of flight or within the uppermost rim of the Yosemite Valley.

Pretty clear, no?

My point is, don’t get the idea that a pilot can ignore charted wilderness areas. That simply isn’t true. You need to know whether an area has its own special flight regulations before even considering “breaking” the 2,000-foot “rule.”

What’s Right?

Now you know my interpretation. But I didn’t get this on my own. It was pointed out to me by my primary flight instructor years ago. Pilots who take the time to look up and read the “rules” can make their own conclusions.

The reader who queried me about this obviously realized from the photos I shared on my blog post that I must have been flying lower than 2,000 feet above the ground in a charted wilderness area. Denying I did so when there’s photographic evidence to the contrary would be dishonest, insulting to my readers, and a waste of time.

But is it right to fly low over these areas? Because it’s not a regulation in most wilderness areas, it becomes an ethical decision on the part of the pilot.

First, consider why charted wilderness areas exist. The government is protecting these areas, for whatever reason. Usually, it’s because they don’t want aircraft noise to interfere with wildlife — especially wildlife breeding and habitat maintenance. Sometimes its because they want “natural” areas to be kept quiet for visitors trying to enjoy the beauty of nature in peace.

How do you feel about preserving quiet in these areas? Is it important to you? If you were on the ground, how would you feel if a helicopter or plane buzzed by at 500 or 1,000 feet? Would it bother you? How do you think it affects the people on the ground? People camping, fishing, hiking, meditating?

As the person who contacted me pointed out, when he flew in the area, he didn’t see a person for miles. So who would he be bothering?

The one thing I can say with certainty is this: If pilots typically “busted a wilderness area” by flying low through it and enough people on the ground noticed and complained about it, it’s far more likely that the government will respond by establishing a real rule to prevent it. Yes, at one time people were allowed to fly low-level through the Grand Canyon and Yosemite valley. But when enough complaints came in, regulations were written to make such activity illegal.

Would you want to see that happen with all the wilderness areas on the charts?

I know I wouldn’t.

Hiking the Horse Trails

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Bringing back — and adding — memories.

The house I own with my soon-to-be ex-husband in Wickenburg, AZ sits on 2-1/2 acres of horse property on the very edge of town. The area is hilly and the house, which sits on the side of a hill, has plenty of privacy — indeed, there’s no real reason to close curtains or blinds. Beyond our neighbor’s 10-acre lot are more rolling hills in state and BLM (Bureau of Land Management) public land. The land is crisscrossed with dozens of horse trails that are in regular use during winter months by Rancho de los Caballeros wranglers and trail riders, as well as local horse owners.

When we first moved there, I distinctly remember hitting the trails with my dog, Spot. We hiked up the road to the trailhead just beyond my neighbor’s driveway, followed the trail to the fence, opened the gate, and slipped through. Then we hiked through the wash and up and down the hillsides past tall saguaro cacti and other desert vegetation planted and cared for by Mother Nature.

I remember climbing a trail out of the wash to a hilltop where a tall saguaro stood. Sometime in the distant past, its top had been broken off, possibly from strong wind or a lightning strike, about 3 to 4 feet off the ground. Three big cactus arms had grown up just below the break point, rising another 15 to 20 feet into the air. To me, the cactus looked like a hand reaching up with a thumb and two fingers pointing up to the sky. I have a picture of me there with my dog — I suppose my soon-to-be ex-husband must have taken it — with that big cactus behind us.

At that point, I got an idea of how vast the desert was and how many miles of trails there were to cover. And that’s when I realized I needed a horse.

The Horse Trails

I’d been riding with a friend on the other side of town, on the horse trails she rode from her house. The horse I always rode was a retired barrel racer named Misty. Misty had navicular disease, a malady caused by the constant pounding on her front feet as she raced. My friend eased her pain before and during rides with a dose of Phenylbutazone (“bute”). She was fine for trail riding and seemed to love getting out. I bought her from my friend for $500.

(I should mention here that within a year, I took Misty to a Scottsdale equine surgeon for a Palmar Digital Neurectomy, which pretty much ended the pain. Unfortunately, a few years later she suffered a bowed tendon in one front leg and an abscess in the opposite front foot. The combination of these two problems at the same time eventually led to her death. I replaced her with a beautiful paint horse named Cherokee.)

We set up a horse corral with a shade on our property and brought Misty over. We had a shed built to store hay and other feed and her saddle and other tack. And I started riding on those trails.

My soon-to-be ex-husband also wanted to ride. For a while, we took turns taking Misty out. But I wanted us to be able to ride together, so I bought him a horse, too. His name was Jake and he was a retired ranch horse. We added a fenced in area down in the wash below our house so the two horses would have more room to move around. During the rainy season, we’d bring them back up to the original corral just in case heavy rain caused the wash to flood.

In the years that followed, we’d take Misty and Jake out to explore the miles of trails, saddling up at the house and then just riding out. When my dog, Spot, died and was subsequently replaced with a Border Collie/Australian Shepherd mix named Jack, we’d all go out together, with Jack and sometimes even my neighbor’s dogs in tow.

We’d do this a few times a week just about every week. In the warm months, we’d do it early in the morning, before it got hot out. In the cooler months, we do it in the afternoon. My soon-to-be ex-husband said our life was like “living on vacation.” I couldn’t argue.

We did this for years and learned just about every trail within 5 air miles of the house.

Golf Course TrailWe gave the trails names. The Golf Course Trail was the one that went from the gate to Rancho de los Caballeros’ golf course. Deer Valley Trail was the one that rode through a valley where we almost always saw deer on a morning ride. Danny’s Trail was the one our neighbor, Danny, showed us on the only time he went riding with us. The Ridge Ride was the one that stretched along a high ridge overlooking the golf course and points north on one side and the big, empty desert and points south on the other side. Yucca Valley was the strip of sandy wash filled with an unusually large number of yucca plants.

Places had names, too. The Ball Field, for example, was a flat area of mostly cleared desert roughly the shape of a baseball diamond. For a week or two in the spring, it would be carpeted with California poppies.

We’d plan a ride using these names — for example, “let’s take the Golf Course Trail to Yucca Valley and up to the Ridge Ride and come back through the Ball Field.” We both knew exactly where we were going to go.

The horses knew the trails, too. Every time we came to an intersection, they’d try to get us to turn in the direction of home. But if we wanted to keep riding out, we’d stubbornly pull them the other way. At the next intersection, the same thing would happen.

We’d gauge the length of our rides by the number of gates we had to pass through. An average ride was two gates: the first gate and a second one about two trail miles away. A long ride was three gates.

As the years went by, however, we began riding less and less frequently. I developed an interest in flying and began building a business around it. My soon-to-be ex-husband took a job in Phoenix and, after buying a condo down there, was gone most of the week. Jake eventually got too old to ride, got sick, and had to be put down. With me gone all summer and my soon-to-be ex gone all week, it seemed silly to replace him. So we found a home for Cherokee (Misty’s replacement), gave away the remaining horse feed, and closed up the tack shed.

In all, we’d been horse owners for about 10 years.

Hiking the Horse Trails

Although our horses were gone, the horse trails remained, maintained by the wranglers at Rancho de los Caballeros. I just didn’t get any opportunity to see them.

Time passed. I went away this past summer and lost 45 pounds. Hiking became an important part of my life, a way to get exercise and enjoy the outdoors with my dog and friends. I began hiking regularly with a Meetup group (and others). When the hiking host of the Meetup group mentioned that he wanted to do a hike in Wickenburg, I volunteered to lead a hike on the horse trails behind my house.

Of course, to do that, I had to make sure I remembered the horse trails. And I had to make sure I could put together an interesting route 3 to 4 miles in length, something we could cover at a slow to medium pace in a few hours. That means I had to hike the trails myself in advance.

I called my friend, Alta, and invited her to join me on a hike. We went out at 9 AM on a Thursday morning — just me, Alta, and Penny the Tiny Dog. I wanted to take the group through the slot canyon accessible from about a half mile down the wash from our house, so that’s the way we went. I soon realized that a half mile in sandy wash followed by a mile snaking up a narrow, rocky canyon didn’t make for a good hike. So after climbing out of the canyon, I extended the hike to familiarize myself with the trails I had once known so well.

And that’s when the memories started kicking in. You see, the only times I’d been on all those trails were with my horse and usually with my soon-to-be ex-husband and long-gone dog. Although the memories of all those trail rides were good ones, they were tainted by the events of the past six months — namely, my husband’s lies and betrayals. I remembered the rides, I remembered the great times we’d had out there on horseback. But none of that jived with the way my husband had discarded me, after 29 years together, for a woman he’d met only weeks before on the Internet. All those good memories became painful. More than a few times, hiking with Alta that day, I found myself in tears.

Vulture PeakAs we reached the highest point on the Ridge Ride trail and stopped to look out over the desert, I remembered toasting the new year with my husband and friends on New Year’s Day rides. I began to regret volunteering to take my new friends on these trails. Would I be able to keep it together that day? Would the pain I felt so intensely be noticed by my companions?

I didn’t have much time to think about it. The day after our trial hike, I was caught up in more divorce bullshit. First, returning the truck that my soon-to-be ex had assured me several times I’d be able to keep in the settlement. Then, the next day, going to our Phoenix condo to beg him to allow me to take home my things so I could pack them. Later the same day, watching him retrieve random belongings from our Wickenburg house during an “inspection” he’d demanded by using lies to convince the court that his possessions were in danger of damage or theft. By the woman he’d lived with for 29 years. He apparently trusted me even less than I now trusted him. The difference: I’d done nothing to earn that mistrust. He’d been lying to me for months, if not years.

More pain, more tears.

I spent Sunday hiking with my Meetup friends again and flying Santa Claus to an appearance at Deer Valley Airport Restaurant. It did a world of good to help keep my mind off my divorce ordeal.

On Sunday, the hike host reminded me that he needed a description and photos of the hike. When I emailed the description and two photos to him on Monday, he said he’d try to get them online quickly. They appeared Tuesday and folks started signing up for the hike.

In the end, on Sunday morning, we had just eight hikers and seven (!) dogs.

Atheist HikersI led the group out onto the trail, feeling a weird mix of emotions. But as we hiked and as I talked about the things we were seeing, the ghosts from the past stayed away. Although I thought about those long ago horseback rides, I was more focused on sharing the trails — my trails — with my friends, pointing out plants and rocks and other items of interest. I realized, as we made the final ascent to the highest point on the Ridge Ride trail, that bringing my friends along helped me make new memories of the trails, fresh memories that helped the old ones — and the pain they conjured — fade away.

Cactus PortraitThe only time I got teary-eyed is when I stopped at that “three-finger cactus” and asked one of my friends to take a picture of me with my dog. Even then, I don’t think anyone noticed the tears behind my sunglasses.

My companions enjoyed the hike. It was the right difficulty (relatively easy) and right length (4-1/2 miles) for the group. And the pot luck lunch at my house afterward really completed the day.

But what I got out of the hike is something far more valuable than a day out with friends: I got a chance to reclaim the horse trails with new memories.

A California Thanksgiving with Friends

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Something different, something fun.

As Thanksgiving approached this year, I was faced with the prospect of not having anyone to spend it with for the first time in my life.

Past Thanksgivings

When I was a kid, it was a big family event that often involved my grandparents, aunt and uncle, and cousins. I can remember more than a few Thanksgiving dinners in the tiny dining room of our house in Cresskill, NJ. For at least part of that time, the dining room table was a pool table with a piece of plywood on top and a nice linen tablecloth on top of that. (Not quite Beverly Hillbillies.) I distinctly remember being able to fool around with the pool balls while siting at the table. Of course, my grandmother always insisted on taking photos of the table all set with my mom’s best china. And a closeup of the turkey before carving. I wonder where all those photos are today?

Later, after Mike and I began living together, we’d occasionally host Thanksgiving dinner at our Harrington Park, NJ house. It was a big deal for everyone to travel out our way — most of his family and even some of mine were in New York and had to deal with the horrendous traffic. But we tried hard to make it worth the drive. Thanksgiving 1996Thanksgiving 1996 was probably the best ever. By that point, we’d discovered the U.S. Southwest and were in love with it. I’d gotten a cookbook filled with southwest recipes and we decided to make the entire meal from it. I whipped up a fancy menu with funky fonts and southwest style borders and printed it out for our guests’ reference. Mike set up our dining room table to seat all 14 guests together. I don’t know quite how we pulled it off, but we managed to serve every single dish piping hot. It was the absolute best Thanksgiving dinner I ever had and I’m so proud to have been one of the two people who prepared it. I still occasionally make more than a few items from that menu. (I would have made some this year, but the cookbook was already packed.)

My FamilyLater, when we moved to Arizona, we didn’t spend many Thanksgivings with family — although I do recall my mom, stepdad, sister, brother, and sister in law coming out to stay with us for Thanksgiving 2004. That was the first — and I believe only — time that I got to use my good china for a big dinner. My mom had been buying me place settings over the years and I added a few right before they arrived so we had enough to go around. I don’t remember the dinner itself being that special, but I do recall the trip to Torrance, CA, that my sister, brother, and sister-in-law made a few days before to tour the Robinson Helicopter factory. Assembly LineOddly enough, that’s the day they put the shell of my helicopter on the assembly line. And, of course, the visit also gave us the opportunity to get a group photo outside, in front of our house.

Other Thanksgivings in our Wickenburg home included friends who weren’t fortunate enough to have someone else to spend Thanksgiving with. I remember one Thanksgiving when we invited a friend, his girlfriend, and his dad to join us for dinner. I think it was just the five of us, but our guest brought a dozen bottles of wine. No, we didn’t drink them all — but it sure was a fun meal.

Howard Mesa KitchenIn later years, once our camping shed at Howard Mesa was fully set up for simple living, we had Thanksgiving there at least once, in 2008. It was a bit of a challenge preparing a large meal in the tiny kitchen and we had to be sure to buy a turkey small enough to fit in the apartment-sized oven. I’d planned to make mango chutney (in addition to cranberries with Mike’s mom’s recipe) but had forgotten to bring the mangos. So I used the same recipe to make apple chutney with the apples we’d brought along. Not a bad substitution. It was a quiet Thanksgiving with just the two of us and our dog, Jack. The horses, Jake and Cherokee, roamed around outside. And the sunset was beautiful.
Howard Mesa Sunset

Dealing with the Prospect of Having Thanksgiving Alone

Although I’d hoped to have the divorce settled long before Thanksgiving so I could get on with my life, by October, I realized that was not going to happen. Apparently, my soon-to-be ex-husband and I had different ideas of what the word “fair” meant. So I slowed down on my high-speed packing and prepared to stay, probably through Christmas (and maybe as long as through March). And that’s when I realized that I might not have anyone to spend Thanksgiving with.

I was going to be like one of those unfortunate people that we’d taken in for Thanksgiving in the past.

All of my friends without family in the area were traveling. Some were skipping dinner altogether. As the day came closer and closer, it seemed more and more likely that I’d have Thanksgiving dinner alone — just me and Penny the Tiny Dog. At first, I was okay with that — after all, I’d lived mostly alone every summer for the past five years. And I’d spent plenty of time alone when my soon-to-be ex was spending weeks in New Jersey or weekdays in Phoenix. But for some reason, Thanksgiving was different.

I realized that it bugged me that I’d be alone on Thanksgiving for the first time in my entire life — especially after 29 consecutive years spending it with the man who would be spending his day with my replacement instead of me.

The emotional pain from that realization was fierce.

Meanwhile, I’d gotten two Thanksgiving invitations that required travel. One was to my brother’s house in New Jersey. I really didn’t want to take that long trip for such a short stay. The other was to my friends Rod and Liz’s house in Georgetown, CA. I gave the situation a lot of thought. And on the Monday before Thanksgiving, I finally decided and bought my round-trip tickets for Sacramento.

Flying Commercial with Penny the Tiny Dog

I’d planned a six-day trip, arriving on Wednesday before Thanksgiving and departing on Monday, after the holiday crowd had gone home. I decided to keep things simple and pack a big bag, which I would check. I’d carry Penny on board in her travel box.

Penny in a BoxPenny is an excellent flyer. Not only is she perfectly at ease in any seat — front or back — of the helicopter, but she doesn’t mind curling up for a nap in her travel box when its tucked away under the seat in front of me on an airliner.

I usually keep her on her leash until just before boarding time. We’ll walk through the terminal and she’ll wait patiently while I grab a latte. Then we’ll hang out by the gate until they start boarding. Everyone loves her — she’s cute and funny to watch, especially when she’s playing with her toys. When we’re ready to board, I’ll coax her — admittedly, sometimes forcefully — into her box and close the door. Then we get in line, board the plane, and I tuck her under the seat. I don’t usually even check on her in flight. She really does just curl up and go to sleep.

When we get off the plane, I carry her out in her box and then get her on her leash as soon as we’re clear of the crowds getting off the plane. Occasionally, after a long flight, she finds a place in the terminal to take a leak or a poop. You can’t really blame her — it’s not as if they have restrooms for dogs. (SEATAC has a pet area that is so stinky, even Penny wouldn’t go in.) I’m prepared for that eventuality with paper shop towels and poop bags, so it isn’t a huge deal. Arriving from Phoenix in Sacramento was accident-free. While waiting for my luggage, I took her outside to a grassy area where she was able to take care of business before my friends arrived to pick us up.

In case you’re wondering, the airlines do charge a fee for carry-on pets. Alaska Airlines charges $100 each way; US AIrways, which is what I took to Sacramento, charges $125 each way. The pet case counts as your carry-on bag, so unless you travel very light, you’ll likely have to spend another $25 to check your bag, too. I think this is outrageous. In fact, Penny’s return fare cost more than my seat on the plane for that flight. According to the check-in folks, I could buy a seat for her. I suspect that’s bullshit, but I’ll try on our next trip.

Although I prefer a mid-sized dog — I sorely miss my border collie, Charlie, and his border collie/Australian shepherd mix predecessor, Jack — I admit that it’s a lot easier to travel with a tiny dog. And she really does seem to like to travel with me. A real adventurer!

Our California Stay

The weather was just clearing out when I arrived — low clouds after some morning rain were burning off. The weather turned perfect and stayed that way straight through our departure on Monday.

My friends picked us up in their old but meticulously maintained Land Rover and whisked us away for a late breakfast. It was great to see them and we talked about all kinds of things. I brought them up to date on the divorce bullshit, even though I’d purposely neglected to read the latest correspondence from opposing counsel. (I didn’t want more bullshit to ruin my weekend and it turned out to be an excellent decision.) Then we climbed back into the car where Penny was waited and headed up to Georgetown, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Rod and Liz live in a great little house on a big piece of land south of Georgetown. Georgetown is a tiny town with even fewer services than Wickenburg, so they do most of their shopping and dining out in either Placerville or Auburn. Their area is quiet and the huge front lawn — which, by the way, is large enough to land a helicopter on — is shielded from the main road by a barrier of tall trees and a creek.

Zoe and PennyThey’d done a lot of work to their house since my last visit and the guest room was completely redone and very comfortable. I set up camp in there for me and Penny. Penny, in the meantime, got to meet their dogs: Emma (a pit bull), Bentley (a hound), and Zoe (a border collie). Of the three, Bentley is the oldest and wasn’t very interested in his tiny house guest. Emma wasn’t really, either. But Zoe and Penny soon became fast friends, sharing the few toys I’d brought along for Penny. Whenever we just hung around the house, they’d play together. In the evenings, when Zoe stretched out on her big bed, Penny would curl up beside her.

Red TreeAutumn was in full swing in the Georgetown area and trees were turning color everywhere. The best I saw, however, was right in my friend’s front yard: a small maple tree brilliant with shades of red and orange. Every morning, the sun would come through the other trees, sprinkling this little tree with splotches of golden light. Day after day, I pulled out my camera, attempting to capture the glorious colors. I think this shot came out the best.

We had Thanksgiving Dinner at Liz’s mom’s house. She lives in a 55+ park in Placerville. A friend of hers had made the stuffing and she’d started the turkey. When we arrived in the afternoon, Liz made a few other things and put the finishing touches on what had already been prepared or started. A friend of Liz’s mom, John, joined us and we had a nice dinner for five around her dining table with the four dogs lounging around the little house and Liz’s mom’s cat hiding out in a bedroom. The food was good and, as you might expect, I ate a lot more than I should have. (I fully expected to gain a few pounds during this trip because of the sheer quantity of food I ate and was pleasantly surprised when the scale at home on Tuesday morning registered roughly what it had a week before.)

We spent the next few days just getting out and around in the area.

On Friday, Rod and Liz needed to run some errands down in the Folsom area, so we took the Land Rover down. We had lunch at the excellent Sutter Street Grill in Folsom, which serves breakfast all day. I had a great omelet and took half home for the next day. We fetched Penny out of the car and walked around town. I bought a[nother] scarf — blue with fish on it — and let Liz treat me to some gelato. We made our way back to the car, past a skating rink full of kids. It was a great place, a great day. I felt really alive to be out and about in a new place with friends.

Rod and Liz

Maria and Penny

On Saturday, we went for a short hike close to their home. It was a nice spot, with several creeks coming together on their way to the American River. Although most of the leaves were gone, it was pleasant to be in the woods, especially after months in the Arizona desert. There was a little bridge across the creek and we took the opportunity to take photos of each other. Here’s Rod and Liz in one shot and me and Penny in the other.

On Saturday night, we were invited a burn party at a friend’s house. Let me explain. In this area, folks have lots of trees and brush. To get rid of this stuff, they burn it. They’re allowed to do this with a permit on certain days and under certain conditions. Unfortunately, our host discovered after inviting everyone that she wasn’t allowed to burn that day. But the party went on anyway, on the back patio of a wonderful little rental house she owns on the American River. There was a fireplace back there and we kept feeding it logs. Lots of food: shrimp cocktail, sausages, salads, dips, and chips. Our host was a part owner of a 100+ year old winery in either Napa or Sonoma valley (I can’t remember which) and served up the best cabernet and zinfandel (no, not the pink kind), making me feel a bit embarrassed about bringing along some of the white wine from Washington that my husband had left behind in our house. Later, when the fire was good and hot, we took turns roasting marshmallows. I was thrilled when our host offered me a bottle of her winery’s award-winning Zinfandel to take home. (I’m saving it to share it with someone special who will really appreciate it.)

Fire Good Roasting Marshmallows

Sutters Mill MapOn Sunday, Rod took us in his Volkswagen Thing for a more strenuous hike without the dogs. We started near the site of Sutter’s Mill — where the California Gold Rush began in 1849, in case you’re not familiar with this bit of history — and hiked up the trail in the Marshall Gold Discover State History Park. The trail was steep and Rod set a good, fast pace that had me huffing and puffing. Funny, but in my fat days, I never would have been able to keep up. On that day I worked up a good sweat but never really lagged behind. At the top of the mountain were some nice view points. We found a picnic area and stopped for a rest and a snack. That’s where I set up my camera and timer for a fun shot of our three heads between two tree boughs and a few more portraits.

Three Heads are Better than One Rod and Liz

Walnut TreeAfterward, we headed down to where Liz works, the Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Colony Farm. This interesting historic site is the location of the first Japanese settlement in the United States. It’s also where the first child to Japanese immigrants was born and the site of the first Japanese immigrant’s death. Today, the farm has trails, the gravesite, and other farm buildings more recent to the area. We walked among the black walnut trees, picking up and munching on walnuts that had fallen from the trees. I’d never had fresh walnuts before and really enjoyed the experience. We hiked past a big pond, followed by the farm dog who bugged Rod to throw sticks for him. We went as far as the gravesite before turning around and going back to the car. The moon had risen in the east and flocks of Canada Geese were flying.

Moon and Geese

We took it easy on Monday morning. I helped Liz clean up some debris from a tree removal job while Rod took his other Land Rover down to Placerville to get something checked on it. By the time he got back, I was packed up and ready to go. We made a leisurely trip down to Sacramento, stopping for lunch at the excellent Newcastle Produce for a sandwich and other treats. Liz bought a big bag of seedless mandarin oranges and gave me 8 of them to take home. (I shared three of them with my seat mates on the flight home.)

We said goodbye at the airport and I admit that I was very sad to go. It had been a great weekend with friends, doing lots of fun, new things.

My New Life: It’s All about Getting Out and Experiencing New Things

I feel, in a way, that I missed out on a lot of things over the past few years of my life.

Over the past few years, I was stuck in a rut with someone who either couldn’t or didn’t want to get out more. Although I felt that something wasn’t quite right during those years, I now realize that I felt sort of “trapped,” with most of my time spent either at the cavelike Phoenix condo or at our Wickenburg home. Day trips with my “life partner” were only possible on weekends, and even that was limited to places we had already been. He used all of his vacation time traveling back east to be with his family — people who never made me feel welcome or comfortable. More often than not, especially in the last year of our relationship, I felt as if my presence and desire to get out and do different things was an inconvenience to him.

He solved the problem for me, although the way he did it was neither kind nor honorable. That’s something his conscience needs to deal with — if he still has a conscience.

In the meantime, I’m making a special effort to get out more and do more things. The past three months have been among the most active in my entire life, with several trips out of state to visit friends as well as lots of day trips with new people.

But among all the things I’ve done recently, this Thanksgiving trip was the best. Many thanks for Rod and Liz for making me feel so welcome and keeping me busy!