California – Charles and Laveta's Web Site

California-2012

Escape to California

27 January – 24 March 2012

Our home in University Place… ten days before we left.

We left a cold and foggy University Place in Washington State around nine in the morning, heading south on I-5 for Seven Feathers RV park in Canyonville Oregon- where we arrived around 3:30 PM. When we pulled out of Canyonville the following morning, the weather at Siskiyou Summit (4310 feet, the highest elevation on Interstate-5) was around freezing with the possibility of light snow but things improved- so much so, that by the time we crossed the pass- the pavement was dry. Welcome to California! We spent the night a Heritage RV about an hour south of Redding in the little town of Corning. The next day we continued down the San Joaquin Valley to Chowchilla (only 18 miles south of Laveta’s relatives in Merced ). We also saw my youngest brother, who was there temporarily, inroute to Nevada for the winter.

A few weeks later in San Diego, our son-in-law, who was on his way to see his parents in New Mexico joined us for a couple of days. Finally- our friends Jim and Carol flew down to join us the last week of our stay in San Diego. Then the four of us drove home north along the coast- seeing seven of California’s twenty one Missions before crossing Pacheco Pass into the San Joaquin Valley.

Our motorhome and Honda CRV towcar at The lakes RV & Golf Resort, Chowchilla CA.
This is a very nice, gated RV community. We spent two weeks here visiting relatives
and soaking up sunshine.

Castaic Lake RV Park located in the town of Castaic at the top of the Grapevine on I-5;
just the right location for beginning our Sunday morning drive through downtown LA to
San Diego. As you can see- it was a different kind of place… but hey- it was just for one night.

Mission Bay RV Resort, San Diego, where we spent the next 30 days. It was uncrowded,
as summertime is their busy season. Our motorhome was located about 100 feet from
beautiful public beach and from Mission Bay City Park whch ran along the waterfront
for miles. This was a great place for morning and evening walks.

Strange… very strange.

A Pelican and American Coots – with their funny feet.

Old Town San Diego. The Flagpole at left hoisted the first American flag over California. We later saw the first home the first first school etc. There were many museums and lots of shopping. On our second visit we took Jim and Carol with us. We ate breakfast at Fiesta de Reyes .

1964 photo

Laveta and I took the opportunity to drive about 120 miles up I-15 to Ontario and see the apartment where we’d lived in 1964-1965. And yes things had changed. It was no longer a nice neighborhood and of course we were no longer young but the old apartment was still there…
and so were we.

Laveta in Legoland (Carlsbad CA)

Balboa Park: Natural History Museum & Conservatory

At the justly famous San Diego Zoo

On the San Diego waterfront

Statue Title: "Unconditional Surrender"

The aircraft carrier Midway (now a museum) and Bob Hope Memoral

The Pier Cafe with Jim & Carol

And now for the missions- one of the goals of the trip. We visited 7 of the 21 missions.
Mission San Diego De Alcala (the first mission in California- located in San Diego)

Mission San Juan Capistrano (located in the town of the same name)

Mission San Luis Rey (located 5 miles east of Oceanside)

Mission San Buenaventura (located in Ventura 60 miles north of Los Angeles)

Mission Santa Barbara (In the City of Santa Barbara)

Mission San Luis Obispo De Tolosa (in city center San Luis Obispo)

Mission San Juan Bautista (located in the town of San Juan Bautista)
2008 – 2010 Photo’s

Me, Laveta, Sharon, Rus at The Harmon Pub, Tacoma- Feb 2008

RV’ing in Port Townsend WA- March 2008

Roaming American Roads (by RV) 2008

Laveta at the Tacoma Art Museum Cafe

Laveta at Cheney Stadium- Tacoma

Dory

Above Tacoma- Roger’s retirement.

Washington State Fair Sep-2008

PDF, 6pp
Exploring Egypt & the Nile- Civilization’s Long Oasis:
From Alexandria on the Mediterranean to Abu Simbel
near the Sudanese border… and a lot of in between.
From 27 October to 7 November 2008

Laveta on the Nile. Egypt. Nov 2008

Sharon and Laveta at the Tacoma Art Museum– Nov 2008

Chihuly on display at Tacoma’s Seymour Conservatory, December 2008

Roger, Me, Floyd – Christmas brunch (old coworkers) December 2008

At Jason and Jennifer’s wedding (Jason, Jennifer, Mike, Sharon, Russ, Carol, Laveta)
Tacoma. December 2008

We went to Seattle to see Lucy (the first Australopithecus Afarensis discovered)
which was on exhibit at the Pacific Science Center. Photo’s inside the exhibit were not allowed
but it was a great exhibit… with dinner afterward! Sharon, Russ, Laveta and Me. December 30th

2009 ====================================================================== 2009

Grave Creek covered bridge, Oregon. Late March 2009

Laveta’s dad in Merced California March 2009

Our room at the Caymus Inn in Rutherford California (Napa valley wine country)

Walking along Rutherford Cross Road. Note mustard field and grape vine early growth.
Rutherford CA. Mar-2009

Carol and Laveta, March snow in University Place

Chickadee- nesting near our guest bedroom window. Great fun to watch!

Cruising Southeast Alaska. From Seattle to:
Juneau, Skagway, Tracy Arm Fjord, Ketchikan
(Including Russ & Sharon’s wedding!)
23 May – 30 May 2009

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A few photo’s from our annual family get-together on Useless Bay, Whidbey Island, WA, July 2009

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Decal on an antique car at the University Place Festival

Laveta and Carol, Mt. Rainer National Park August 2009

Pike Place Market, Seattle, September 27th 2009

Spider in our front yard, October 2009 ———————————————————————————————————————————-
A week in eastern Washington State with Jim and Carol

Leavenworth, a Bavarian town in central Washington State. Jim drinking a beer in Gustav’s

At the Enzian Inn (a great place to stay)- At night there’s live music and a fire in the Great Room

Steve and Sally’s beautiful home and barn overlooking China Bend on Lake Roosevelt,
NE Washington State near Kettle Falls

Off-road travel high above the lake. Awesome country! (Jim’s photo)

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Wright Park in Tacoma, 1 November, 2009

2010 ====================================================================== 2010

Clam digging at brother John’s. March 2010
Aircraft Carrier in Admiralty Inlet with Olympic mountains in background

"T’s" Restaurant, Port Townsend- Great food!

My birthday lunch at Woody’s By The Water Tacoma, March 2010 ————————————————————————————————————————————–

With Jim and Carol at the Yakama Nation RV Park, Toppenish WA, June 2010

View of Mt. Adams from the RV Park

The town of Toppenish just a few of it’s many panted murals

Los Hernandez Tamales, in Union Gap WA. The Asparagus Tamales are just outstanding!
(We bought six dozen.)

Grilled steaks on the last day and Mt. Stewart as viewed from I-5, on the way home.

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June 2010: These are pict’s of the Boistfort Valley Farm near Curtis WA. Its a family run farm for fresh
organic veggies They truck their produce to drop-off locations for their subscribers. Our subscription gets
us a "box" each week from June to October. Sharon, Laveta and I attended their annual Strawberry festival
which included some great food and local musicians.

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Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland Oregon, July 2010 (3 nights) with Sharon and Russ
We Saw four plays: Henry the First (Part-1), Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night.
As usual- the plays were outstanding.

The Black Swan Inn B&B was built by Union Army Lt. Col Silsby.

A framed letter in the sitting room of the Black Swan, from Colonel Silsby to his wife
is dated 4 July 1865 and begins "Dear Helen- Vicksburg is ours"

A tour of the Elizabethan theater in Ashland. Note Sharon and Russ (with tour guide).

Dinner at a the Black Sheep Pub

\
Rogue Creamery in Central Point OR on the way home.

————————————————————————————————————————————– Our annual, extended family gathering at Useless Bay on Whidbey Island. July 2010. Always a fun time.

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Seattle from the Rainier Tower (where Russ works). Sharon’s birthday lunch at the Capitol Grille 9/7/10

At the Puyallup (Washington State) fair including Willie Nelson concert September 17, 2010

China… Beijing: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, The Great wall, The Sacred Way, Lingdang Hutong, Peking Duck & Opera, Xian: Terra Cotta Army, Tang Dynasty Dinner & Show, Chongqing,: Yangtze River Cruise, Shibaozhai Pagoda & Temple, Three Gorges & Dam, Jingzhou School, Wuhan, Hubei Museum: Shanghai, Old Shanghai, Yuyuan Gardens.
1- 14 October 2010

The Proof… Laveta’s full of it!

Three Generations (Carol, Samantha, Shannon)

Annual GP dinner (at the Museum of Glass)
2005 to 2007

California Dreamin’ Napa Valley, California, April 2005

Laveta and the Gold Wing- fronting a section of a much larger mural painted on the side of a building near what was the the old Northern Pacific rail yard, South Tacoma WA. June 2005

Laveta in her 60th year, 4 July 2005

Tall Ships in Tacoma, July 2005
1 Pallada, length 356 feet, mast height 162 feet- Vladivostok, Russia
2 Rigging on the Pallada
3 Cuauhtemoc, length 270 feet- Acapulco, Mexico
4 Laveta with our son Mike aboard the Cuauhtemoc

Both Photo’s- on brother John’s property, July 2005
1 Laveta driving a tractor for the first time. (Just look at that smile.)
2 Carol on the beach at Useless Bay, Whidbey Island, Washington

A daytrip to Mt. Rainier National Park– August 2005

At home – Aug 2005

PDF, 8pp
Greece, the Greek Islands of Mykonos, Rhodes, Patmos
& Ephesus in Turkey, 26 August – 6 September 2005

Wine Tasting in California (again) March 2006

14 July 2006… after 36 years- Retirement!

Traveling in the West: Washington, Idaho, Montana,
Wyoming, South Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico,
Texas, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon
September – October 2006

Laveta on a Snowy day in University Place, WA, January 16, 2007

Shooting rats on brother John’s property, Whidbey Island Washington, February, 2007

Jim, Carol, Laveta & Me: Frog’s Leap, Rutherford California March 2007

Whidbey Island, Washington – July 2005

At the Museum of Glass – Tacoma Washington (The glass "Hot -Shop" is inside the cone)

PDF, 12pp
London, Paris, Chartres, Tours, Bordeaux, Lourdes, Pau, Biarritz, Burgos, Madrid, Toledo, Barcelona, Montserrat, Cannes, Monaco, Nice, Pisa, Montecatini, Florence, Assisi, Pompeii, Genoa, Isle of Capri, Sorrento, Venice (including Lido & Burano islands) Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Ober-ammergau, Liechtenstein, Lucerne, Freiburg, Heidelberg, St. Goar, Boppard, Cologne Amsterdam, Calais, Dover, London
5 September – 6 October 2007

This section covers the PATRAM Symposium in Miami Florida 21-26 October 2007

Miami and the Marriott Doral hotel- site of the Symnposium

Dinner at the Versailles– Miami ( great Cuban food)

Sharon and Rich

A wonderful dinner at the Vyzcaya Museum – courtesy of AREVA

The final Banquet Night program, 25 October 2007

Banquet Night at the LegendsBallroom at the Marriott. Sharon socializing.

At the Banquet

Award winners from previous PATRAM-2004 in Berlin (That’s me on the right)

Laveta, Sharon and their ‘Gators".

Laveta, Joe and Molly (St. Petersburg pier) and an outdoor lunch

The "Vice Squad" Christmas Brunch (2007)

In the operating room: My cervical spine undergowing an "Anterior Cervical Microdiskectomy with Fusion and Anterior Plate Fixation".
19 Dec 2007 (I feel a lot better now!)
A Retrospective (click a picture for a full size version)

There are four of us in many of these pictures. I met Jim in ’57. Laveta and Carol knew each other even earlier. All four of us went to Merced High. Jim graduated in ’61, Carol and I in ’62, Laveta in ’63. Jim and I met the girls (our future wives) at the same time on the same night! We were "cruising the drag" on our motorcycles and happened by a carload of girls at a local "drive in" and that’s how it began…

With the exception of the first row, these photo’s begin in the early 1960’s through the early 80’s. I was in the army from 1966 to 1969, Jim from 1965 to 1968. We both were stationed for a time in Germany and brought the girls with us! For the last 40+ years we’ve lived within a few miles from each other- in Tacoma.

Laveta in Grade School 1957,
Jim & I in Yosemite ’57, Carol (center) Sadie Hawkins Day, Merced High ’62
In 2012 the four of us returned for My (& Carol’s) 50th reunion <link>

Me and my Zundapp. Merced California, June 1961

Me and my Triumph. Merced, 1962

Laveta and I going out on a date 1963

One of my Boeing pay stubs. I was a Flight-line Mechanic doing "mod" (modification) work on B-52’s at Castle AFB, California. Note: 2.55/hr and no Medicare!

Just Married: April 17th 1964. Merced California

Our first apartment in Merced (15 west 18th St.) Drying dishes! Playing cards with Jim and Carol.

Jim, Carol, Laveta & Me- on moving day 1964. The day the four of us left California for new jobs at NASA’s Michoud Operations, New Orleans, where Jim and I worked for Boeing on the Apollo Program, (first stage of the Saturn-V). Laveta and I had only been married about a month. We were young- I was 21, Laveta 19… and it was quite an adventure.

Laveta and Carol at the Grand Canyon, June 3, 1964

Page from a typical Boeing Launch Systems weekly paper. Note the date Sept. 8, 1964.

<see 2008 photo>

In Slidell Louisiana, 1964 (Jim and I worked in New Orleans). The third photo is at the apartment where we
stayed when we first arrived. We visited it again 44 years later. <see 2008 photo>.

Slidell: Jim and Carol’s 10 -wide trailer where the four of us lived. That’s my green Ford out front (which still had California plates). Though we must have looked like "poor white trash," we had a fun time. In truth, we made very good (Boeing) wages- something very much resented by the locals of the time. Still- Slidell was a nice place to be from. We returned to California not long after Hurricane Hilda blew threw town.

Laveta and Jim in our initial apartment:, Slidell Louisiana.

link to 2012 photo

Back in California: Laveta, at our apartment in Ontario CA, 1966 We revisited this spot, and I retook this picture 46 years later in 2012.
<link to 2012 photo> The large roof (building in the background) was gone
but our apartment was still there… and so were we.

Laveta- Ontario California ~ 1966

Laveta- riding our Yamaha. Merced California, 1966

My Induction Orders into the Army, 1966

I’m in the Army now. Fort Ord CA. I’m in the second row- 4th from right.

The Army’s "comfort letters" to Laveta. (They’re humorous…. now.)

"Temporary Corporal" Basic Training, Fort Ord California, Sept. 1966

Laveta in black & white- 1967

Laveta and Me- Tillicum Washington, 1967 (I’m stationed at Ft Lewis)

1967: Laveta and the Ice Caves, Mt. Rainer National Park.

Self portrait- Fort Lewis Washington

Glass eyes- Laveta. Tillicum Washington, 1967

(and in 2001)

Olympia Washington 1967 (and in 2001)

In a playful mood- Wright Park, Tacoma, 1967

Laveta, Mt. Rainier National Park, WA, 1967

Living in Indianapolis with our Desoto Coronet.

Laveta (and me) at the house of a friend, while stationed at Ft. Benjamin Harrison Indianapolis – 1967

Letter from Carol in Germany to Laveta in California 1968

From Laveta in California to me- stationed at Sheridan Kaserne, Augsburg Germany 1968

Laveta at home- government quarters. Augsburg 1968

Laveta. downtown Augsburg,

Linderhauf and Neuschwanstein castles, Bavaria

A visit to Dachau concentration camp in Bavaria, about 16km northwest of Munich
(1) Memorial artwork (2) Carol, Jim & Laveta (3) Gas Chamber (4) Oven- one of many.

"On Post" movie schedule, Germany 1968

Event Calendar, Augsburg, June 1968

Jim, Carol, Laveta, Me at Jim & Carol’s quarters, Zundorf, Germany 1968

Laveta and Carol at Nuremberg Castle

Leftover’s from WW-II, Nuremberg

Lunch stop near Wiesbaden, Germany

At the Dutch border. 1968

Sleepless in Nordwijk aan Zee, on the North Sea coast. Netherlands

Trying on wooden shoes, near Rotterdam.

Carol and Laveta on the English Channel ferry

Conductor with Carol & Laveta, Dover station – on the way to London.

April in Paris (early morning kiss) Laveta & Me.

Eiffel Tower …decided not to jump.

The four of us taking a break- Paris, 1968

The Travel Order that brought us back from Germany

Laveta (in pink) departing Munich Riem Airport for the US

Jim & Carol at Ft. Lewis WA 1968 (Rena in window)

Countryside around Manhattan Kansas in winter 1968

Laveta and cat. Our apartment- Manhattan, Kansas. 1968

Laveta, with Sharon inprocess. Manhattan, KS, 1969

Laveta- sailplane preflight instructions & aloft behind tow-plane, near Fort Riley Kansas, 1969

Hunting fossils (Paleozoic Echinoderms) near Manhattan Kansas. 1969

Liberty Pass, Fort Riley, 1968

At ny desk, Finance Office, Fort Riley Kansas, 1969

Army Commendation Medal – at the end of my three year term of service..

I’m a civilian again!! Laveta, Sharon & Me – Everett, Washington. 1970

Laveta with Mike – Tacoma, Washington. ~1971

Laveta and Carol. Mt. Rainer National Park. About 1975

Sharon and Mike on an outing ~1974

Carol & Laveta, Snow-shoeing in Mt Ranier National Park. 1974

Laveta, Jim and Carol in Victoria, BC. About 1975

Laveta and Sharon- Tacoma

Sharon Playtime & at Preschool with Me. ~1972 & 1973

Laveta, with a Van de Graaff generator (200 KV) around 1975

Me, Laveta, Mike, Sharon 1976

Laveta: watching one of Sharon’s dance performances, 1978

Running the Sound to Narrows (12k) race. 1979

Mike, Sharon Laveta: Disneyland 1983

Mike 1984

Sharon 1984 &1985

Jim at a devastated area, Mt. St. Helens, 1988

Dry falls Washington. Laveta, Jim, Carol, Jason and Sharon.

Me on our rented Harley, Big Island, Hawaii, 1989

California-2012

Escape to California

2008 – 2010 Photo’s

2005 to 2007