Dreams, Moments, Travels
The snow up north late last year was fun, so why not go again, especially as it’s snowing on my birthday? We are once again in Payson, Arizona.
We’d never visited Kohl’s Ranch, so what better time to do so than on Easter Sunday?
Okay, enough of the photo stuff in this cold weather; let’s get over to that dining room and get to eating.
Other than our longer trips with my mother-in-law and visiting my father in Los Angeles, Caroline and I were not getting out as often as we should have. We tended to work too much and get kind of crazy in indulgence on the weekend. While we somewhat understood how therapeutic it was to get out of Phoenix, it wasn’t in our DNA yet, but every time we did, we had a great time.
While I’m posting these on Caroline’s 31st birthday, we have no idea of knowing exactly when these were shot. What I do know and remember well is that we were in Payson, Arizona. I’m also pretty sure that this snowball Caroline threw at me did NOT connect. By the way, do you think the snow makes me look fat?
This very well may have been our first encounter with snow since we moved to America in 1995.
[This post was written in April 2021]
Only one year since her last visit, and Jutta was already coming back. I’m surprised, as I was a bit uncertain how she felt about spending the two weeks with me and my needling ways. My feelings were that Jutta’s trip to America was short and expensive, so she’d better get all she could from it. Jet lag could be dealt with when she returned to Germany. As this visit was planned between Stephanie and Klaus in Germany and us, we learned that Jutta had had a great time and was looking forward to a return. We invited her to stay longer; how long is now lost in time.
Speaking of things lost, we are not even certain that the photos being shared from this and the 1996 vacation are sorted correctly, as none of the images were dated, and I cannot find any notes or itineraries to verify any details. Maybe after we get back the photo albums that returned to Germany with Jutta, we’ll be able to return to these ancient blog entries and repair them. Those albums include notes on every photo. But for now, here goes into trying to yank memories from a brain that experienced these days nearly 24 years ago. The first thing to note is that my mother-in-law and I have a new rapport, as I figure if she wanted to come back, I couldn’t be all that bad. I’m guessing that this was a day trip to Sedona while Jutta was recovering from jetlag. Seeing she’d be here longer, I was going to cut her a break before we headed out on some multi-thousand-mile road adventure.
Back in 1994, when Caroline and I were married at the Little White Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada, on a visit from Germany, Jutta did not accompany us. So, on this trip, we did the next best thing and took her to Vegas, stayed in the pyramid at the Luxor, and visited the place we were married.
From there, we headed up to Utah to bring Jutta to yet another National Park; this time, it was Zion. As you can tell, the ice is fully thawed between Jutta and me.
I cannot tell you what they are pointing to with certainty, but I’d guess it’s The Narrows due to the next image.
In the Zion Narrows, walking as far as we could before we reached deeper water, we were not prepared to wade through.
This photo of Jutta looking at Caroline is, on one hand, iconic. There were things (habits) that were difficult to break Jutta of; looking in admiration at her daughter when I was trying to take their photo was one of them. I think it was the third or fourth visit to America when I kind of freaked out at her barking “CAHroline!” when she felt that my wife was doing or saying something not ladylike. Finally, I really needed her to stop the mom-thing of wetting a finger and cleaning something off Caroline’s face, I had to kiss that thing, and I didn’t want a layer of mother-in-law spit between us.
Behind Jutta is one of the Mittens in Monument Valley. We stayed over at Gouldings Lodge during this visit.
Back into Arizona and heading south.
But first, a stop at Canyon de Chelly for Jutta to have a look into another canyon. On a subsequent visit, we’d all take a Jeep tour down on the canyon floor.
Seeing we’re up north on our way home, why not stop at Petrified National Park and introduce Jutta to some fossilized trees?
This Zion National Park sweater was on its way to becoming an emblem of Jutta’s visits to America for the next 15 years; I can’t say she ever didn’t arrive with it in her bags. We are over in Los Angeles at the La Brea Tarpits on a rainy day.
And although it was raining, that didn’t stop Caroline from jumping into the ocean to the surprise of her mom, followed by Jutta trying to help warm her up.
There was no way a visit to Arizona was going to go by without a return trip up to the Grand Canyon National Park. Jutta was astonished that she was able to visit this park twice in a lifetime.
[This post was written in April 2021]
Starting in 1995, after we moved to the States, we were making multiple trips a year out to Ontario, California, in the Los Angeles area to visit my father, John M. Wise Sr. My father opted for a pained life and absolute denial that saw him commit a slow suicide, which took him from his first heart attack in 1986 until his death on February 1, 2003. Over that time, he would have at least one more heart attack and develop diabetes, which led to multiple amputations that would leave him with crippling phantom pain until the day he died. Seen here, my father was 52 years old.
My father was a bitter and difficult man harboring so much anger that violence was often his means of expressing himself. As he grew older, he became mentally frail and forgetful. His belligerence kept him smoking for another decade after the first heart attack. His diet never changed as he seemed to challenge the universe to strike him down as he downed a plate of pancakes laden with syrup or popped Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups as if they lowered his blood glucose. The first time we visited him in 1995, my trauma with him nearly had me turning away from the exit we needed to use if we were going to his home. Caroline encouraged me to do it as she’d seen in our previous encounter back in 1994 when we were in Los Angeles on our way to Vegas to get married, that my father seriously enjoyed seeing me. So we went. Reluctantly, for the next nearly eight years, we made frequent visits. My father is 53 years old in this photo.
The saving grace of those 350-mile drives west was that Caroline could read to me across the long haul, and we were always able to get out into Los Angeles at some point to find time for ourselves. Sometimes, we’d just take a photo or make note of a place, such as here at the Queen Mary, that was supposed to remind us to come back for a proper visit. Sometimes, we’d stop in Disneyland for 6 or 7 hours, eat at various places that had foods we couldn’t have in Phoenix, or drive to 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica to visit a great book store or walk along the ocean. So it wasn’t all bad, but it also wasn’t all great.
This is another one of those two decades after the fact I’m trying to post whatever bit of information I have about a trip where we have very little to go on. The itinerary is long gone; there are no emails from 1996 still existing that I might have been able to refer to, just our memories. What we do know is that we started in Santa Barbara, California, and have this giant 120-year-old fig tree with Caroline and Jutta to prove it. This was my mother-in-law’s first-ever visit to America, just as she was transitioning into retirement back in Frankfurt, Germany. We never heard the rest of this “mistake” from our great aunt and uncle Ann and Woody Burns as they felt slighted that we were so close but didn’t stop in to visit them. Well, not that this is a good excuse, but I do remember how awkward Caroline felt on her first visit, and I tried considering how difficult this entire trip might have been for Jutta. Thrusting her into social situations with others could have proven uncomfortable for her, so I opted to forego introducing her to family.
From Santa Barbara, we headed north for a quick stop in Solvang as though some fakey “old-world” part of Europe that got dropped into California might have the same impact it had on me when I was six years old. Regarding the previous comment about socializing, you might need to understand that my mother-in-law and I, at this point, had a tenuous relationship due to my bringing her daughter to America. I don’t believe she ever liked me while in Germany as she saw me as some hamburger-eating cowboy who played with computers, and how could that in any way be a serious enough man for her wonderful youngest child?
Continuing our trek north, we stopped at Pismo Beach so she could dip her toes into the Pacific Ocean with Caroline for the first time in her life. Seeing I could drive our rental car onto the beach, that’s just what I did. What’s that lady yelling at us who’s driven up next to us? Can you make it out? As we stopped, we realized she was yelling, “Don’t stop!” We were stuck in the sand. Good thing this ranger was right here to help get us out and back on our way. Great start to the adventure aspect of this epic journey.
A bit further up the road, we pulled into Morro Bay for an overnight stay. I have to admit to no small amount of travel naivety as this was Caroline’s and my first major road trip, and we were certainly greenhorns.
Up Highway 1 we drove until we took a break at a small cafe and motel on the oceanside of the road. This place was at 16420 Pacific Coast Highway which would see us stop at many a time over the years. While at the gift shop, a person at the counter asked if we’d seen the elephant seals back down the road; we had not. We turned around and found the non-descript edge of the road where we could park (illegally) and head over to the beach to get up close and personal with the sunbathing pinnipeds. Our first few visits here were prior to the time when a parking lot and boardwalk that did not allow tourists to disturb these hulking giants was built.
Monterey Bay, California. Caroline and I needed this trip to return us to the place where, back in 1991, my girlfriend (at the time) and I visited Monterey after landing in San Francisco on her first visit to the United States. That girlfriend was obviously Caroline.
While it’s obvious we took a cruise around the bay, it’s difficult to recollect if we ventured into the aquarium but as Caroline points out, “How could we go to Monterey and NOT go to the aquarium?”
After a brief visit the next day to the San Juan Bautista Mission we continued east across California over for our first visit to Yosemite. The cabin we rented just south of the park had this “Bear Food Crockpot” that was busy boiling these softshell bear treats, or so we worried at the time. Our first impression of Yosemite National Park was not a good one as the place was overcrowded, and coming into such mayhem was a bit unnerving. It took years before Caroline and I would return.
Jutta’s first trip to America was a brief one at two weeks as no one had any idea about how we’d tolerate each other. Even though we’d been out on the road for 4 or 5 days after a few days of letting the jet lag settle after she landed, we still had to carve time out to bring her up to the Grand Canyon National Park. Who knew if she’d ever come back to the States? You can’t go to Arizona and not visit the Grand Canyon. Well, this turned out to be the biggest surprise and delight for my mother-in-law as she never dreamed that she’d see this with her own eyes. Because of that enthusiasm, we’d bring her back again and again until we now believe she’s been to the canyon at least a dozen times, and with each visit, she still swoons in the face of such grandeur.
Who gets so lucky to attend something as special as the 2nd Annual Native American Music Festival held at the Navajo Community College in the Tsaile Mountains of Arizona? We do, of course. From traditional native sounds to metal and hip-hop, this festival had a little bit of everything. Caroline and I had already been in America for two years by this time, but this wasn’t our first time on the Navajo Reservation. The opportunity to dip into some authentic culture absolutely justified the 5-hour drive north to get up this way. That, and the roast mutton and pine nuts.
For those of you who may be stumbling upon my blog and find these old posts that predate the existence of blogs: these get posted from time to time after I’ve scanned in old photos or negatives. Even though the old film quality nature of the images and our cheap scanner leave a lot to be desired, I still enjoy the images that inspired us to continue exploring our world. Being able to extract enough data to pinpoint certain aspects of these times is also helpful. While I’d forgotten what year and the specifics of the event, we still have a t-shirt with the dates and list of performing acts.
Traveling with my 29-year-old wife (who looks like a 15-year-old boy here), and I was Mark Shimer, who was still living with us at the time while he and Caroline worked for the Marion Foundation. Those two are pictured here at Canyon de Chelly National Monument of the Navajo Reservation.
Seeing we were in the area, an obligatory stop at Petrified Forest National Park was in order, especially because Mark had never been here. Notice my lack of a beard? This has only happened on very rare occasions.
Taking sunset photos from the car has never proven very worthwhile, but that hasn’t stopped us in the 30 years we’ve been doing just that.