Jan 1989: Visit Home (Again)

ANOTHER GRIMM ODYSSEY TO THE U.S.

Since we are now scheduled to stay in Alice Springs until the summer of 1990, we made another odyssey back to the U.S. over the Christmas holidays to visit friends and relatives. As incredible as it seems, there are some people who at least pretend to find my trip reports interesting (actually they may be a break from some of the terrible TV shows we caught glimpses of during our stay). Anyway, here is the tale of our latest adventure. I will try to be brief during the boring parts.

We left Alice Springs December 16th and by choice decided to catch the United flight to the U.S. from Melbourne, instead of Sydney. No matter which city you use, or which domestic airline, it is impossible to make connections so it is necessary to stay overnight. The Melbourne airport is less crowded than Sydney and it is easier to get to hotels. Also, I had hoped to see a friend the evening we spent in Melbourne, but he was sic~ and unable to meet us. So, the first part of the trip was Alice to Adelaide to Melbourne, then go to Sydney the next day. The only hitch there was a brief (15-20 minute) delay because the guys who drive the trucks that push the planes backwards away from the terminal suddenly went on strike, then just as suddenly went back to work. This occurred as we were sitting on the plane and had they not gone back to work I was prepared to organize the passengers to physically push the plane!"

About 13 hours later, we landed in L.A. and after a break of several hours flew on to Newark, NJ. I got lost leaving the airport (I panicked) but eventually arrived at Dorothy's parents. The next couple of days we rested and shopped, then drove to visit my parents in Hagerstown, Maryland, before returning to N.J. The trip is 250 miles each way and wasn't too bad on the way down but we encountered a 7-mile backup on the way back to N.J. due to construction causing one of the lanes to be closed (for some unexplained reason the shoulder, which was paved, was not being used - I was not amused). The speed limit in NJ and Maryland is still posted as 55, but the average speed in many places is 65-75.

During one of our shopping expeditions we did see something worth mentioning. At a Toys R Us in NJ, we saw a guy doing his Xmas shopping wearing a floor length white fur coat with a matching fur hat. If that wasn't enough to catch your eye, the hat also had the head of the animal (fox?) centered squarely in the front.

While in N.J. Dwight found and bought a used Hasselblad camera at a shop where we have done a lot of business. This camera, which is a top professional brand, appeared to be in excellent condition for an older camera and should serve Dwight well while he works as a photographer in Alice Springs (and hopefully help get him through college). Dwight is one of those people that even when he makes a mistake, he comes out of it in good shape. He got an extension tube (which fits between the camera and the lens) stuck and couldn't get the lens off. (The lens unscrews for adding other pieces or to put different lens on the camera.) The result was that the camera had to be returned to the national service center to have the tube removed. I had visions of incredible complications - wrong. The service center was only 20 minutes from Dorothy's parents. Unfortunately, this occurred on the Saturday before Christmas, and we were not able to get there until Tuesday, when they reopened. In the meantime, Dwight was in a panic mode. Since both boys like to write they still write humorous notes to "Santa Claus" on Christmas eve. I think they enjoy the humorous responses they sometimes get. This year, all Dwight wanted for Christmas was a Hasselblad technician. The first thing Tuesday morning I took him to the service center. The National Service Manager removed the lens, told Dwight what he had done wrong, showed him how to solve the problem if it happened again, gave him a new strap and some spare rubber parts that sometimes wear out, gave him a fistful of brochures on using the camera, and also an assessment of the camera (it's old but in excellent shape and should serve him for many years) and there was no charge! Dwight was sure happy.

Toby and I spent many hours in a couple of used book stores. I bought quite a few used paperbacks that had come out in the last several years and are unavailable or extremely expensive here (a new paperback book here costs $9-15). Toby ended up buying a couple of hundred used comics on this trip, many in bulk packages.

The only other item which Dorothy wanted me to mention was the flocks of Canadian geese we saw just off several extremely busy highways in N.J. Apparently they can tolerate the traffic better than I can.

Our trip to Washington D.C. two days after Christmas was not pleasant. On the Garden State Parkway, for reasons that escaped us, the highway department decided to close two of four lanes, five miles before the actual construction. That would have been bad enough, but the lane closures began just beyond a toll plaza, which meant that the 12 lanes exiting the tollbooths had to merge into two lanes instead of four. It took 45 minutes to break free of this bottleneck. Then we had to wait in a 5-m~l~ backup to pay the toll at the end of the N.J. turnpike.

We had a good time in Washington D.C. thanks to the hospitality of our neighbors in Alexandria ("Mac" and "McGrandma" as our boys nicknamed Mrs. McDonald last year) and to friends who had us to dinner. We enjoyed our visits but wish there was a way to reciprocate. I have promised that if I suddenly become rich, I will charter a plane for all of our friends to come visit. A plane load of "friends of the Grimms" arriving in Alice Springs should certainly cause a sensation.

Other than visiting friends and shopping in the Washington area, we also all visited the dentist, Dorothy called her horse riding instructor and was invited to attend a lesson. She survived the lesson and the jumps (No worries, mate), but not the removal of the boots. When she took them off, she suffered severe 'charley horses' and barely made it home to the great amusement of a number of people. I was also able to get my Buick fixed so that it is road worthy. Had I known I was going to end up in Australia so long, I probably would have sold it rather than leaving it at my house (and ask the very patient "Mac" to start it for me occasionally)

Before we left, I had promised Toby that he could visit his best friend who lives in Laurel, Maryland, north of Washington/Alexandria, so we dropped him off New Year's Eve. I had made arrangements to visit my parents in Hagerstown, northwest of Washington, on New Year's Day, which meant I had to detour to Laurel to pick up Toby. Although it added a number of miles to our trip it wouldn't have been so bad except it started to snow as we left Alexandria, the snow was coming down hard by the time we got to Laurel and the roads were getting real slippery by the time we reached the Baltimore beltway. The trip got a little tense from then on because Dorothy doesn't like to be on snowy roads and the drivers in that area have not improved any over the years. - We kept listening to the radio for weather updates, only they continued to be out of date. No snow in Laurel the radio said, as we made our way through an inch or so. We didn't see a snow plow for 2 1/2 hours - they seemed to be heeding the radio's advice to stay home.

The next 8 days were characterized by fog, fog and more fog, plus a bit of snow and rain. This meant driving in fog from Hagerstown to D.C., from D.C. to Elizabethtown, PA. and from there to NJ. The boys caught up with some of their friends and even spent a couple days at their former school in Alexandria. Toby "arranged" so that he got to visit school for 1/2 hour before it was closed due to snow and he was able to spend the rest of the day playing with one of his friends.

We left Washington to return to N.J. on Jan 7th, stopping in Hagerstown to say goodbye to my parents; then staying overnight with some friends in Elizabethtown, Pa. These were the friends that had egged me into going into the hot tub in their back yard last year in-the very cold weather. I think Toby had regretted not doing it so be was looking forward to trying it this year and all of the boys got in the tub the next morning before we left for N.J. As I said, there was a lot of fog, which made driving very tedious.

Back in N.J. we did more shopping, mailed stuff to ourselves, had lunch with one of Dorothy's aunts, and Dorothy visited a friend in New York City. Finally, we left for the west coast, but not before I got lost on the way to the Newark airport. (I hate that airport.)

At one point I got so frustrated I tried to drive across a median strip, but the car bottomed out on the curb, so I changed tactics.

We arrived in San Francisco at 9:30 p.m., and I asked Hertz if I could get a car then. They said I would have to wait until midnight so I checked with Budget and got a car immediately.

The next day we visited the Stanford University campus. That is Dwight's first choice for college. The campus is large for the number of students (13,000). Dwight did not have a formal interview, but did meet with a lady in the undergraduate admissions office who answered questions for him. Seeing the campus only strengthened Dwight's desire to go there. Although we are realistic enough to realize his chances are slim, Dorothy says "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

We left the campus and drove to an area where the movie "A Cry in the Dark" was playing. This is the movie, titled "Evil Angels" here in Australia, in which Dwight and I were extras when part of it was filmed here in Alice Springs in November 1987. It is a terrible movie and really biased in favor of the woman who was accused of murdering her baby, but we had to see it to see if we showed up.

We did not see Dwight, but I appeared briefly in a scene in which the forensic specialist was shown on TV as he entered the courthouse.

The next day we visited and had lunch with a good friend from our days in Colorado and then headed south on the coastal highway.

We turned off the main highway to drive through Carmel, to see if we could spot Clint Eastwood (he used to be mayor there), then continued south. I had read somewhere that this was the time of the year that whales can be seen off the coast, and had alerted the rest of the family, but when Dorothy said, "There they are!" we did not believe her. But, sure enough, there were quite a few plumes in the air as the whales surfaced to breathe, and from time to time, even though they were far away, we could just make out parts of the whales as they broke the surface of the water.

We stayed the night in San Simeon, and the next day took a tour of the famous Hearst Castle, the fabulous estate, built by the journalist William Randolph Hearst in the 20's and 30's. It was turned over to the state of California some years ago, which now runs it as a tourist attraction. The Hearsts still own the 100,000 acres that surround the castle. The estate includes three guest cottages, and at least the one we walked through has 3000 sq. feet of space.

We also toured a part of the main house and the main room is impressive for its size and some of the art objects (400-500 year old tapestries among other things). Hearst supposedly spent $1 million a year for 20-some years on art objects. The large dining room was impressive for its collection of silver. It's impossible to remember all of the details and statistics that the guide was throwing at us, but I believe that she said Hearst had the largest silver collection in the world in those days. There was a loft for musicians at the end' of the dining room which looked perfect for a string quartet, but the guide said that Hearst; who considered the place his ranch, would hire country and western bands, including Roy Rogers, to play in this very European-style room. Much of the place (fireplaces, carved ceilings, tapestries, etc. were bits and pieces brought from Europe. There is an impressive outdoor “Neptune" swimming pool, which I have seen numerous pictures of over the years. It is a quite large pool surrounded by Roman columns and statues. The large indoor pool, located under the tennis courts is just as impressive. The entire room is covered with a glass mosaic. We also saw the billiard room and theater. During the time Hearst lived there he also had his own private zoo and some of the animals - zebra and deer - still roam the area.

After the tour, we continued down the coast and on into L.A. I experienced one of the famous bumper-to-bumper (for 10 miles or so) freeway traffic jams. We finally got to Hollywood where we stayed for the night. We did not get to drive through the fashionable section. I drove-down Hollywood Blvd. and up Sunset Blvd. looking for motel. The area was a bit seedy, but we found a fairly decent motel for the night. We walked over the Hollywood Blvd. to see the famous Chinese theater where the movie stars have put their hand and footprints in concrete. Toby wanted to see the footprints of R2D2, C3PO, and Darth Vader, from Star Wars.

The next morning we stopped by the post office to mail two packages (the last of the~5 we mailed to ourselves) and then went to Universal Studios. The tour there is a two-part event. They take you on a 1 1/2 hour tram tour of the back lot. This includes taking you through a sound stage and demonstrating special effects, and driving into a building, which has a set of a city street. At one point in that set the tram stops alongside a huge working model of King Kong. His massive head was within feet of Toby, who was duly impressed.

The tram drove through a number of city sets that have been used and continue to be used for a number of movies. Dwight and I especially got a kick out of driving past the house from "Psycho." We did not see any working sets.

The second part of the overall tour is a theme park in which you visit various shows throughout the day. One of our favorites was a "Miami Vice" style set. Here a 20-minute show is set up with lots of action and special effects including burning and exploding buildings and gunshots everywhere. The other show we will remember is one using a "Star Trek" set in which volunteers from the audience participate in making a short movie. Toby was selected and was dressed in a Star Trek officers uniform and took his place at the console of the U.S.S~ Enterprise. (For anyone who knows Star Trek, he was playing Kr. Sulu.) The short show is taped and turned into a short video with scenes from the real star Trek interspersed. This results in a nifty racket to sell copies of the video to the participants. Naturally, we bit.

We finally left and drove to Anaheim where we stayed for the night. The next day, we visited Disneyland from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. I could barely walk out of the park. We went on most of the old favorites~ the submarine ride, the Haunted House, etc. Toby and I went with Dwight and Dorothy on one of the high-speed rides - Space Mountain - but declined to ride any of the others. We almost missed the best one, apparently a fairly new one, called "Star Tours" because we thought it was a ride. However, Dwight and Dorothy went on and came out and said it was all-simulated and was absolutely fantastic, so we went later in the evening after the crowds thinned out. This attraction is a combined creation of Disney and George Lucas (Star Wars) and is extremely effective. You sit in a cabin which is designed to simulate a passenger spaceship and through a very realistic movie, plus apparent hydraulics under the room you appear to take a journey through space. The simulation is incredible and I'll admit I had to shut my eyes once or twice as the ship appeared to weave through a winding ice cave. We also went to see a 3-D movie starring Michael Jackson. Even for those of us who had seen the original 3-D movies back in the dark ages, it was a fun experience and the kids were impressed.

The next day we started for the L.A. International Airport at about 9:30 a.m. You have to realize that we weren't scheduled to leave until 8:30 p.m. but I thought we'd drive the 30 or more miles across the city and check out bookstores and grocery and drug stores (for Dorothy to look for more refund offers). Although we did some of that, the traffic started to get to me and I seemed to have the knack for selecting ugly light-industrial areas to drive through instead of shopping areas. We finally reached a beach area I wanted to check out - Venice - where people roller skate on a paved path. Dorothy was not impressed with the area or my lack of planning once we got there so I drove to the Marine Del Ray area where we had a slight altercation (spending basically 24 hours together was apparently wearing thin by this point). After driving around for a while we finally headed fo~ the airport. Dorothy was not amused that we had "wasted the day" and now were heading for the airport 3 hours before flight time. However, I figured I'd get lost and there would be numerous delays at the airport. The only hitch was finding where to turn in the Budget rental car. I finally had to follow one of the Budget busse which they use to pick people up at the airport and take them to where the cars are parked.

The flight back was uneventful until about 1 1/2 hours from Sydney at which time the pilot explained that there was bad weather in Sydney and they were going to have to divert to Brisbane to pick up more fuel. The flight from L.A. to Sydney (7-8000 miles) is the longest nonstop in the world. While they had enough fuel to reach Sydney they didn't have extra fuel to hold in a pattern or reach-an alternate airport. The result of this was that we missed our connection to Alice Springs and there were no other flights or routes that would allow us to get to Alice: So we had to stay overnight in Sydney. United Airlines found and paid for the accommodations plus our meals. The irony of the situation was that united had too many people for the flight to begin with and asked us if we would switch to the flight which flew from L.A. to Honolulu to Auckland, N.Z to Sydney. Since it would arrive 5 1/2 hours later than our flight, they dangled a $500 travel voucher for, use on future united flights. I turned it down because of the addition flights, additional time in the air, and because we would miss our connection in Sydney. However, the result was the same staying in Sydney overnight, except we didn't have the $500.

Although some of us were groggy (mainly me) we took a cab into Sydney to a new shopping/entertainment area called Darling Harbour. We walked through the shopping center and then went through the new Aquarium. If you are interested in marine life, it's a fantastic exhibit.

The next day, without any complications we flew back to Alice Springs~

One last thing - I've had a number of people tell me that they don't write because they have nothing to say - life is dull compared to my "trip reports." I understand that, but we still like to hear from our friends even if it is "dull." As exciting or busy as life here sounds, we stop at the APO every day hoping to get mail. We like to keep in touch with the friends we have made over the years. It is important to all of us. So, please, drop us a line from time to time.