Beware Of Driving Vans In Northern California

In the words of our children, "Who broke it?"

When coming back from Washington State in 2005, we were in Lakehead up by Shasta Lake when our old van broke. You can see what led up to that here. We were trying to make a St. Patrick's party that our friend Pedro was having in Sacramento. This is the same Pedro who just became a Secular Carmelite.

Previously, our old van had the Transaxle fail back in 2005.

5 years later, we come ot Sacramento, again to visit Pedro, and the latest iteration of transportation breaks down. This time while going to a well known Ice Creamery in Sacramento, when the van would not start up.

The problem was determined to be the Alternator and the Battery. So the Mendozas are back on the Central Coast, but the van is still in Sacramento.

How did we get back?

Well, our friend Pedro used his car and his Fiance's to drive us all the way back home, spending the night with us. He then drove her car back, and lent us his for a few days. We then drove his car back to Sacramento last week. Since then, we have been lent vehicles by various people.

The Mendozas would like to thank all those people who drove us around and lent us their cars. We truly appreciate it, and thank God for you!

So now the question is, shold we be afraid of driving in Northen California, or of visiting Pedro?

We'll be seeing you at the end of the week, Blue Van!

Rite Of Admission To The Secular Carmelite Order

Last weekend, a good friend of ours underwent the Rite of Admission into the Secular Carmelite Order, making his temporary promises and entering the first stages of his formation. He also received his Scapular.

The Rite of Admission took place at St. Mary's Church in the City of Sacramento. The temperature was slightly less than in Hades, but with a bit less humidity.

There is a beautiful statue of Our Lady here.

After having made his promises, he receives his Scapular.

There were a couple of women who were also making their vows into the Order.

Scapular envy.

Congratulations, Pedro, on becoming a Secular Carmelite!

It was an otherwise boring day in Sacramento.

Or was it?

Ulysses Sighting. June 2010

Could it be...? Let's take a look.

Okay, this truck appears to be red and tough like Ulysses' truck.

Don't remember all the stripes. Looks like he got a custom paint job.

BELIEVABILITY RATING: 28%

While this truck appears to be huge and red, it is probably not him. First, his truck does not have the stripes. Second, it looks too small to fit people in.

Third, if you look carefully at the picture below, you can see that this is a Chevy, not a Toyota Tacoma.

Well, it looks like we flopped again, but tune in soon for another edition of….


Ulysses Sighting!

You Flew In On That Thing? You're Braver Than I Thought...

As many of you know, I went to Florida a couple of months ago to visit Teresa Kramer, and ostensibly to help her out while Eddie was out here on the west coast. What follows in the next 50 posts is an excruciatingly detailed account of that trip.

Checking in at San Jose. Actually, I was already checked in, but I wasn't sure if my bag was small enough to carry on. My flight attendant, Kenny Rogers, assured me that it was.

Stage one: San Jose to Phoenix.

The family watches the plane take off from a near by parking lot. You can see a tiny little dot that is my plane. Afterwards, the rest of the family went to Fry's to check out the electronics. Meanwhile, on the plane, I was looking at the rest of my fellow passengers, wondering who would be in charge when we crashed on the Island.

About two hours later I arrived in Phoenix. This was about all I saw of the city.

Another look at Phoenix.

Not my plane.

Here is my plane to Atlanta.

I flew into Phoenix on US Airways. But my connecting flight was on Delta. I discovered that I had to leave terminal 3, go outside, catch a shuttle bus to terminal 4, and go through security all over again. Yay!! So, the plan in the foreground is my plane to Atlanta. See that building way off in the distance? That's the terminal I arrived in.

A zoomed in photo from the same spot. That was my plane from San Jose. Why all the pictures of planes? I don't fly very often. It all seemed exciting at the time.

An exciting picture of a concourse from just about any airport you've ever been in. Again, it seemed exciting at the time.

It's not a good sign when you ask the flight attendant at your gate in Atlanta where your connecting flight is, and she looks at your ticket, and says "oh, you have to hurry!" I was told to go down an escalator roughly a mile away, go past the baggage claim, and take the train to concourse D. Yes, they have a train. I went and ran the whole way, and got to the gate to catch this plane just as they began boarding.

How did I have time to take this picture, if I was just in time to board, you might ask? Well, I actually got this picture after the plane took off, then circled back to Atlanta and landed again.

Turns out there was some sort of instrumentation problem on the plane, so we had to go back to Atlanta. So during the 45 minutes it took them to get us a new plane, I had plenty of time to take pictures of it.

And here is the NOT broken plane they put us on. It was a tiny little plane that held about thirty or forty passengers. It was the last flight to Panama City out of Atlanta. It was getting late, and all the restaurants in the airport were closing. A few hungry, irritable passengers tried to talk the guy at the Burger King/Cinnabon stand into selling them something, but he was adamant that he couldn't re-open. Thankfully, we didn't have to wait too long to get on the new plane.

And so, at about midnight I arrived in Panama City. No, Panama City is not in Alaska, this picture was actually taken the morning I left for home. It's the only picture I had of that airport. Once I arrived, I found a friendly, extremely southern taxi driver who had no idea where the street the Kramers lived on was located, and did not know what happened to his map. His dispatcher didn't know either. So I had to call Teresa, and repeat her directions to the cabbie. Several weeks later, we arrived at the Kramer home, where I was greeted with banana bread, and chocolate dipped strawberries and pretzels. Since my last meal had been at ten thirty in the morning, it felt like the best dinner I'd ever had.

Join us for my next post, when I eat breakfast and brush my teeth.