May the spirit of Christmas dawn on your life each day of the New Year

First alpenglow on Mt. Whitney
Sunrise alpenglow on Mount Muir and Mount Whitney
Lona and I wish you all the joys of the season and hope you have a great new year.

Usually Lona and I send a holiday message describing the exciting trips we took during that year.  This year, nothing too exciting occurred unless you consider ripping my left hamstring tendons off my left tail bone is exciting.  This happened the first part of May, just days before we were leaving for a month long, New Mexico trip to become acquainted with the Pueblos and visit their villages.  That New Mexico trip will have to wait for another year.

I tripped while race walking up a canyon at a nearby county park, and in my wild gyrations to recover my balance, I over stressed my left hamstring.  Boy! did that hurt.  In fact, I passed out from the shock.  Later that afternoon, since I could not drive, I rode downtown on the San Jose Light Rail system and walked the two blocks from the station to the Center for the Performing Arts for a ballet I had been looking forward to all year and was not about to miss.  That hurt, too.  After hacking through the bureaucratic maze at Kaiser Permamente, I was allowed to have surgery to reattach the tendons where they belong.  Actually, I was in surgery faster this time than when I did the same thing to myself on the right side ten years previously – that time caused by kicking at the end of a 200 meter dash.  I am just too strong for my aged tendons, but at least I am not feeble yet.  What followed after the surgery was many weeks (some of them in a brace) of being very careful not to put any tension on the tendons and yank them loose before the reattachment became somewhat strong.   It requires a full year to recover full attachment strength, so I am still being careful.  Be grateful that I have spared you an enormous number of interesting details.

Lona, on the other hand, had a year free of any major medical excitement.  We had a little excitement when Lona discovered that termites had eaten through the dry wall and were building a tunnel up the inside of our guest bedroom.  We were pretty worried about how much damage had been done already and feared the mess and inconvenience of tenting the house.  The damage turned out to be very minimal.  They were subterranean termites, and this species does not require tenting.  They require only an application of a termite and ant specific neurotoxin called Termidor in the dirt where they are entering the house.  It’s nasty stuff for termites, but pretty harmless for birds and mammals which lack in their biochemistry the neurotransmitter that Termidor affects.  Thank goodness the termites made their presence known before much damage was done.  About the same time, we had some excitement when suddenly we could no longer send nor access our Email.  It appeared that my web host had disappeared.  I had to spend a week sorting through the snake and alligator infested swamp that is the web hosting business, find a new one, and get established with it.  Then my web host suddenly reappeared, and I spent another 3 days figuring out how to hack into my own ex-website to retrieve the Email we had lost. 

Lumber Baron's mansion in EurekaOpal Beach @ Patrick's Point St. ParkTiger LilyBanana SlugRosevelt Elk in someone's yard2Finally in July, I was healed up enough to undertake some kind of a vacation trip before we went stir crazy.  We camped our way up the coast of CA nearly to Oregon, stopped at a state or county park, hiked all the trails we cared to, then moved on to the next one.  We had done a trip up the coast several years ago, but that was before the back operation that enabled Lona to walk pain free again, so we weren’t able to hike the trails then.  What a joy this time to see the scenery we had missed before.  If we had gone a week earlier, I would not have been able to stand the pain of sitting on my surgery for the drive up the coast.  A week later, and the wild flowers would have been shot.  You may click on the thumbnails to bring up a larger picture.  Then hit the back button.

Attending our 50th high school reunion in St. Joseph, MO in early Sept. was also quite exciting.  We are grateful we survived to attend it.  Many of our dear friends did not.  For those who may not know, Lona and I were in the same class and were high school sweethearts. I created a web site of the reunion pictures.  This can be viewed at http://dlpackwood.com/50thReunion if you want to see what 68 year old people look like.

Phacelia and MohaviaRavenSand DunesBrothel in the ghost town of Rhylite, NVSunset on Funeral PeaksI think I was just being grumpy because we missed our New Mexico trip.  I forgot all about out great trip to Death Valley in Feb. to attend the 8th Annual Death Valley History Conference.  It was very interesting learning about some of the many wierd characters who have left their mark on Death Valley.  I was reminded of the Death Valley trip when I was looking for the North Coast pictures and came across the Death Valley pictures.

Lona and I continue to have season tickets to Opera San Jose.  We frequent art museums, and attend a variety of other performing arts productions.  We take all-day hikes most weeks in the mountains surrounding Silicon Valley.  We continue to do our best to stay healthy and fit with diminishing success as we take on years.  I continue to support the University of MO by serving on both the Physics Leaders alumni support group and the College of A&S Strategic Development Board.  Life is good. 

Lona and Don Packwood