I’m here! West Palm Beach, Florida. I came for the AYSO national soccer tournament because my granddaughter is playing on a team. This has been a gargantuan effort – fund-raising over $30,000 so the team could participate. In AYSO, all the money must be donated; parents are not allowed to pay their kid’s expenses. That gives everyone an opportunity to attend. For example, if my daughter wanted to put in the money for Sarah, she couldn’t – she’d have to make a donation to the team. It’s a good, fair system but it’s been so much work! My daughter is team mom, my son-in-law is a coach, and I am the grandmother. Which is not an official position.
My flights were not crowded at all so luckily I had rows all to myself. Look at this spectacular view from the airplane.
This was a long long day – travel day. The next day was soccer registration and opening ceremonies, which I opted out of along with three of my grandkids. It was a good decision – I guess they sat for hours in the sun and humidity. A soccer tournament here in the summer is insane.
Cities put in bids to hold the tournaments, and I don’t think the AYSO selection committee thought about things like heat exhaustion, heat stroke, humidity, temps with a real feel of 111. In a couple of years the tournament will be in Tennessee. What happened to the northern climates, like Washington or Oregon? Seriously, this is insane for real, not to mention dangerous. You can’t call it fun for the refs and coaches and parents who worked so hard to get here. Yesterday, one of our girls had heat exhaustion and she kept saying, no, she just didn’t feel well. We are Californians. We don’t know about that (although Bakersfieldians should).
I know about that, however, having suffered heat exhaustion three times. By the fourth time, I knew enough about what was coming to cut short my activity. ( That was the Unal Trail hike I did recently, by myself.) What I was saying wasn’t getting through, however. If you haven’t exerted yourself in this kind of climate, it’s hard to know exactly how careful you must be.
But Sophie, Joe, Daxton and I had a great day doing some sightseeing. We hit three beaches and greyhound races. I’ve never seen dogs race and everyone said go, go, it’s fantastic. I suppose it is in some ways, but I hate to see animals used like that. In one race a dog tripped, and if it hadn’t gotten right up the day would have been ruined. I didn’t really like seeing dogs running around a track while old men sat around working on their wagering picks.
The track had signs around urging adoption of greyhounds, but I don’t think that compensates for forcing the dogs to race. My sister has recently adopted two former racing greyhounds. Beautiful animals.
The blur on the left is the dogs starting the race. There were two old men sitting near us, and listening to them talk I thought, these guys belong in a movie. They would be perfectly cast in so many films.
Anyway, it was an experience. But the beaches!
Look at the colors of the ocean! Couldn’t believe it. This is Ocean Reef Beach in West Palm Beach.
We all just walked right into the water – it’s 82 degrees! I love the warm Atlantic.
We were so lucky to be at a drawbridge when it opened It’s the first time the kids had seen one and I always enjoy it. Heck, I enjoy just about anything. Except heat and humidity. But I knew what I was getting into when I said, “Hey, I’d love to go!” So no real complaints.
Back at the hotel to recover from the morning, Dax and Joseph had fun with ice cream. Sophie took a nap.
We headed out for more beaches, this time to Dubois Park.
The kids were standing still, waiting to see how far their legs would sink. Of course, being a worried grandma, I remembered reading about how someone died from being “buried” at the beach – you know, something everyone does, getting covered with sand so only your head sticks out. But sometimes the sand can create strong suction and you can’t get the person out fast enough. I had to go over this in my mind several times, how they were just standing there and it wasn’t the same thing at all.
To get to our third beach, we drove down this gorgeous street.
This town isn’t called Palm Beach for nothing.
We did lots of driving around and saw some very big, probably very beautiful homes. The reason I say probably very beautiful was because we couldn’t see them. This is the land of giant hedges. This next picture is not a giant hedge but certainly an unusual one. The building was so exclusive that it just had an address, barely visible.
I was determined that we would eat dinner on the waterfront and knew if I drove long enough we’d find something. Just as I was about to give up, we did find something. I’m not sure we were in the best area (ok, we weren’t) but the food was good enough.
End of Day One. Just about any day I spend with my grandkids is a good one, but it was cool to be in a place exotic to all of us. Even if it was humid and hot.
Coming soon: more beaches.
Paradise Pier is at California Adventure, and it’s like the midway at a fair, only a gazillion times better. California Screamin’, a giant roller coaster, goes through that tunnel thing on the top like a giant speedy caterpiller. Look how cool it looks:
I know this will be in a collage – I love the image and the ambiguity of it also. It’s a roller coaster, right? Or is it? Well, it has to be…I could go on and on, because it won’t seem so obvious when I get it into whatever I get it in to. How’s that for an almost illiterate sentence? It makes the point, though.
This flower was floating in a fountain in Downtown Disney. I love the texture and the color, the yellow petals with the red flower, and I’m pretty sure this will be the background photo of a collage.
Now this raft will not be in a collage. I don’t think. But it was one of the very fun rides in California Adventure. This is me with one daughter, a son-in-law, and five grandkids. We all got soaked! And it was fun.
There is nothing quite like water as a dynamic medium.
This California sun, again at California Adventure, is another image I like. Half in sun, half in shade. I want to use it but I can already envision problems. It’s going to give me trouble, I know it, but I will try anyway. This is how a collage takes shape – I have an image, and it will float around in my mind for a long time, I’ll get the texture of it, the variations, and slowly other images will insert themselves. Then I’ll print photos, go up to the cabin, start cutting and rearranging and creating. And sometimes trashing and starting over.
I’m not sure what’s going to happen with this one. But it’s pretty amazing – this giant wheel, seemingly supported by two steel posts, and full of people in colorful cages.
This is here just because I like it. The grandkids speeding along in this “highway patrol” car. I remember when that was fun for me – going fast, screaming around curves, loop-de-looping; now, I just throw up. Age takes away certain pleasures.
The next day arrived and we went into Disneyland itself for the day. The Colorado contingent joined us, but the little princess had a temp of 100 and wasn’t so sure how much fun this was. Her brother, however, was taking it all in.
As I was waiting for them to arrive, sitting on a bench on Main Street with two strollers, I looked at the bench opposite me and I think I found another background picture for a collage. It’s an unconscious process in a way, because I don’t look around thinking “collage material,” but I see things that grab me. Here’s the bench.
And I know for sure that this next photo will be background. Again, water. I love water. This is taken from the submarine porthole in the Finding Nemo ride – the old Submarines. I love this one.
I’m thinking cows, peacocks, I don’t know – images are jostling around and something will settle out and I’ll try it.
It’s pretty thrilling to look at this even now. Again, water. Love photos of water. And I just used the word “thrill” or a variation three times in a row. I would not have let my writing students do that! But of course we learn the rules only to break them.
Seeing my granddaughter on her first trip to Disneyland – entranced by Minnie Mouses’s house (even though she had a temperature and wasn’t feeling tip top), is all the reward I could want. What I am really doing, I hope, is building memories both for me as I get older, for my kids, and mostly for my grandkids. In an imperfect world, I’m giving them what I can of perfection. Who knows what my granddaughter is thinking here, where her imagination is taking her, and when it will resurface in the future to help her on her journey. It’s all about the journey.
