The Curtis Clan - Spring 2022
Spring Equinox to Summer Solstice
(or Cate's Quarter)
Cate's Spring Trip to California
COVID denied Cate a get-away spring break trip to research with Randy in 2020 and again in 2021 like Jane enjoyed in 2019. Scheduling restrictions denied the research portion of the trip again in 2022 but to be honest she wasn't heartbroken at missing out on being Dad's research lackey for a week. He felt he owed her the fun aspects of such a trip though so they went out to California for five days before he needed to do go to LA for work with the main goal on going to go see his Dad Ron/ Grandpa Curtis in Monterey and goof off on the way there and back.
We had a pre-dawn flight on Tuesday, 22 March with us needing to leave the house at 3 am. Our scheduled Lyft ride backed out at the last minute over an expired credit card on file from 2 years earlier and then tripled the rate to $140 after I entered in the new card and it was going to take 20 minutes to arrive. Bethany saved the day and got us there in time.
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After landing, we snacked at Randy's Doughnuts near the LAX rental car lots.
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Afterwards we roamed the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum of Modern Art outdoor sculptures in Hancock Park prior to arriving at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Science Museum. The museum's exhibits on the non-broadcasted Oscars s skills, like sound editing, production, costumes, art decoration were the best. The 2 story North By Northwest Rushmore backdrop was a highlight fur us.
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South Dakota or South California warehouse?
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In Hollywood, we strolled the Walk of Fame with the internet allowing us to readily find Randy's namesake's star. Not the most glamorous area though as our 2 miles walk to and from our motel (Dunes Inn) revealed it to be the Boulevards of Broken Dreams (bemused later to find this was the same motel the fictional Jack Reacher uses in book #11 Bad Luck and Trouble).
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Randolph Scott Walk of Fame star (outside the Frolic Room coctail lounge)
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Spring Break Trip Day 2 - We grabbed some Del Taco across from the Scientology Media Center but had no Tom Cruise, John Travolta, etc. sittings. We wondered if every building in Hollywood within walking distance of a Scientology one?
The Hollywood Funko Pop store sported a block long line to enter when it opened but we didn't mind as enjoyed its exuberant embrace of cultural characters. Sure, it's life size figures begging for playful Instagram selfies is superficial, barefaced, and self- perpetuating marketing but it was FUN (Fun Co.).
| On Tatoonie with R2D2 & C3PO |
11 holding the Demigorgon back |
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| Funko Robin |
Randy Hollywood |
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At home, the dogs got their spring haircuts
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Cypress Ridge SNF would only give Randy's dad two 4 hour passes to leave the facility like they had done last fall (bending the guidelines at that). So, Randy let Cate sleep in on Day 3 while he had a bit of a Busman's Holiday making a 2 ½ mile hike at the Fort Ord National Monument, a BRAC closed artillery range before visiting Ron. It was a mile walk primarily uphill that was more strenuous that he'd prefer but it was good exercise.
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Fort Ord National Monument Map Note half is closed to Munition Contamination
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| Gorgeous Oak on the Fort Ord chapperal |
Goats grazing at Fort Ord |
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We spent a few hours looking at the ocean from Pacific Grove and Monterey before returning to Ron's room for a Birthday Celebration for Cate with Margie and his roommate Greg and enjoying a yummy Mountain Mike's pizza with veggies.
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Cate and Grnadpa Curtis at Cypress Ridge
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On Friday, we took Ron out of the SNF for a second day and went out and about to a few of his favorite ocean overlooks in Monterey, Carmel and Pacific Grove followed by lunch at one of his favorite restaurants the Red House Cafe.
| Cate at Caramel |
Cate at Pacific Grove |
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With Ron at Red House Cafe
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| Pacific Grove coast |
Pacific Coast Hwy 1 coastline |
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Cate and Randy spent the rest of the day light hours on the scenic route to Morro Bay, stopping occasionally along the way including coffee in Big Sur, Vandenberg Space Force Base and the Piedras Blancas Elephant Sea Lion Rookery near San Simeon (Hearst Castle was closed).
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Piedras Blancas Elephant Sea Lion Rookery off PaAcific Coast Hwy 1
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Day 5 started in Morro Bay which we both liked very much. It's a less expensive Pacific Coast tourist town filled with mom and pop, ~40 room or less, 2 story, exterior entrance motels built 6-7 decades ago and nary a chain hotel. Ours was the well maintained Rockview. The ocean front had a fun approachable Maritime Museum with a tiny bathysphere you can climb in...or at least Cate could. 3 sea otters hung around the harbor like it was their job to pose for pictures and entertain the tourists (The Chamber of Commerce must be quite pleased).
| Forget college, I'm going to sea! Coastie cadet candidate Cate Curtis confesses |
Morro Bay sea otter |
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| Morro Rock |
cairn forest at Morro Rock |
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Before leaving San Luis Obispo, we stopped by the Madonna Inn which will fuel our wedding reception nightmares forever. An iconic, hard to forget roadside kitschy resort spa, with a pink rose, New Jersey tacky chic crossed with a stagecoach flair. Randy once again used the famous rock waterfall urinal `
| Madonna Inn reception Hall of Horrors |
Think Pink |
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Staying on Highway 1 where we could, took us by the former Vandenberg AFB. We ended the day with a 2.15-mile hike to Paradise Falls in Wildwood Regional Park, Thousand Oaks because it wasn't too far from our hotel.`
| Forget college Ma, I'm joining Space Force! Guardian cadet candidate Cate Curtis confesses
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Paradise Falls hike |
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On our last day of the Spring Break Trip, we went on the Warner Bros Studio Tour, which also happened to be the day of the 2022 Oscars.
| Filling up at the Sinclair station of the stars |
Randy staying late at his Advanced Potions class |
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| Recreated Friends fountain and couch (Friends had its own souvenir store at the end of the tour) |
Stars Hollow Gazebo in the WB town square center |
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| In Sheldon and Leonard's apartment |
On the set of the Big Bang staircase |
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| Cate repotting a Mandrake in Herbology |
Room under the stairs at the Dursley's |
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| A WB employee got us on Luke's Diner set as a bonus treat |
With the As Time Goes By piano and Ilse's dress |
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| Cate holding the WB 1943 animation Oscar. |
Bethany with her souvenir Luke's mug (middle of the night airpport run had at least one benefit) |
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Cate's 18th Birthday came a few days later on a Wednesday, and the celebration got spread out a bit to fit schedules. That evening Bethany took her to see Sutton Foster in the London revival of Anything Goes on a special screening in theaters. Randy “joined” them 2 hours later in California.
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Anything Goes in London
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The following Sunday, Cate and friends went to a matinee movie at Ronnie's to see the Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Brad Pitt and Daniel Radcliff in the rom-com: The Lost City. Cute but the ridiculous geology of volcanoes next to limestone sinkholes and caverns irked at least one guest.
| Ronnies Drive-In 57 Chevy |
Lighting the candles on her Pointers birthday pizza |
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Bethany and Randy attending their LAST Parent Teacher conference. Doing it via Zoom wasn't all bad.
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Toasting our LAST Parents Teacher Conference
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Cate got to exercised her civic adulthood in the April election for city council, mayor, school board and bond issues.
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Cate at the WGPL voting for the first time
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In early April, a couple college buddies came in town for a day long visit. After some Red Snappers (Bloody Mary's with gin) at the house, we did some restaurant hoping across Webster Groves with Cate acting as the designated driver:
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Anthony, Randy and Brad at Llewelyn's On Cardinal Opening Day
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We also hit San Jose and Cyrano's for the Flaming Bananas Foster and a World's Fair Éclair share by all. Yes, we were uncomfortably full. We breakfast at the Courtesy Dinner at Hegge Road before heading to the new Gateway Arch Museum. A jam-packed day of fun
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At the Sushi Station
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In middle April, a colleague used a Calvin and Hobbes comic in a PowerPoint and totally reversed the roles of Calvin and Suzie (probably a function of latent sexism, which kind of the defeated the point they were trying to make). As Randy was happily shredding their misunderstanding of a treasured comic, he realized with great contentment he married Suzie Derkins. It's less clear if Bethany is as happy about the implication that she married Calvin.
Friday, April 22 was a beautiful sunny spring evening for the WGHS Class of 2022's Prom held in the grand ballroom at the Union Station hotel. Once again, we volunteered to hosted a pre- and post- Prom party. It wasn't fancy but the Cate's group of friends appreciated having a place to hang out without pressure to be someone they're not (drinking, hooking up). We took pictures in Blackburn Park and drove a car load to the event and back.
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Cate before her prom
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The entire Prom Group
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Bethany and Cate
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During April, the Worcester Curti was in D Term (4th Quarter) at WPI, where she did another fund raiser for Engineers Without Borders, continued with participating in Tuesday Trivia and joined sorority Alpha Xi Delta during Continuous Open Bidding, so she was in at pledge class of one. A Panhellenic snafu miss coded her after formal Rush in the fall and she was picked up when the error was discovered.
| EWB fund raiser |
HEHEGJ WPI Trivia. |
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May
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Cate formally declaring her choice on May Day
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Randy exploring the western most tip of Oahu – Kaena Point with a 4.5-mile hike there and back after grabbing lunch of Poke bowls at Nico's on the 38th Street Pier on a Sunday before a week of meetings with regulators
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Kaena Point Arch
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In early May, Cate was one of the actors in a friends movie shooting outside during the day. A few hours outside while pollen season was still raging quickly answer the question, is she still really allergic?`
| WGHS Awards night slide |
Just say NO to Oak Pollen |
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| All smiles with Ella at the end yer 1 |
Celebratory mid-field jump kick with Erica |
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Welcome home Jane with an uncertain Gussie (Note: XXL duffle/body bag )
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Cate's last day was May 6th, after 15 years the WGSD (starting with 2 years in preschool)`
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Cate's 1st Day of Pre-School
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| Cate's Last Day |
in the WGSD |
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Curtis FFF 2022 - Cruise
In early February while thinking about our summer schedule, we realized we had a narrow 2 ½ week window where the kids were available for vacation between the girls finishing up their school years and Cate's graduation ceremony. A number of ideas were considered but it didn't take long to arrive on the idea of a cruise, despite some serious misgivings about scheduling such a trip amidst the lingering effects of the COVID Pandemic with recollections of the infamous COVID cruise stories. Without listing the Pro / Con list, we eventually conceded that being vaccinated and double boosted controlled our serious health risks to a practical degree. Still, we took out a travel insurance policy for the first time to ease the concern of needing to cancel, as we ALL had to test negative for COVID before boarding the boat.
WHERE we were going was really a distant consideration. It came down to the only cruise that Princess was offering in our window of opportunity within driving range using the liberal Curti scale (i.e., Fort Lauderdale at 1250+ miles over 19 hours seemed completely reasonable with the same on the return. We raised long distance warriors, so is it any wonder they're ok with going a state or 7 states away to college?).
So once again where did we go? 4 stops over 8 days/7 nights :
1. Princess Cay
2. San Juan, Puerto Rico
3. Maimon/Amber Cover, Dominican Republic
4. Grand Turk, Turk and Cacos
As the Spring 2022 page is already too long, we broke it out by itself:2022 FFFCaribbean Cruise
Cate's Graduation
Two days after our return, we attended Cate's graduation at the Chaffetz Center on the SLU campus on a Tuesday. WGHS chose the scheduling security of being able to host the event no matter what the weather might be instead of the default location of the football stadium. While certainly a superior facility with reliable audio equipment, it lacked the tradition of Moss Field and following in the steps of her sister and dad. It was hard to argue against the arena's superior viewing of the Pomp and Circumstance of the event with jumbotron screens that allowed to actually recognize faces during the diploma presentations as opposed to same level view of the previous year where we relied on looking for wavy long reddish blond hair while tracking along the alphabetic order to be sure we were watching and cheering for the right kid.
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Cate Curtis - WGHS Class of 2022
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| Curti at WGHS one last time |
Curtri of WGHS grads |
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WGHS Tradition did continue with the All Night (lock-in) Party a few hours afterwards (delaying graduation allowed for school to be out and the space to be empty). The promise of fabulous attendance prize assured that kids stay well until the wee hours of the first quarter of the next day and past the time of tempting mischief.`
| Cate at Chafetz graduation |
Class of 2022 |
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| Standard side dppor pose |
Cate Graduates via Jumbotron |
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| Cate as a Funko POP |
Pregaming in the car |
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Curti at the HiPointe
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That Friday, our neighbors the Rugers made dinner to celebrate Cate's graduation, scheduling it so Jane was still in town. A fun evening of conversation of hope, dreams and politics.
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At the Rugers
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Jane leaves for Camp
On Monday, we hit the road at 8:30 am to drive to Grand Rapids to take Jane back for her second year as a counselor at YMCA Camp Echo. Cate stayed behind to attend her friends graduation parties that were spaced out over a couple weeks. The next day, Jane showed us around a bit before we left at 1 pm./font>
| McGraw Camp Echo sign |
Jane, Bethany and a summer's worth of stuff |
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Jane's Camp Echo cabin home (#1)
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Too late to comfortably make it back to St. Louis, we enjoyed a Thai lunch at the Grand Rapids Market Place (as good as we recalled from the previous year). Afterwards, we visited the Gerald Ford Museum. Presidential Libraries are clearly biased but it was hard not to see him as a good man forever scarred by pardoning Nixon; taking one for the team to spare the country of the spectacle of a lengthy, continuous litigation of the events of a clearly guilty man. It's hard to not see this as prologue for current events though there isn't any chance of a similar pardon occurring from a President from the opposing party. The legacy of Ford's 2 ½ years in office primarily shown from so many in his cabinet reappearing as GOP power brokers for the next three decades. The Truman portrait on the wall of the Ford Cabinet room recreation was unexpected. Such displays of reflective bipartisanism is hard to believe in light of the current hyper divided politics. Of a disappointing note was there wasn't more made out of the Betty Ford Clinic which was THE lasting cultural legacy of Gerald being in the White House. Her acknowledgement of substance abuse and dependency did wonders for destigmatizing it in the eyes of the public, even more so than her very bold and public acknowledgment of breast cancer shortly after he took office. The 1976 election buttons of “I'm voting for Betty's Husband” gives some indication of the Country's affection for her.
| With the Truman portrait at Ford Library |
Grand Rapids riverfront |
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Goofing around the full-sized reproduction of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam (man) from The Sistine Chapel. A wacky temporary exhibit for a presidential library but whatever the public wants right?/font>
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Creation of Man
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Gilmore Car Museum
An internet search for other nearby attractions uncovered an unanticipated side stop on the way home: the Gilmore Car Museum, the largest auto museum in North America on farm land outside Kalamazoo. A stunning collection in its quality and scope with planned expansions to be the largest car museum in the world in a couple of years. We had fun picking a "dream" car in each gallery that would be fun to own but it was kind of hard to decide most of the time. The only negative was that there was only a smattering of foreign cars.
| 1948 Packard Woodie |
1916 Pierce Arrow |
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| London Taxi ride |
Going out in style |
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1967 Ford Falcon Station Wagon The Curtis Family ride in the 1970s
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On the way home, as a joke, Bethany's Uncle Barry sent Randy a Facebook Marketplace ad for an $800 1978 Triumph Spitfire in a University City basement garage that didn't run. Filled with the inspiration of the Gilmore and memories of his youth with a friends Spitfire and his orange one, we sold ~16 years earlier, a couple days later we bought a dream. The car hasn't been licensed in 33 years and we couldn't tell what the mileage was once it was parked. The owner reported that the engine was seized up but agreed to throw in a second engine he had that is reportedly salvageable. The car was essentially all there though without significant rust visible (a different story once it was unburied). It would be another month to get it out of the U-City garage (8 inches below driveway level) and tow it home.
| 1978 Triumph Spitfire in U-City basement garage |
The paint and plastering supllies were NOT included |
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Some rambling perspective. With inflation Randy paid just a bit more for this Spitfire than he did for his first car, a 1968 Ford Torino GT that also wasn't running. The $200 in 1980 equates $700 in 2022, so just a bit less than the $800 for this car. Randy got the Torino running after a time chain replacement, followed by pretty much everything else on the car going wrong over the next couple few years. He had a default boast when about it that You can't name something on the “Dreadnaught” that he didn't fix or replace though there was one (the rear axle which nobody guessed). As for the last year before we sold the 1980 Spitfire, it cost over a $1.25 a mile driven...so roughly three times the GSA mileage rate at the time. The would be about a $1.90 in summer 2022 ($62.5 /mile being the current rate).
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Cate's drawing of Jane as a Funko POP
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Thirsty dogs
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21 years after there last visit to the Pageant to see the Go-Gos, Bethany and Randy went to see Gary Gulman in concert. His routine may be best explained by the topics of his jokes he included: a pencil manufacturer joke, 3 Charles Dickens ones, and a Lady Bing Trophy one among others. We're the right demographic /font>
| Left balcony selfie |
Gary Gulman Born on 3rd Base |
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Washington DC
After a 2 ½ years hiatus, Randy made his first trip to the archives in Washington DC in June, followed by trips in July and August. Sitting on the left window seat in June provided fabulous views of DC down the Potomac before landing at DC National Airport.
| Flying into DC over the Potomac |
At NARA- College Park |
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Hanging out with college buddy Brad at Busboys and Poets in Hyattsville saw a meal with fabulous catfish and grits and Evolution beers followed by rolled ice cream with Brads daughter who was spending the week at the University of Maryland orchestra camp
| Randy and Brad (actually in August) |
Randy Angel |
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Meanwhile at Camp Echo in mid-June Jane was diagnosed with mono and there was fear they would send her home after secluding her for a few days. They were desperate so made accommodations to allow to get more sleep everyday but being a counselor for a cabin of kids doesn't really provide for down time and she struggled with being exhausted all summer. Not ideal but better she had mono while at camp than while at school. A semi rite of passage for being a young adult.`
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Cate's Stranger Things Fan Art Fred Benson reposted on his Instagram page
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Cate's Graduation Party
On 20 June, essentially a month after the fact, Cate had her graduation party on a Sunday afternoon with family and core group of friends.
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Cate in a Fear the Wheat pose
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| With Amy and Alvan |
With Charlie, Amy, & Kennedys |
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| With the Lisses and Bethany |
With Uncles Patrick and Barry |
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| With Bethany and Maria |
Cate and Sam (JoAnn) |
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| Mckenna introduces Pepper to her sibling |
Its not a party without a Pointasurus |
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With Rosemary and Elisabeth
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