The Freezing Dog Savior

I woke before the alarm and the sun; I didn't want to, but I did. Where am I? At first there was just confusion and darkness and then I realized...I was freezing. I tried to pull the covers higher, but the hotel's housekeeping tucked the sheets and blanket too tight. I remembered. I am at the Yosemite View Lodge in El Portal, California. I could not pull hard enough on the covers. My fingertips ached from the cold; could this be frostbite. My brain knew better, but...jeez. How can a hotel room possibly get this cold? And how could my mother enjoy this absurd temperature? I was in pain.

"Screw this, " I whined. "I'm getting up." I closed my eyes and then slowly opened them. I read somewhere that it helped you see better in limited light. Putting the theory to the test, I gave it a shot. Blackout curtains really work. I saw absolutely nothing. I tried a second of my six senses and listened. Crammed into a double queen room with a kitchenette was my wife sleeping next to me. My daughter sharing the bed with the Ice Queen and her two dogs. I was sure I could hear every last one of them and their slumbered breath. Certain I could not get up without waking at least half the room, I laid back down and tried to see my frosty breath. It was too dark, but I'm positive I could have with a little light. After what seemed an eternity, my wife stirred.

"You okay?" She whispered.

"No, rigor mortis has commandeered my extremities."

"Huh?"

"Nothing." Sometimes my humor goes unappreciated.

"I didn't hear you." The volume of her whisper rose slightly.

"I said...I'm freezing." It wasn't worth repeating myself. She was barely awake.

"Yeah, it's cold. I'll go turn up the thermostat." She sounded as if she meant it. She is awesome like that.

"No, it's okay. I'll live...maybe." This wasn't a North Face commercial and I didn't want to sacrifice my wife's health. If a mammoth can survive an Ice Age, so could I. Wait a sec, mammoths didn't make it. I'll probably die too. What kind of fire could possibly be in that woman's blood for her to enjoy the single digits of a thermometer in a tissue-thin nightgown? I considered it for a moment and decided she may be the cause of the global warming crisis. Maybe I should alert the global warming watchdogs. Curled fetally in my pre-rigor state, I tried to figure out who I should contact. I couldn't think of any, so...

"Screw it. I'm gettin' up." Survival instincts took over. I needed to save myself. Sitting up, I threw my legs over the side of the bed. Mom's poor little dog was at my feet wimpering to be saved. I dressed and took the dog for a walk. The poor dog peed little yellow ice cubes. Did I tell you it was cold. It's not often, one's gets to be a dog hero before daylight. Maybe PETA or Cesar "the Dog Whisperer" Millan should honor me with a roast.

To continue reading about the Adventures of Al, please visit his website at http://www.thetravelvalet.com/.

Al

Pick of the Day(45-9-1)...Phillies and Rays

Yosemite is Timeless

The last time I visited Yosemite, I was about my daughter's age, 12. I remember thinking the place was really "cool" and "neat-o". Thirty some-odd years later, I found better words. "Mesmerizing", "awe-inspiring", and "humbling" are my newer, more adult words for the same picturesque moments I encountered this week. I never seem to grasp how small I really am until I am confronted with these monumental wonders.

Only a few days later, I still have not come to terms with the relative size of everything Yosemite. Think about it...El Capitan is the largest single piece of granite above ground on the face of the earth. Yosemite Falls is the tallest falls in North America and third largest on earth. And you can look at them at the same time by turning your head. The Mariposa Grove, while it doesn't claim the oldest or largest tree, is the largest concentration of giant sequoias in the world. Many are so close they have grown together. A sequoia named, "Old Grizzly" is considered to be around 1900 years old and is 92 ft in diameter at its base. I have slept in much smaller hotel rooms. It seems impossible to come to comprehend the grandness and I just left. Maybe "neat-o" is a better adjective.

Yosemite Facts

1. Yosemite National Park is located 195 miles east of San Francisco and 276 miles north of Los Angeles, California



2. It's 761,266 acres cover almost 1000 miles in circumference.



3. Became a World Heritage Site in 1984.



4. Ansel Adams spent a lifetime here photographing Yosemite's wonders



5. Yosemite Falls is solely fed by snowmelt and dries up every August



6. Abraham Lincoln signed a bill protecting the Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove during the Civil War.



7. The US Calvary protected the park until the Ranger Service was created.



8. The sport of rock climbing got it's start in Yosemite. As a matter of fact, the campground at the base of El Capitan is listed on the World Heritage Registry as being instrumental in the formation of the sport.
   
   
9. There are over 800 miles of hiking trails within the park

If your thinking of visiting Yosemite National Park, please contact me at theTravelValet@gmail.com. I can provide a wealth of info and advice as well as some very current itinerary tips.

Wildlife sights on this trip included: American black bear (mother and three cubs), mule deer, yellow-bellied marmot, rainbow trout, coyote and timber wolf. That was enough to validate the trip by itself.

Al, the Travel Valet

Pick of the Day(44-9-1)...Red Sox

Life's Autumn

I got up this morning, like any good rooster, to crow and watch Lance Armstrong's comeback in the Tour de France. Getting up on less than three hours sleep gets harder as the years pass, my mind and body want to linger longer on the goose down, but I forge forward and will my self downstairs to the television room. Lance is on. I am loyal.

The race is leaving France and entering the Swiss Alps as I rub the sleep away. The first thing I notice is Lance is not at the front, but lingering at the rear of the peloton. This is not like him. His motis operandi is to steer clear of danger and hang around the front end of the peloton surrounded by his teammates. I sense danger like seals off Dyer Island in South Africa, white sharks are lurking nearby. My stomach starts to churn. I worry. The picturesque Swiss countryside zooms by at 35 miles per hour. That's how fast these insanely fit men tackle the Tour de France mountain stages. They are in the Swiss Alps for Christ's sake, some of the steepest mountains in the world. I'm am in awe as I watch. I can only stretch out my 44 year old back on the sofa and dream of such things.

The day's breakaway of riders is caught at the bottom of the nastiest climb to the ski resort, Verbier. I watch Alberto Contador look at faces of the few remaining competitors. I know what is about to happen. I saw Lance do the same thing six years earlier. Contador was looking into the eyes of his combatants and challenging their greatness (read: manhood). I knew then, at that very nanosecond, it was over. Contador turned forward and faced the alpine mountain, his only competitor, took a deep breath and said, "It's just you and me." And then it was over. Alberto Contador's 25 year old legs accelerated as if going downhill.

Lance had nothing. I was depressed. Ten minutes later, the race was over. Lance finished ninth on the day and sat in second for the Tour. A truly remarkable achievement, but not what I hoped. Not the way I needed it to end. What? Not the way I needed it? I didn't race. Hell, I'm not even in Europe. But, I'll explain

Many times in my life I have tried to explain sport and how it symbolized a man's life in microcosm. I'm not sure if my argument ever bore any fruit to any of my audience, but the parallel holds true for me. The battle on the field or on the race course exemplifies the journey of a man's life, it's life in microcosm. The championships are too glorious and and the failures much too foreboding. Sometimes, I catch myself living through sport, pinning hopes on great seasons or routing the evil enemy. And in the end, always falling short of perfection. In sport, there is only one champion each season and everyone else loses. Kinda cruel, like life, but if you don't play, you can't win. This is how I pursue life.

Anyway, back to Lance. He didn't have the legs to match the 25 year old. I saw the fire in his eyes turn to solemn acceptance. He was done. The championships are behind him. Lance slipped into Life's Autumn.

He may go fighting, kicking and scratching. Most champions do. Ali, Jordan, Emmitt Smith, Brett Farve, Greg Norman and Tom Watson in this year's British Open all tried to recapture youth. But Lance is through.

I went back to bed depressed. I slept most of the rest of the day. I needed Lance to prove it was possible to postpone the inevitable Autumn. It's not possible, I know this consciously. My life is in it's very late Summer, I feel it every day. It's sad. I pray I have the courage to admit and accept Autumn when it arrives. I can almost see it on the horizon. I can definitely smell it in the air.

LiveStrong

Al

Pick of the day(42-9-1)...Rockies

WSOP Out, Yosemite In

With the WSOP ending last night earlier than expected, the Travel Valet gets to focus on upcoming trips and planning trips for clients. Tonight we'll close out an Itinerary for two '30 something' American women going on a South African safari at Kruger National Park, then a helicopter adventure over Victoria Falls in Zambia and finally, cage diving with great white sharks off Cape Town. Talk about experiencing life...wow! These girls are going to have opportunities to embrace life changing moments continuously for 14 days. Have fun.

Al, on the other hand, is off trekking again next week. He will journey into Death Valley and battle some of earth's harshest conditions and then move on to Yosemite National Park in hopes of rediscovering his tail feathers. Puk Ack!! A little El Capitan, a little Half-Dome and throw in a lot of hiking for rejuvenation were the doctor's orders. I swear. Sitting in stale poker rooms for 6 weeks doesn't do much for this rooster's complexion.

After California, we are off to the Texas Hill Country in early September with a long weekend in Austin. Because? Because we want to. Anyway, why wouldn't one wish to visit Austin? Its possibly the coolest city in the US. After that trip ends, the Travel Valet gang will set out to experience some true Americana in early October, state fairs. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Next stop, Yosemite. All aboard.

Al

Pick of the Day(42-9-1)...Braves

Oh, the irony...

According to the writing gods, irony is a literary or rhetorical device that suggests incongruity or discordance between what is true and what is generally understood to be true.

Last week, Time.com printed an article on their website that examined a recent poll of 4000 worldwide hotel employees released by Expedia.fr (the French branch of the travel portal). The question was asked, "Who are the worst and most obnoxious travelers?" My first thought was here we go again. The French just want to take another jab at Americans. Over the course of my traveling life I've consistently heard complaints by foreigners, especially the French, about "those crass Americans". Honestly, I was offended and have spent the better part of my life going out of my way not to be "crass". But, lo and behold, guess what the results turned up?

Americans aren't the "crass", obnoxious travelers. It's the stinking Francos. And what's really ironic, it's just not the rest of the world that dislikes the Gallic attitude; they even finished at the bottom of the rankings when traveling in their own country and rated by other countrymen.

Now, this is refreshing news. And to make their "gripe" on the Americans even more ridiculous, the Gauls even finished dead last on attempting or being unwilling to communicate in a foreign language on foreign soil. Ha! and Double Ha! I don't wanna hear it anymore. Just eat your Royale with cheese (Quarter Pounder) and be quiet.

As Alanis Morissette sings, "Isn't it ironic...don'tcha think?"

Al
Happy Bastille Day!

Spent some time with celebs

Not sure exactly what an "A" list celebrity is, but I had the opportunity to spend a little time with some relatively famous television and movie actors. My life crossed paths with the lives of Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Alexander, Robin Leach, Brad Garrett and Antonio Tarver this week. I know Antonio Tarver is a boxer, but he did that "Rocky Balboa" movie, so he counts. Some were very cool and some just thought they were.

Why am I even bringing this up, you ask? Well, its because our culture is so very star struck. Many of us live vicariously through the lives of stars. Television programs like, TMZ, and periodicals, such as Us and People, make a killing on this very premise. And I'm not sure why.

I understand entertainment soothes the soul and relaxes the mind. Sometimes entertainment affords an inexpensive "mental" vacation from the rigors of life. I get it. But people, seriously, these folks are just ordinary schmoes that happen to get paid entirely too much. Yes, these actors have talent, a talent for pretending. Yes, some are beautiful, but I see more beautiful people every single day. I just don't get it. There are people in the world who may deserve some or even most of their adoration: Tiger Woods in golf; Roger Federer in tennis; Lance Armstrong in cycling; the late Bette Davis, Jimmy Stewart or Sir Lawrence Olivier in acting; Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin as American statesmen; even the Beatles or Michael Jackson make sense. These examples are exemplary talents in their specific fields of endeavor. They are the best of the best. Patterning your career goals after these professional champions is admirable. But embracing George Constanza, Robert Barone or Mason Dixon is disconcerting.

On a side note, Jason Alexander and Brad Garrett have a new fan...me. These two gentlemen were every bit as cordial as you could hope them to be. I wish them every success.

Al, the Travel Valet

Pick of the Day(41-9-1)...Giants

Surprised? I shouldn't be.

I can't say it is beyond possibility, and I shouldn't say I'm surprised. But...I am surprised, maybe astounded. The remarkable production of Lance Armstrong over the first 3 stages of the Tour de France and after a four year absence can be described as surreal. Jeez, he's only six weeks removed from a major surgery in which a five-inch metal plate was inserted along with 12 screws to piece back together his clavicle that was shattered in four places. And if you don't think it's such a big deal because he pedals for a living, think again. Try climbing a hill on a bicycle without pulling with your arms. Not that hard, huh? Now, turn that little incline you call a hill on your driveway into the Swiss Alps. Yes, Lance is pedaling up the Pyrenees and the Alps with a recently reconstructed shoulder, a pair of 37 year old legs and faster than any human on Earth. Wow. Are there any appropriate adjectives?

I have to admit there may be a full-bore, no-holds-barred man-crush in the near future if he pulls it off. I, was satisfied with his seven consecutive Tour de France titles with the first being only eighteen months after brain surgery to remove malignant cancerous tumors. I guess the key word in the last sentence was "I" because Lance was not. He's back.

I'm honored just to witness this bionic man will greatness. He is greater than Tiger, Federer, Jordan and Kobe combined. Don't scoff. What have any of these gifted athlete's overcome. Tiger won the U.S. Open on a destroyed knee. That was impressive, but everyone was rooting for him. How about Lance? He continuously battles an entire country of Frenchmen who want him extinguished, but can't ever seem to bring him down. These French elitists fill the media with filthy accusations, but they inevitably lead nowhere. He competes in a tarnished sport where cheating is the norm (kinda sounds like baseball). Armstrong has been tested more than another athlete in history, ten times more. Always passing each test, Lance chooses to take the high road and laugh off these detractors. But you know it stings.

And then there is the LiveStrong Foundation. Along with the Susan B. Komen Foundation, Livestrong is the single greatest vehicle available to find a cure for the disease that affects every single one of us on some level. Cancer kills. No one else fights a more public battle to defeat it than Lance Armstrong.

His exhibitions inspire me to be a better man, father, husband, Texan, American and cancer survivor.

Al

Pick of the Day(40-9-1)...Boston

Nothing Quite Compares

Nothing Quite Compares...

The guards collected our tickets and we strolled for what seemed a mile on a dusty path down to and through a narrow crevasse in the sandstone canyon. I hoped, really hoped, this arduous travel in uncomfortable conditions would be worth it. We passed a few massive pillars and a couple of temple ruins, not too much really. I stole a quick glance at my wife. By her demeanor, she wasn't taking it well. The trip to get here was a hassle and swallowed two days of our 12 alloted for the side trip, my side trip. I really began to wonder if all the pictures I'd seen over my lifetime were "doctored" or "airbrushed". It began to look like I made a mistake.

Then I saw a glimpse of its form as the crevasse swallowed us at its narrowest. The hand-carved elevation of "The Treasury" almost glowed as we spilled out in the canyon on the other side of the crevasse. My jaw dropped. I stood stiff, overwhelmed in absolute astonishment. This was not a mistake....

Petra, Jordan was a major trade city between 400 BCE and 200 AD. It sat on the Spice Route between the Far East and the West and prospered for almost 600 years until the Romans sacked it. Being semi-arid and of not much benefit to the Romans, the area was abandoned until a Swiss explorer rediscovered Petra in the 1800's.

Carved into the cliffs and hidden from the desert wind, Petra is remarkably pristine. Remarkably! It is easy to see why Steven Speilberg chose Petra and especially The Treasury to film his Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade here. There are over 800 registered historic sites at Petra. The place is awesome.

"match me a marvel, save in Eastern clime
A rose-red city half as old as time." - "Petra", a portion of the sonnet by John William Burgon

This is the second installment of a four part series of mind blowing walks. If you would like me to help you experience Petra, send me a note at theTravelValet@gmail.com.

Al

Pick of the Day(38-8-1)...Boston, Texas

The Game Has Changed

With the World Series of Poker winding down and the WSOP Main Event starting up, I thought I would throw my two cents into the fountain. After a month of playing and watching the world's best poker players battle for bracelets, I have come to this one conclusion...I have no idea what the hell is going on! I have decided this though, the game of poker is no longer my game. I'm not making these statements because I have become a losing player, which I have, but the atmosphere or texture of the game is so radically different from its roots. I don't respect the game any longer as a game of skill, patience and character, it's nothing but Russian Roulette.

Poker has become a flagrant series of slot machine pulls in which doubling up or going out are the only two options. I don't blame the X-Games/Punk'd/MTV kids that now dominate the sport either. I blame television! The journalists, color commentators and media gurus (ha!) said Chris Moneymaker is the reason the sport exploded. That's crapola. The WSOP was already up 300% the year Moneymaker won. The rise of the sport came via internet gaming. This new avenue popularized bringing the garage and basement game to the masses. The internet poker industry made the game available to practically everyone. Along with the influx of new, younger players came truckloads of new money. These enormous sums of money blanketed the "ugly" poker stigma. The game was on it's way up.

Then came ESPN and television technology of the "hole card" camera. Yeah, I know ESPN covered the WSOP long before the game exploded. But it wasn't the same. Have you ever watched poker on television without seeing each players "hole cards"? It is slow, tedious and mind numbing, a game only Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim could love. That game would never intrigue today's generation of adrenaline junkies. They would rather tune in to Days of Our Lives and needlepoint than listen to Dick Van Patten and Gabe Kaplan consider the possibilities of what two or three very ugly men are contemplating while they stare at the felt. It is a truly painful experience.

Then came editing! The television gurus never seem to remind the television viewer that 5500 hands of poker will not be televised due to boredom. Poker is game of FOLDING, people. Not pushing all-in because its been twenty minutes since you sat down and a new episode of Transformers is about to air on the Cartoon Network. Take your friggin' Ritalin already. The new young gun-type players don't know the game any other way than what ESPN shows them. I don't like it and I don't want to play anymore. You can keep the new game and its new breed of players. If I wanted to go all-in or bust I'd spend my money on Lotto.

By-the-way, if baseball caps were meant to be worn crooked, wouldn't they have been designed as such? I don't know...just wondering.

Main Event starts tomorrow at the Rio in Las Vegas.

Al

Pick of the Day(36-8-1)...Dodgers, Yanks

"A Perfect Day for a Bananafish"

I was going through my emails today and ran across an article that someone forwarded to me. I found it very illuminating. The article was about a recent court ruling banning the publication of a sequel to "Catcher in the Rye".

My initial thoughts while I read the article was..."Is Salinger still alive?" ; "Wow, it's about time. Is Holden still 16?" and "Why would a judge ban the publication of a sequel to Catcher sixty years later?"

I Googled for answers and come to find out... J.D. Salinger is still alive at 91 and living near Cornish, New Hampshire. The book in question's author claims he did not pen a sequel, but according to the court there are enough backhand references to Catcher the judge had no choice but to ban publication. But why? Plagiarists do that kind of crap all the time and make a good living at it. Jeez, hasn't everybody seen books titled Robert Ludlum's Bourne Whatever by Get Rich Quick or similar nonsense like J.R.R. Tolkien's Whatever of the Rings by I. Play Dungeons? I didn't understand.

It seems, since Salinger isn't dead and this plagiarist didn't receive permission to plagiarize then, I guess, it's illegal to profit. But, the friggin' guy is 91 and he hasn't published since Kennedy was shot, for heaven's sake. If you're gonna let Ludlum, Tolkien and a myriad of other fine novelists be bastardized, then...hum...I guess I see the legal point-of-view. But I'm a writer and this business of stealing another's original thought and authoring crappy sequels even if it's legal is horrific and should be grounds for immediate banishment to leper island.

Oops. This was not my intended subject matter for the blog. I wanted to talk about "A Perfect Day for a Bananafish", J.D. Salinger's first published story in 1948 by The New Yorker. I guess soapboxes were built to stand on. Anyway, read the short story, it's delightful.