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Several years ago, Mike and son-in-law Blake visited the Black Diamond Regional Park, in the hills south of Pittsburg, and toured an old sand mine. (Not beach sand, but very fine silica sand, from which glass is made.) Recently the Park Disrict opened a different part of the mine complex, where coal was mined (hence the name "black diamond"). This was a little more "museum exhibit-like" than the rough interior of the sand mine, but still interesting.
You can see more
here
about previous Mike and Blake adventure trips.
Mike took Great-Grandson Colby over to Sausalito to visit the Corps of Engineers big Bay Model, and after a bite of lunch, they drove into the Marin headlands for a top-down view of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, etc.
A few months ago, Mike and Great-Grandson Colby took a ferry boat across the Bay to San Francisco for a bit of sightseeing. They walked the big park built on the roof of the new Transit Center, saw the leaning Millenium Towers condo building that has been in the news, and took a ride on a Cable Car.
Previous excursions have taken Colby and Mike to Rio Vista and the Western Railway Museum (including old Key System trains that used to run across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco, to Richmond ("largest model railroad layout in the Bay Area"), and to Oakland's Chabot Space and Science Center (met a real live NASA Astronaut!), and to
Mike and Sandy have now been in their new apartment at Viamonte in Walnut Creek for three years. This is proving to be a great move, with one of the benefits being the nice dining room downstairs, which means you only cook if you want to, and have few dirty dishes to deal with. (Of course you also get to sometimes complain that the cook didn't do the dinner just right!) The location is great also, being much closer to places Sandy and Mike drive often, and within walking distance of 2 grocery stores, a Post Office, a UPS store, an Ace Hardware, a drug store, a nail salon, and dozens of restaurants.
It's a little hard to describe Viamonte. It IS an upscale apartment building, but much more than that. It's seniors only, so it has enough activities and amenities to make a Rossmoor proud, plus a menu of a la carte Assisted Living services that can come to your apartment if and when you have need of any of them. There's also a wing of the building with memory care services, should that need arise.
There's a great fitness center and pool, library, and various private rooms we can use. A typical day here is much like being on a cruise ship -- all sorts of activities on and off "the ship" during the day, followed by a nice dinner with "fellow passengers" in the evening!
Here's a series of pictures showing some of Viamonte, and our apartment. There are two courtyards, surrounded by the 4-story building. Our apartment is on the top floor, with a great view of Mt. Diablo right out our windows. (OK, we also see the roof of our neighboring Safeway store, but tilt your head up a bit!)
When Mike's friend Marv still lived in the Bay Area, he and Mike would get their bikes out from time to time and go off for a long ride. This time it was along the Bay front, including the Berkeley Marina, the area behind Golden Gate Fields race track, and the infamous Albany Bulb, a former dump that has become the haunt of "junk" artists. Most of the creations are from drift wood, but a few have lots more effort put into them.
Some months earlier, Mike and Marv bicycled out on the new Bay Bridge, where the dedicated path is finished all the way to Yerba Buena Island. Here they are, with the new bridge's tower behind them.
You can see pictures of some other adventures Mike and Marv have tried
here.
Viamonte seniors this time took an all-day tour of the Presidio of San Francisco. It's bigger than we had realized, and now includes a new mini-park on top of the highway tunnels headed for the Golden Gate Bridge.
At Viamonte, it seems there's never a dull moment. During Fleet Week last year, a group chartered a bus, headed for San Francisco, and watched the Blue Angels show. Their vantage point was the San Francisco Belle, a big Hornblower event boat (originally built as a floating casino on the Mississippi River). Fog shortened the show, but a good time (and a big lunch) was had by all!
Great-Great Grandson Kaiden is now 4. He has some un-happy days, due to some ongoing medical issues, but otherwise is your fun little kid!
Viamonte has a sedate walking group, and a more adventurous one. Mike went with the latter recently on a hike up the slopes of Mt. Diablo to visit a mysterious labyrinth someone built several years ago. Curious, and beautiful views back across the valley.
Sandy's birthday surprise last year was Great-Great Grandson Kaiden, born on her birthday. When Kaiden was one, it was time for Baptism, with Mom and Dad, special Aunt, and God Mother.
Once Covid receded from the headlines, restaurants openws up, and we could resume celebrating birthdays!
Here's son-in-law Blake, taking the guest of honor seat, surrounded by his wife Ginger (Mike's oldest daughter), and Mike and Sandy. They are at Vic's, one of the better known restaurants in Martinez.
There's nothing like a small child (or a puppy!) to take over everyone's attention. Sandy's Great-Great-Grandson Kaiden did just that when he turned one. (Kaiden was Sandy's birthday surprise last year, as he was born on her birthday!)
It's true Christmas was a bit odd during the Covid shutdowns, with social distancing, masks, etc., but 3 year old Addie thought things seemed pretty normal!
And in another branch of the family, Sandy's niece Erin, down in the Los Angeles area, had a 1 year old birthday party for her son Dylan. Both the birthday boy and the dog were tired of waiting for the cake!
It's easy to see that Mike and Sandy are getting a little older, as this holiday season, they only went
to one big party, and even stayed home on New Year's Eve. This picture was at the Blackhawk Women's Christmas
event, which had a theme of "An Evening In Paris."
Great grand kids Addison and big brother Colby got dressed up for Halloween just before Covid arrived,
and had a great time!
Some 15 years ago, a group of ladies volunteered to buy and assemble "gift bags" which are delivered along
with the meal on the birthday of Meals on Wheels receipients. Sandy is now the head of this group, which so far
this year has put together over 1000 bags. Here's Sandy with some of her helpers at a recent work session at the
MoW offices.
Mike and friends Marv and Jesse recently toured the HUGE Amazon "Fullfillment Center" in Tracy. In addition to seeing the massive building, and learning how they operate 24X7, we learned about their robots and quite unconventional inventory system.
(On "Prime Day" last July, this particular warehouse shipped over 14 million packages -- that's about 165 packages per second over the 24 hour day.)
Mike has volunteered for a University of California-Berkeley study of how older people's brains change
over time, with one of the goals being to figure out how to predict dementia before it strikes. Part of this
involves doing various sorts of tests while inside an MRI machine. Mike talked the experimenters into
letting him snap a picture of the computer monitors of his scans one recent morning after some testing.
The second study at UC Berkeley that Mike is participating in involves monitoring your brain functions
while you are sleeping. Mike spent two nights in a make-shift bedroom in the UC Psychology Building wired up
to the EEG machine. Of course all these wires and tubes complicated sleeping at all! Here's the front and
rear view just before bedtime.
Grand-daughter Trisha had a birthday recently and is now moving to a new, higher level job, so
congratulations were in order. Three of Mike and Sandy's 5 great-grand-children were present at the dinner.
All this cellphone talk about 5G is nothing compared to this 4 G(eneration) picture, showing Sandy, her son Mark,
his daughter Trisha, and her soon-to-be-2 daughter Addison.
Sintaro Village, roughly in the middle of Ethiopia, is really poor, and Mike & Sandy's church is approaching the end of a 10-year project to help. A new well, storage tanks, and a fresh-water distribution system have greatly improved health in the village, and kids are showing amazing growth in the new school build in the village. The village disn't originally have electricity, and the project provided some solar panels on the school roof and a few LED lights for evening adult classes, while waiting for electricity. (Many of the villagers had never seen an electric light.)
Mike & Sandy are providing scholarships for two boys now in the school.
Skipping the big New Year's Eve events at the end of 2018, Sandy and Mike enjoyed a quiet dinner with some friends in the
neighborhood. While the men talked about cars, sports, and politicians, the wives talked about something else
(maybe their husbands ?).
Mike and Sandy joined several dozen others from their church on a 6-boat flotilla up the Sacramento River for an over-night stay in Old Town. Sunday morning they gathered on a beach along the
American River for services before heading back down stream and home. (Mike is easy to find, wearing his bright red baseball cap.)
While Sandy was focused on plans for her 80th birthday family gathering at Sun River, Oregon,
Sneaky Mike quietly worked for months organizing a big surprise party/brunch for her. More than 60 attended, including neighbors, church friends, high school class mates,
former neighbors, friends from Sandy's charitable work, etc. And the giant chocolate cake was delicious!
Sandy and Mike were thrilled to be at the wedding of their Great Grand-Daughter
Kerri and Alex recently. The newly weds moved to Guam, where Alex was serving
in the Navy.
Great Grandson Colby traveled with Mike up to Jamestown, where they rode the old steam train, and saw
all the old trains in the round-house maintenance shop.
When Mike and Sandy's youngest Great Grand-child, Addison, had a BIG one-year birthday party, it wasn't clear that she
understood the symbolism of everything, but really easy to tell she liked the birthday cake!
Mike and friend Gary went to the top of Mt. Umunhum near San Jose for amazing Bay Area views. This peak has a massive concrete building which housed a huge Cold War radar installation, plus the modern day radar site for the Weather Bureau
(the images you see on the TV news weather reports come from here).
Mike and Sandy traveled to the Palm Springs area to see the big remodel job wrapping up
at son Rick's condo, and to visit with friends who live nearby. In addition to touring the
big windmill power generation operation out by the Interstate, they took in the Palm Springs
VillageFest, a weekly street fair. Here's Sandy and son Rick.
Grandson Jon lived with his Dad in Roseville for a while so they had more opportunities
to do some travel and adventures together.
Mike hasn't skied in about 10 years, but when his jury duty was cancelled,
he decided to head to the mountains for a day of Spring skiing. Here he is at Boreal Ridge summit.
And no broken bones!
Mike's daughter Patty is now settled in at her new apartment in Concord, and enjoying being
closer in to town than at her previous digs.
Grandson Ryan had a birthday, but why stick with a traditional birthday cake when
you can enjoy Grandma Sandy's famous cheesecake? Here's the birthday boy, with Dad Mark, sister
Trisha, and nephew Colby looking on.
Son Rick continues his hobby of skateboarding (even though he could be called a "senior skateboarder" from several
perspectives). Here he is at a friend's house, who has a swimming pool-shaped skate bowl in his backyard.
Mike went to Mexico for a week camping out with 210 teenagers (and some other adults) from Mike &
Sandy's church to build new houses for 14 poor families. The project was in a "shanty town" area east of
Tijuana. Here he's showing how wall framing is done. You can read more about the project, and see some pictures,
here.
Grandson Ryan Darius recently married Courtney, expanding our family. The newly-weds just
bought a house in Martinez, and like new home-owners everywhere, are repainting and tailoring
it to their needs.
Well at least Sandy got into the Halloween spirit! Here's she's in costume heading out to a
bridge group event.
Sandy's son Rick bought a 2nd home in Kernville, in the mountains east of Bakersfield,
where he is a river rafting guide many summer weekends. Sandy was invited down to admire the new
house, and Mike was invited dow to fix some things on the home inspection report. Here's Sandy and
Rick overlooking the nearby Kern River.
Grand-daughter Trisha was the host for the Christmas morning brunch two years ago, giving Sandy
a break. Son Mike and Grandson Jon, up from Bakersfield, got the "longest distance traveled"
award. Here's everyone, except for Mike the photographer.
Son-in-law Blake chose an Italian restaurant to celebrate this year's birthday,
maybe because of the yummy deserts they offer (which somehow got slid over in
front of Mike).
Son Rick has a day job, but one of his loves is being a guide on river rafting trips.
Here he is coming through the Grand Canyon on a recent Colorado River trip.
Mike convinced Sandy it would be great fun (just once!!) to join the New Year's Eve crowd
in New York's Times Square. Here they are about an hour before the ball dropped, and the view
down the street -- asupposedly about 1 million people there -- cold weather, but no snow. Along with friends
Buzz and Doreen, they also took
in the 9/11 Memorial, the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes, and other New York sights.
Sandy used to be a regular performer in the Assistance League's "Show on the Road" troupe, which visits area
assisted living facilities. In past shows, Sandy has played in a "flapper" in a Roaring 20's production, in a "Grease" -type show, as one of
Snow White's dwarfs, as a lion, etc.
Mike was a volunteer for the 3-year complete rebuild of the San Francisco City Academy building in the Tenderloin area.
The Academy, a Christian K-8 school, is very successful, with over 100 students now enrolled.
Mike and Sandy recently joined a family party which saw Sandy and all 3 of her sisters together,
a fairly unusual event, as the four live in different towns, hundreds of miles apart.
Here's Sheila, Barbara (since deceased), Sandy (the oldest), and Carla, in a rare picture.
Sandy and Mike owned a lake house for six years.
You can see a few highights of the good times there
here.
Want to know more about Sandy and Mike?
You can read their "bios" here , or
you could read more about their grand-kids here.
