Family Vacation - Day 9
I woke up Saturday morning after a wonderful night’s sleep. Maria made pancakes for breakfast again and Duncan and I hit the trails one more time after the breakfast dishes were cleaned up. We found a cool clearing nestled on a hill surrounded by mountains with very little access – a perfect place to put our future home. We made some mental notes and headed back to the cabin to tell the wife what we found.
We left the cabin after a few minutes and went down to the Altapass Apple Orchard, which is also right of the Blue Ridge Parkway. They had some old dude singing songs and playing a guitar for some church goin’ blue-hair types when we arrived. Duncan and Maria went on a hayride down the mountainside and into the orchard while I went and explored the store and a blacksmith that was pounding away on an anvil not too far away. Other than the hayride, there wasn’t much else to do for Duncan so, after letting him pick a couple of apples from one of the trees, we took off and went back to the cabin for some rest.
After a whole 30 minutes or so of sitting around doing nothing, Duncan and I decide to take Mommy back on the trails and show her where we want to build a house. Of course, she loves the site and we walk around and explore a little bit before we head back. We are on a path that edges the forest and separates the opening we were just exploring. Duncan loves to lead on the trails so he was in front, followed by Maria, with me bringing up the rear. As we cruise by some interesting things, I call out for them to stop where they are and turn around, without coming back at all. They do so, mostly, and I point out that have just walked past a coiled rattlesnake that was no more than 3 or 4 feet to the left side of the path. Obviously, Maria is a little freaked out at this point as they just walked right on by the thing, completely oblivious to its existence. It seemed to be comfortably resting there until I poked my camera lens in its face an ruined his illusion of camouflage. We took off quickly back up the path – away from the snake – wondering just what else we had missed tromping around through the woods all week.
Maria and Duncan needed some rest so I let them stay behind at the cabin and I went out on my own. I cruised down the BRP and stopped at all those little roadside viewing stations, snapping pics all the way. About 30 minutes down the road, I come across this park called Crabtree Falls State Park. Nifty. I like waterfalls. Unfortunately, it is about 5:45pm at this point and the sky is hinting of rain. What the hell. Off down the path I go from the trailhead to see some cool waterfall. The hike was a very arduous 45 minute path down to the falls. I’m glad Duncan wasn’t with me at that time because, though I have no doubt he could make the journey, it would have taken forever and a day for him to pick his way through the trail and across the many creeks required to get to the falls… not to mention the seriously steep inclines and slippery rock formations that had to be climbed over. I was thinking while I’m hiking, here I am, a glow-in-the-dark white city boy armed with a camera, hiking down the side of a craggy mountain in the twilight and nobody has any clue where I am. Duh. I felt like such a tourist at that point. Anyway, I find my way through the woods and eventually come to the falls. Way cool. Lots of pics. Loved it. Now it’s getting dark and I’m in the bottom of a mountain gorge. It took me another 45 minutes to get back up the side of the mountain and back to the trailhead – which I thought was pretty good since I was going up instead of down. Of course, the steady flow of adrenaline that was propelling me up the trail helped, but hey, I made it back to blog about it.
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Crabtree Falls.
I got back to the cabin after my harrowing ordeal and Maria barely acknowledged that I had arrived. Hrmpf. I’ll just keep the pics to myself then! She made some gourmet burritos and we washed them down with some Cotes du Rhone French red wine (’03) and followed up with cherry pies and s’mores over the campfire (for those tracking, that’s 3 awesome campfires in a row after that first sucky one!). It was sort of a gloomy night tonight because we were both thinking the same thing – we have to go back home tomorrow. Bummer.
Family Vacation - Day 8
Although I didn’t freeze us out of the cabin last night, I still didn’t sleep real well. It might have been the absolute silence of the mountains. It might have been the plastic mattress cover that made me dream I was wearing diapers. It might have been heartburn from those wonderful calzones. I don’t know but I was up at about 7:00am and just got myself around for the day. Again, after breakfast, I went out exploring with Duncan and we found that there was a trailhead hidden between some bushes about 20 feet from our cabin! We decided to be adventurous and check it out.
This path went straight down the side of the mountain. One loss of footing and it was adios until you landed on the bottom. It did look like there were some solid foot and hand holds going down so I told Duncan I would help him down. We never slipped once and made it down to the bottom of the hill, which ended at a creek. The trail turned right from there and quickly went into some overgrown rhododendron bushes lining either side of the path. Now, at this point in the day, it is about 10:30am. The sun is bright, the clouds were light, and this pathway was reminiscent of twilight. I had no earthly idea where it went so I told Duncan we would check out a map and come back later. Having remembered that Black Bears were ‘native’ to this area, he was ready to back anyway. I put him in front of me on the hill so I could get him if he lost his hold. That kid shot up the side of that mountain, scaling what I learned later to be 210 feet of dirt and roots in about 7 minutes. I was out of breath trying to keep up with him but he was determined that he could outrun a bear if it was chasing him up a hill (something the Park Ranger told him).
We got back to the top and waiting for us in the cabin was Maria. We jumped into the Aztek and headed out for today’s adventure: Gem Mountain and the Linville Caverns. We started out with Gem Mountain since it was right there in Spruce Pine. We purchased a loaded bucket of precious and semi-precious rocks, in which we had to sift through the whole thing with screen pans in a water flume in order to find them. Duncan had a blast and loved every minute of it. He thought there was everything from gold to diamonds in this ‘special dirt’ and he was determined to find it and strike it rich. The reality of it was that Mommy and Daddy had to watch to make sure he wasn’t throwing out any of those ‘ugly’ stones, like Rubies, Peridot, and Topaz. By the end of our time there, we had reduced that five pound bucket to 5 little baggies of loot, which we took into the gemologist and learned what we had. I was shocked to learn that we had Emeralds, Rubies, Topaz, Tourmaline, Garnets, Amethyst, and a host of other gems in this rock heap! We picked a rather large chuck of Amethyst and had them schedule it to be cut and polished. It will be cool to see how that turns out.
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Gem hunting at Gem Mountain.
After a quick break for lunch at a Greek/Italian restaurant, we headed out for Linville Caverns. Maria and I had gone to several caverns about a year ago in Virginia for our anniversary. This was Duncan’s first time in a cave though and he had visions of Batman dancing in his head. The area around the cavern entrance was gorgeous with two streams meeting near a bridge that led into the parking lot. We were surrounded by mountain walls on all sides but the stream entrance and exit and the dark green foliage was dotted with flowers of purple and yellow. The smell was just so…. clean! I am really starting to not want to leave these mountains. After the tour guide got enough people, we all huddled by the door and went into the caverns. These particular caverns are interesting because they are a ‘live’ limestone cavern system with a 46 degree mountain stream running right through it. This stream has fish in it – a type of trout that is semi-albino now because it has evolved in the caves. As with most caverns, it’s a steady 52 degrees all the time, which would make one awesome mead cellar if you could swing it. We explored the cave, learned some history and took some more pics. Duncan was impressed with the caves but disappointed that he kept getting dripped on. The tour guide mentioned to him that what he was experiencing was a ‘cave kiss’ and it was generally thought of as good luck. Duncan, being 6 years old with very set ideas already, took this to mean that the water dripping on him was slobber and immediately wanted to exit the cave, which we did shortly thereafter.
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We just strolled around the mountains a little bit on the way back home and we all decided we weren’t really hungry for dinner. We finished the night with another awesome campfire (thank you very much) and some s’mores for dinner. Yummy.
Family Vacation - Day 7
Ah! Our first morning in the woods! Beautiful! I’m feeling smug as I watch the other campers heading for the bath house, knowing that I have a nice warm shower waiting for me in our bathroom – something I’m looking forward to in order to take the chill of the night away. I jump in the shower, vaguely noticing the miniature shower head with the check valve on it, and proceed to lather up and wash my hair – taking my time and enjoying the hot water. About 2-1/2 minutes later, I feel the water start to go cold. Hm. I reach down and turn the cold water knob to off and realize that I’m basically out of hot water! Grr… I wind up finishing my shower with cold water and step out into the dry cold air conditioned air of the cabin with goose bumps a plenty. I later realized that there is a 2 gallon hot water tank and that you are supposed to lather up with the nozzle off and then turn it back on when you need to rinse. Good information to have.
Maria made us a great breakfast of pancakes and syrup and while she is taking a shower, Duncan and I take a hike around the campground to check things out. We find 2 playgrounds, a stock pond for fishing, numerous hiking trails, and not too many people. After just a few minutes, we meet Maria back at the cabin and we’re off exploring the town of Spruce Pine. After while, we decide to head over to Grandfather Mountain and point the Aztek in that direction, guided of course by the iQue. Since we couldn’t tell the dumb thing that the road was closed, we waited until we were well into the detour before we told it where we were going. Problem solved. It got us there and back no problems.
On the way there, we got hungry and decided to stop at a little place called simply, The Italian Restaurant. We all got calzones and, let me tell you, these things were the best I have every had! If you are ever headed to Linville to see Grandfather Mountain, stop by this place for a calzone – you won’t regret it! After finishing lunch we quickly arrive at our destination.
Grandfather Mountain is a cool place. It’s a bit expensive, but you only pay one fee at the gate and that’s it. We first went to the museum where Duncan and I posed with the bronze casting of Mildred the Bear and watched a goofy movie about Grandfather Mountain in the auditorium. We then stepped out back and saw some of the critters that they have penned up there on the mountain. The first ones we came across were a pair of Bald Eagles, rescued from being shot somewhere out west. They were in the wide open because they couldn’t fly. I couldn’t help but thinking they were in a prison with no walls, but whatever. Then we saw some deer. These things were the biggest White Tails I have ever seen. I don’t know what they were feeding these things but they were big. Next was the Bears. We saw a total of about 5 Black Bears that we were told are native to the area. When Duncan asked us what that meant, and we helpfully told him that it meant they lived in the mountains, he immediately wanted to go back to the car. Oops.
Next stop was the Mile High Swinging Bridge. They call it this because it is a suspension bridge that is at an altitude of over 6600 feet above sea level. We all went across and marveled at the scenery all around. The pass that the bride was straddling was so high, you could stand in the middle of the bridge, watch the clouds coming at you and then the cloud just envelops you as it passes by, leaving you with a damp feeling that you were just coated with moisture. Interesting. Lots of pics and then we headed back down, where we stopped several times in the scenic outlooks and took more pics. All in all, a very cool place and recommended.
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Swinging Mile High Bridge at Grandfather Mountain, NC .
On the way home, I became determined that the campfire was going to be a good one tonight. Maria was set to cook dinner over the fire and I didn’t want to let her down. So when we got back, Duncan and I set to work on the fire. It was beautiful! Large licking flames, a perfect wooden tee-pee in the middle, plenty of kindling to get it started – and Maria made pasta on the stove in the cabin. I guess she didn’t trust my fire making skills after my poor first showing. As a consolation prize, she put some biscuits in the pie maker and we had campfire biscuits to go along with our pasta and leftover calzones, heated in the microwave. Ahhh…. Roughing it is so much fun.
Family Vacation - Day 6
This morning, we left my Mother’s house at about 6:00am, heading for the mountains of North Carolina for some much needed R&R. We have this little gadget called an iQue that is a portable GPS unit that we have come to rely on. Most of the time it is pretty reliable and this time was really no exception for the most part. I’m writing a letter to the map software people to request that they put in the option to avoid NASCAR race tracks. We wound up going right past the Bristol Speedway and it was bumper to bumper craziness for about an hour – all to go about 1 mile. Grr.. After we push on through and get to the road we were working toward, we find that we could have just stayed on our original path and been fine but the iQue routed us a shorter distance. Grr…
So we finally make it to the Blue Ridge Parkway and we start to see detour signs. This is not good. The campground we have reservations at is on the BRP. Apparently, the hurricanes that flooded the mountain regions of North Carolina last year wiped out the road that runs through an area between Spruce Pine and Linville. Of course, the iQue wants us to go right on through that very route. So… we jump off and trusting that the iQue will route us nicely to the campground. We wound up on some of the most back-woods looking paths that could barely be called a road. It was like the damn gadget on the dashboard was mad at us for not going where it wanted us to go! After some very scenic views, we did wind up back on the right path and made it back on the other side of the BRP headed toward our camp ground, the
Bear Den.
.Duncan in the loft
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The Blue Ridge Parkway was closed literally at the entrance to our campsite. We pull in after hours but found the check-in package with our name on it and proceed to the cabin we reserved. It was awesome. It was rustic and homey but still had some basic amenities like TV, stove, refrigerator, microwave and AC. Hehee… not really roughing it but we were there to get away, have a campfire, burn some marshmallows and see the sites. Of course, being me the first thing I did in the cabin was crank the AC and then went out to start a fire in the fire ring. Duncan was all for this and eventually Maria met us out there with some stuff for pizza pies in the cast iron pie cooker. Unfortunately, my fire was lame and the damn thing went out about half way through the first set of pies. Maria set the iron in the coals and proceeded to burn them. Obviously, we could use some practice with this campfire stuff. Time for Plan B – we moved inside, made grilled cheese and pizzas in the microwave and toasted the night with a bottle of Bel Lago Cherry Wine from the Leelanau Peninsula in MI (vintage 2004). Perfect.
Ok, it’s starting to get cold in here. I kill the AC. We crawl into bed finding the covers to be woefully inadequate. We cuddle up together and attempt to keep each other warm until morning, when we found additional blankets for cold weather. Like I said, we are a little rusty with this whole camping thing.
Family Vacation - Day 5
I can sum up this day pretty easily:
Fishing from the dock.
Fishing from the paddle boat.
Fishing from shore.
Look! A snake!
Lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Okemos.
Fishing until it got dark.
Family Vacation - Day 4
Slept in a little this morning – ‘till about 8:45am or so. Got up and showered and started helping my dad get things back to the Rental store. My son, Duncan, rode along with us and had a blast – at 6 years old, anything new is an adventure, and this one consisted of him riding in the back of an extended cab pick-up truck. After several trips to and fro, including a very sad moment when I had to help return a half-full keg of beer, we were finished and visited for a few minutes before we all decided we were hungry.
There is a special little restaurant that I used to frequent when I lived in Charlotte called the Hong Kong restaurant. The food was good and it was a basic little mom & pop type restaurant, where the Chinese cuisine was prepared by a very nice gentleman from Mexico and the rest of the business was run by very American wife. This sounds a little goofy but it worked and I loved the food. I got to know the owners over time and brought them a lot of business over the years. When we arrived at the restaurant, I was disappointed to see that they had been closed for some time. I don’t know the story, but it looks like they just closed their doors one day and didn’t come back. Bummer. I already miss that place. I had to settle for an okay second choice of a Chinese buffet on the other end of town. It was ok, but it wasn’t the same as Tony’s cooking.
After lunch and a quick goodbye, we were off to stay with my Mother for a few nights in Williamston, MI. We took a detour through Lansing to see how the city had changed since we had lived there. Much of it was the same, but the towns around it are changing quickly. As soon as we arrived at my Mother’s house, my wife and son had the fishing poles out and were casting off the dock on the small lake that my Mother lives on. It took a couple of minutes but my wife finally caught that fish!
Duncan's first fish!.
It wasn’t long and my Mother and the rest of the household were out fishing with us off the dock. After a few minutes, my mother offered the use of her paddle boat to my wife and son and they jumped at the chance. It was about this time that Duncan finally caught his first fish right from the paddle boat. It was a whopper of a Sunfish coming in at about 6” in length and weighed about 10 lbs. based on the way he was struggling with it trying to reel it in. He was full of pride as he hoisted it out of the water and displayed it for all to see. The rest of the time we were at my Mother’s house, it was all about the fishing.
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I should add here that if you are a Vegan animal lover, it probably is a conflict of interest to go fishing. My wife, fitting this description, was working feverishly to get the hook out of the fish's mouth whenever one was caught, appologizing to the fish the entire time. This seemed to rub off on Duncan a little bit because when the fish was finally released he threw his arms up in a sort of victory celebration and proclaimed with passion: "It lives! It's alive! The fish is okay!". I just didn't know what to say to that sort of display of emotion. The only redeaming thing I could see here is that, even though they both expressed deep emotion and care for the fish, they still ran a barbed piece of steel through their lips and yanked them out of their homes. Perhaps there is hope for them yet.
Family Vacation - Day 3
I slept OK last night but for some reason was ready to get up around 8:00am. I got up and started burning the CDs that I hadn’t gotten to last night. All in all it took 5 CDs to house the pictures that I took from the moment I arrived to this point. Little did I know, there were more to come.
When my newly married sister and brother-in-law walked in the door somewhere around mid morning, I handed them the CDs and was ready to get on with other tasks besides pictures. Guess again. I quickly found out that their intentions were to open their wedding gifts and they requested I take pictures of this event as well. Ok, fine. I set up the tripod and grabbed a chair. Click. Click. Click. Ooooo… Ahh…. Done. Here’s another photo CD archive for you. I must say that at this point I realized that I had taken well over 1000 pictures with my sturdy new camera – without recharging the battery! This may not sound like much at first but this is an 8 mega pixel SLR camera and I was anticipating that I would outshoot the battery. Not so. I was also pleased that I shot for the entire day on Saturday without changing the CF card. Granted, this is a 4GB micro-drive but it was still sweet to not have to worry about it. I highly recommend this camera to any semi-serious photographer or other hack like me that likes to take pictures.
After the gifts, I assisted in cleaning and packing up some of the rental equipment that needs to be returned tomorrow. This went well and we were done sometime in the afternoon, leaving time for an impromptu game of back yard volleyball with the kids. Good clean wholesome fun with Papa, Uncle Bonzai and the kids.
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Papa & Duncan at the 'fishin' hole'
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Sometime late in the afternoon, we decided we were going fishing. There is a stocked little fishing hole somewhere in the middle of a corn field in Charlotte where a kind old soul named “Eddie” keeps the area looking like a manicured park. This is where we went fishing – my 6 year old son for the first time in his life. Normally the fish are jumping out of this pond to bite your hook. I don’t know if it was the smell of North Carolina on the hook or what but they weren’t having anything to do with us tonight. Among the many people dangling lines in the water, thee were two of us that caught small fish that night – my nephew and me. The funny part of this little story was that my wife, who had to be talked into going to see her own son’s first fishing experience, grabbed a pole after about 10 minutes of watching and was determined that she wasn’t leaving until she caught a fish! Hm. After about an hour of no activity in the water, the kids started entertaining themselves in other ways – running around, catching frogs, etc. My wife wasn’t budging. Another hour rolls by and she is the only one with a line cast. Another 30 minutes go by and now, the sun has set and the stars are visible. We’ll try again tomorrow, dear, let’s go! Eventually she was lured back into the cars and we were able to go home for the night.
Family Vacation - Day 2
We woke up and quickly went through our scheduled bathroom time for showering. After I got out of the shower, I walked downstairs and realized it was raining. This wasn’t good since the wedding was supposed to take place at 10:45am in the back yard. Hm. Sure enough, My sister walks in a few minutes later on the edge of a meltdown. After being assured that a ‘plan B’ was in place and that the wedding would go on as planned, she finally left for the hair dresser. This is where my fun started. “Plan B” basically brought the wedding into the house, working on the assumption that many of the guests wouldn’t come to an outdoor wedding if it was raining. I quickly reorganized my plans for pictures and set up the tripod in a strategic location. Cool… Let’s do this.
It’s time for the wedding. The Mayor of Charlotte is in the main room waiting to perform the ceremony. The groom and the rest of the wedding party, along with those that were present for the wedding, were patiently waiting for the bride to descent the stairs and get on with the ceremony. And we waited. And waited. The Mayor was getting a little nervous, which was why he typically doesn’t do wedding ceremonies anymore. After making this acceptation, I can only imagine that he was second guessing his decision. As it turns out, my niece, who’s birthday fell on the same day as the wedding, was feeling the need for some attention and was causing the delay – not misgivings from the bride. Finally, she came down the stairs and the wedding went on without a hitch.
After the wedding, the wedding party and a few family members went to Holland, MI for pictures at the beach. Yes, for those who know where my parents live, this constitutes an hour and a half drive (one way) for pictures. This isn’t as bad as it sounds because the theme of the wedding was that of a “beach theme” complete with leys and Hawaiian shirts. Also, my niece doesn’t count her birthday as ‘official’ unless she goes to the beach. Off to the beach we go – and the pics turned out great.
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My wife, son and me at Lake Michigan.
Several hours later, we are back at the house and I’m taking pictures at the reception. Tons of pictures. Of all the family. And friends. And guests. And the food, cake, etc… When it was said and done, I had taken 938 pictures throughout the day and I wasn’t done yet. The reception was a good time and wound down a little early at around 10:30pm or so. The neighbor pitched in and helped pick up the mess in the yard while my parents cleaned up the food and dishes. All in all, the whole deal cleaned up real well.
Following the clean-up effort, I began downloading and sorting the pics I had been snapping all day. It quickly became apparent that I was going to have to take some time to get these things archived to CD for my sister. I started the process but never burned a CD tonight. I’ll work on it in the morning before she gets here.
Family Vacation - Day 1
We left early this morning at about 5:00am. This got us through the worst parts of North Carolina without getting involved in rush hour traffic. Maria took first shift driving, which turned out to be a good thing as her and Duncan are prone to car sickness and just having her drive seems to stem some of her symptoms. Duncan and I were crashed out for the first several hours of the trip.
Around the Virginia/West Virginia border, Duncan asked to watch a movie on his laptop – which is the usual for him on our long trips. Unfortunately, the last time I re-installed the operating system on his laptop, I never installed a DVD player. Sooo… when we pop ‘Nemo’ in the drive and wait for that cuddly little fish to start swimming around the screen, we were very disappointed when we received an error from Microsoft Media Player saying that we don’t have the proper codec to play the DVD. Grrr…. Now we get to look forward to about 9 hours in the car with nothing to entertain the 6-year old in the back. Fortunately, Duncan chose to sleep most of the way up to MI, which is his way of dealing with his car sickness issue. He sits in his seat, pulls a blanket over his head and body and goes to sleep. Strange, I know, but hey – it works and he’s happy.
We arrive at my parent’s house, expecting to chill out for the rest of the evening as we gear up and get ready for the wedding the following day. Instead, there is a party going on and we are quickly involved in the thick of things. Since I’m the photographer for the wedding, I quickly am shown around the yard and participate in the rehearsal so I can see who will be where and when. Great. I break out the camera and away we go. So much for some rest. My sister and her fiancé are there with parents everywhere, all pulling me to the side and letting me know what ‘special’ pictures they wanted taken. Great fun. At about 10:00pm I started to crash and I went to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.
So, Sir Eddie...
Do tell me what kinda new hats your wearing at the new job? Haven't heard much about it yet. So after thwarting a thousand network scans, do ya get another thousand off your next Mercedes.... Hehe...
Worth Repeating
The following passage is from a sermon by John Hagee of
Cornerstone Church in San Antonio.
“I want you to close your eyes and picture in your mind the soldier at Valley Forge, as he holds his musket in his bloody hands. He stands barefoot in the snow, starved from lack of food, wounded from months of battle and emotionally scarred from the eternity away from his family. Surrounded by nothing but death and the carnage of war. He stands though, with fire in his eyes and victory on his breath. He looks at us now in anger and disgust and tells us this.”
“I gave you a birthright of freedom born in the Constitution and now your children graduate too illiterate to read it.”
“I fought in the snow barefoot to give you the freedom to vote and you stay at home because it rains!”
“I left my family destitute to give you the freedom of speech and you remain silent on critical issues, because it might be bad for business.”
“I orphaned my children to give you a government to serve you and it has stolen democracy from the people.”
“It’s the soldier, not the reporter who gives you the freedom of the press.”
‘It’s the soldier, not the poet who gives you the freedom of speech.”
“It’s the soldier, not the campus organizer who allows you to demonstrate.”
“It’s the soldier, who salutes the flag, serves the flag, whose coffin is draped with the flag that allows the protester to burn the flag!”
“Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. Amen.”
Learning from Legends
I attended the 2nd annual West Coast Kenpo Confederation over the weekend in Longbeach, CA. Wow. I don’t know how else to say it. Among other things, it was an opportunity to meet others that study the art from around the world and train with masters from different disciplines. There were some notable Grandmaster’s there as well, including two founding Grandmasters: Chuck Sullivan – founder of the IKCA, and Steve Mohammad – founder of the BKF.
The atmosphere was very open and everyone was very gracious. I personally met with and was instructed by some of the finest Kenpo practitioners in the world today, including Chuck Sullivan, Vic LeRoux, Steve Mohammad, Robert Temple, Doug Meeks, Dian Tanaka, Paul Metz, Jerry Brooksher, Shawn Monday, and so many others that it would take an entire page to list them all. They were all very approachable and willing to pass on their incredible knowledge to whoever was interested in learning. Being instructed by these people was very educational and very humbling at the same time.
I was fortunate enough to have been instructed by a very friendly gentleman that very much enjoyed telling stories from days past. He introduced himself as Chuck Boyd and explained that he trained alongside Vic LeRoux under Chuck Sullivan and Ed Parker. For those that don’t know, Ed Parker is largely credited with bringing Kenpo to the United States and is the founder of American Kenpo. Mr. Boyd told of several personal accountings, such as when Chuck Norris first came to see Chuck Sullivan to learn about Kenpo. It was interesting that Mr. Boyd remembered the tenacity that Chuck Norris had regarding what he was learning… he stated that Chuck simply wouldn’t stop until he had the technique or maneuver down pat. He also recalled a day in 1967 when a gentleman known as Bruce Lee walked in the front door looking for Mr. Sullivan. He had some interesting and somewhat surprising tales of a particular time when Steve Sanders (now Steve Mohammad) was sparring and working out with Bruce Lee. What a time it must have been to be studying then. But truthfully, this conference allowed access to some of the same people and it was an honor to be able to talk with them.
I am looking forward to next year’s event already. I have spoken with my wife and I think that next time, we are going to plan a vacation around the event and spend some more time out there. I can hardly wait!
