Anyway, 2004 was a good year. It was the last good year with my ex-wife. We actually took three vacations that summer. One of these trips, while my daughters were gone off to Hawaii for a church missions project, my (then) wife took my parents for a tour of the Sierras, driving to Reno and Monterey.
We went to Manzanar Relocation Center--a favorite place of my ex-wife and me. They had just recently rebuilt the High School Cafeteria/Community Hall as a museum. (For those who don't know, this was one of those camps where they had West Coast residents of Japanese ancestry during World War II live for most of that time.)
From there we spent the night at Mammoth Lakes. I will never forget that night, about 3 AM, when I got up to get a drink of water. We had the hotel window open and I heard a noise downstairs. I didn't have my glasses on but I looked outside and saw what looked like a beggar wearing a yellow raincoat rummaging through the garbage. When I put my glasses on, I saw that it was a brown bear.
The next day, we went to the Ponderosa Ranch in Incline Village, Nevada. For those of you who have been wanting to see this place, it's too late. The place closed its doors the end of September 2004. This was the theme park based on the Bonanza TV series. It was the first theme park I had ever seen that had its own line of liquor.
Well, so much has changed since then. It was only three years ago. I got divorced and remarried. My father died. And I am living in Vietnam.
