We arrived this morning in Helsinki. It is now about 7:30 pm. I fell on the bed and fell asleep just after our kind hosts dropped us at the apartment and got us a bit oriented. i.e. where to throw out trash and recyclable items including compost.

We went out to check out our neighborhood and locate a grocery store around five pm. Almost as soon as we had left our building, it occurred to me that although I had brought a shopping bag, I had not brought the camera.

The weather is beautiful. In fact we have fans on in the apartment. It is definitely more humid than we are used to.

We are about a block from a yacht harbor and only a few blocks from a huge park.

The apartment reminds me a lot of the faculty apartment in Paris. It is an older building and not a modern apartment. It is two flights up with a number code to get into the main door. It is like Leanna's apartment in L'viv - two doors at the apartment door. One swings out and the other swings in. The toilet is down the hall by the front door, but it actually has a small sink to wash your hands; however, nowhere to hang a hand towel. The shower and laundry are just off the "vestibule." The washing machine is like most European ones and takes about two hours to wash a load. However, we apparently can use the washer and dryer at the same time without electrical problems. The dryer has no vent so it has a large reservoir to collect water that has to be emptied periodically. The apartment has a big kitchen, office, living room and dining room and two bedrooms. The more comfortable bedroom with the better closet is next to the busy street we live on, so we are going to use the other one that is in the rear of the building and more quiet.

At the grocery store we stood in line behind an empty stroller and we could hear a mother calliing to a child not far away. The mother showed up with a beautiful little three year old girl who was pushing a tiny shopping cart carrying all of their groceries. She did an excellent job of putting as many of the groceries as she could onto the conveyor belt by herself. Of course, I could not help but smile. And to my delight, the woman turned to us and talked to us in Finnish. So nice not to be recognized immediately as an American tourist, but probably as a grandmother.

That is about it for the moment. Tomorrow we will go to Earl's new office and the department building. Like many universities in large cities, there is no formal campus, just buildings scattered around the city.

I'll be sure to keep you posted on new discoveries.

USMC Jet Down

Several nights a week the jets from Miramar fly on night missions. They make it impossible to hear TV and frequently fly after ten at night. They are a part of living here so it felt like a personal loss when we learned that a USMC jet was reported missing. It went down over the Pacific Wednesday night and the crew were not rescued for 4 hours.

The picture taken from our back door does not really show you how low and how close the Marine jets fly to the house we rent.

Gemma

Gemma and her mother Kristi arrived on Saturday, August the 6th. It has been lots of fun having this very serious baby come to visit. Now that she smiles readily at me, I feel as if I have made a huge conquest.

Since her mother loves the beach and water, she has been very anxious for Gemma to fall in love with both. So far she seems to be quite happy with the pool. Today when we walked on the beach, Grandpa pushed the stroller on the sidewalk while Kristi and I walked along the sand. We have yet to find out what Gemma thinks about the taste of sand.

And yes. Gemma is wearing Turk's blue hoodie to protect her from the sun's rays.

Foggy Day

Most mornings we drive to La Jolla Shores and walk on the beach. Frequently it is foggy in the morning. Yesterday when we left the house, it was a sunshiny, glorious day. On our 10 to 15 minute to the beach we go over Interstate 5. As we approached the entrance, we could see a brown cloud hanging in the air. It seemed to rise from the ground and separate into two clouds. It almost look like smoke but we could smell nothing in the air. As we got closer to the freeway, I could see that the freeway below us was shrouded in fog. Going up over the mountain we encountered the most fog we have ever seen on the coast.

At the beach itself, we could see only a few surfers riding the waves like ghosts in the mist. We turned north and walked towards a mass of fog. There was no evidence that we were walking towards Scripps pier. Finally it came into sight but even next to it, we could not see where the pier ended in the ocean.

Before we left the sun was already starting to burn through the mist. We don't expect to see a day quite like this one again for a long time.

USS Bonhomme Richard

On a beautiful sunny day, Earl, Leanna, Turk and I went out to Point Loma to see the monument of Cabrillo and the view of the Pacific from the most southern point of California.

At one time the lighthouse was set at the top of the point. However it was not long before it was discovered that the light shining from this small white building could not be seen at sea below the marine layer*. Another lighthouse was built close to the water's edge that successfully warned seafarers of the land ahead.







The Point is now under the care of the National Park Service even though it appears to be part of a military compound. From the visitors' center we could see the harbor of San Diego and the beach in front of the famous Hotel del Coronado. As we were watching, we saw a submarine leave the harbor on its way out to sea. We watched it until it disappeared beyond our view. Shortly after that, another US Navy ship sailed out to the Pacific. It was not until later that we discovered that the ship was the USS Bonhomme Richard.

From above the ship looked a lot like an aircraft carrier. It has a flight deck but it also has the capability of carrying smaller assault vessels.

That evening as we were trying to find out which ship in the San Diego fleet carried the number 6 on the tower, Earl discovered that it is the fifth carnation of a ship that he toured as a teenager in San Francisco.

The original ship was a gift from King Louis XVI of France to the struggling new nation of the United States. It was named in honor of Benjamin Franklin who was the author of Poor Richard's Almanac. He served as the ambassador to France and published a French version of his almanac. Under John Paul Jones' command, the Bonhomme Richard lived a short but glorious life sinking off the west coast of British Isles the same year as it was bequeathed. The famous quote, "I have not yet begun to fight," is from its final battle.

Five ships have been named the Bonhomme Richard. The one that Earl saw as a teenager would have been the "USS Bon Homme Richard (CV-31), an Essex-class aircraft carrier that saw action at the end of World War II, throughout the Korean War, and through the Vietnam War."

We had no idea when we set out for our adventure that morning that we would encounter a reminder of Earl's own personal history.

*The story of California's coastal fog begins with the chilly Pacific Ocean. Even in summer Southern California ocean temperatures stay in the 60s, which is much cooler than summer temperatures along the U.S. Atlantic Coast.

But, if you sail a couple of hundred miles west or southwest over the Pacific you'll find the water growing warmer and warmer. When warm, humid winds from over this warmer water blow across the cold water closer to the shore, the air cools enough to cause its humidity to condense into fog.

This is sometimes referred to as the "marine layer," but the marine layer is the air that the fog's in, not the fog itself. Thus you hear people talking about "marine layer fog" or "marine layer clouds."

26 Rescued

SAN DIEGO -- An unusually powerful rip current pulled about 100 swimmers from the surf off La Jolla Shores Thursday afternoon and into deeper ocean swells, where more than two dozen of them wound up treading water and stranded, until a contingent of lifeguards came to their rescue.

The large-scale beach emergency occurred about 2:45 p.m., when three typical-sized outward-flowing channels of water merged into a single big one, creating a hazardous and "pretty unusual dynamic," said San Diego lifeguard Lt. Nick Lerma.

The combined current took hold of everyone in the water off a roughly 100-yard stretch of shoreline, though all but 26 of them eventually were able to make their way back to land on their own, Lerma said.

Those unable to swim free were aided by about a dozen lifeguards -- several of whom had to come in from other city beaches -- equipped with paddle boards, floatation buoys and personal watercraft towing "rescue sleds."

Though no serious injuries or medical crises resulted from the mega-rip, "it was an intense situation for about 10 or 15 minutes," Lerma said.

Lifeguards closed the affected section of shoreline until further notice as a safety precaution.

Important family visitor

Although we have been renting a house or apartment in the San Diego area for about 18 years, we have not always had visitors. Each year we extend an invitation to various family members without them accepting. Last year we were surprised when Earl's older sister told us that she would come to visit us.

Much to our delight, she had such a good time with us that she came to visit again this summer. Last year we had some babies and their mothers visiting us too and she enjoyed meeting them. This year it was just the three of us. When it came time for Bette to return to Santa Cruz, we weren't quite ready for her to go. She arrived on Monday and left on Thursday. Those days sped by very quickly.

Bette is not very strong and secure on her legs any more, so the sightseeing that we did had to have limited walking. We stopped by the LDS temple and went to the lighthouse on Point Loma. Mostly we talked and laughed together. We went swimming in the pool or sat by the pool and talked.

Bette is Earl's half sister. She is about 20 years older than he is. She has some interesting stories to tell about Earl's family. Some day I will need to try to remember all of her stories and try to write them down.