Hi FML!  This is Elizabeth, daughter of Bad to the Bone Bob.  I just got
home after driving from Kansas City in the snow.  Andrew was with me.  Dad
is driving home in his "baby." What is his baby?  A baby blue TR-4 that dad
rebuilt and left in California.  I guess he got tired of not having it so he
is driving it to Missouri.
 
First the bad news.  My grandad died while we were in California, so we had
to stay a lot longer than expected.  He was 84.  Mom flew out to see him
before he died and she and I stole her sister's car and spent the day in San
Francisco.
 
More bad news.  Dad lost his ponytail.  Seriously.  About 4 days before he
flew to California, he started some new medicine.  When he came down from
Half Dome, we noticed a lot of loose hair.  By the next day, he was bald.
Well, sort of.  Kind of spotty bald.  So dad buzzed the rest of it off and
bought some sun screen.  That was a week ago, and it's starting to grow back
already.  He looks so retro.
 
You should have seen dad on Half Dome.  He's this pudgy little guy, but he
was a climbing fool.  The weather had been rainy, so climbing was kind of
hard, and it was cold in the breeze, but dad climbed like his rope was on
fire.  The weather was turning bad, so dad and his friend (and me) made for
some ledge, where dad said goodbye to Horse.  THEN he spent about a half an
hour telling me that WHEN HE LEARNED how to climb, they used petons and the
routes weren't bolted.  And on and on and on.  Petey (dad's friend) rolled
his eyes and threatened to push dad of the hill.  I took a picture of dad
hanging upside down from a ledge and pretending he was snorting the chalk
dust.  I slipped twice, Petey once and Dad belayed us both.  Dad didn't
slip, but he caught his thumb in between the rope and the metal biner and
twisted it.  He swears its broken and has to be helped doing the dishes.
But he managed to go horse riding the next day out near La Grange.
 
Dad is supposed to be back tomorrow, but I went and got the ferrets from the
sitter.  They went wild!!!  Carbone climbed up my pants to the knee and the
rest ran around like some sort of wild animals on speed.  They were sure
happy to be home, that I can say for sure.  They ran around finding toys and
rehiding them for hours.  It was really funny.  Dad loaned me a sweat shirt
to wear on the plane, and when I threw it on the floor, the ferrets went
wild crawling all over it, sniffing it, etc.  Bear kept looking for dad in
his favorite chair.
 
Well, the trip was really sad because of Grandad and Horse, but it was
really fun to take dad's TR and race all over Mariposa County.  Dad went
into Del Puerto Canyon and looked for his "pet" mink, but he said they were
long gone.  He did find a new Indian site though, and spent the afternoon
recording it for one of his friends.  Dad said the only thing that could
have been better was if his ferrets could have been with him.
 
Glad to be home!
 
Elizabeth, daughter of Bad Bone Boy and chief pooper picker upper again.
[Posted in FML issue 2149]