Much more dancing has occurred since last time I wrote. This week here in Morgantown has much more to do during it than just the 4 hours of dancing every evening. If you want you can often start dancing right after breakfast in the morning. Maybe a little waltzing, or perhaps some Dutch Crossing before the morning contra session that starts at 10:00 and go's until 12:30. Then on to some much needed sustenance to support even more dancing in the afternoon.
Today there is some couple dancing, waltzing and such, to live music provided by 'Toss the Possum' right after lunch. Then later on will be a couple more hours of contra with the Great Bear Trio before dinner.
After dinner, and before the evening dance, there has been an hour long concert provided by one of the bands performing here. The second night was one by the two brothers in GBT, Noah and Andrew. It is a bit humbling to sit and listen and watch as two young men play tune after tune from memory. Each song different from the next, some even written by themselves, but all containing bits of classical, country and western, bluegrass, jazz and all manner of other styles. To watch as fingers fly over the finger board of a fiddle or guitar or mandolin and then watch in amazement as they add a note between the already fast pace, and then add even another note and then yet one more. All while seeming to be so relaxed as to be nearly asleep at times. All of the talent here is like that.
Last night we had a concert by Toss the Possum, usually comprised of Laura, the mom on piano, and one of her sons, Rob, on fiddle and vocals. But added in at times were other members of the family on various instruments and in one performance which I think will one day be historical in nature, a quartet of fiddlers with Rob, Noah, Andrew and Ed, from Perpetual e-Motion. The 4 fiddlers were so amazing, and if I can find a video of it somewhere on line I will try to post it so you can see it all for yourselves.
In the meantime there is still dancing to do yet this afternoon, and while there is more I could write, it is time to go have some fun.
brk*
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Aren't the holidays fun.... and busy.... and a bit crazy, and a little bit of every thing else? Mine sure have been. The days leading up to Christmas were busy just being around Rima's place. There were trees to cut down and additional brush to be piled up into stacks. There is even now still a lot of branches and stuff to be put into slash piles for burning later on, as well as 2-3 trees still on the ground waiting to be cut up into firewood.
Rima's last day at her old job was on Christmas Eve day. Unfortunately she was home so late that night that we didn't get much of a chance to celebrate, other than watching a couple of additional episodes of the Big Bang theory off of last years DVD. We will have to go out and really celebrate some time once we get back into a new routine.
We had one of her kids and his family over for dinner on Christmas day, so we were both up early cooking and getting ready for them to show up. We baked a beautiful pork shoulder roast that came out of the oven smelling so wonderful that we couldn't help picking little bits and pieces off to sample. That recipe has really worked for us, other than coming out way to salty on the outside, even after we cut the amount of salt rubbed into it before cooking by half. I think we can take it down even further next time, and have it come out of the oven even tastier.
We also did mashed potatoes and gravy of course, as well as slicing some winter squash into rings and baking them and making up a whole pan full of candied carrots. Add in a pan of hot cornbread and some wine to drink and it was a pretty satisfying meal.
They all stayed for a couple of hours and it was fun to take Brynn outside to feed carrots to the horses. For a two year old she is absolutely fearless as far as holding up food for them to take. What gets me is that the horses seem to understand she is really young and small and seem to be extra careful around her.
They all left later in the early evening and we had a couple of hours to clean up and have some down time before some guests showed up for the night. David and Kerrin are dance friends of ours and they were wanting a place to stay over night on their way to the CDH, Contra Dance Holiday, dance in Morgantown on the 26th.
It was a lot of fun seeing them again, as they have been pretty much in Australia since we had last seen them in Charleston last April or May. So they had wonderful tales to tell us and we all sat around drinking wine and tea and listening to stories from their adventure until we were all ready to fall asleep.
We were all up pretty early yesterday morning, but not obnoxiously early, thank god. We hung out at home eating breakfast and packing stuff up for our next adventure. We finally all got away from the house around 10:45 a.m. and headed off for Morgantown.
Rima and I first made a stop in Floyd to drop off trash and to stop by the post office for a package of cookies she was sure had been mailed to her. Success in both of those endeavors as well as in stopping at the local 7-11 so I could pick up a cold drink for the road. Rima was driving and some how while I was inside the store her cup of hot tea managed to spill into one of the cup holders the truck has built in between the seats. It would not of been a problem except that I had dumped my phone and ear bud in there before going inside. The bottom line is that both went for a good swim and it looks like they are both going to be none functioning from here on out. I'll give it another day or two of drying everything out, but it looks like I'll be looking for a new set of each in the next week or so.
Our drive the rest of the way to Morgantown WV was uneventful after that, with the miles gliding by at the rate of about a mile a minute. We arrived right after 5:00 p.m. and went in to check in with the sponsors of the event Warren and Terry Doyle. My second surprise of the day was that one of my checks to Warren had never shown up, so I still needed to come up with an extra $150. Lucky for me I had brought the check book along so that was soon taken care of and we could unload all of our dance stuff and head off for dinner.
Nothing beats walking into a room of 200+ people and seeing all of the happy smiling faces that you know. It can still be a little awkward to run into someone you know, but can't place their name, but it all gets sorted out and by the end of the week you will know every ones name again and maybe even know a few more. This year there are people from 33 states and several other countries attending the dance, and it is surprising how many of them I recognize from past dances somewhere in the U.S. It is one of the true benefits to taking up contra dancing.
The other one of course is the actual dancing. That started right at 8:00, but first there was an hour long concert in the Library featuring the Eddy Sisters. Two sisters who have been dancing and playing and singing pretty much their whole life. They sang several soulful, poignant and just plain funny songs while accompanying thier selves on fiddle, guitar and banjo. The voices and harmonies are enough to make you cry at times they are so beautiful. It is always interesting to me how many talented people there out there in the world who will never be as famous as some of the people who have made it big, but who sing and play every bit as well as any one you can think of. It was a wonderful 50 minutes of my life.
But dancing came next and it was the Great Bear Trio, my favorite band at the moment, with Sara doing the calling. Right from the start we had 4 full lines of hot, sweaty dancers, and by the second dance, windows and doors were being opened up to the ravages of the cold outdoor temperatures. It is so much fun, that words just can't describe it. We danced for nearly two hours before taking a break for some well earned snacks. I had only one break other than that where I had to go drink a big cup of water and Gatorade just to rehydrate a little bit.
Perpetual e-Motion took over musical duties after the break and Terry Doyle did the calling. I danced 3-4 dances to them before I just had to sit down again. Every part of me seemed to be pleasantly sore.... well maybe my feet actually hurt a little bit, but it all felt good and you could still hear the music in the ballroom and see the dancers through the doorway.
The dancing was over at midnight and a few people hung around afterwards talking and drinking some wine in the fat and comfy library chairs outside the dance floor. But even I had to quit pretty early as I was very tired by then.
A quick shower back at the room and then into bed for a wonderful couple of hours of sleep. I always sleep well at these kinds of dances. The physicality dehydrates me enough that I don't have to get up much at night, and I am so tired that I just sort of pass out for the night. A couple of ibuprophen before hand, and I even wake up feeling pretty good.
Normally I don't dance many of the dances during the day, and certainly none of them before noon, but GBT were playing again for the morning session so it was hard to resist the call. Managed to do about an hours worth and then went and talked to friends out in the other room. Soon enough it was time for lunch and after that a two hour nap.
It is just about dinner time right now, and like usual I am hungry once again. Rima, I am sure, has been off dancing some of the afternoon dances, but she is younger.... and probably more fit too. Tonight there will be another concert after dinner and then another 4 hour evening dance. If that still isn't enough there will be a techno contra starting at midnight and going until...... Those are done with canned music and a DJ that plays the tunes and does the calling. They can be quite fun and vigorous, but by then my feet are pretty much toast. Will just have to see though.
brk*
Rima's last day at her old job was on Christmas Eve day. Unfortunately she was home so late that night that we didn't get much of a chance to celebrate, other than watching a couple of additional episodes of the Big Bang theory off of last years DVD. We will have to go out and really celebrate some time once we get back into a new routine.
We had one of her kids and his family over for dinner on Christmas day, so we were both up early cooking and getting ready for them to show up. We baked a beautiful pork shoulder roast that came out of the oven smelling so wonderful that we couldn't help picking little bits and pieces off to sample. That recipe has really worked for us, other than coming out way to salty on the outside, even after we cut the amount of salt rubbed into it before cooking by half. I think we can take it down even further next time, and have it come out of the oven even tastier.
We also did mashed potatoes and gravy of course, as well as slicing some winter squash into rings and baking them and making up a whole pan full of candied carrots. Add in a pan of hot cornbread and some wine to drink and it was a pretty satisfying meal.
They all stayed for a couple of hours and it was fun to take Brynn outside to feed carrots to the horses. For a two year old she is absolutely fearless as far as holding up food for them to take. What gets me is that the horses seem to understand she is really young and small and seem to be extra careful around her.
They all left later in the early evening and we had a couple of hours to clean up and have some down time before some guests showed up for the night. David and Kerrin are dance friends of ours and they were wanting a place to stay over night on their way to the CDH, Contra Dance Holiday, dance in Morgantown on the 26th.
It was a lot of fun seeing them again, as they have been pretty much in Australia since we had last seen them in Charleston last April or May. So they had wonderful tales to tell us and we all sat around drinking wine and tea and listening to stories from their adventure until we were all ready to fall asleep.
We were all up pretty early yesterday morning, but not obnoxiously early, thank god. We hung out at home eating breakfast and packing stuff up for our next adventure. We finally all got away from the house around 10:45 a.m. and headed off for Morgantown.
Rima and I first made a stop in Floyd to drop off trash and to stop by the post office for a package of cookies she was sure had been mailed to her. Success in both of those endeavors as well as in stopping at the local 7-11 so I could pick up a cold drink for the road. Rima was driving and some how while I was inside the store her cup of hot tea managed to spill into one of the cup holders the truck has built in between the seats. It would not of been a problem except that I had dumped my phone and ear bud in there before going inside. The bottom line is that both went for a good swim and it looks like they are both going to be none functioning from here on out. I'll give it another day or two of drying everything out, but it looks like I'll be looking for a new set of each in the next week or so.
Our drive the rest of the way to Morgantown WV was uneventful after that, with the miles gliding by at the rate of about a mile a minute. We arrived right after 5:00 p.m. and went in to check in with the sponsors of the event Warren and Terry Doyle. My second surprise of the day was that one of my checks to Warren had never shown up, so I still needed to come up with an extra $150. Lucky for me I had brought the check book along so that was soon taken care of and we could unload all of our dance stuff and head off for dinner.
Nothing beats walking into a room of 200+ people and seeing all of the happy smiling faces that you know. It can still be a little awkward to run into someone you know, but can't place their name, but it all gets sorted out and by the end of the week you will know every ones name again and maybe even know a few more. This year there are people from 33 states and several other countries attending the dance, and it is surprising how many of them I recognize from past dances somewhere in the U.S. It is one of the true benefits to taking up contra dancing.
The other one of course is the actual dancing. That started right at 8:00, but first there was an hour long concert in the Library featuring the Eddy Sisters. Two sisters who have been dancing and playing and singing pretty much their whole life. They sang several soulful, poignant and just plain funny songs while accompanying thier selves on fiddle, guitar and banjo. The voices and harmonies are enough to make you cry at times they are so beautiful. It is always interesting to me how many talented people there out there in the world who will never be as famous as some of the people who have made it big, but who sing and play every bit as well as any one you can think of. It was a wonderful 50 minutes of my life.
But dancing came next and it was the Great Bear Trio, my favorite band at the moment, with Sara doing the calling. Right from the start we had 4 full lines of hot, sweaty dancers, and by the second dance, windows and doors were being opened up to the ravages of the cold outdoor temperatures. It is so much fun, that words just can't describe it. We danced for nearly two hours before taking a break for some well earned snacks. I had only one break other than that where I had to go drink a big cup of water and Gatorade just to rehydrate a little bit.
Perpetual e-Motion took over musical duties after the break and Terry Doyle did the calling. I danced 3-4 dances to them before I just had to sit down again. Every part of me seemed to be pleasantly sore.... well maybe my feet actually hurt a little bit, but it all felt good and you could still hear the music in the ballroom and see the dancers through the doorway.
The dancing was over at midnight and a few people hung around afterwards talking and drinking some wine in the fat and comfy library chairs outside the dance floor. But even I had to quit pretty early as I was very tired by then.
A quick shower back at the room and then into bed for a wonderful couple of hours of sleep. I always sleep well at these kinds of dances. The physicality dehydrates me enough that I don't have to get up much at night, and I am so tired that I just sort of pass out for the night. A couple of ibuprophen before hand, and I even wake up feeling pretty good.
Normally I don't dance many of the dances during the day, and certainly none of them before noon, but GBT were playing again for the morning session so it was hard to resist the call. Managed to do about an hours worth and then went and talked to friends out in the other room. Soon enough it was time for lunch and after that a two hour nap.
It is just about dinner time right now, and like usual I am hungry once again. Rima, I am sure, has been off dancing some of the afternoon dances, but she is younger.... and probably more fit too. Tonight there will be another concert after dinner and then another 4 hour evening dance. If that still isn't enough there will be a techno contra starting at midnight and going until...... Those are done with canned music and a DJ that plays the tunes and does the calling. They can be quite fun and vigorous, but by then my feet are pretty much toast. Will just have to see though.
brk*
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
The weather has set in here, and it has been cold and rainy since yesterday morning. There was a touch of snow early yesterday, but it warmed up enough to melt it all away... so at least there is no shoveling to be done just yet.
I spent most of the day yesterday and today inside where it has been dry and warm. Yesterday I made my first real pot roast ever. I have done something like a pot roast a few times, but never one that was done in the oven with all of the fixin's. It turned out to be very tasty to say the least, the only problem being that there wasn't enough of it. By the time Rima and I ate our fill of meat and root veggies there was just enough left for a couple of roast beef sandwiches today. I ate some of it for dinner this evening, but I was hoping for enough to make some beef and potato hash like my mom use to. Guess I'll just have to make a bigger roast next time.
I also started putting together some materials to make some sour dough bread. My brother in law, Martin, had given me some starter way back when I was out in the state of Washington and I even managed to keep it living since then. I started putting together the stuff needed for a couple of loaves yesterday as it takes many, many hours for it to 'proof' a couple of times before finally being baked. I am now waiting for the final rise before baking and it seems to be going okay, although the dough has not risen as much as bread I have made in the past with regular yeast and ingredients. On the other hand this batch smells delicious, slightly sour and slightly sweet. It will be interesting to see how it finally comes out.... it may take some tweaking before it really works the way it is suppose to.
I did spend some time driving into the city this afternoon, partly to get out and about,, and partly to do some grocery shopping before Christmas gets here. Found that many of the staples, flour, sugar, brown sugar and eggs were in short supply and would be needed at some point in the next few days. So I got a chance to get rid of my cabin fever and a chance to do something productive at the same time.
Right now though it is time for another cup of hot tea and a couple of chapters in my current book.
brk*
I spent most of the day yesterday and today inside where it has been dry and warm. Yesterday I made my first real pot roast ever. I have done something like a pot roast a few times, but never one that was done in the oven with all of the fixin's. It turned out to be very tasty to say the least, the only problem being that there wasn't enough of it. By the time Rima and I ate our fill of meat and root veggies there was just enough left for a couple of roast beef sandwiches today. I ate some of it for dinner this evening, but I was hoping for enough to make some beef and potato hash like my mom use to. Guess I'll just have to make a bigger roast next time.
I also started putting together some materials to make some sour dough bread. My brother in law, Martin, had given me some starter way back when I was out in the state of Washington and I even managed to keep it living since then. I started putting together the stuff needed for a couple of loaves yesterday as it takes many, many hours for it to 'proof' a couple of times before finally being baked. I am now waiting for the final rise before baking and it seems to be going okay, although the dough has not risen as much as bread I have made in the past with regular yeast and ingredients. On the other hand this batch smells delicious, slightly sour and slightly sweet. It will be interesting to see how it finally comes out.... it may take some tweaking before it really works the way it is suppose to.
I did spend some time driving into the city this afternoon, partly to get out and about,, and partly to do some grocery shopping before Christmas gets here. Found that many of the staples, flour, sugar, brown sugar and eggs were in short supply and would be needed at some point in the next few days. So I got a chance to get rid of my cabin fever and a chance to do something productive at the same time.
Right now though it is time for another cup of hot tea and a couple of chapters in my current book.
brk*
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Spent most of yesterday outdoors with Rima cutting down trees and brush and then cutting it all up into firewood and stacking the slash into a big pile.... boy was I sore. I did most of the initial cutting down of the trees and thinning out of the brush. The majority of it was out along the fence line I had started clearing several days ago. The idea was to go back in there and now cut out all the stuff that had been too big to cut out with a pair of loppers or a hand saw. It worked out for the most part the way I thought it would. Most of the trees came down pretty easily, dropping into the pasture pretty much where I wanted them to. They did however bring down an amazing amount of other vines and limbs and detritus along with them. Enough so that it soon became a real jungle just walking from one tree to the next. In the end it was a matter of escaping out into the pasture first and then working our way back in from that perimeter, cutting and clearing as we went.
Rima did a lot of the clean up, hauling huge piles of limbs and vines and rose canes over to a pile we had started last spring. It was soon well over the height of the two of us so it was a matter of throwing stuff up and on top of it. It seemed like nearly everything we cut had huge thorns on them that were just waiting to stab you in every place imaginable.
I worked at bucking the trees we had down on the ground to start. First cutting off all of the smaller limbs and then cutting the rest into firewood sized lengths. There were several times though where I couldn't cut the limbs or trunks as they laid on the ground, so it was a matter of handing the chainsaw off to Rima and letting her cut them as I held them up for her.
We didn't get everything we cut down cleaned up, or cut up, in the 4+ hours we were out there, but we managed to get a lot of it picked up before finally calling it quits. We were both pretty worn out by that time anyway and any further use of a chainsaw would of been dangerous in either of our hands.
So we came in and had a good hot shower, hopefully washing any poison ivy sap or dust off along the way. Then we had some dinner and got dressed for the contra dance last night in Blacksburg. By this time my back and shoulders were feeling pretty sore, as in I'm barely able to walk, but we went anyway because the music was going to be good and maybe some dancing would loosen some of those muscles up.
I ended up doing only 3 dances, but it really was enough to make the drive worthwhile. The only problem I was having was with partners who 'jump' or 'bounce' when they dance. In other words not real smooth dancers, but ones who kind of jerk as they swing or move. Other contra dancers will know exactly what I mean. But it was okay actually, I had a good time and I think it was okay for Rima although it is likely she would of stayed longer if I hadn't wanted to go. She seems to be a lot tougher than I am in some things.
Today has been a day of relaxation. Both of us just hung out around the house this morning. I read the comics and Rima did some work. My back was much better today also. Certainly a combination of good drugs and a good nights sleep really helped. I still didn't want to a repeat of yesterday yet, but by tomorrow I should be just about right again.
We took off for Floyd this afternoon. Rima sings in two choirs here and today was one of the performances they will host. A round of holiday music was just right for this cold and cloudy day. The singing was really quite good although it is hard for me when so much of traditional holiday music is sung in the original Latin. I liked it all though, and it didn't last that long anyway.
Afterwards we looked for a place to have some dinner, but several of our favorites were closed for the day. Rima suggested someplace new for me, the 'Pinewoods Tavern' on the east outskirts of the city. I had been by the place many times and Rima had said the food use to be pretty good there, but she hadn't been for many years because they have ceiling fans in the summer and she can't be in a room where they are turning. But being winter we decided to take a chance and lo, they didn't have them on. Instead they had a roaring fire at one end of the dining room and a nice, hot heater going at the other. Just right for dining.
They serve many of their meals there family style, ie, the food comes out on serving platters and bowls that everyone serves from, instead of coming already placed on individual plates. They will actually serve it that way if you want, but we decided on the family style meal that came with two different meats, we picked fried chicken and pulled pork and a half dozen or so side dishes. So along with our main course we also got mashed potatoes and gravy, chicken and dumplings, broccoli casserole, coleslaw, homemade biscuits, green beans, pinto beans, and blackberry cobbler with ice cream for dessert. You of course also got a drink of your choice with it, I had ice tea of course, while Rima had hot. It was wonderful!!!! All of the food was very tasty, other than the pinto beans. For some reason they just tasted too bland to me. But everything else was great.... and you could have as much of it as you wanted. We didn't even make it through all of the initial offering tho, so we were pretty content. And the best part of it.... $14-$16 per person depending on how many different meats you choose. They also had ham and roast beef.
So now we are back home and warm and full and happy. We are going to start peeling lemons here in a little bit in preparation for making another gallon of lemoncello. I hope it turns out as good as last years as we have just a little bit of that left to go.
brk*
Rima did a lot of the clean up, hauling huge piles of limbs and vines and rose canes over to a pile we had started last spring. It was soon well over the height of the two of us so it was a matter of throwing stuff up and on top of it. It seemed like nearly everything we cut had huge thorns on them that were just waiting to stab you in every place imaginable.
I worked at bucking the trees we had down on the ground to start. First cutting off all of the smaller limbs and then cutting the rest into firewood sized lengths. There were several times though where I couldn't cut the limbs or trunks as they laid on the ground, so it was a matter of handing the chainsaw off to Rima and letting her cut them as I held them up for her.
We didn't get everything we cut down cleaned up, or cut up, in the 4+ hours we were out there, but we managed to get a lot of it picked up before finally calling it quits. We were both pretty worn out by that time anyway and any further use of a chainsaw would of been dangerous in either of our hands.
So we came in and had a good hot shower, hopefully washing any poison ivy sap or dust off along the way. Then we had some dinner and got dressed for the contra dance last night in Blacksburg. By this time my back and shoulders were feeling pretty sore, as in I'm barely able to walk, but we went anyway because the music was going to be good and maybe some dancing would loosen some of those muscles up.
I ended up doing only 3 dances, but it really was enough to make the drive worthwhile. The only problem I was having was with partners who 'jump' or 'bounce' when they dance. In other words not real smooth dancers, but ones who kind of jerk as they swing or move. Other contra dancers will know exactly what I mean. But it was okay actually, I had a good time and I think it was okay for Rima although it is likely she would of stayed longer if I hadn't wanted to go. She seems to be a lot tougher than I am in some things.
Today has been a day of relaxation. Both of us just hung out around the house this morning. I read the comics and Rima did some work. My back was much better today also. Certainly a combination of good drugs and a good nights sleep really helped. I still didn't want to a repeat of yesterday yet, but by tomorrow I should be just about right again.
We took off for Floyd this afternoon. Rima sings in two choirs here and today was one of the performances they will host. A round of holiday music was just right for this cold and cloudy day. The singing was really quite good although it is hard for me when so much of traditional holiday music is sung in the original Latin. I liked it all though, and it didn't last that long anyway.
Afterwards we looked for a place to have some dinner, but several of our favorites were closed for the day. Rima suggested someplace new for me, the 'Pinewoods Tavern' on the east outskirts of the city. I had been by the place many times and Rima had said the food use to be pretty good there, but she hadn't been for many years because they have ceiling fans in the summer and she can't be in a room where they are turning. But being winter we decided to take a chance and lo, they didn't have them on. Instead they had a roaring fire at one end of the dining room and a nice, hot heater going at the other. Just right for dining.
They serve many of their meals there family style, ie, the food comes out on serving platters and bowls that everyone serves from, instead of coming already placed on individual plates. They will actually serve it that way if you want, but we decided on the family style meal that came with two different meats, we picked fried chicken and pulled pork and a half dozen or so side dishes. So along with our main course we also got mashed potatoes and gravy, chicken and dumplings, broccoli casserole, coleslaw, homemade biscuits, green beans, pinto beans, and blackberry cobbler with ice cream for dessert. You of course also got a drink of your choice with it, I had ice tea of course, while Rima had hot. It was wonderful!!!! All of the food was very tasty, other than the pinto beans. For some reason they just tasted too bland to me. But everything else was great.... and you could have as much of it as you wanted. We didn't even make it through all of the initial offering tho, so we were pretty content. And the best part of it.... $14-$16 per person depending on how many different meats you choose. They also had ham and roast beef.
So now we are back home and warm and full and happy. We are going to start peeling lemons here in a little bit in preparation for making another gallon of lemoncello. I hope it turns out as good as last years as we have just a little bit of that left to go.
brk*
Friday, December 19, 2014
Another couple of days have come and gone. Busy for me, but not particularly interesting in most ways. Yesterday morning was nice and quiet and slow with lots of time to peruse a few favorite web sites and catch up on the latest comics.
Headed over to Floyd just before noon and picked Rima up for lunch out. She has been so busy lately that it is just about the only time I really get to see her these days. But we had a nice hour or so together at what is fast becoming one of my favorite restaurants, Micky G's. Rima had some pesto pasta for her meal while I decided to branch out and try something totally different, so I ordered their hamburger and fries. Oh man was it good. A big thick patty of ground beef from grass fed cows, along with some locally smoked bacon and sautéed mushrooms all topped with swiss cheese. It was really yummy. Add to that a pleasant atmosphere, a waitress that knows us and keeps the ice tea glasses full, and a reasonable price and you have a real winner.
I took Rima back to the office after that, and then headed into the big city, Blacksburg, to do some shopping. There wasn't a lot that was needed, but I picked up a new gas can for the new lawn tractor, as well as a few grocery items, mainly some fresh fruit and veggies and eggs.
It would of been nice to have some time after getting back to the house to actually do something outside, but the reality is that it is getting dark around 4:00 p.m. So I spent the rest of the night reading a couple new magazines and starting in on a new book.
It was down right cold outside this morning so there was no real incentive for me to get outside working to soon. It did eventually warm up to around 40 degrees however, and with the bright sunshine it was okay out there as long as the wind wasn't blowing to hard.
The idea was to go out and mow the one pasture on the place that had decent grass on it last summer. This is the one just off the driveway in, and the grass there grew to be nearly 3 feet tall. More than tall enough for making hay, but probably not enough of it to make it pay. So the grass eventually fell over and now it needs to be mowed down so it will grow well again next year.
So I got the new riding mower out, and after figuring out how the new gas can worked, managed to fill it up with new gas. It started right up which was nice to have happen. It also worked just great getting it out of the building where it was stored, so I was feeling good and headed out to the field where I lowered the cutters, put it in gear, and started it mowing away. There was a little jerk when I shifted it into high gear and then it just stopped moving. Turns out it had thrown the belt that drives the rear wheels, so I had to spend about an hour that first time trying to figure out how to get it back on. Along the way I noticed a spot on the belt where it looked like it had split along one edge, but it was worth a try to see if it would still work as is. Turns out that it wouldn't, and managed to throw the belt once again within 20 feet of where I had been before.
It only took me about 20 mins to get it all torn apart, the belt reinstalled and then put it all back together once again.... practice may not make you perfect, but it doesn't hurt either. One more try at driving it.... and one more derailment. So it seemed apparent that the belt wasn't going to stay on no matter what I did with it. So I knifed the rest of the belt off of the machine and called it a day for getting it to run. I closed up the house and headed in to town to see about getting another belt that doesn't have any slits in it. No problem finding one as this is still a rural area and I think all car part places would have belts for not only vehicles, but for lawn mowers and tractors too. I am hoping that it won't be to difficult getting the new belt back in place, but I do know that there will be more parts that need to come off in order to get the new one back on.
Right now I sitting here doing some work on photos and waiting for Rima to call. It's another late night for her, so I'm going to meet her at some restaurant in town once she's done. I hope it's soon.... I'm hungry.
brk*
Headed over to Floyd just before noon and picked Rima up for lunch out. She has been so busy lately that it is just about the only time I really get to see her these days. But we had a nice hour or so together at what is fast becoming one of my favorite restaurants, Micky G's. Rima had some pesto pasta for her meal while I decided to branch out and try something totally different, so I ordered their hamburger and fries. Oh man was it good. A big thick patty of ground beef from grass fed cows, along with some locally smoked bacon and sautéed mushrooms all topped with swiss cheese. It was really yummy. Add to that a pleasant atmosphere, a waitress that knows us and keeps the ice tea glasses full, and a reasonable price and you have a real winner.
I took Rima back to the office after that, and then headed into the big city, Blacksburg, to do some shopping. There wasn't a lot that was needed, but I picked up a new gas can for the new lawn tractor, as well as a few grocery items, mainly some fresh fruit and veggies and eggs.
It would of been nice to have some time after getting back to the house to actually do something outside, but the reality is that it is getting dark around 4:00 p.m. So I spent the rest of the night reading a couple new magazines and starting in on a new book.
It was down right cold outside this morning so there was no real incentive for me to get outside working to soon. It did eventually warm up to around 40 degrees however, and with the bright sunshine it was okay out there as long as the wind wasn't blowing to hard.
The idea was to go out and mow the one pasture on the place that had decent grass on it last summer. This is the one just off the driveway in, and the grass there grew to be nearly 3 feet tall. More than tall enough for making hay, but probably not enough of it to make it pay. So the grass eventually fell over and now it needs to be mowed down so it will grow well again next year.
So I got the new riding mower out, and after figuring out how the new gas can worked, managed to fill it up with new gas. It started right up which was nice to have happen. It also worked just great getting it out of the building where it was stored, so I was feeling good and headed out to the field where I lowered the cutters, put it in gear, and started it mowing away. There was a little jerk when I shifted it into high gear and then it just stopped moving. Turns out it had thrown the belt that drives the rear wheels, so I had to spend about an hour that first time trying to figure out how to get it back on. Along the way I noticed a spot on the belt where it looked like it had split along one edge, but it was worth a try to see if it would still work as is. Turns out that it wouldn't, and managed to throw the belt once again within 20 feet of where I had been before.
It only took me about 20 mins to get it all torn apart, the belt reinstalled and then put it all back together once again.... practice may not make you perfect, but it doesn't hurt either. One more try at driving it.... and one more derailment. So it seemed apparent that the belt wasn't going to stay on no matter what I did with it. So I knifed the rest of the belt off of the machine and called it a day for getting it to run. I closed up the house and headed in to town to see about getting another belt that doesn't have any slits in it. No problem finding one as this is still a rural area and I think all car part places would have belts for not only vehicles, but for lawn mowers and tractors too. I am hoping that it won't be to difficult getting the new belt back in place, but I do know that there will be more parts that need to come off in order to get the new one back on.
Right now I sitting here doing some work on photos and waiting for Rima to call. It's another late night for her, so I'm going to meet her at some restaurant in town once she's done. I hope it's soon.... I'm hungry.
Arizona desert between Needles and Yuma - Nov 2014
 |
| Pretty desolate out there, with just cactus, rocks and brush. I think it is still rather pretty though. |
 |
| Most of the area was flat with just these patches of mountains popping up every once in a while. Most appear to be ancient volcanic extrusions that oozed up through some old sea bed deposits. It's rather stark looking and very abrupt. |
 |
| One last look at another range of mountains off in the other direction. |
brk*
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Life slowed down a little bit more for me today, as I am starting to settle into a routine again. So there was a late breakfast, with time spent reading the comics and doing the crossword. Then there was time spent just goofing off reading some of my book. I did also manage to finally get in touch with a County Park down in Florida that I was planning to stay in when I go back in January. The park is over near the town of Daytona where the 'Orange Blossom Ball' contra dance weekend is going to be held this year. It will be a different location from the first two years it was put on, but that may be a good thing I think. Anyway; I finally got a hold of the park people there in the park and reserved a spot in the campground for a week.
I did actually get outside later today after lunch. It was such a nice sunny day to be out and about. A little bit on the cool side, but really quite nice for the chore I set for myself to do. Today it was time to grab the loppers, limb saw and clippers and go out to do battle with the brush that had grown up along one of the fence lines out near the main road. Not only had it grown up, but in the 20+ years since the last work was done, several trees have managed to ingest whole parts of the fence. Today I clipped and lopped and tore at brush and wild rose bushes and hunks of old poison ivy vines. What a mess. Not only was it a tangled up snarl but it was all held together with these rose bush canes from hell. Every time you got anywhere near one it would jump out and attack you with these thorns that any Rhino in the world would be proud to use as its horn. The canes on some of these things were bigger around than my wrists, while the smaller ones where only the diameter of my thumb. But the big thing is they climb up into the tree branches and droop over onto everything. Like snakes they would lay in wait until you walked under them and then attack.
Of course it actually gets worse because some of the trees these vines were climbing over were Black Locust which come with its own brand of thorns. But these can be 3-4 inches long and as sharp as hypodermic needles. I managed to clear about 600 square feet of the stuff this afternoon. Enough that it should be okay to get in there now with the chainsaw and grub the rest of the trees and brush out of there. Once that is done I can run the mower over the whole area and then get ready to rebuild that whole section of fence later next spring. Oh.... the reason to do all this grubbing now... I found out last year that if you wait until everything leafs out, you won't even be able to get close enough to actually start clipping stuff, since it will be way to thick by then.
So I spent several hours doing that, finally quitting while there was just enough light left to put the tools away and then feed the horses. I found the cable for my camera finally and got some pictures from last month down loaded. Several of them are posted below. They are of the cable cars in San Francisco which I saw when I travelled there from Sacramento for a day trip. I drove down to Walnut Creek and hopped on 'BART', their rapid transit system, and rode into Powell Street Station. Then I walked around for a couple of hours before meeting up with my niece and a couple of her friends for dinner. It was a lot of fun actually.
brk*
I did actually get outside later today after lunch. It was such a nice sunny day to be out and about. A little bit on the cool side, but really quite nice for the chore I set for myself to do. Today it was time to grab the loppers, limb saw and clippers and go out to do battle with the brush that had grown up along one of the fence lines out near the main road. Not only had it grown up, but in the 20+ years since the last work was done, several trees have managed to ingest whole parts of the fence. Today I clipped and lopped and tore at brush and wild rose bushes and hunks of old poison ivy vines. What a mess. Not only was it a tangled up snarl but it was all held together with these rose bush canes from hell. Every time you got anywhere near one it would jump out and attack you with these thorns that any Rhino in the world would be proud to use as its horn. The canes on some of these things were bigger around than my wrists, while the smaller ones where only the diameter of my thumb. But the big thing is they climb up into the tree branches and droop over onto everything. Like snakes they would lay in wait until you walked under them and then attack.
Of course it actually gets worse because some of the trees these vines were climbing over were Black Locust which come with its own brand of thorns. But these can be 3-4 inches long and as sharp as hypodermic needles. I managed to clear about 600 square feet of the stuff this afternoon. Enough that it should be okay to get in there now with the chainsaw and grub the rest of the trees and brush out of there. Once that is done I can run the mower over the whole area and then get ready to rebuild that whole section of fence later next spring. Oh.... the reason to do all this grubbing now... I found out last year that if you wait until everything leafs out, you won't even be able to get close enough to actually start clipping stuff, since it will be way to thick by then.
So I spent several hours doing that, finally quitting while there was just enough light left to put the tools away and then feed the horses. I found the cable for my camera finally and got some pictures from last month down loaded. Several of them are posted below. They are of the cable cars in San Francisco which I saw when I travelled there from Sacramento for a day trip. I drove down to Walnut Creek and hopped on 'BART', their rapid transit system, and rode into Powell Street Station. Then I walked around for a couple of hours before meeting up with my niece and a couple of her friends for dinner. It was a lot of fun actually.
Cable Cars after dinner in San Francisco with my niece
Dec 23, 2014
 | |
| Leaving dinner with my niece and two of her friends, the sun was starting to go down and the Christmas lights were coming on. I liked how the light was making everything glow. Cable Car Photo #1 |
 |
| Cable Car Photo #2 |
 |
| Cable Car Photo #3 |
brk*
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Wow.... I'm so sorry it has been so long between posts. I know there was never a promise to write everyday, but it may have been implied that if I wrote enough that people actually wanted to read it, then I should at least write on a regular basis. So, while I make no promises..... I will try to do better in the future.
But now, since I use this Blog for a record of my own, and what I have been doing in life, I am going to go back a few days and at least enter enough highlights, if any, that it will serve to remind me years from now.
So... starting last Friday the 12th; it was early, way to early of a morning, for me. Up at 6:00 a.m., I was done with breakfast and packing up the interior of the trailer by 7:30. Outside it was a matter of draining the waste tanks one last time, turning off the water and propane, cranking up the scissor jacks and hooking up to the truck. A quick drive of about 150 yards down a sandy road brought me to the field where the park allows people to stow their trailer or boat for $25 per month. Unhooking took another 10 minutes, as did disconnecting the battery wires. One last check to make sure it was all secure and I was on the road north by 8:45.
A good day for driving, not too hot, not too cold. It was a steady 65-75 mph gallop up the interstate towards the great state of Virginia. There was a 20 minute stop for lunch, one for gas and a couple at rest stops along the way to rid myself of some of the caffeine I was steadily ingesting. In real life what it meant was that I was able to pull into the town of Floyd Virginia right at 7:30 p.m. Plenty of time to meet my girlfriend Rima for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Micky G's. Not only was it wonderful to see her again, but we got to celebrate meeting up again while eating some outstanding cuisine. For my part it was a whole baked flounder the size of a plate. Flaky and succulent, it was then sautéed in some olive oil along with capers, slivered garlic, and some fresh herbs. Pair that with a side of angel hair pasta that also had garlic and capers in it and it was a meal to remember. Rima went with the pasture raised grilled pork chop also pan sautéed along with porcini mushrooms, sliced garlic and capers all in a balsamic vinegar reduction sauce. Add in slice of Lemon Cello cake for dessert and you had a perfect way to end the day.
Saturday dawned sunny and bright, but pretty darn cold. It was the last time I've had on shorts and boat shoes since arriving. Rima had to work for most of the day, although most of it could at least be done at home. I hung out for the most part, caught up on some paperwork that needed doing, and then spent several hours outside unpacking the truck and looking around the place. It looks pretty much the same as when I left more than 6 months ago, just a few less leaves on the trees and a little more brown looking. Otherwise the barn and out buildings are all still in various states of dis-erection, the weed stalks are still rampant in portions of the pasture and there is a lot less cut and stacked firewood.
It was a matter of wandering around and staring at everything several times just trying to get a feeling for what needs to be worked on first and what can be left for a little bit later. A little like home and grounds repair triage.
Rima finally stopped working long enough to eat a late dinner with me and then we watched a movie on DVD. The movie was an old one from back in the 70's that I have always liked because of it's link to dancing, even though in this case it had to do with competitive ballroom dancing. 'Strictly Ballroom' was the name of the movie and it was a lot of fun to pull that old chestnut out and watch it once again. Especially with someone who had never seen it before.
Sunday was also sunny and bright to start. We had a quite morning of breakfast and many cups of hot tea. Before long it was late enough in the morning that we jumped Rima's 2nd car and along with me in the truck, drove it over to the local mechanics place so he can take a look at it at some time and try to figure out why it won't start all of the time.
On our way back into town one of Rima's kids called up to see if we could baby sit the kidlet for several hours in the afternoon so that they could go do some Christmas shopping without her. We met up with them in Floyd and all had lunch together at the Mexican restaurant there. A decent meal as usual, but certainly not as good as some of the meals I experienced in Colorado and other parts of the west this last summer.
We took Brynn with us afterwards and headed on back to the house for the afternoon, where she then proceeded to wear both of us out. I never knew a two year old could go that long or hard in one day. But we had fun feeding carrots to the horses and blowing bubbles outside in the sun. We hiked back and forth from the house to the horse pasture at least a dozen times before finally going inside for a couple more hours. Once there we played ball and legos and chase Brynn around the house until she finally slowed down enough that I could start making some dinner while Rima tried to read a book to her. In the end she conked out about 5 minutes before her parents showed up to pick her up. So all in all, a pretty good day. Of course the two of us were pretty much wiped out by that time so after eating a meal of chicken soup and dumplings we crashed on the couch and zoned out to that Christmas classic, 'The Christmas Story'.
Rima was back to full time work yesterday morning, so it was a nice quite morning here for me. Finished up a few more remnants of paper work that needed doing, as well as catching up on the comics and crossword puzzles. Finally headed outside a little after noon and started in on my first chore here. I started clearing out this little back room in Rima's barn cluster. This area was once used by some neighbors of hers to, I think, build bamboo flutes, among other things. So it is maybe the best area in the whole complex as far as being usable space. That being said it has no door, and the window is busted and it took me several hours to clean enough stuff out of it so that I could actually see the floor. Along the way I found several tools, an old wood burning stove and even an old Colman lantern. Right now I need to still move out several bundles of shingles, a couple sacks of concrete mix, several sheets of plywood and the old stove before I can start deconstruction on the back wall of it. The idea is to tear out each wall one at a time, and then rebuild it so that it is actually structurally sound as well as being weather, and hopefully at least, somewhat snake proof, as there were lots of old snake skins that went out with some of the trash.
So that took most of the afternoon, but there is still some left to do as I said. I couldn't get it all done because my sinuses were going crazy with all of the dust and detritus that was being stirred up. One more good day should just about do it and then I can start tearing things apart.
Another pleasant evening last night once Rima made it home. We ate steak and pan crisped new potatoes along with some left over stuffed winter squash that I had made the night before. A little down time meant we could go in and watch a couple episodes from last years season of the 'Big Bang Theory', a show that both of us really get a kick out of.
Today I went and did something about the 'Tractor Envy' I have been experiencing since last year when I got to use Rima's old broken down excuse of a riding mower for a couple of days. It wasn't much of a mower to begin with and it finally quit on us again a week or so before I took off. I always wanted something a little bit nicer, more reliable and maybe powerful enough to actually mow some of the hillsides in several of the pastures. But alas, tractors, and riding mowers aren't cheap. So I've just been biding my time keeping my eyes open for a good deal to come along. Yesterday while looking through some Craig's List ads from the Blacksburg listing I ran across this 20.5 hp MTD riding mower with a bucket on the front of it for $500. It looked to be in decent shape and the ad said all the belts were new, the bucket was new, it ran great and the guy was hoping to unload it at that price. So I called him up and we met over at his place this afternoon to take a look at it.
So it turned out to be pretty much exactly what he said it was. He started it right up and I looked it over as well as I could. Seems like everything worked fine on it and the engine looked almost new. No manual with it unfortunately, and he didn't even know how old it is. But it seemed to run well and he promised to even deliver it for me for that price. So we now have a new(er) mower sitting out in the barn, and as soon as I can go pick up some regular gas I will give it a really good try out. There was enough gas in it today that I could at least take it for a spin around the smaller upper pasture and it did just fine considering the grass there was nearly 3 feet tall this summer when I left. It nearly bogged down once while pointed straight up the hill with me sitting on it, but I just backed a few feet down and then put it into low gear and it just crept right up the hill thrashing it's way through all of that vegetation. I think Rima is going to like using something that actually works most of the time even though there is still going to be a need to use the hand mower and string trimmer in spots.
Rima was home by 6:00 this evening and we had a nice sit down dinner together before she was back to work again this evening. So it has been pretty quiet around the place. The good news is that it allowed me time to put these words down. But it is now finished for the time being. There are still pictures to down load off of the camera and I would like go check out email and such one last time today. so by for now.
But now, since I use this Blog for a record of my own, and what I have been doing in life, I am going to go back a few days and at least enter enough highlights, if any, that it will serve to remind me years from now.
So... starting last Friday the 12th; it was early, way to early of a morning, for me. Up at 6:00 a.m., I was done with breakfast and packing up the interior of the trailer by 7:30. Outside it was a matter of draining the waste tanks one last time, turning off the water and propane, cranking up the scissor jacks and hooking up to the truck. A quick drive of about 150 yards down a sandy road brought me to the field where the park allows people to stow their trailer or boat for $25 per month. Unhooking took another 10 minutes, as did disconnecting the battery wires. One last check to make sure it was all secure and I was on the road north by 8:45.
A good day for driving, not too hot, not too cold. It was a steady 65-75 mph gallop up the interstate towards the great state of Virginia. There was a 20 minute stop for lunch, one for gas and a couple at rest stops along the way to rid myself of some of the caffeine I was steadily ingesting. In real life what it meant was that I was able to pull into the town of Floyd Virginia right at 7:30 p.m. Plenty of time to meet my girlfriend Rima for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Micky G's. Not only was it wonderful to see her again, but we got to celebrate meeting up again while eating some outstanding cuisine. For my part it was a whole baked flounder the size of a plate. Flaky and succulent, it was then sautéed in some olive oil along with capers, slivered garlic, and some fresh herbs. Pair that with a side of angel hair pasta that also had garlic and capers in it and it was a meal to remember. Rima went with the pasture raised grilled pork chop also pan sautéed along with porcini mushrooms, sliced garlic and capers all in a balsamic vinegar reduction sauce. Add in slice of Lemon Cello cake for dessert and you had a perfect way to end the day.
Saturday dawned sunny and bright, but pretty darn cold. It was the last time I've had on shorts and boat shoes since arriving. Rima had to work for most of the day, although most of it could at least be done at home. I hung out for the most part, caught up on some paperwork that needed doing, and then spent several hours outside unpacking the truck and looking around the place. It looks pretty much the same as when I left more than 6 months ago, just a few less leaves on the trees and a little more brown looking. Otherwise the barn and out buildings are all still in various states of dis-erection, the weed stalks are still rampant in portions of the pasture and there is a lot less cut and stacked firewood.
It was a matter of wandering around and staring at everything several times just trying to get a feeling for what needs to be worked on first and what can be left for a little bit later. A little like home and grounds repair triage.
Rima finally stopped working long enough to eat a late dinner with me and then we watched a movie on DVD. The movie was an old one from back in the 70's that I have always liked because of it's link to dancing, even though in this case it had to do with competitive ballroom dancing. 'Strictly Ballroom' was the name of the movie and it was a lot of fun to pull that old chestnut out and watch it once again. Especially with someone who had never seen it before.
Sunday was also sunny and bright to start. We had a quite morning of breakfast and many cups of hot tea. Before long it was late enough in the morning that we jumped Rima's 2nd car and along with me in the truck, drove it over to the local mechanics place so he can take a look at it at some time and try to figure out why it won't start all of the time.
On our way back into town one of Rima's kids called up to see if we could baby sit the kidlet for several hours in the afternoon so that they could go do some Christmas shopping without her. We met up with them in Floyd and all had lunch together at the Mexican restaurant there. A decent meal as usual, but certainly not as good as some of the meals I experienced in Colorado and other parts of the west this last summer.
We took Brynn with us afterwards and headed on back to the house for the afternoon, where she then proceeded to wear both of us out. I never knew a two year old could go that long or hard in one day. But we had fun feeding carrots to the horses and blowing bubbles outside in the sun. We hiked back and forth from the house to the horse pasture at least a dozen times before finally going inside for a couple more hours. Once there we played ball and legos and chase Brynn around the house until she finally slowed down enough that I could start making some dinner while Rima tried to read a book to her. In the end she conked out about 5 minutes before her parents showed up to pick her up. So all in all, a pretty good day. Of course the two of us were pretty much wiped out by that time so after eating a meal of chicken soup and dumplings we crashed on the couch and zoned out to that Christmas classic, 'The Christmas Story'.
Rima was back to full time work yesterday morning, so it was a nice quite morning here for me. Finished up a few more remnants of paper work that needed doing, as well as catching up on the comics and crossword puzzles. Finally headed outside a little after noon and started in on my first chore here. I started clearing out this little back room in Rima's barn cluster. This area was once used by some neighbors of hers to, I think, build bamboo flutes, among other things. So it is maybe the best area in the whole complex as far as being usable space. That being said it has no door, and the window is busted and it took me several hours to clean enough stuff out of it so that I could actually see the floor. Along the way I found several tools, an old wood burning stove and even an old Colman lantern. Right now I need to still move out several bundles of shingles, a couple sacks of concrete mix, several sheets of plywood and the old stove before I can start deconstruction on the back wall of it. The idea is to tear out each wall one at a time, and then rebuild it so that it is actually structurally sound as well as being weather, and hopefully at least, somewhat snake proof, as there were lots of old snake skins that went out with some of the trash.
So that took most of the afternoon, but there is still some left to do as I said. I couldn't get it all done because my sinuses were going crazy with all of the dust and detritus that was being stirred up. One more good day should just about do it and then I can start tearing things apart.
Another pleasant evening last night once Rima made it home. We ate steak and pan crisped new potatoes along with some left over stuffed winter squash that I had made the night before. A little down time meant we could go in and watch a couple episodes from last years season of the 'Big Bang Theory', a show that both of us really get a kick out of.
Today I went and did something about the 'Tractor Envy' I have been experiencing since last year when I got to use Rima's old broken down excuse of a riding mower for a couple of days. It wasn't much of a mower to begin with and it finally quit on us again a week or so before I took off. I always wanted something a little bit nicer, more reliable and maybe powerful enough to actually mow some of the hillsides in several of the pastures. But alas, tractors, and riding mowers aren't cheap. So I've just been biding my time keeping my eyes open for a good deal to come along. Yesterday while looking through some Craig's List ads from the Blacksburg listing I ran across this 20.5 hp MTD riding mower with a bucket on the front of it for $500. It looked to be in decent shape and the ad said all the belts were new, the bucket was new, it ran great and the guy was hoping to unload it at that price. So I called him up and we met over at his place this afternoon to take a look at it.
So it turned out to be pretty much exactly what he said it was. He started it right up and I looked it over as well as I could. Seems like everything worked fine on it and the engine looked almost new. No manual with it unfortunately, and he didn't even know how old it is. But it seemed to run well and he promised to even deliver it for me for that price. So we now have a new(er) mower sitting out in the barn, and as soon as I can go pick up some regular gas I will give it a really good try out. There was enough gas in it today that I could at least take it for a spin around the smaller upper pasture and it did just fine considering the grass there was nearly 3 feet tall this summer when I left. It nearly bogged down once while pointed straight up the hill with me sitting on it, but I just backed a few feet down and then put it into low gear and it just crept right up the hill thrashing it's way through all of that vegetation. I think Rima is going to like using something that actually works most of the time even though there is still going to be a need to use the hand mower and string trimmer in spots.
Rima was home by 6:00 this evening and we had a nice sit down dinner together before she was back to work again this evening. So it has been pretty quiet around the place. The good news is that it allowed me time to put these words down. But it is now finished for the time being. There are still pictures to down load off of the camera and I would like go check out email and such one last time today. so by for now.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Am afraid I have been a bit lax these last few days, finding lots of other things to do other than sit down and write. Most of it has been just quiet time spent walking or reading books. But on Tuesday I hopped in the truck and drove a couple hours south to Tampa. Met up with my friends, Tom and Donna, from Denver, there for lunch. They had flown in for a couple of days to be with her father on his birthday, and it was fun to spend an hour or so with them eating fish tacos while looking out the windows at the water. Unfortunately, it was only a couple of hours there before I turned around and headed back up the highway to the trailer. I did stop a couple times along the way to wander around some, but it was for the most part just an easy and pleasant drive there and back.
Yesterday I drove into Gainsville and took in an afternoon movie. Went and saw the new 'Hunger Games' movie that came out a few weeks ago. Really well done as far as acting and the actual filming goes. I found the plot rather disturbing, but then, I think that is what the author had in mind when she wrote the original book. Well worth going to see though, especially if you have seen the two movies leading up to this one.
I also got all of my Christmas wrapping done yesterday morning, so I was able to take them in and get them mailed on the way into town. It worked out perfect as there was absolutely no line at the Post Office when I got there. I was surprised though when the clerk said my envelope and one small box was going to cost more than $20. I just kept asking him what he had that was cheaper until I got him down to about $8, with the idea that it would get there by the 16th instead of the 13th.
Today has been busy in packing up the trailer and the truck in preparation to heading north tomorrow morning. Got all my tools out of the front of the trailer and packed in the back seat of the truck and then put all the trailer stuff, spare tire, hitch stuff, hoses and such in the trailer. I also took some time to flush the black and grey tanks several times this afternoon. I had the time, plenty of water and a full sewer hook up so it was pretty easy even if it did take a little bit of time. There will still be one final flush in the morning, but it should be good to go after that.
Still need to get a few more clothes together tonight and pack them away. It has taken me some time to round up my cold weather clothes as they were scattered throughout the trailer. There aren't a lot of coats and such, but there should be more than enough as long as I don't have to sleep outside at all.
Also need to clean out the rest of the fridge and freezer in the morning and take all of that stuff with me to Virginia. There isn't a whole lot of stuff to take, but I would rather use it up than throw it away.
The one other thing left to do is to shave and grab a shower yet this evening as well as do all the dishes. It will be a lot easier for me to do it this evening rather than at O-dark thirty in the morning. Not sure when I will get around to writing the next post as the next few days will be very busy. But one final thing for today; in keeping with the TBT, 'Throw Back Thursday' posts on Face Book, here is a picture of me from 1981.
Yesterday I drove into Gainsville and took in an afternoon movie. Went and saw the new 'Hunger Games' movie that came out a few weeks ago. Really well done as far as acting and the actual filming goes. I found the plot rather disturbing, but then, I think that is what the author had in mind when she wrote the original book. Well worth going to see though, especially if you have seen the two movies leading up to this one.
I also got all of my Christmas wrapping done yesterday morning, so I was able to take them in and get them mailed on the way into town. It worked out perfect as there was absolutely no line at the Post Office when I got there. I was surprised though when the clerk said my envelope and one small box was going to cost more than $20. I just kept asking him what he had that was cheaper until I got him down to about $8, with the idea that it would get there by the 16th instead of the 13th.
Today has been busy in packing up the trailer and the truck in preparation to heading north tomorrow morning. Got all my tools out of the front of the trailer and packed in the back seat of the truck and then put all the trailer stuff, spare tire, hitch stuff, hoses and such in the trailer. I also took some time to flush the black and grey tanks several times this afternoon. I had the time, plenty of water and a full sewer hook up so it was pretty easy even if it did take a little bit of time. There will still be one final flush in the morning, but it should be good to go after that.
Still need to get a few more clothes together tonight and pack them away. It has taken me some time to round up my cold weather clothes as they were scattered throughout the trailer. There aren't a lot of coats and such, but there should be more than enough as long as I don't have to sleep outside at all.
Also need to clean out the rest of the fridge and freezer in the morning and take all of that stuff with me to Virginia. There isn't a whole lot of stuff to take, but I would rather use it up than throw it away.
The one other thing left to do is to shave and grab a shower yet this evening as well as do all the dishes. It will be a lot easier for me to do it this evening rather than at O-dark thirty in the morning. Not sure when I will get around to writing the next post as the next few days will be very busy. But one final thing for today; in keeping with the TBT, 'Throw Back Thursday' posts on Face Book, here is a picture of me from 1981.
 |
| As I said, this is sometime around June of 1981. I'm on a 70+ day canoe trip down the Missouri river from Ft Benton Montana to Sioux City Iowa with 4 other friends. As I recall it actually snowed on us at this campsite and it didn't really get warm until about two weeks later when we were several hundred miles down river. We really didn't care however, we were having too much fun. |
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Sorry it has been so long since the last post, it has been a very busy couple of days and it has turned out to be rather fun these last couple of days also.
Made it into Florida on Thursday afternoon and spent my last night on the road in a rest area just west of the town of Tallahassee. That left me only a mere 200+ miles to drive on Friday to get to the campground I was aiming for. So there was no hurry to get there too early in the day so I dawdled some along the way stopping at the grocery store and a local Wally World near the highway.
I pulled into Otter Springs Park around 3:00 in the afternoon on Friday and found that they had my reservation all ready to go. I just needed to sign my name a couple of times and then pull the trailer over to my site and get it all set up. They have me in a real nice site along one edge of the campground several campsites away from everyone, yet still pretty close to the bath house, laundry and swimming pool.
Unhooking and setting up was easily accomplished since the site is pretty level over all. It was nice to see that the patch I did to the water hose, putting a new male fitting on, is holding up well with not a single drip when the water is on now.
I pulled my hitch all the way off when I unhitched as there has been some problem with one of my torsion bars staying in place on bumpy roads. It did not surprise me to see that one of the welds in the piece that holds one end of the bar in place had busted out again. It had done so once before and my brother in law had beat it back into place and re-welded it for me last summer. But it busted out again over the last several months of travel and won't work like it is suppose to any more.
I am sure it can be fixed once again, maybe welding a couple extra brace pieces along side, but it is most likely at that point where it will cost me nearly as much to get it repaired as it will to buy a new one. So I will price a new set while I am up in Virginia this next month and see how it will work out. In the meantime I will keep the old one and see if my brother in law might like to have it just in case.
So I pretty much just hung out at the trailer on Friday night. Did turn the water heater on and take a nice long shower that night, but otherwise I just chilled out and read my book.
Yesterday was pretty busy for me though. I went ahead and drove into Gainsville in the early afternoon as there was holiday shopping that I still needed to do. Quick stops at some big box stores took care of most of my purchases for the day. It was also time to go get the tires rotated and checked so that was another hour or so out of the day.
Last on the list for the day was to stop in at Trader Joes and pick up a case of cheap wine. Two Buck Chuck, or I guess it is now up to Three Bucks, it is all blended wines and despite how many disparaging remarks I have heard about it, it always seems to get drunken up none the less. As most taste tests have shown, if no one knew what it was, or how much it cost, it does very well against many wines that are much more expensive. I buy it to take up to the week long dance in Morgan Town WV during the week between Christmas and New Years Eve. And while I think my friends are worth the price of some decent wine, since many of the people who are drinking it are people I really don't know.... well to heck with them. ;)
I ate dinner last night at the little hole in the wall Mexican place Rima and I found last year. They have huge burritos of all kinds on the menu as well as other real Mexican meals. I had a very nice goat burrito and some chips and salsa to go with lots of fresh brewed ice tea. It was all really yummy!
Finally for the night; I went on over to the Gainsville Hippodrome, one of the local theatre's, and took in one of their holiday plays. Last nights pick was the 'Winter Wonderette's', one of a series of Wonderette plays that have been making the rounds of the states for a few years now. Not a great play by any means, it was still entertaining enough, and that is all that really matters. I'm really not even sure I would call it a play, as there really isn't much of a plot to it. They use the excuse of putting on a hardware stores holiday party for 4 women to sing and dance to a lot of different holiday songs and carols. The singing was pretty wonderful, all four of the women had pretty amazing voices, but that is about all it had going for it. Oh well, not every play can be Emmy worthy.
I drove down to Ocala this afternoon in order to finish up the last of my shopping. Wandered around a couple stores down there and picked up a few things I needed. Caught a quick bite to eat after that, and then headed on back up to Gainsville. They were having their by-monthly contra dance this afternoon and they had a special band and caller in for the dance. The band was Contra Force, three young musicians with a lot of sound and 'big' energy and the caller was Emily 'Rainbow Face' Abel. Another one of those young musician/callers that has been coming up through the ranks for the past couple of years.
I got there just a little bit late, it's farther back there than I thought, but still had plenty of time to dance enough to get rather hot and sweaty. It was fun to see and talk to so many people whom I haven't seen or danced with for several months or more. Interesting to me is that the first women I danced with today though was actually from Arizona somewhere, I think Phoenix, but we both knew each other from dancing somewhere out west together at some point. Otherwise it was pretty much just Floridians from the local area that I got to dance with. It is a bit sad that today will be the only local dance I'll get to do for a while, but there will be plenty of time in the new year to dance a few more of the local dances in the area.
The plan is to just hang out tomorrow and not do a whole lot. Will try to get a few presents wrapped and then mailed out, but that may well mean a trip into town to buy wrapping paper at least. Oh well.
Here are the rest of the photo's I took several weeks ago at the California Railroad Museum. Sorry for the delay. Sometimes life just gets in the way of the writing.
brk*
Made it into Florida on Thursday afternoon and spent my last night on the road in a rest area just west of the town of Tallahassee. That left me only a mere 200+ miles to drive on Friday to get to the campground I was aiming for. So there was no hurry to get there too early in the day so I dawdled some along the way stopping at the grocery store and a local Wally World near the highway.
I pulled into Otter Springs Park around 3:00 in the afternoon on Friday and found that they had my reservation all ready to go. I just needed to sign my name a couple of times and then pull the trailer over to my site and get it all set up. They have me in a real nice site along one edge of the campground several campsites away from everyone, yet still pretty close to the bath house, laundry and swimming pool.
Unhooking and setting up was easily accomplished since the site is pretty level over all. It was nice to see that the patch I did to the water hose, putting a new male fitting on, is holding up well with not a single drip when the water is on now.
I pulled my hitch all the way off when I unhitched as there has been some problem with one of my torsion bars staying in place on bumpy roads. It did not surprise me to see that one of the welds in the piece that holds one end of the bar in place had busted out again. It had done so once before and my brother in law had beat it back into place and re-welded it for me last summer. But it busted out again over the last several months of travel and won't work like it is suppose to any more.
I am sure it can be fixed once again, maybe welding a couple extra brace pieces along side, but it is most likely at that point where it will cost me nearly as much to get it repaired as it will to buy a new one. So I will price a new set while I am up in Virginia this next month and see how it will work out. In the meantime I will keep the old one and see if my brother in law might like to have it just in case.
So I pretty much just hung out at the trailer on Friday night. Did turn the water heater on and take a nice long shower that night, but otherwise I just chilled out and read my book.
Yesterday was pretty busy for me though. I went ahead and drove into Gainsville in the early afternoon as there was holiday shopping that I still needed to do. Quick stops at some big box stores took care of most of my purchases for the day. It was also time to go get the tires rotated and checked so that was another hour or so out of the day.
Last on the list for the day was to stop in at Trader Joes and pick up a case of cheap wine. Two Buck Chuck, or I guess it is now up to Three Bucks, it is all blended wines and despite how many disparaging remarks I have heard about it, it always seems to get drunken up none the less. As most taste tests have shown, if no one knew what it was, or how much it cost, it does very well against many wines that are much more expensive. I buy it to take up to the week long dance in Morgan Town WV during the week between Christmas and New Years Eve. And while I think my friends are worth the price of some decent wine, since many of the people who are drinking it are people I really don't know.... well to heck with them. ;)
I ate dinner last night at the little hole in the wall Mexican place Rima and I found last year. They have huge burritos of all kinds on the menu as well as other real Mexican meals. I had a very nice goat burrito and some chips and salsa to go with lots of fresh brewed ice tea. It was all really yummy!
Finally for the night; I went on over to the Gainsville Hippodrome, one of the local theatre's, and took in one of their holiday plays. Last nights pick was the 'Winter Wonderette's', one of a series of Wonderette plays that have been making the rounds of the states for a few years now. Not a great play by any means, it was still entertaining enough, and that is all that really matters. I'm really not even sure I would call it a play, as there really isn't much of a plot to it. They use the excuse of putting on a hardware stores holiday party for 4 women to sing and dance to a lot of different holiday songs and carols. The singing was pretty wonderful, all four of the women had pretty amazing voices, but that is about all it had going for it. Oh well, not every play can be Emmy worthy.
I drove down to Ocala this afternoon in order to finish up the last of my shopping. Wandered around a couple stores down there and picked up a few things I needed. Caught a quick bite to eat after that, and then headed on back up to Gainsville. They were having their by-monthly contra dance this afternoon and they had a special band and caller in for the dance. The band was Contra Force, three young musicians with a lot of sound and 'big' energy and the caller was Emily 'Rainbow Face' Abel. Another one of those young musician/callers that has been coming up through the ranks for the past couple of years.
I got there just a little bit late, it's farther back there than I thought, but still had plenty of time to dance enough to get rather hot and sweaty. It was fun to see and talk to so many people whom I haven't seen or danced with for several months or more. Interesting to me is that the first women I danced with today though was actually from Arizona somewhere, I think Phoenix, but we both knew each other from dancing somewhere out west together at some point. Otherwise it was pretty much just Floridians from the local area that I got to dance with. It is a bit sad that today will be the only local dance I'll get to do for a while, but there will be plenty of time in the new year to dance a few more of the local dances in the area.
The plan is to just hang out tomorrow and not do a whole lot. Will try to get a few presents wrapped and then mailed out, but that may well mean a trip into town to buy wrapping paper at least. Oh well.
Here are the rest of the photo's I took several weeks ago at the California Railroad Museum. Sorry for the delay. Sometimes life just gets in the way of the writing.
California Railroad Museum in Sacramento California.
Nov. 21, 2014
 |
| Several of the refurbished train cars they had on display. These from the 1800's were from several narrow gauge lines that worked up in the mining and timber towns of the Sierras and along the coast, such as the Virginia and Truckee RR and Monterey and Salinas Valley RR. |
 |
| This combination passenger and baggage car is obviously from the Monterey and Salinas Valley RR's. |
 |
| All of the cars and locomotives have been beautifully restored and painted before being exhibited. |
 |
| Part of the inside of one of the passenger cars. Many Railroads competed with each other in which one could have the most ornate and beautiful cars on their lines. |
 |
| A beautiful wood burning 4-4-0 'American' style wood burning locomotive. You can almost always tell a locomotive burned wood by this type of smoke stack on it. |
 |
| During WWII many of the servicing jobs of the railroad were taken over by women as all the able bodied men went off to the war. Here you see one oiling up a big 2-8-2 'Mikado' locomotive. |
 |
| This style of engine was often used as both motive power for passenger as well as freight trains. Fast moving passenger trains would often have 4 small wheels, or trucks, in front however, as it helped in following the curves of the tracks at high speed. They would also often have huge diameter driving wheels, sometimes in excess of 6 1/2 feet in diameter. |
 |
| By the early 1950's the age of steam was on it's last legs. This engine, an EMD-F7 has always been one of my favorites. Used in combinations of from 1 to 4 units, in what were known as A or B Styles, the A unit looking like this one and the B unit being just an engine without the control cab, they started pulling many of the big 'named' trains such as the 'Sunset Limited' or the 'City of New Orleans'. |
 |
| This one is painted in my favorite Santa Fe paint scheme known as the 'War Bonnet' style. It would of been wonderful to see a train headed up by a 4 unit, A-B-B-A set of engines followed by 16-18 heavy weight Pullman style passenger cars. |
 |
| Back when train travel was still a big deal they would have a full galley on board. I was surprised to find out that they would often make up to 3,000 full meals, with appetizers, main entrees, bread and desert, per day. |
 |
| One of the few places where people of color could not only work, but could excel and actually be in charge, would be in many of the service jobs required of running the railroad. Of course it still wasn't 'equal' in any way to what none minorities could do... but it was a start. |
 |
| Locomotive #112 turns out to be the last engine my cousins grandfather ran while working for the Northwestern Pacific RR. So I had to take lots of pictures of it while there. |
 |
| This is just about as classic of a look as you can get. |
 |
 |
| One last photo of the boiler front on locomotive #112. |
 |
| This final picture is of part of the 'link and pin' style coupler that railroads used to join cars and locomotives together. Each car would have a fitting like this one on each end. To join two together, or to attach cars to a locomotive, a heavy steel bar with a hole at each end would be slipped inside the coupler box. The pin would be pulled up enough for the link to enter into the box where the pin would go down through the hole and lock it in place. With a pin on each end, the cars would all be joined together. It doesn't look like it would be too hard to do, but I guess many, many railroad workers ended up losing fingers or hands or whole arms when they misjudged the speed or the angle or some other variable. All in all it was much better when the more modern knuckle coupler was invented. |
brk*
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Certainly not in Texas any more. I was up and on the road early yesterday morning after packing up the trailer and dumping all the tanks. It was a pleasant morning for driving, pretty overcast and a bit on the cool side. Emma, my GPS, kept me on a couple back highways from the state park out to I-10, so it was more than an hour of 2-lane, stop and go traffic. But once on the highway everything came together and then it was just mile after mile of highway cruising.
Made it through Beaumont Texas before noon and stopped just inside Louisiana for a long lunch. The idea was to do a little more than 300 miles per day and I had already done more than half of that by then. So I sat in a Micky D's and ate some lunch and drank some soda and read my book before getting back on the road.
Ended up staying at another truck stop somewhere west of Lafayette last night. Actually, the parking lot was behind another McDonalds that just happened to be next to the place where I filled the truck up. But there were a couple of other RV's sitting there so I just pulled over there and joined them rather than get back on the road after dark.
It was foggy when I awoke this morning, but it was convenient to have a fast food place right there waiting for me, especially since what I wanted was pancakes. Had some breakfast, read the comics, did the crossword puzzle and then took off down the highway again. It was a pretty steady day of driving for me as I crossed through Louisiana and on into Mississippi. Some of the scenery was very plain and other parts of it were just beautiful. There was one section east of Lafayette where the highway crossed a huge bayou on a concrete causeway that was like something you would see in a painting. The deep, deep blue/black of the water with the silver trunks and red needles of the cypress trees standing stark against the backdrop of the sky. I really wish there had been some way to stop and take pictures of it, but I guess that is an image I won't be able to share with any of you.
Did get a chance to talk to a few of my friends during the day so that was fun. I bought one of those Bluetooth ear buds for my phone a couple of years ago and I find that it has been one of the best investments I have made for someone travelling like I do. Much better than having to hold the phone up to your ear, and much safer too. I just make sure all of my regular calls are on speed dial so it takes less than a second to call someone up and no time at all to answer when somebody else is calling me.
I'm pretty sure I passed through the city of Biloxi about an hour or so ago, but I can't be sure because it is so dam dark by that time in the early evening. It was far enough no matter what however so I just pulled into the next rest area when it came up. Will sit it out here for the rest of the evening and night and then go on in the morning like usual. My GPS is telling me that it is only a little more than 400 miles to my next camp site. That would be over at Otter Springs County Park, west of Gainsville Florida. I hope to pull in there and stay a week and then stash the trailer there in an area they have for trailer storage, while I head north to Virginia and West Virginia. So one more day and night on the road and then a couple of days to just goof off. I'm looking forward to that.
brk*
Made it through Beaumont Texas before noon and stopped just inside Louisiana for a long lunch. The idea was to do a little more than 300 miles per day and I had already done more than half of that by then. So I sat in a Micky D's and ate some lunch and drank some soda and read my book before getting back on the road.
Ended up staying at another truck stop somewhere west of Lafayette last night. Actually, the parking lot was behind another McDonalds that just happened to be next to the place where I filled the truck up. But there were a couple of other RV's sitting there so I just pulled over there and joined them rather than get back on the road after dark.
It was foggy when I awoke this morning, but it was convenient to have a fast food place right there waiting for me, especially since what I wanted was pancakes. Had some breakfast, read the comics, did the crossword puzzle and then took off down the highway again. It was a pretty steady day of driving for me as I crossed through Louisiana and on into Mississippi. Some of the scenery was very plain and other parts of it were just beautiful. There was one section east of Lafayette where the highway crossed a huge bayou on a concrete causeway that was like something you would see in a painting. The deep, deep blue/black of the water with the silver trunks and red needles of the cypress trees standing stark against the backdrop of the sky. I really wish there had been some way to stop and take pictures of it, but I guess that is an image I won't be able to share with any of you.
Did get a chance to talk to a few of my friends during the day so that was fun. I bought one of those Bluetooth ear buds for my phone a couple of years ago and I find that it has been one of the best investments I have made for someone travelling like I do. Much better than having to hold the phone up to your ear, and much safer too. I just make sure all of my regular calls are on speed dial so it takes less than a second to call someone up and no time at all to answer when somebody else is calling me.
I'm pretty sure I passed through the city of Biloxi about an hour or so ago, but I can't be sure because it is so dam dark by that time in the early evening. It was far enough no matter what however so I just pulled into the next rest area when it came up. Will sit it out here for the rest of the evening and night and then go on in the morning like usual. My GPS is telling me that it is only a little more than 400 miles to my next camp site. That would be over at Otter Springs County Park, west of Gainsville Florida. I hope to pull in there and stay a week and then stash the trailer there in an area they have for trailer storage, while I head north to Virginia and West Virginia. So one more day and night on the road and then a couple of days to just goof off. I'm looking forward to that.
brk*
Monday, December 1, 2014
Saturday was a long day overall, even though there was only 3-4 hours of actual driving done. I pulled off the highway around 3:00 in the afternoon and drove a couple of back roads over to Guadeloupe River State Park. They had plenty of spaces available for me to camp in, so it was easy to sign up for 3 nights and a couple of days to relax in.
Once the trailer was unhooked and everything set up I took some time to get some late lunch before going out to explore the park some. It's a beautiful, and large park, but it doesn't seem to have any real outstanding features. Not that it has to of course, it does have the area down along the river and that is rather pretty, but mostly it seems that it is just a real good example of a 'Texas Hill Country' park. Mostly scrub and live oak, with lots of mesquite and brush, it seems ideal for many types of animals and birds, and indeed I have seem quite a few deer these past few days. But there wasn't much else out there to see so I spent the rest of the evening reading and working on a few photo's
Yesterday I packed up the truck and headed into the town of San Antonio. The goal was to go in and visit the Alamo and the River Walk through town. The Alamo, or what is left of it, is right near the downtown area so it is very easy to find even with out GPS. I found a great place to park just a few blocks away, that cost a couple of bucks, and it was easy enough to walk over from there. Lot's and lots of history there at the Alamo. It was interesting to me that it was originally called the Mission San Antonio de Valero and it was founded in 1724. The name Alamo didn't come about until the early 1800's when the Spanish military stationed a cavalry unit there. They referred to the old mission as the Alamo, the Spanish word for 'Cottonwood", which one assumes grew around it.
But the old mission is most famous for the battle that took place there on March 6, 1836 when nearly 200 Texas Independence Revolutionists were assaulted by a force of 5-6,000 Mexican troops under the command of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Killed that day were several famous volunteers including Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie.
This battle set the stage for later battles for Texas independence where the cry 'Remember the Alamo' was often shouted during the fight. There are still some of the original parts of Alamo left, but a lot of original site has been lost over the years and now is covered over with roads and high rise hotels.
The River Walk is only a block or so away from the Alamo so it is an easy walk over to it. Just a canal system that rings a few blocks of downtown San Antonio, it has been built up around the whole length of it with small businesses and restaurants. Rather pretty to look at and walk along, it wasn't of that much interest to me as far as shopping is concerned, but I was hungry enough to pay attention to the restaurants that I passed by. I finally walked by a nice little place called the 'Casa de Rio' that had small tables right along the water and specialized in Mexican food. It also turned out to be the very first restaurant that opened along the river walk way back in the 50's when it wasn't much more than dirt banks and very few buildings. I had a basic platter which came with a chicken enchilada, tamale, chili con carna and rice and beans. Along with a couple of glasses of real ice tea and some live mariachi music, it was a very pleasant lunch for me.
So about 5 hours of wandering around and then a quick stop at the grocery store on the way back to the trailer. I just relaxed last night and watched the old movie 'Men In Black I' on the computer. Tonight it is looking like I may end up watching the next one, MIB II.
A quiet day today otherwise. Rather cloudy out all day and not all that warm for the day, just into the 50's for the most part. I came into town just to get on line for a longer period of time. I also needed to do some laundry and find a hardware store. The laundry was easy to find, and it didn't take long to get my two loads washed, dried and folded. I needed the hardware store just for a couple of bolts I wanted. A couple of days ago on of the torsion bars on my trailer hitch started to slip out and drag along behind the trailer. Not a good thing in so many ways. Looks like the little pin that helps hold it into its socket had worn a little on one side and was allowing it just enough play to slip out. So I found that a 1/4" dia bolt, 5/8ths inch long, seemed to fit pretty well. But I only had one on hand so I want to pick up a few more just in case.
I'm off once again tomorrow morning. It has been nice having a couple of days just to hang out and relax. There are a few photo's posted below that I finally got cleaned up yesterday. They were taken about a week ago while I was still in California. I have to admit that they are not that good as far as clarity. I really should read my camera book or do some research on how to take good indoor pictures, because mine just don't seem to come out very well. Still, they seem to be good enough to show what I wanted to show, so they will have to do for right now.
brk*
Once the trailer was unhooked and everything set up I took some time to get some late lunch before going out to explore the park some. It's a beautiful, and large park, but it doesn't seem to have any real outstanding features. Not that it has to of course, it does have the area down along the river and that is rather pretty, but mostly it seems that it is just a real good example of a 'Texas Hill Country' park. Mostly scrub and live oak, with lots of mesquite and brush, it seems ideal for many types of animals and birds, and indeed I have seem quite a few deer these past few days. But there wasn't much else out there to see so I spent the rest of the evening reading and working on a few photo's
Yesterday I packed up the truck and headed into the town of San Antonio. The goal was to go in and visit the Alamo and the River Walk through town. The Alamo, or what is left of it, is right near the downtown area so it is very easy to find even with out GPS. I found a great place to park just a few blocks away, that cost a couple of bucks, and it was easy enough to walk over from there. Lot's and lots of history there at the Alamo. It was interesting to me that it was originally called the Mission San Antonio de Valero and it was founded in 1724. The name Alamo didn't come about until the early 1800's when the Spanish military stationed a cavalry unit there. They referred to the old mission as the Alamo, the Spanish word for 'Cottonwood", which one assumes grew around it.
But the old mission is most famous for the battle that took place there on March 6, 1836 when nearly 200 Texas Independence Revolutionists were assaulted by a force of 5-6,000 Mexican troops under the command of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Killed that day were several famous volunteers including Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie.
This battle set the stage for later battles for Texas independence where the cry 'Remember the Alamo' was often shouted during the fight. There are still some of the original parts of Alamo left, but a lot of original site has been lost over the years and now is covered over with roads and high rise hotels.
The River Walk is only a block or so away from the Alamo so it is an easy walk over to it. Just a canal system that rings a few blocks of downtown San Antonio, it has been built up around the whole length of it with small businesses and restaurants. Rather pretty to look at and walk along, it wasn't of that much interest to me as far as shopping is concerned, but I was hungry enough to pay attention to the restaurants that I passed by. I finally walked by a nice little place called the 'Casa de Rio' that had small tables right along the water and specialized in Mexican food. It also turned out to be the very first restaurant that opened along the river walk way back in the 50's when it wasn't much more than dirt banks and very few buildings. I had a basic platter which came with a chicken enchilada, tamale, chili con carna and rice and beans. Along with a couple of glasses of real ice tea and some live mariachi music, it was a very pleasant lunch for me.
So about 5 hours of wandering around and then a quick stop at the grocery store on the way back to the trailer. I just relaxed last night and watched the old movie 'Men In Black I' on the computer. Tonight it is looking like I may end up watching the next one, MIB II.
A quiet day today otherwise. Rather cloudy out all day and not all that warm for the day, just into the 50's for the most part. I came into town just to get on line for a longer period of time. I also needed to do some laundry and find a hardware store. The laundry was easy to find, and it didn't take long to get my two loads washed, dried and folded. I needed the hardware store just for a couple of bolts I wanted. A couple of days ago on of the torsion bars on my trailer hitch started to slip out and drag along behind the trailer. Not a good thing in so many ways. Looks like the little pin that helps hold it into its socket had worn a little on one side and was allowing it just enough play to slip out. So I found that a 1/4" dia bolt, 5/8ths inch long, seemed to fit pretty well. But I only had one on hand so I want to pick up a few more just in case.
I'm off once again tomorrow morning. It has been nice having a couple of days just to hang out and relax. There are a few photo's posted below that I finally got cleaned up yesterday. They were taken about a week ago while I was still in California. I have to admit that they are not that good as far as clarity. I really should read my camera book or do some research on how to take good indoor pictures, because mine just don't seem to come out very well. Still, they seem to be good enough to show what I wanted to show, so they will have to do for right now.
California Railroad Museum in Sacramento Calif.
Nov 21, 2014
 |
| Right inside the front door, where you buy your ticket, is this scale model of a working 2-8-2 Mikado style steam locomotive. I'm not sure what the scale was but it always amazes me that someone can actually build something like this from scratch and even have it work like a real locomotive. Of course it took somewhere around 6,000 man hours of work to do it. |
 |
| First thing you do at the museum is go in and watch a short 20 min. film about railroads and thier use in the state of California. The theatre is a smallish 3D stadium style layout and at the end of the film the curtain goes up and a whole wall of windows open out onto this locomotive and the setting it is staged in. It is very impressive. |
 |
| The locomotive is the first engine used on the Central Pacific Railroad. It is named the 'Gov. Stanford' after one of the 4 major players in building the railroad who later became the Governor of California. |
 |
| The driving force behind the idea of the Trans Continental Railroad was a young Civil Engineer named Theodore D. Judah. He helped persuade a group of merchants to incorporate the Central Pacific Railroad in Sacramento. Four of these investors became famous as the "Big Four" of California business and politics. As Chief Engineer, Judah surveyed much of the route over the Sierra Nevada, but had a falling out with his partners not long after the start of track construction. He planned to buy out the others, but contracted yellow fever in Panama while on his way to New York to raise funds. He died in November 1863, less than a month after the locomotive Gov. Stanford arrived in Sacramento. That's him standing next to the Gov. Stanford. ( Taken from the California RR Museum web site) |
 |
| They had a mock surveying camp set up to show what conditions would of been like trying to find a way through the mountains for the railroad. A few photo's they had posted showed some of the near impossible places they had to survey in. |
 |
| This was a short section of a Snow Shed they had constructed in the museum. Because of the steepness of the terrain and the amount of snow the Sierras got every winter, more than 30 miles of snow sheds were constructed for the trains to run through in relative safety. |
 |
| The Gov. Standford was a forty ton wood burning 4-4-0 American style locomotive built in 1862. It was left in pieces after being built on the east coast and was freighted around Cape Horn on a sailing ship. Once it landed in San Francisco it was assembled and had its first run on March 25, 1864. |
 |
| A close up of the engineer in the cab of the locomotive. |
 |
| Chief Civil Engineer Judah. |
 |
| A view of some of the locomotive controls. |
 |
| Once you have looked at everything in the first exhibit you walk through a short tunnel and into a wonderland of other locomotives and cars. This beautifully maintained locomotive looks almost like a toy with its shiny brass work and fresh paint. This one originally worked on the Virginian and Truckee RR. |
 |
| This behemoth, one of 256 that the Southern Pacific RR bought, was one of the last Steam Locomotive designs built. With a wheel configuration of 2-8-8-2 it was often used in a series of 2 or 3 engines pulling in tandem in order to make it up the long, twisting grades through the mountains. Because of the length and number of tunnels and snow sheds and the sharpness of the curves, these engines were built with the cab at the front of the locomotive instead of back where it is usually located. This kept the engineer and crew from being asphyxiated while in the tunnels and allowed them to see what was going on ahead of them before they were up on it. This is the only 'Cab Forward' locomotive left from the Southern Pacific RR. |
 |
| Like most locomotives of this configuration it is actually made up of two completely separate engines joined together. The driving wheels are joined with an articulated joint which allowed the body to swing out on tight curves and still stay on the track. This is not a 'Mallet' style locomotive however because the steam is not first used in the high pressure cylinder system in the first engine and then a larger, low pressure cylinder system in the second before being vented. This locomotive simply uses two separate high pressure cylinders to drive the wheels. |
 |
| Another beautiful steam locomotive. |
brk*
Friday, November 28, 2014
Long, long day on the road today. Started out early from my rest area just south of El Paso Texas. The highway there parallels the Rio Grande river for about a 100 miles, and it is nice to see all the fields and orchards along the road. I-10 soon takes off and heads nearly due east however, and for the next 200+/- miles it is mostly pretty flat and featureless. Just miles and miles of mesquite and rabbit brush and not much else. There are mountains sticking up here and there along the way, most likely some remnant of some volcanic action many years ago, but it just wasn't that interesting to look at, and there aren't even that many signs of humans about. A small town here and there, a few scattered houses, some occupied.... most not.
By mid afternoon the landscape had changed to a more broken, rolling hill type of topography. Vegetation also increased to where there were scrub oak mixed in with the mesquite. An hour or two further and the hills were covered with mostly juniper and cedars, very reminiscent of much of far western Colorado.
So more than 400 miles today and now I'm sitting in a truck stop waiting for it to get late enough for me to go to bed. One of the problems is that I passed through another time zone around noon, so it is now effectively 2 hours later than I am use to. My watch says it is now 8:15, but my body and mind still think it is only 6:00... it may be a long night of reading for me.
I am also now backed into the back lot of a truck stop in, what I think is, Junction Texas. I have never stayed in a truck stop before, but there are only a few trucks here so far this evening, and there are plenty of empty spots around. So I am going to give it a shot and hope for the best.
Turns out that I am only a little more than 100 miles away from the state park I want to stay in tomorrow night. My plan, if they have any openings, is to spend 3 nights there and just relax for a couple of days. The park itself looks kind of interesting as it is located along the Guadeloupe River, but it is also less than 45 miles from San Antonio, home of the Alamo and the River Walk. So the plan is to spend Sunday in town and see if I can see at least those two sights. It would also be nice to sit down to a real nice meal of Mexican food. I'm thinking tamales would be nice. Not quite turkey and dressing, but not too bad either.
brk*
By mid afternoon the landscape had changed to a more broken, rolling hill type of topography. Vegetation also increased to where there were scrub oak mixed in with the mesquite. An hour or two further and the hills were covered with mostly juniper and cedars, very reminiscent of much of far western Colorado.
So more than 400 miles today and now I'm sitting in a truck stop waiting for it to get late enough for me to go to bed. One of the problems is that I passed through another time zone around noon, so it is now effectively 2 hours later than I am use to. My watch says it is now 8:15, but my body and mind still think it is only 6:00... it may be a long night of reading for me.
I am also now backed into the back lot of a truck stop in, what I think is, Junction Texas. I have never stayed in a truck stop before, but there are only a few trucks here so far this evening, and there are plenty of empty spots around. So I am going to give it a shot and hope for the best.
Turns out that I am only a little more than 100 miles away from the state park I want to stay in tomorrow night. My plan, if they have any openings, is to spend 3 nights there and just relax for a couple of days. The park itself looks kind of interesting as it is located along the Guadeloupe River, but it is also less than 45 miles from San Antonio, home of the Alamo and the River Walk. So the plan is to spend Sunday in town and see if I can see at least those two sights. It would also be nice to sit down to a real nice meal of Mexican food. I'm thinking tamales would be nice. Not quite turkey and dressing, but not too bad either.
brk*
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)