LAST DAY AT CHEROKEE LANDING

It’s hard to leave this peaceful, beautiful spot. But, adventure calls. The woodpile and fire pit are ready for summer evening programs.

A couple of Mallards have made Cherokee Landing home. They don’t mingle with the bigger geese, we notice.

From the bridge I saw underwater movement.  A whole school of fish were under me and a couple shots turned out.

The ranger told me there is  bass, sunfish and catfish, maybe more types of fish in the lake. All good eating and bass a real challenge for fishermen.

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The dogwood are almost finished blooming, here. This branch survived the hard rains.

Beautiful new growth on a type of oak is drenched with raindrops. (enlarge by clicking on photo).

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What looks like blossoms in this evergreen tree is debris from above caught in wet globs in the needles.

If you find yourself traveling near Saulsbury, Cherokee Landing is a pleasant stop at any time of year.

Saulsbury, Tennessee – Day 5

The motorhome is parked at Thousand Trails Cherokee Landing RV Resort near Saulsbury, Tennessee. We expect to depart from here later today. You can read about this resort by clicking this link…
https://www.thousandtrails.com/getaways/tennessee/cherokeelanding.asp

Here are some photos I took on Saturday afternoon…

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

Enjoying pretty, peaceful and quiet places is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

The red dot on the below map shows our approximate location near Memphis in the State of Tennessee. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2013
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

Saulsbury, Tennessee – Day 4

The motorhome is parked at Thousand Trails Cherokee Landing RV Resort near Saulsbury, Tennessee. We are waiting out a rainy weekend and expect to depart from here tomorrow. You can read about this resort by clicking this link…
https://www.thousandtrails.com/getaways/tennessee/cherokeelanding.asp

Way out here in the country, we’re struggling with Internet signal problems. Keeping busy with miscellaneous stuff. Mary is resting and says she’s feeling better with each passing day.

Here are some early morning photos I took at a nearby small lake…

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

Enjoying pretty, peaceful and quiet places is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

The red dot on the below map shows our approximate location near Memphis in the State of Tennessee. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2013
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

Saulsbury, Tennessee – Day 3

The motorhome is parked at Thousand Trails Cherokee Landing RV Resort near Saulsbury, Tennessee. We expect to depart from here this coming Monday. You can read about this resort by clicking this link…
https://www.thousandtrails.com/getaways/tennessee/cherokeelanding.asp

Way out here in the country, we’re struggling with Internet signal problems. Keeping busy with miscellaneous stuff. Mary is resting and says she’s feeling better with each passing day.

Here are some photos I took at a nearby small lake. Stillness makes for nice reflections…

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

Enjoying pretty, peaceful and quiet places is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

The red dot on the below map shows our approximate location near Memphis in the State of Tennessee. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2013
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

Los Alamos, New Mexico – Day 2

The motorhome is now parked at VFW Post #8874 in Los Alamos. I expect to be here several days.

Because of my central in-town location I walked over to the visitors center and picked up a walking historic tour map. It took me about two hours to walk the 1.4 miles taking photos along the way.

Photos of two museums and a lodge which I will tour in coming days will be shown at that time. I really like the ambiance feeling of Los Alamos. It’s a picturesque place built upon four mesas at about the 7,200 elevation level.

Los Alamos was the location of the secret town where the first atomic bombs created for World War II were assembled.

You can read all about Los Alamos by clicking this Wikipedia informational link…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Alamos,_New_Mexico

Here are some photos from yesterday…

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

In the afternoon I took the Bronco and drove back to the overlook where you have to drive up a long hill road to get to the top of the mesa. I elected not to stop here while towing the Bronco with the motorhome on the way into town. Here are some of the views from that overlook…

Enjoying beautiful unique historical scenery is another joy of the full-time RVing lifestyle!

If you have not checked out my new Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2012
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

SHILIN-THE STONE FOREST

To resume my visit to China in 2006, we are in Kunming, The City Of Eternal Spring. It  is a very temperate area  known for its plant diversity. Most of China’s flower species come from Kunming with its  pleasant,  temperate climate. We see commercial flower gardens and orchards around Kunming, but  our tour will take us to  Shilin, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, a surrealistic  “orchard” of stone.

The drive  to this unique landscape  through a three-mile long tunnel, and we worry about it caving in, probably unreasonably so. But, safety isn’t foremost in Chinese projects, we think. The tunnel replaced a twisty, tortuous road, we are told. Then we take a shuttle to the base of the 200 acres of what are called karst towers, formed 270 million years ago as the Himalayas were forming.

It’s a lovely spot by a lake, but the sign that greets us with tortured interpretations was a hoot though well intentioned. We were relieved to know what we buy here will be genuine.

Yunnan Province has many minority people.  And we see them come to Shilin to get married, or celebrate special events in their lives. The most prominent minority in this region is the Yi people. The Suni Muslims are a branch of the Yi people. There are black Yis and white Yis. The black Yis enslaved the white Yis because they admired the rare  black tigers of Asia over the white tigers. The Yi were great hunters and wrestlers, strong and muscular. They walk in fire and have fire torch festivals unique to the area.  Mau banished slavery among the Yis.  Another nearby minority is the Hui people, called barbarians. They arrived here with Kublai Khan.  A very informative website can be found at the following link.

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/yunnan/kunming/stone_forest.htm

 

The area does resemble a stone forest, which is the common name for Shilin.

The karst formations are  limestone and were shaped by a receding inland sea and harsh winds.

It was an easy,  pleasant  hike through the “forest” and one could imagine what it must have been like for ancient children  to climb and play on the formations.

We hiked around the lake and took pictures. There are caves and waterfalls deeper inside the forest, but we were given a limited time here. Without a guide it would be easy to become disoriented and lost if we wandered too far off the path.

The people in their special native dress were fascinating, anyway.

The costumes are somewhat different, but always the main color of red and yellow.

The Yi men show their single status by the way they wear their feathers. A girl shows interest in a man by touching her horn.

Vicki speculated this was some type of local holiday celebration. It seemed very romantic to us with couples and singlels having their picture taken by the lake.

Near the gift shop, this gent was  fiddling with a musical instrument. We figured there would be a musical event later in the day.

By lunchtime, the place was mobbed.  I saw that under the costume the girls wear street clothes, kind of like we do for high school graduation.

 

This woman may have been a different minority with similar costume. I enjoyed people watching as much as the stone formations.

The Stone Forest is seventy-five miles from Kunming and actually makes its own weather. At certain times of years, storms roar out of the caves and water cascades from the high formations. We will move on to Urumichi and visit a Yi village.

Elephant Butte State Park, New Mexico…

A few days back I wrote about the Elephant Butte Dam…
http://wp.me/pDCku-4by

Which created Elephant Butte Lake…
http://wp.me/pDCku-4c7

Along the west side of the lake…Elephant Butte State Park, over about ten miles, has about a dozen campgrounds…most of them are primitive with no utilities.

Yesterday I moved the motorhome from the Moose Lodge in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico the about five miles to the State Park. I’ll spend only one night. I came to primarily dump my waste tanks, fill my fresh water tank and take a nice long hot shower. After last Saturday’s wind/dust storm I also cleaned the window glass inside and out as well as the solar panels on the motorhome roof.

I’m parked in what I consider the best view site in the state park. I’m situated on an overlook near the park entrance…about 300 feet elevation about the lake.

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view...

Here’s the view through the dinette window…

Another view…

And a panorama view…

Then three Google Earth views…

There are about six overlook sites…each with a three-sided protective shelter…

that have a metal picnic table inside…

that gives a great view of the lake…

People park their RV’s right along the lake shore so they can pull their watercraft onshore nearby their rigs…

When I scouted out this park Easter weekend there were several hundred RV’s parked along the lake shore. The roadways down to there are not well marked…so much so that I got the Bronco into some loose sand and had to put it into 4 wheel drive to get moving again. A local told me that the local tow truck drivers do a lively business retrieving stuck vehicles. They’re not going to get my business…I’m staying on solid ground up on the overlook!

A lovely sunny day of 70 degrees with a gentle breeze made it a delightful stay.

Here’s the state park’s official website link…
http://www.emnrd.state.nm.us/prd/elephant.htm

Today I’ll head out and start wandering north towards Albuquerque where I’m hopefully going to meet up Mary in about 10 days.

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2012
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

Elephant Butte Lake, New Mexico…

In yesterday’s Blog entry I wrote about Elephant Butte Dam which created Elephant Butte Lake in 1916. If you missed that entry, you can read it by clicking this link…
http://wp.me/pDCku-4by

Today I’ll describe the lake it created. Justice can only be done in one of two ways…by airplane or Google Earth. Since I do not own an airplane and I’m not about to rent one…we’ll use the magic of Google Earth.

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view...

In this first view you get to see the lake, directly from above, as seen from an altitude of 38 miles…

In the above image you can see my current location of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico as marked by TOC. The location of the dam is also shown. The lake is also known as the Elephant Butte Reservoir which you can read about by clicking this Wikipedia link…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_Butte_Reservoir

The lake is New Mexico’s largest body of water at 40 miles long with 200 miles of shoreline. You can read about other details of the lake in this link…
http://www.recreation.gov/recAreaDetails.do?contractCode=NRSO&recAreaId=100

This next Google Earth image shown from an angle gives a better perspective of the “big picture”…

In addition to the Rio Grande River and the dam locations, I’m also showing you the relative locations of two Blog entries from a few days ago…first is the Laguna del Muerto from the entry about the Journey of the Dead…
http://wp.me/pDCku-49n

and second is the entry about Engle, New Mexico…An Unusual Ghost Town…
http://wp.me/pDCku-49e

As you might have guessed, the lake has huge recreational use and value. Directly to the northeast of Truth or Consequences is the rather unremarkable city of Elephant Butte…population in the 2000 census of 1,368. The major portion of the city’s business population is made up of RV and boat storage facitities…folks store them during the week and come and play on the weekends.

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2012
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

LETTING A GOOD ONE PASS

Yesterday, I found a beautiful condo complex, buildings surrounding a lovely lake with an island in the center. The day was beautiful, the lake with trout and koi swimming about, gorgeous pond lilies in bloom, the requisite ducks, and frogs; the price was right, but the town was not. Everett is an industrial kind of town with a strong rental market and downtown re-gentrification for anyone interested in this area. In the end, the crush of traffic between Everett and Seattle, and a few wrinkles with the unit as a rental,  changed my mind, temporarily, anyway.  If you are job hunting, this is the place to come.

We moved about 30 miles south to Monroe and spent the night at an Eagles Park. Jim and I sometimes look out our dining room window and comment how nice it is to enjoy a different view from place to place. Of course, not always this pretty. Looking out on a beautiful green meadow, a river rushes by, a flower garden, horse shoe pits, swings for the kids and a huge bonfire sized fire-pit.  It’s only open to Eagles member.

This “bouquet” surrounds the flag pole.

The river is clean and clear, with a gravel and sand bed;  a wading river. If the day had been hot, I’d have had my toes in it immediately. I’m thoroughly enjoying Washington State, despite the cold weather and rain.

 

 

WE MADE IT TO ASHTABULA, OHIO

If you like a good ghost story you might enjoy this one. Before we left Smethport, PA. we saw a sign to visit the old jail where the ghost of Ralph Crossmire appeared after he was hung by his neck until dead. We didn’t visit the jail, which is run by the local Historical Society, I believe, but I did go on-line and read his whole story. You can check it out at:     http://www.smethporthistory.org/king.street/jail/crossmiremurder/crossmire.htm

Smethport was a nice town, friendly and pretty with a good sized lake and park.

A huge flock of Canadian Geese make this lake their home. Above is a small portion of the lake and a small portion of the flock.

I walked around the lake on Goose Chasing Trail, appropriately enough. I saw along this wall of greenery on the trail many berry bushes and a huge plop of bear scat. Not a place to walk at night. The park had ball fields, several childrens playgrounds, tennis courts, a skate board area; You can fish and kayak, and sail boats and swim here. A huge barbeque area for group affairs plus many strategically located more private picnic areas with benches. I crossed two bridges over the water. For a small population of about 19,000 people, it was commendable. If I were to chose a place to live in Pennsylvania, this might be it.

Down the road apiece was this figure attached to a hunt and bait shop. Methinks the area is a great hunting, fishing and skiing area, judging from the mountainous terrain of the Allegheny Mountains. And, the main grocery here had better prices compared to what we were paying for items in Ivoryton and Dartmouth.

Yesterday, I attempted to get a picture of a snowmobile crossing sign and missed several of them. But, I finally succeeded after three tries on this stretch of road headed for Ashtabula.

Our journey was somewhat eventful in that a truck turning right pulled within inches of us at a stop light, then backed up and made the narrow turn. I was so transfixed I didn’t get his picture. Likewise when we came to a very narrow underpass. This one, pictured below, was lower than normal, but not so narrow. The transportation department gave plenty of warning that it was coming up. Twelve feet seven inches. The motor home is Eleven feet two inches.

Then, we stopped for lunch and a stretch at Union City and wondered what all the yellow ribbons were for? Maybe vets? Maybe cancer awareness? Its a local thing.

Signs we saw, but not in time to get a picture:
HOME OF FLAMETHROWER BURGERS
(That was Conneaut)
BLIND PERSON AREA
(On cape cod, we saw a DEAF CHILD sign.)
BUCKLE UP ITS YOUR LIFE ITS OUR LAW
SOULSHINES BETTER THAN A SHOESHINE
WORLDS STRONGEST REDNECK
That last one really has me curious. We saw it in three places in two small towns???
Life on the road is fun even whizzing by. We made it to Ashtabula.