Home Theater Experience On The Road…

A short while back we decided to upgrade our TV in the motorhome even though we are not big TV watchers. We replaced the original 20 inch, 58 pound monster that was installed at the time the coach was manufactured in February, 2006 and showing signs of impending failure. We replaced it with an LG 26 inch LCD-LED flat screen that weighs a mere 11.2 pounds.

In the last two evenings I watched the TV in earnest for the first time since leaving Mary’s home ten days ago. I decided to watch a two PBS VHS tape of Lewis & Clark…a total of four hours viewing…

These VHS tapes were fabricated in 1997. Despite being 14 years old, I was truly impressed with the clarity and the vivid colors when seen on the new TV…

As they say…the photos I took just don’t do it justice. Nonetheless…when coupled with our six-channel surround sound system…the Home Theater experience is very realistic right here in the comfort of our home on wheels. Bring on the DVD’s!

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2011
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Travel Addicts…

After re-reading Blue Highways (see yesterday’s Blog entry) I was reminded of a file I had saved in my documents file. It’s a list of sayings from people who liked to travel…

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For the born traveler, traveling is a besetting vice. Like other vices, it is imperious, demanding its victim’s time, money, energy and the sacrifice of comfort.

- Aldous Huxley

…from the midst of dark pine forests, the isolated snowy peaks were looking out like giants. They served us for grand beacons to show the route at which we advanced in our journey.
- John C. Freemont, 1843

The traveler may feel assured, he will meet with no difficulties or dangers, excepting in rare cases, nearly so bad as he beforehand anticipates. In a moral point of view, the effect ought to be, to teach him good-humored patience, freedom from selfishness, the habit of acting for himself, and of making the best of every occurrence…Traveling ought also to teach him distrust; but at the same time he will discover, how many truly kind-hearted people there are, with whom he never before had, or ever again will have any further communication, who yet are ready to offer him the most disinterested assistance.

- Charles Darwin

To have been the Dreamer for so long and now to be the Doer, inside the dream instead of outside it, still feels like a dream.

Alyce Cornyn-Selby

Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness.

~Ray Bradbury

Muhammad says, ‘Love of one’s country is a part of the faith.’ But don’t take that literally! Your real ‘country’ is where you’re heading, not where you are.

- Rumi

I think that travel comes from some deep urge to see the world, like the urge that brings up a worm in an Irish bog to see the moon when it is full.

~Lord Dunsany

the open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself.

- William Least Heat Moon

Everybody needs places to play in…where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.

- John Muir

If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.

– James Michener

. . .If people and their manner of living were alike everywhere, there would not be much point in moving from one place to another.

- Paul Bowles

I hesitated a moment to view this immense mountain, the top of which was obscured in the clouds, and the ascent appeared to be almost perpendicular.

- William Clark (Lewis and Clark)

Traveling is a learning process that takes place in a real rather than an artificial environment.

- People’s Guide to Mexico

There are places that have great strength for one that knows how to understand and feel. They are places of unique power that comes out of the depths of the earth. It can be a place apart, somewhere in the fields, in the mountains, surrounded by rocks or boulders, at the entrance of a cave, at the high summit or at the rim of a canyon…

Romayne Wheeler
Life Through the Eyes of a Tarahumara

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

- Douglas Adams

Life is a daring adventure or it is nothing.

- Helen Keller

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Here’s my favorite saying that I picked up somewhere along the way…

A bad day of RVing, beats a good day at work!

Here’s a photo of our magic carpet, that takes us to so many wonderful places, taken at the Thousand Trails RV Resort in Soledad Canyon, California.

As Charles Kuralt from the old “On The Road” TV series used to say…”Wonder what’s around the bend?” Travel On!!!!

(By the way…I so enjoyed re-reading Blue Highways, I decided to re-read it a third time…starting again yesterday…only slower this time!)

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2011
For more information about my three books, click this link:
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We’re Camped Near A Very Famous Spot…

We are camped at Thousand Trails RV Resort in Seaview, Washington…about one mile from where Captain William Clark (of Lewis and Clark) stepped upon the sand beach of Beards Hollow on the shore of the Pacific Ocean on November 19, 1805. Here’s a Lewis and Clark route map showing our proximity to that site…(Left click to enlarge)…

The above map is found in this excellent link about the local Lewis and Clark Discovery Trail…
http://funbeach.com/local-attractions/discovery-trail/

Here’s a Google Earth view of the same area which you can left click to enlarge…

You can also click to enlarge this view looking north up the Washington Coast to Canada…

The beach was reached through Beards Hollow which you can read about by clicking this link…

http://www.columbiariverimages.com/Regions/Places/beards_hollow.html

Yesterday Mary and I walked Clark’s trail through Beards Hollow to the beach. It was neat to have a feel for what Clark and his men likely saw and felt on that day. Here are some photos…

First Beards Hollow as seen from the road (just an Indian path back then) overlook…

From the parking area, it was a path about 1/2 mile through some beautiful wetlands…

This is the view they would have seen as they emerged from the thicket…

Clark and his men walked about five miles north on this beach looking for a spot to set up for their winter camp…

About 1/2 mile up this beach, a path to the right leads to our campground. Not finding anything suitable they returned south, crossed the Columbia River into what is now Oregon and established Fort Clatsop.

To see the other 14 photos I took, Click this link…
https://picasaweb.google.com/110455945462646142273/LewisClarkDiscoveryTrailSeaviewWA#

Exploring historical locations is one of our primary enjoyments of our RVing life!

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2011
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://lulu.com/panamaorbust

Three Unusual Happenings That Ended In Hastings, Nebraska

Jim says:

Today was a rather unusual day. We departed Maryville, Missouri at 9:00 AM and I was at the wheel as we went down U.S. Highway 136 West. About 1.5 hours later we passed through the last town in Missouri by the name of Rock Port. We were expecting to cross the Missouri River into Nebraska in just a few miles when we came upon a huge fluorescent orange warning sign that stated…

MISSOURI RIVER BRIDGE…8’6″ MAXIMUM WIDTH.
(It didn’t say why this was so…just those words)

Before we knew it we were passed the sign and did not get a picture of it. Nonetheless…we had a problem as our motorhome is 8’6″ wide…not including the mirrors! What to do???

I pulled into a large gas station parking lot to assess the situation. Since we could not cross the Missouri River on Highway 36 I decided to head northwest on Interstate Highway 29. On we went for 20+ miles until we came to U.S. Highway 2 which finally allowed us across the Missouri River. Mary snapped this photo of the Missouri River with my camera. This is the very river boated by the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Once across the river we followed Highway 2 for a quite a while which unfortunately heads North to Lincoln…and we wanted to go West! Finally I found a way to avoid downtown Lincoln and got on U.S. Highway 6 headed West. That detour took us approximately 100 miles out of our way and was the first of today’s three unusual happenings.

Next happening was the weather. Once across the Missouri River a light misty rain began and continued off-and-on for the remainder of the day. The unusual part was the temperature which was a high of only 70 degrees! The most delightful temperature we’ve experienced in a LONG TIME! It was wonderful not being in all the heat and humidity we’ve experienced for so long! That was unusual happening #2.

I drove 165 miles in 4.5 hours when Mary took over the wheel in Friend, Nebraska heading for our day’s destination of Hastings about 65 miles distant. The terrain in Nebraska so far has not been as hilly as Missouri. Pretty near every little town has some of these huge grain silos…

Finally we arrived in Hastings and pulled into the parking lot of American Legion Post #11. I went inside to ask permission to park for the night. I was greeted by the Manager Deneeta Svoboda who readily granted permission. She soon was telling me the story of how this American Legion Post will be closing on September 30th. I found out she had a beer that Mary would like and went out to the motorhome to fetch her. To make along story short, Deneeta turned out to be a bubbly, effervescent type of gal with whom we were soon chatting like we had known her all of our lives. A really fun gal…Mary and she hit it off just grandly. We were the only customers in the place so it was really easy to chat.

Among the things we talked about was Deneeta’s cleanliness of the place She proudly boasted of the cleanest public bar restrooms we could ever find. I checked out the mens room and by golly you could eat off of the floor. Here’s the photo to prove it…

Here’s the unusual part…I stayed two hours and had two Miller Lites in that time then left to go out to the motorhome to get something to eat. You need to understand…Mary is a one beer drinker. By time I left she had had two beers, a shot of Irish Whiskey and was drinking a scotch and water. After a total of 4.5 hours she finally returned to the motorhome! She confessed to having two more scotch and waters after I left. So, that’s unusual happening #3. Mary just does not drink like that. She told me more than once…”I’m smashed”. She said she drank a lot of water during the night but appears to be fine this morning. Here’s a photo of Mary and Deneeta…

I got the feeling Mary must have really been needing some girl time instead of hanging around me all the time!

Another fun day in the full-Time RVing lifestyle. As I’ve said before…it’s a lousy job, but someone’s got to do it!

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2010
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