POKING AROUND A CLOCK SHOP.

Siamese twins, the first identified world-wide, were born in Siam, the country we now know as Thailand. I picked up this cheapie little clock there with the twins and it fit perfectly over a couple of holes the previous owner left in the wood between two cupboard doors in the motor home. It hangs  above the dining table where I like to check the time at a glance. The problem is, the hands loosened and would jiggle loose at every nasty  bump in the road.

Memphis has seven clock shops and this one was just around the corner from where we are parked. Most towns have zero clock shops. It would make an interesting trek to visit each clock shop. (Jim doesn’t think so.)

I hold a childhood memory of a visit to a clock shop. It was dark, and mysterious to my unlearned mind. This one fit the bill. Kind of exotic with parts and pieces of clocks and other stuff around.

All different. Like artists, each craftsman leaves his mark by his work.

After I left, I regretted not looking closely, and finding something to bring home. This one is pretty.

Quirky and interesting.

I would have liked to bring this dog home, but there is no room in the motor home to carry her.

If you know someone who collects clocks, you know that person will collect other things. This old timey lamp complete with fringed shade is a beauty.

A festooned speaker phone with an Emmet Kelly clown holding a small timepiece. A great antique.

These are nice clocks compared to my little Siamese Twins. The road would be hard on such nice stuff, but I enjoyed poking around the clock shop.

I’m still in some pain and must take it easy, but we try to get out and do something. We made copies yesterday at Office Max and  I may return to the acupuncturist today. Sometimes, you must mix business with pleasure on the road.

You always know what time it is in this neighborhood.

The proprietor didn’t charge me to tighten the hands on my little clock. And, I can tell he did a better job than I did when I would try to tighten them. Back in service again. Thank You Sir!

HOLIDAY RITUALS

One year, about age six, my favorite Christmas gift was a Christmas card. I take great pleasure from them now and have a tendency to keep them forever, much to my kids dismay.  It’s harmless enough.

The yearly ritual of a Christmas letter for me began in 1988. It was disconcerting to have distant friendships from the past reduced to a Christmas card each year.  Sending a short personal message in each card wasn’t enough. Besides,  my penmanship is practically unreadable.

Friends often send a family photo, or a personal work of art made into a card. Mine are pretty dull, without photos. My parents had twenty siblings, thus cousins number over one  hundred. Now I can send Christmas greetings  on-line.

Internet cards, or a simple message has replaced cards for many of us. I treasure my email as much as I miss the cards.

My new ritual is to read last year’s Christmas letters, and cards, then put them away in a box. Then as Christmas approaches,  I take out old cards,  from any year,   to enjoy the beauty and sentiments.

Or the whimsy as in Happy Moo Year.

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.

 

 

HACETA LIGHTHOUSE AND SEA CAVE

The Haceta Lighthouse is barely visible from a distance on this rugged section of the Oregon coast. The day was overcast, damp, cool and invigorating.

The steep hike up gave us aerial views of the beautiful point and cove it commands and also the Cave Creek Bridge over which we crossed to get to the parking lot.

From above, we watched the churning power of the sea swirling around huge rock outcroppings as though to pulverize them to pieces.

On the way up I wanted to swing like monkey from the branches of this a tree that formed natural stairs along the trail with its huge root system. I haven’t a clue what kind of tree it is.

Amazingly, Haceta is an old 1894 lighthouse, but it is still in service. It has an automated fresnel lense that turns a 1,000 watt bulb, magnified a million times by the lense to shine 21 miles out to sea. Its an historic relic maintained by the Oregon Parks System because ships and planes have GPS and satellite sounding systems that have no need for this piece of history.

Jim and I visited about a dozen lighthouses on the East Coast last year, but I learned more about them on this visit than all of the others. Each lighthouse has two oil houses. In case one catches fire and burns, the oil from the 2nd house is available to keep the lamps lit for passing ships. The big can was filled and brought to the service level twice per shift. The small can was used to fill the oil lamp. On the day shift, the fresnel lense had to be cleaned of soot and smoke from the lamps.

The keeper had to climb inside the lamp through this service bay and polish every facet of the lense and the lighthouse windows as well. The keepers had to wear white aprons over their uniform to keep their brass buttons from scratching the lens.The lense weighs two thousand pounds and operated in the old days by counter weights such as those used by a grandfather clock.

This is old growth forest, with trees that dare to grow out of even older rock outcroppings. The forest itself is interesting.

On our return to camp we stopped at the Sea Lion Cave, the biggest sea cave in the world. It was a natural wonder in its early days, but now a tourist rip off courtesy of its current owners who built a 300 foot deep elevator into the cave and ruined it for viewing. Don’t be tempted. They do have a position over one of the biggest birthing rookeries for sea lions. But they can be seen almost as well from the cliff sides on the road.

The cliffs here are made beautiful by an invasive plant, the scotch broom. They can’t seem to rid the state of the stuff but its adaptive form on these cliffs is nothing short of spectacular.