A BRIGHT SPOT FOR EVERYDAY

An early appointment for a therapeutic massage put me on the road to Angels Camp on the Murphys Grade Rd. And this tree popped into my line of sight. It was so bright it appeared to be on fire. I couldn’t believe it, but, the picture doesn’t do it justice. Kind of reminded me of Moses and the burning bush. My daughter Virginia climbed Mt. Sinai and spotted a similar burning bush lit by the rays of the sun. She went to college one year in Egypt.

Because I was early for my appointment, and the sun was so perfect, I stopped for a couple of barns. I’m sure everyone but me is tired of barn pictures. I don’t know the owner of this one.

This one belongs to Tom Tryon, a friend I haven’t seen in a three or four years. How does that happen, I ask myself?

And, this little miners shack, just west of town. I wanted to do some grocery shopping but the stores were packed, so I skipped.

About 4:00 in the afternoon,  I drove to Tuolumne County for my Elks Club dinner meeting. The reservoir is down so low it is scary.

You can see remnants of the old road before Spicer Dam flooded the area. I used to love this windy road down to the bottom of the canyon, over the river and then back up to the Tuolumne side. I still like it, even with the changes and the “new” bridge.

The low sun lit up the hillside across from the Bridge, and I had to stop a minute and admire the scene.

I left early enough to stop in and see Anne and her caretaker, Tynna. They are now out of quarantine. Tynna showed me the lap robes they are knitting for wheelchair bound people, for Christmas. Their charity. Tynna does most of the knitting and Anne tells her how to do it in a round shape so they don’t catch on the wheel chair mechanics. Years ago, Anne made give away baby quilts and used up tons of what would have been throw-away material.

Then, on I went to my Elks Club dinner meeting. Because I travel so much, I don’t know everyone. But, I usually get to know one person at a time. I ordered a craft beer at the bar and Dennis Costa told me about his son, who is the brew master for Half Moon Bay’s brewpub. I love Half Moon Bay, so hopefully I’ll get to meet him someday and enjoy a brew.

Another bright spot. I spoke with this woman and said, “How are you?”  Her answer, “I’m superb!”  I loved it. Apparently she had been ill and was reveling in her wellness. Her husband is the Elks Foundation Leader. I like Elks Charity which supports abused children. The foundation raises funds for the National Office.

I sat next to Laurel…

…and Dave Utecht. They are former members of the Escapees, an RVing Club. Jim and I both know members of that club. They were very active for years in the singles Birds of a Feather Buff group within the Escapees, which had about 115 members.  So we had a lot to talk about, mutual friends and wonderful travels. What a surprise.

With the Elks, I always consider my self their traveling ambassador and I announce what Elks Clubs we visited in our travels.  For 2012 and 2013, this two-year circumnavigation of the U.S. we visited, Kingsville, Texas Elks, Camden, Tennessee, Oakland, New Jersey,  Norwalk, Ohio, Iron Mt. Michigan, Devils Lake, N. Dakota, and Kallispell Montana.  And, All I had to show for it was this Crappie T Shirt. What a nice bunch of people.

GIRLS DAY OUT- HENDERSON, NEVADA.

Sunday, the party is over, we decide to have a girls day out. before the hard work of moving begins. Virginia will leave Monday morning and we don’t often find time for just we girls to have fun time together. We headed for the nail spa. Laurie, Kris and I chose to have a pedicure.

Virginia opted for a manicure.

Kris was in the habit of treating me to a pedicure when I visited her in Southern California, many years ago. I remember them as sitting on a fairly normal chair, soaking my feet in a pan of water. The technician sat on her knees with a towel covering her clothes and finished working on your nails. This was an entirely different experience. The plush chairs, give you a massage while your feet get softened.

The technician sands the rough skin off the bottom of Kris’s feet.

After the scrubbing and softening, we each got a defoliating toes to knee massage. What a great feeling.

The nails and cuticles are given special attention. The techs laugh and talk while they work.

Kris had them really laughing as she counted from one to ten in Vietnamese. They corrected her pronunciation a couple of times.

Then the color and hardner are added.

A relaxing and fun hour later, we showed off our feet and hands, and headed out for Sushi.

There are several really good sushi restaurants in the area, but not many of them are open on Sunday. This one is Midori, on N. Green Valley Pkwy, in nearby Henderson.

We had appetizers of salmon and tuna, fried tofu, and seaweed salad. All delicious. I forgot to take pictures of everything but the first plate.

We were having too much fun for me to remember the exotic names of these dishes. Just that they were all delicious as we tasted back and forth. Virginia’s order with rice above.

My entre had three different types of tuna plus octopus, shrimp, caviar,  and salmon.  Extremely fresh and tasty,  served on a combined bed of fine rice noodles and sticky rice.

Kris and Laurie both tried a conventional sushi dish. All were good.

We headed for Laurie’s and Virginia made the perfect statement. “We need to do this more often.” I’ll go for that!

KENTUCKY HILL COUNTRY MUSEUM, ASHLAND

I loved this museum. It took you from mammoth teeth to the current crop of famous musicians that hail from Kentucky, and it was beautifully organized and easy to understand. The first surprise was a hand-operated elevator.

I always look for something I’ve never seen before, and this was it.

They did a wonderful job on Victorian clothing and habits. Above, some men’s hats. But the women’s clothing were spectacular. This museum had a tea where locals dressed in the old clothing and showed them off.

They could do this because the clothing is in such good shape.

A painted feather fan.

And, the language of fans. How repressed women were is astonishing.

I laughed out loud when I read that men took the time to make laws about hat pins. It shows their fear of women.

Another example. Men organized against women’s suffrage, but turned their back when it came time to take their pictures. It kind of reminds me when I was a journalist, I published that the local Rotary had refused to accept women as members. This was in the 1980’s. Rotary members castigated me at a public Merchants Association Meeting for making it public. Now, they love having hardworking women on their team.

There are beautiful quilts in this museum, many of them.

As always, a section on wars. The posters were not all the usual ones, and good copy. A small section on the Civil War and Korea, Vietnam and WWII.

They had the full story of Jean Thomas, this talented and courageous Kentucky woman who gained the trust of Kentucky hill people, hauled a piano into the deep woods and recorded and saved for posterity their wonderful music, unwritten and handed down from generation to generation. I saw a television special about her some years back.

They had a big section on Kentucky’s musicians that made it big, the most obvious, Billy Ray Cyrus who was born nearby and still maintains a house in Ashland. His daughter, by the way, is Hannah Montana.

And the Judds. Polly, second from left, is Naomi’ s mother, Wynona’s grandmother. She still lives here. The locals call her Polly.

For my interest, I chose to concentrate on women’s suffrage which really started in 1840 with Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone and Sojourner Truth.

Forgotten are the many women who followed the original heroines of the battle. From every state they marched.

Some of these women were beaten, jailed, and force-fed. In 1917 suffragette Jeannette Rank was the first women in congress.

The press vilified them as humorless old maids.

State by state they fought and made progress.

By the 1920’s, they were ripping off their corsets and demanding freedom to be something other than baby machines and servile wives.

They went from beautiful clothing like this, but, covered from neck to ankles…

To “seductive” clothing like this. OMIGOD! Later, women cut their hair and wore slacks. I still have a small rug my mom made that included the worn material from her first pair of slacks. This was such a hoot to look back on, without taking away the seriousness of the movement and how much we women owe to those early women who suffered and paved the way to freedom for us. It still astonishes me when I see it.

Later in the afternoon, I met Dr. Amy Litteral of Moxie Massage here in Ashland. She is also a chiropractor and I learned so much about body mechanics from her and had the most intense and therapeutic massage from her that I’ve ever had. I  can’t praise this woman enough.