MURPHYS CHRISTMAS PARADE.

Jim left my place on Monday. The weather here has been pretty cold for a weather wimp.

He waved goodbye and struck out for southern climes.  He reached Palm Desert yesterday and they’ve had a cold spell with some gusty wind.  You just can’t predict the weather. I’m chuckling a bit at his expense.

Every year I head downtown Murphys for their open house held the first Friday in December.  This year I went early because the Mountain Melody was putting on a concert at 4:00. TILT. I had the wrong date, the Black Bart Players Theatre was locked with a sign: Concert 4:00 Saturday. I’ll be attending a memorial service and won’t make it. With time on my hands, I took some pictures. Somehow,  an outdoor decorated tree doesn’t look right during the daytime. Now, with a little snow… My mid-west roots are showing. I miss a white Christmas.

I poked around some of the stores, admiring the tree trimmings for sale. I used to make a point of buying one new ornament each year. I have over 2000 ornaments, so I’ve quit that. A ridiculous problem for rat packers. Guilty.

I ran into some friends, but did I take a picture of Lynette, Ginger and Roger, Suki, Eleanor, Richard or the Gilmores?  No, I was too busy yaking. But I did take a picture of this cute baby with her daddy bursting with pride. He was just glowing.

I thought I’d have dinner as the restaurants were opening up. They were overwhelmed with long lines or reservations to get anything to eat. Finally, it got dark enough for the Christmas Parade. But, the streets were mobbed, everything is surreal from the camera lens.

Everything goes by in a blur. But, I had to include this picture because my kids attended Bret Harte High. This pick-up load of football players was rocking the truck back and forth so forcefully with their weight, it tested the shocks on the truck. I had never seen anything like it. Such fun. Both my sons played football for Bret Harte.

The lighted floats and entries were really nice. Even with a clear shot through the crowd, by the time your flash can focus, you still get a blur.

The young kids were enjoying the parade and that is what parades are all about. Enjoyment, not photography. It was cold. I left early. And on the way to the parking lot I  got a decent shot of these draft horses.

And this parade entrant getting its fancy gear removed. Aha! Now I know how to photograph a parade. At the beginning, before they get moving. Or, at the end. I returned home and ate cookies and ice cream for dinner.

A BIT OF POLITICAL LEVITY.

I know the state of the union address is tomorrow and as we near caucus time, the frenzy for political positioning is a slug-fest, as all the verbal dirt comes flying out of the bag. Philosopher John Arbuthnot said:  All political parties die from swallowing their own lies.  Hmm!  If only it were true.

A dialog on whiskey in 1952 puts a bit of levity into the political process that tickles the funny bone and is worth repeating.

In 1952, Armon M. Sweat, Jr. a member of the Texas House of Representatives, was asked about his position on whiskey. Here is his answer:

“If you mean whiskey, the devils brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean that evil drink that topples Christian men and women from the pinnacles of righteous and gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, shame, despair, helplessness, and hopelessness, then, my friend I am opposed to it with every fiber of my being.”

“However, if by whiskey you mean the lubricant of conversation, the philosophic juice, the elixir of life, the liquid that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer, the stimulating sip that puts a little spring in the step of an elderly gentleman on a frosty morning; if you mean that drink that enables him to magnify his joy, and to forget life’s great tragedies and heart breaks and sorrow; if you mean that drink the sale of which pours into Texas treasuries untold millions of dollars each year, that provides tender care for our crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitifully aged and infirm, to build the finest highways, hospitals, universities, and community colleges in this nation, then my friend, I am absolutely, unequivocally in favor of it. This is my position and as always, I refuse to compromise on my principles.”

I love it.

A good friend stopped in for a visit yesterday with his “new” dog, Daisy. Daisy doesn’t like to have her picture taken. I don’t see Bob Urban very often, but I always enjoy his company. We talked the afternoon away and caught up on mutual friends. One thing we don’t discus is politics and religion. I haven’t a clue what Bob’s politics are. But, I hope he enjoys Mr. Sweat’s dialog entitled Whiskey as much as I did.

Caio

 

A Tale Of Three Musketeers…

The motorhome is parked at Thousand Trails Thunderbird RV Resort along the bank of the Skykomish River in Monroe, Washington. I’ve been here a number of times over the past years and always enjoy it here. My scheduled departure date is July 8th.

Mary is at home tending to personal matters…home maintenance, family, friends, rentals, etc..  She has made her flight reservations to meet me July 29th in Bellingham, Washington.

When I was 10 years old my family moved to Revere, 5 miles north of Boston, Massachusetts. I entered the 5th grade where I met Al Penta and Billy Gallagher and we became the Three Musketeers. If you saw one of us…the other two were very nearby. You can see us in the below 5th grade graduation photo…

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…

Billy is on the upper left and Al is on the lower right. I’m in the lower row…third on the right…

During our teen years we were the closest of friends. Al and I joined the Navy (not together) and Billy went off to college. We were not to re-unite…that is all three of us together at the same time…until June of 1991. That year we met once again in Revere, Massachusetts. By that time, Bill was living in Vermont and Al and I were living in the State of Washington about 100 miles apart. In 1991, I was back in New England to attend my son’s wedding. Al’s mom took the below photo of us. Al is on the left, Bill is in the middle and I’m on the right…

Unfortunately, that is the last all three of us were together at the same time. I last saw Bill, along with his high school sweetheart and wife of about 50 years, Loretta, in Revere during the summer of 2013 where I spent my time in New England last year visiting family and friends. They now live in New Hampshire…

I see Al every time I return to Monroe, Washington where he has lived for the last 35 years. He lives only about two miles from my current location at Thousand Trails Thunderbird RV Resort, of which I am a member. So, visiting with him is very convenient. For many years Al has been an avid bicyclist. He has ridden his bicycle in several different countries around the world. Despite the fact that he will be 74 years old in another couple of weeks, he says he is still riding about 100 miles a week. I get tired just listening to his bicycling stories.  🙂

I use Al’s home address for my towed Ford Bronco II registration address. Last Wednesday he arrived at my campsite to deliver my new license plates and tabs…

At which time we agreed to meet for lunch yesterday at our favorite Mexican restaurant. Of course he rode his bike to town so that’s why he’s wearing that colorful shirt that bicyclists wear…

Bill, Al and I keep in somewhat regular contact via email and an occasional phone call. Visiting with old friends is one of the primary joys in the life of a full-time RVer. I’m glad I is one!  🙂

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE PHOTOS.

Yesterday was a cloudy with showers day at 67 degrees. Forecast for today is cloudy with showers and 67 degrees.

Enjoying nice weather is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

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

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures with low humidity 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 would like to see my YouTube videos, click this link… http://www.youtube.com/user/JimJ1579/videos

There are more than 500 photo albums in my Picasa Web Albums File. To gain access, you simply have to click this link… https://picasaweb.google.com/jimjrver

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

For more information about my books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

Time To Move On…

The motorhome is parked at Millersylvania State Park about 10 miles south of Olympia, Washington. I’ll depart later this morning.

Mary is at home tending to personal matters…home maintenance, family, friends, rentals, etc..  She has made her flight reservations to meet me July 29th in Bellingham, Washington.

My week at Millersylvania State Park is up and it’s time to move on. When I made my reservation here, I had forgotten how full and noisy state parks can be, especially on the weekend. Lots of kids, bicycles and yapping dogs. But rather than be a grumpy old man about the noise, I took pleasure in seeing families out in nature. It saddens me to think about how much time some young people spend vegetating in front of a television set.

I spent my last day here rummaging thru thrift stores looking for used books. In my current mode I’m reading 2-3 books a week. Here’s a WORTH PONDERING I invented…

Why is an RV and a good book much alike? The answer: Because both of them can take you to wonderful places!

During the last week I visited with some old friends from when I lived in Olympia from 1980 to 1995. The first was my ex-neighbor Ted Price. He and his wife Judy were the very best neighbors one could wish for…

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…

From 1992 to 1995 I participated in Public Access television at Thurston County Television (TCTV) channel 3 here in Olympia. I was on the board of directors as well as hosting 95 programs called Real Estate Round Table. Deb Vinsel has been the Manager/Director for the last 23 years. When I stopped in at the studios this week, they were in the middle of a $300,000 upgrade of their control room moving into high-definition TV….

Keri Kauffman was my hair stylist for many years when I lived in Olympia. She’s still at it…

I missed connecting with my friend Shawn Newman who is an attorney who loves to tell attorney jokes. He’s got a neat sense of humor. Part of the time while I was here, he was attending a funeral in Michigan. Hopefully I catch up with him on my next visit to Olympia…

It’s been a long time since I have had a pizza, so I stopped in at Dirty Dave’s…the best pizza on the west coast…

Dirty Dave passed away a few months ago. His son, who calls himself Nasty Tom is now running the business which has been there since the 1960’s…

I had their most famous pizza…the Gay 90’s which is very thin crust with cashews, sausage, pepperoni and onions. No onions on mine, thanks. Along with a pint of Olympia Beer it was as good-tasting as I remembered…

My friends Larry and Jan Seaberg and their dog Lacey were also out pf town this week and returned late yesterday afternoon. I’ll meet with them later this morning before departing Olympia…

Visiting old friends is one of the very funest things to do as a full-timer RVer. I’m a very fortunate guy to have friends scattered all around the United States!

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE PHOTOS.

Yesterday was a cloudy/sunny day at 79 degrees. Forecast for today is cloudy with a shower and 68 degrees.

Enjoying nice weather is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

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

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures with low humidity 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 would like to see my YouTube videos, click this link… http://www.youtube.com/user/JimJ1579/videos

There are more than 500 photo albums in my Picasa Web Albums File. To gain access, you simply have to click this link… https://picasaweb.google.com/jimjrver

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

For more information about my books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

TRAVEL JOYS.

Another painting lesson with my friend Pam left me energized and excited. Now, let us see if I can do this at home on my own? Maybe I can find another friend to paint with. Would we have done this if we weren’t in one place on the road where I could visit her two days in a row? No. Pam lived in Mountain Ranch, and I live in Murphys.

Around 2:00 in the afternoon, our friends, Pat and Bruce Borad drove up from Jamul to spend a couple of days. They were having their driveway re-surfaced and brought Diego with them, a sweet dog. He had never ridden past the Vets and was very well behaved in the car.

Bruce is an attorney, but quit practicing for his first love, teaching. He teaches a computer class, but is retired as of yesterday. Hey, just in time to fix my computer glitches and give me legal advice. Everyone should have a friend like Bruce. We had a nice dinner at Coco’s, close by.  We talked so much catching up I nearly forgot to take any pictures at all.  I guess that is a good sign that I’m enjoying the company of very dear friends. The years since I’ve seen them slip away like we had just seen each other yesterday. I love it.

A LONG INVOLVED DAY.

Today is Veterans Day, and no matter what your personal feelings about war are, it is important to remember and honor the men and women who have given of themselves to benefit all of us. Amen!! (I get to kiss a veteran today.)

Saturday, is play day for us. I think Jim just likes to get me out and about so I don’t rant on my blog. Anyway…I went for a haircut first.

Sue cut my hair after finishing this gent.

Then we went to the Food Bank, actually, a bus parked at Angels Market accepting donations. I brought Karen’s bag full and our box. And the need is so great, I wrote a check, too. They claim they don’t have the resources to give turkeys to people this year.

Our plan was to photograph some of the old barns and miner’s cabins we see all over the Motherlode. We call them endangered species since so many of them are literally falling apart. I’ve driven past this building for over 30 yeas and always wondered about it but knew nothing about it.

The owner explained to us that it was an old gold era inn called Monte’s Inn. It belonged to the Monte Verde family and the owner is a relative of the Monte Verde’s so it is still in the family. It once faced the highway, which has since been rerouted.  Monte’s Inn  had a bar and restaurant inside. They let rooms and during the depression, built a lean-to on the back to shelter homeless wanderers. I was delighted to learn about this building.

The next barn down the line, headed for San Andreas, is the Spence Ranch Barn. I believe they still run sheep.

The Airola barn is obviously still used in the family cattle ranch.

This feed barn brightly painted and advertising antiques is still an old barn. You can tell by the stacked rock foundation. It belongs to what was once the  Schaner Inn across the highway from this barn. They sell antiques. In horse and buggy days, Inns popped up about every ten miles or so to service travelers.

It was about lunch time when we reached San Andreas and this Mexican Restaurant, under new ownership, I was told has good food.

The restaurant is located right next to the VFW, so we decided to stop in and say hello, first, since the post was open.

And, there we met Don Cuneo, a friend of mine I hadn’t seen since 2001. I told him what we were doing, taking pictures of old barns, etc. and he told me he used to go to dances at Monte Verde’s Inn when he was a young man. There was a big dance hall there then.

For lunch I ordered two tostitas. Jim order chicken in his, I had chili verde in mine. Full of big hunks of meat. We got out of the place for $12.69 for two lunches. No drinks. We had a beer at the VFW.

After lunch, we traveled to Calaveritas and back to Angels Camp, photographing more barns. But, our goal was to return to Murphys by 2:00 for the unveiling of a remodeled master bedroom and bath. My friend and neighbor Jan, if you remember from an earlier blog, I took to the emergency room because she had fallen and injured her leg.

Jan lives in a two story house and shared expenses with a gentleman who lived in her Master bedroom upstairs for over two years. Unfortunately, it was pretty much demolished and a bid to repair it was over $7,000.

Jan decided to do the work herself, but she couldn’t climb the stairs. Her friend Cheryl, pretty much organized the group of friends who volunteered to remodel and refurnish the bedroom under her directions.  Jan was not allowed to know what was going on nor could she peek.

The graphic on the bathroom wall, tells it all. Jan is such a good friend to everyone, when the chips are down, everyone wants to help. Floor tile,bathroom tile, sink, all new.

Everyone came to see the unveiling. Becky hugs a tearful Jan.

We all gaped and oohed and ahhed and had a toast to everyone’s efforts.

And, her friend Leslie, who will move in to the room and share expenses,  couldn’t wait to try out the new bed, with the new mattress. She loved it.

Jan asked for one concession to her surprise decorator. Please don’t change my Dawn wall. She and her daughter Dawn painted the East wall, this golden color which faces the East and meets the dawn.  Cheryl promised. So the room was a complete make-over from tile, to carpet to bedding, furniture, lamps, wall decorations etc. Accomplished with $2,000 and a lot of love. And, Cheryl had so much fun, she decided to get a degree in decorating at Columbia Community College and hang out her shingle.