A Brush With Real Life… (GA52)

Mary is no longer available for RV traveling, but we remain good friends.
Because we have 4,000+ postings, I’ve invited her to continue posting entries on this blog.

I’m currently in my 22nd year of full-time RVing and my lifestyle is changing, For more info click Here

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The motorhome is parked at Thousand Trails San Benito RV Resort, Paicines, California. I’ll depart from here April 19th.

 

 

Since my RVing life is changing (see above), I’m starting to re-visit previously visited places. So rather than constantly re-blogging past entries, I’ve decided to do something different.

 

 

In 2012-2013, Mary and I did a 682 day, 12,679 miles in the motorhome and 8,000 miles in the Bronco, circumnavigation of the United States, which I called The Great Adventure. I called it so because other than my oldest granddaughter’s high school graduation in June in Connecticut, I didn’t know where we would be going or when we would be there!

 

 

So, unless I do something really different and unusual warranting a new blog entry, I’ll be posting entries from that trip.

 

 

 

This entry was posted March 17, 2012…

 

 

 

We arrived in Deming, New Mexico several days ago. Mary departed, shortly thereafter, for home to tend to taxes and other business. I’m at Rockhound State Park in Deming, New Mexico waiting out a forecasted very windy Saturday through Tuesday.

 

 

Shortly after arriving in Deming, New Mexico, we visited with a friend whom I’ve known about 15 years. She prefers to remain anonymous…no photos or name please. Makes me wonder if she’s hiding from the law.  🙂

 

 

Anyways…back on October 25, 2011 I wrote a Blog entry that you must look at if you are going to understand this Blog entry. It’s about a convicted murderer who wrote a book to tell his side of a true story. His name was Wesley Walker also known as Buck Duane Walker. Here’s the link…
http://wp.me/pDCku-2AL

 

 

After reading that Blog entry my anonymous friend wrote me saying she is friends with Wesley Walker’s first wife. I knew that we would be passing through Deming, New Mexico in a few months and asked if she could arrange for us to meet her. The first wife agreed and the schedule was set.

 

 

Now one more fact before I continue that relates to this Blog entry’s title. If you are follower of my Blog…you already know that I have been an avid reader all of my life. One of my very famous quotes that I claim to have invented is…

 

 

Why is an RV and a good book muck alike? The answer is…because both of them can take you to wonderful places!

 

 

The RV takes you physically there and a good book takes you mentally there.

 

 

When you read good book it is just a story about some topic. It usually has no real-life connection to you the reader.

 

 

However when we recently met Wesley Walker’s first wife and spent a delightful three hours getting to know her…the two books identified in the earlier link took on a whole new meaning…

 

 

 

 

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…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pat McKay had some interesting stories to tell. It is not essential to this Blog entry that I tell you what she told us about her past relationship with Wesley Walker.

 

 

Let’s just say that our “Brush With Real Life” was most interesting and leave it at that.

 

 

That’s one more thing I just love about my full-timing RV lifestyle…you get to meet so many interesting people!

 

 

 

TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE! MARY WROTE A MANY GREAT BLOGS…SO WHENEVER SHE PUBLISHED A BLOG POSTING THE SAME DAY THAT I DID…YOU WILL BE ABLE TO READ HER BLOG BY CLICKING THE BELOW LINK! DO IT NOW…!!!

https://otrwjam.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/chance-encounter-in-deming/

 

 

 

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE PHOTOS.

 Yesterday was mostly sunny and 70 degrees. Forecast for today is mostly sunny and 66 degrees.

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

The red dot on the below map shows my approximate location in the State of California. 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

My current travel rig is a 2006 Fleetwood 26′ Class A Motorhome and a towed 1986 Ford Bronco II, Eddie Bauer Model. This photo was taken in the desert at Slab City near Niland, California…

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 700 photo albums in my Picasa Web Albums File. To gain access, you simply have to click this link… https://get.google.com/albumarchive/110455945462646142273?source=pwa

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

All original works copyrighted – Jim Jaillet -2017

A Brush With Real Life…

We arrived in Deming, New Mexico several days ago. Mary departed, shortly thereafter, for home to tend to taxes and other business. I’m at Rockhound State Park in Deming, New Mexico waiting out a forecasted very windy Saturday through Tuesday.

Shortly after arriving in Deming, New Mexico, we visited with a friend whom I’ve known about 15 years. She prefers to remain anonymous…no photos or name please. Makes me wonder if she’s hiding from the law.  🙂

Anyways…back on October 25, 2011 I wrote a Blog entry that you must look at if you are going to understand this Blog entry. It’s about a convicted murderer who wrote a book to tell his side of a true story. His name was Wesley Walker also known as Buck Duane Walker. Here’s the link…
http://wp.me/pDCku-2AL

After reading that Blog entry my anonymous friend wrote me saying she is friends with Wesley Walker’s first wife. I knew that we would be passing through Deming, New Mexico in a few months and asked if she could arrange for us to meet her. The first wife agreed and the schedule was set.

Now one more fact before I continue that relates to this Blog entry’s title. If you are follower of my Blog…you already know that I have been an avid reader all of my life. One of my very famous quotes that I claim to have invented is…

Why is an RV and a good book muck alike? The answer is…because both of them can take you to wonderful places!

The RV takes you physically there and a good book takes you mentally there.

When you read good book it is just a story about some topic. It usually has no real-life connection to you the reader.

However when we recently met Wesley Walker’s first wife and spent a delightful three hours getting to know her…the two books identified in the earlier link took on a whole new meaning…

Pat McKay had some interesting stories to tell. It is not essential to this Blog entry that I tell you what she told us about her past relationship with Wesley Walker.

Let’s just say that our “Brush With Real Life” was most interesting and leave it at that.

That’s one more thing I just love about my full-timing RV lifestyle…you get to meet so many interesting people!

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

Impressions Of A Book I Really Enjoyed…

My last Blog entry about Palmyra Island also known as Palmyra Atoll was written on September 15th, 2011. In case you missed it, here’s the link…

otrwjam.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/the-curse-of-palmyra-island/

Arriving at Mary’s home in Murphys, California on October 11th, I found my copy of Palmyra: The True Story of an Island Tragedy written by Wesley Walker…the man convicted of the murder…waiting for me. All 895, 6×9, pages of it. I immediately started reading the book and only yesterday completed it. For the record…I thought I would record my impressions of his book.

My very first impression at the start of reading the book was…unless you had read the book written by Vincent Bugliosi and Bruce Henderson…And The Sea Will Tell…you would be hard-pressed to tell what this book was about.

Facing a life in prison sentence he decided to try his hand at writing. He had already written three fiction novels…when on page 419 in his book Walker writes…

“Then I read the great hoax of a book by two sleaze-artists (meaning Bugliosi and Henderson) of a different order, allowing the full import of the insult to my intelligence to sink in. Overflowing with self-righteous anger, I spent the next three years transferring furious words to some 2500 pages of a reply. My trial alone covered 820 pages.” Then an incident occurred which caused him to think “Let’s settle the hash of those clowns, finish the unfinished business of the past. We’re near our rocking chairs on the front porch and we need tranquil minds to enjoy the view. And so I returned for a last visit, to relive it all, retell it yet again. To remember.” That’s when he sat down to write what became his book…Palmyra: The True Story of an Island Tragedy.

As I started to read….another immediate impression was he was far more literate than I had imagined him to be. All my previous impressions of Wesley Walker came from one source…Vincent Bugliosi and Bruce Henderson’s book…And The Sea Will Tell. They painted him as a low-life con artist.

The book was easy to read and very interesting. I found I enjoyed his writing style and really started to like the guy.

An interesting aside…during a period of time when he was an escaped felon…he was arrested at the Torch Lite Motel on Fourth Avenue in Yuma, Arizona. That motel is about one block from where I park the motorhome while in Yuma…at the American Legion. I have actually walked through the parking lot of that motel.

He spends lots of pages describing his life and lifestyles. For some period of time he was a sophisticated marijuana farmer. He seemed to have a really laid-back attitude and as I read I pictured him with the face of Willie Nelson.

Here’s a 1974 photo of Walker the Honolulu Star-Bulletin…

Here are some other interesting items from his book…

Page 294 and 295…

“Lawyers are the ones who always win, whether or not they win or lose cases. Unfortunately, poor people do not have the luxury of being permitted to make decisions about the quality of counsel, whether to consider fees or reputation. In our system, the judge has the prerogative of choosing you lawyer for you. The best lawyers simply do not appear on judge’s lists of lawyers to be appointed. Only the names of young and desperate lawyers are on the judge’s lists, and if they remain there long, it’s a sure sign they are not in demand. It’s the hack lawyers last refuge before chasing ambulances or going on welfare and drink. And thus, my lawyer Earle Partington was appointed. Partington could have done better by learning a new trade and doing honest work for a living.”

Page 299…

“Although I had long known it on some vague level never quite verbalized, later, when I had all the time in the world to contemplate the basic questions that would torture me, I would come to the firm conclusion that there was a vast difference between justice for the poor and for those who could afford it.”

Page 404…

After he is found guilty, the Federal Marshall who had been his guard all during the trial said to Walker…”If you ask me, your lawyers were the best thing the prosecution had going.”

My conclusions…

Walker spent 22 years in prison. He had lots of time to think about everything in his life. He does an excellent job telling us about his life. He does a particularly good job describing what life is like as a fugitive running from the law as well what life is like as a prisoner in a maximum security prison. He also reviews every flaw in his trial and goes on to tell…in his words…what really happened at Palmyra.

What really happened at Palmyra..according to Walker? I’m not telling. I wouldn’t want to spoil your reading of this book!  🙂

I really enjoyed his book and it will go into my “books to be re-read” box. It’s a really good book if you enjoy this kind of reading.

I have no affiliation with the publisher. Here’s the link I used to order the book…

http://palmyramystery.com/web1/Page_1x.html

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

Rest Stop…Hmmm…Maybe Not

As you can most likely tell…I had a little problem coming up with a title for today’s Blog entry.

Yesterday I drove the motorhome the about 65 miles from Stockton to Mary’s home in Murphys, California. Mary met up with her youngest son who lives in Stockton and retrieved her Prius from him to drive home.  He uses the vehicle rather than let it sit while Mary is on the road with me.

I’ll be here at Mary’s home until just after Thanksgiving. By then it starts to turn cold and the snow cannot be far behind…so it’s time for me to get out of Dodge. Mary will remain home for the holidays and fly to meet me once again in early January…most likely somewhere in Arizona.

So while stopping here for the next several weeks seems like a rest stop from being continuously on the road…it will not be. I always manage to stay plenty busy while here. My primary role will be to do a thorough cleaning job…both inside and out of both the motorhome and Bronco. The motorhome has not been washed since last April…and it’s ready! The Bronco is just as ready.

The road of life is a dusty and dirty one!

In other news…

Back on September 15th I wrote a Blog Entry about Palmyra Island aka Palmyra Atoll…a tiny speck of land in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean. An unlikely Blog entry for a full-time RVer. In case you missed it…here’s the link…otrwjam.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/the-curse-of-palmyra-island/

Waiting for me was the 895, 6×9, page book written by Wesley Walker…the man convicted of the murders.

I got 62 pages into it yesterday and it makes for interesting reading…that is his side of the story. I’ll write another Blog entry about this subject once I complete the reading of the book. Meanwhile…I’ve got to get busy…cleaning. Later!

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