April 21, 2007 - Out West Again

Since our past posting from Red Bay, Alabama, we have moved on to the West.

We got the work completed on the RV and moved on to Austin, TX, taking several days to get there. We visited my grandson Chris, and his wife Erin and their four children – my great grandchildren! We had a nice visit and got a chance to eat several meals together. Chris and Erin recently moved from Los Vegas, and they are enjoying their new home. I think they like the chance to see grass and trees again!

From Austin, we worked our way to Phoenix, and today we are at Los Dutchman State Park by the Superstition Mountains. It seemed wonderful to get west to the wide open spaces again. The desert flowers were in bloom as we came into New Mexico. As always they are beautiful and are in such contrast to the relatively stark desert. Many cacti are also in bloom. I am attaching a couple of pictures.

It seems to be much dryer in the Tucson-Phoenix area than the eastern part of the state. Although there are some desert flowers here in the park the spectacular desert poppies did not bloom this year. (They seem to bloom about once every 5-7 years, depending, I suppose, on the level of winter rain.

Our nephew, Sterling, is finishing college here. Tomorrow, Madeline’s brother and sister in law, Spencer and Annie (Sterling’s mother and dad) are coming to visit, and we will have a family barbeque.

From here we will move on to Prescott, and then on to Southern Utah. We will be visiting some of the canyons and back country there. Our schedule is still open. We do need to get to Boulder, CO in time for the 8k walk/run on Memorial Day weekend --- part of the annual Boulder-Boulder celebration.

April 7, 2007 From Here to There

From Here to There, Back Again, and On to Somewhere Else

Since our last posting, we have had a chance to do a lot of visiting family, and made stops to have the RV worked on.

We left Jacksonville, FL and traveled east to Inverness to visit my sister, Dona and my neice, Nan. The visit was very pleasant. Nan lives out in the country, and has electrical, water, and sewer hookups next to her house. This means we can park our RV there, relax in the quiet of the country, and only hear good country noise such as the singing of the birds, and the rat-a- tat-tat of the woodpeckers. We had a wonderful visit with my sister, who lives in an assisted living facility. I spent much of the week there playing their favorite card game, Hand and Foot. In one case I was badly beaten by one of Dona’s friends who was 96 years old. Fortunately, the game can also be played with partners, and later she was my partner and we won.

While in Inveness, Dona, Nan and I drove down to the Saint Petersburg area to visit our cousin, Sonny. He was raised on a farm in Maine. When Dona and I were children, we went on an annual trip with our mother, to visit our aunt and uncle, and our cousins – a trip of which I have warm memories.

From Inverness we returned to Jacksonville to pick up our glasses. My new glasses did not seem quite right, but I thought I should give them a trail for a few days. From Jacksonville we drove to Gaffney, SC to Freightliner Service to get our RV serviced. Freightliner chassis’s are manufactured in Gaffney, and their best facility for servicing Freightliner RV chassis is located there. The service was uneventful, but several items requiring repair, covered by warranty were found, and fixed,

While at Gaffney we visited the Cowpens National Battlefield. Think about it.

It was January in the middle of winter in 1781. The British in America were trying to control an insurgency. Already, the British had been driven out of Boston, and many in England thought that the New England States were lost to the Empire, and the British should let them go, and keep the rest of the colonies. While the British did occupy the American capital, Philadelphia, they had suffered a humiliating defeat in Northern New York at Saratoga. They were defeated by, what were thought to be, a rag-tag, poorly trained army, many who came from their farms, fought for a month, and then disappeared, returning home again.

The Southern colonies were in, what amounted to, a state of civil war. To support colonist loyal to Great Britain, a British army landed in Charleston, a major defeat for the insurgents. Meanwhile the colonist loyal to Great Britton, were defeated by revolting colonist at Kings Mountain, in North Carolina. While the British believed most of the colonist in Southern colonies wished to stay under English rule, those colonist were decisively beaten at King’s Mountain.

To support the revolting colonist and to confront the British army, American troops were sent south. They knew British troops would be sent to fight them. They chose to fight them at Cowpens. Cowpens was in san area on top of a rise, astride a cross roads, surrounded by ravines. It was a place with adequate forage for animals, hence its name.

The American army waited through the night, and just before dawn the British army appeared. The British probably attacked before they were fully deployed. Whatever the case, as the battle developed, the rifles of the American army proved superior to the British muskets. As the battle progressed, by mistake a portion of the American army started a retreat. The British followed closely. The mistaken retreat was corrected, and the Americans army turned and fired point-blank into the British army. Within an hour the battle was over, and the British army was defeated, with much of the force either killed or taken prisoner.

This decisive loss was the beginning of the end of the British occupation of America. The British continued to try to track and defeat the American army. However, within nine months, the British army surrendered at Yorktown, the last major engagement of the Revolutionary War.

The battlefield at Cowpens today is a peaceful place. However, seeing the surrounding terrain, and reading about what occurred there gives one pause. What lessons can be learned from the past, so that a better ways can be found to settle disputes over territory and government? Who are the heroes and who are the demons in these contests? How you look at it seems to depend on your previous point of view.

Our time in Gaffney was pleasant. The dogwoods and redbuds were in full bloom. Driving in the country side one could see beautiful peach orchards in full-bloom.

We left Gaffney and went to visit our niece and her child in Fort Mill, SC, just south Charlotte, NC. By chance another niece and her child were visiting her, so we had a nice time, at an evening picnic, catching up on what is going on.

From Fort Mill, we returned to Jacksonville, FL. The prescription for my new glasses was not working, so I had to get another prescription. The new glasses are to be mailed to me here in Alabama, Monday.

From Jacksonville, we drove to Red Bay, Alabama. This is the small town where our RV was manufactured, and where, we found, is the best and least expensive place to get out RV repaired. We went into the repair shop this week. We had a window replaced (the seal on the thermo-pane was blown.), and some additional electrical outlets installed for the computer and a light added over the counter. Unfortunately, while making another repair, the mechanics put a big ding in the body paint, so now we are awaiting a paint touch-up. We hope to get out of here the middle of next week.

Meanwhile, it has gone from very warm to cold! Last night it is even too cold for the heat pump to work, so Madeline and I have a contest, to see who gets up first in the morning to turn the furnace on.

Happy Easter, everyone