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

Jacksonville, Florida - March 11, 2007

We spent the last week at the Mayo Clinic at Jacksonville, Florida. We have been poked, prodded, and photograged, inside and out. We are happy to report that we are both in good health; the only attention needed is new glasses for both of us.

Today we are off to visit family in Inverness, Florida.

March 3, 2007 Kennedy Space Center

Yesterday Madeline and I visited the Kennedy Space Center. There is much to see there; we arrived at 9:30 am and left at 6:00 pm and even then did not see everything!

At Cape Kennedy there is a Visitor’s Center with a number of interesting displays and an IMAX Theater. There is also a display of many of the famous rockets, rocket engines, and space capsules. See the photo of Madeline Skywalker driving her space capsule. It is interesting to note that the early developments of rocketry essentially were part of an overall military mission, with a lot of competition between the army and the air force, and of course a lot of competition between the US and the USSR. It seems to me that the development of rockets for military use is pretty much a mature science now, and as funds become available they are pretty much truly used for the peaceful development of space. A little more on that later.

The most interesting part pf the visit to the Kennedy Space Center was a bus tour through the center which had three stops at areas of interest. At one stop we got a view of one of the launching pads, about a half mile away. There was a rocket with a space shuttle attached being readied for launch. See the accompanying picture. The orange tip is the liquid fuel tank, which is discarded after use. The two white tips are the tops of the solid fuel boosters. The space shuttle, which can’t be seen here, is attached to the large orange fuel tank. Later, we were able to go into a space shuttle. I was surprised how large it is. There are two decks – one where the pilots fly and a lower deck where the living quarters are. The area in which cargo is carried a huge. The black heat shield tiles cover the entire bottom and a large part of the side of the shuttle. I can see how tiles could be knocked off or broken fairly easily. Formerly, space capsules reentered the atmosphere from the rear, and the heat shield was pretty much protected during the ascent, when the shuttle was sent into space. The shuttle reenters the atmosphere front ways in sort of a pancake fashion. The heat tiles have not been protected during ascent. There is a picture here of the front of the shuttle.

We visited the assembly area where the components of the International Space Station (Skylab) are assembled. What was interesting here was the truly international aspect of the endeavor. For example we observed one section being assembled by the Japanese, and another by a consortium of Europeans. These sections of the station are designed and developed by the individual countries but launched either by the USA or the Russians. This seems to be an area where countries are making an effort to cooperate in what at one time was an area of potential military conflict.

The Thirty Years War - What Can We Learn?

I listen to history lessons on CD’s from the Teaching Company. Lately I have been learning about the Wars of Religion which culminated with the Thirty Years War. The Thirty Years War started as a civil war in The Holy Roman Empire (HRE) --- primarily Germany and Austria --- and became what was perhaps the first European international war involving not only the HRE, but also Denmark, Sweden, France, Spain, with financial support from England and Holland.

The causes and of the war are many, since many of the countries had their own agenda, but the initially cause of the civil war was clearly a struggle between Catholics and Protestants in what is now Germany, with the emperor trying to force Catholicism upon all his subjects. The war was devastating to Germany. Nearly one-third of the population was killed. Agriculture was ruined because the war was fought on the fields. The Emperor essentially lost his power, for the peace treaty allowed each German prince to decide the religion within the area he ruled.

Why did Denmark, Sweden, France and Spain become involved? Why did Netherlands and England give financial support? The reasons are involved, but France and England were concerned that a strong Germany would threaten the balance of power. Netherlands wanted independence from Spain. Denmark and Sweden sought an opportunistic seizure of land on the Baltic cost. Spain was a champion of the Counter Reformation, and was allied with the HRE. The King of Spain was related to the emperor of the HRE. Except for the destruction of the power of Germany – certainly not the goal at the start of the civil war, little positive was attained by this dreadful and destructive war. Religion toleration was about the same, except that Calvinism was recognized as an acceptable religion, in addition to Catholicism and Lutheranism.

One needs to contemplate some of the terrible and bloody struggles that have occurred in the past, and see if there are lesson to be applied to situations today.. The Thirty Years War occurred from 1618 to 1648 and started primarily from one group trying to force an ideology on another group. Any sensible person can see that there must have been a better way, negotiations, compromises and tolerance to accomplish objectives. The similarity to conditions among the Christian populations in the 1600’s and the Moslem populations in the 2000’s seems obvious. What can we do to insure there is not another Thirty Years War?

Street Painting, Feb 26, 2007

This weekend Madeline and I, and with our grandchildren and their family, went to a Street Painting Festival in Lake Worth, Florida. This is a street fair that has become an annual affair in Lake Worth (name of a city). Street Painting, using chalk – not paint – is said to be an Italian tradition dating back to the 1500’s. More recently, annual street fairs, featuring street painting have become popular in California.

The street painting festival here had both local artists and artists that participate in competitions from various parts of the country. Much of the street art is a copy of a well-known painting. Other presentations are copies from photographs, magazine covers, or about any picture that has caught the artist’s eye. I am told some of the street art is original art, but for the most part, it appeared to me most of the artists were working from some type of printed picture.

I have included a few samples of the street paintings that were being made during our visit. I am told this festival is unusual, in that spectators are allowed to go right up to the street painting, and not have to view it from the distance.

There was also a section set aside where children and aspiring artist could try their hand in making street art. There was also music, lots of food, and various form of entertainment to fill out the festival.

This is our last week in Southern Florida. Later in the week we will be moving. We are planning to visit the Space Center in Cape Canaveral next weekend, and then move on to Jacksonville to go to have annual medical checkups at the Mayo Clinic.

2/14/2007 Down Memory Laine

Frankie Laine died last week at the age of 93. His death brought to mind his many renditions, recorded over many years. According to Wikapedia, his first big hit was, That’s My Desire, released back in 1947, when I was a teenager – 15 years old. So Frankie Laine singing career and my attention to popular music must have traveled down the road together. I was certainly aware of Frankie Laine in 1947 and I recall That’s My Desire. But at that time my major interest in music was Benny Goodman, and Stan Kenton. This was the later part of the age of the big bands. Another big favorite of mine was Spike Jones, with his, what we thought hilarious, spoofing of popular music. Clyde Slade, a wonerful friend who introduced me to popular music, could mimic an entire Spike Jones record such as “Tea for Two”.

But back to Frankie Laine. One record I remember well was “Jezebel” (“If Ever a Devil was born --- Without a pair of horns--- Jezebel--- [pause for one or two measures] “it was you.” In those youthful days of unrequited teenage love, full of hormones -- this song rendered tremendous emotion!

I never thought Frankie Laine’s music was great in the sense it would last generations – but it was a catchy and many of his songs were among the top ten on the Hit Parade. (Who among you, dear reader, remembers the Lucky Strike Hit Parade, first on radio and later on Sunday night TV? Indeed who among you remembers Lucky Strikes, or “LSMFT”, or “Lucky Green Goes to War”? I must admit I just barely remember when the Lucky Strike package was green rather than red, black and white.)

At any rate as I grew older I was particularly fond of Frankie Laine’s, Cry of the Wild Goose (“Wild goose, brother goose which is best, a wandering fool or a heart at rest?” (Rise and fall of trumpets, sounding perhaps like a wild goose traveling). Probably I should get this to accompany Willie Nelson’s, On the Road Again, to play when we hit the road in our RV.

Later as I grew older, it seemed as if Frankie Laine’s recordings had less substance, but were still memorable, and the lyrics catchy. It was almost impossible to get out of your mind some of the corny stanzas from tunes such as Mule Train (‘There’s a Bible in the pack for the Reverend Mr. Black”) or Cool Water (“Keep a movin’ Dan, he’s a devil not a man, spreads the burning sand with water” [rest for a measure] “cool, clear water. [Chorus singing “Water water.”)

It is nice to think back to the days when Frankie Laine was releasing records. Those year span from my teen age years, through college days and the early years of my marriage, and are times I recall with pleasure.

Back in the USA

We were gone last week on a seven-day cruise. We went with Madeline's brother, John and sister-in-law, Katie. We had a wonderful time -- eating too much and being spoiled with too much service. we visited three places; Nassau in the Bahamas, Saint Thomas and Saint Maartens. We had good weather almost all the time and missed the terrible storms that occurred here in Florida. We returned to a wet and coldish rainy day, but arrived in time to watch the Super Bowl on TV last evening.

There is not too much else to report, except that we have been out of circulation for a week and missing most of the World news, which recently has not been very good news ( so a good thing to miss it for a while!)

More from Florida

I took a picture on my walk today to give you an idea of the surroundings here in John Prince County Park. This picture is taken from the road looking across a slough. (At least we would call it a slough in Missouri.) If you look carefully, you can see a Great Egret wading in the water, fishing (or maybe frogging?). To the left up, on the land is a Great Blue Heron, who seems to be just hanging around. There are at least three kinds of herons here. In addition to the Great Blue, there are Tricolored Herons and Green Herons.

Last weekend I went up to Inverness, FL to visit family members. Inverness is perhaps 150 to 200 miles north of here. It is amazing how the climate changes here in Florida by going such a small distance north. It was, at least ten degrees cooler, cooler enough so that long pants rather than shorts were called for.

Whereas the dominant feature here in the Fort Worth area, is either ocean or wetlands, Inverness is dominated by low rolling hill with intermittent areas of wetland. There is a lot of calcium rock there, remains, I suppose from the time when Florida was covered by a shallow sea. There are considerable phosphate deposits in northern Florida, and these are the result of the remains of small organisms, diatom-like, I suppose from when the area was covered by a shallow sea.

When one thinks of Florida agriculture, one thinks of oranges. Over the years the orange growing has moved south because of occasional freezing weather which can kill orange trees. I wonder what effect global warming will have on the location of orange groves in the future. Tomatoes and strawberries are wonderful Florida products and are just coming into the stores now. In this area there is a significant immigrant population, which I am told is involved in vegetable farming. Guatemalans are particularly prominent. On Sundays, one sees teams of Guatemalans playing soccer. Family picnics and get-togethers in the park are a common and pleasant sight.

Pictures Discussed Below, Part II

Pictures Discussed Below, Part I

Pictures of South Floridian Wildlife

Madeline and I took a short walk through the park, near our RV, the other day. Here are some pictures of the various critters we saw.

The first picture in Part I, (the second set of pictures) is of an Anhinga. The feathers of this bird are not waterproof, so the bird swims with just it's neck out of water, then dives looking for fish and resurfaces about 30 feet further on. Since it's feathers become soaked with water, when it gets through swimming, it comes out on the bank or sits on a branch, spreading it's wings to get dry.

The next picture is of a turtle sunning itself on a log. As you can see it is about to jump.

I thought the bird in the next picture was a Great Egret. But the picture shows me more than I could see from a distance, and now it looks a little like some type of crane. I need to work on this.

There is an Iquana in the next picture. Although this is a domesticated animal gone wild, there are quite a few of them here. The people in Boca Raton, a city near here, want a program to irradicate them, but I am not sure what damage they do, other than eat a few leaves. Maybe this is Florida' version of the white-tail-deer, a nuisance in more nothern cities.

The first Picture in Part II, the first of the top three pictures, is a Tricolored Heron.

As, we were walking along , I wanted to show Madeline an Aligator, that I have seen here from time to time. Well, I almost walked on it as it was sunning itself on the bank on a grassy spot. It was startled (and startled me) and jumped (the aligator, I mean) into the water with a big splash. Madeline got a nice picture of it swimming in the water.

Finally there is a not-very-good picture of a Common Moorhen. There are quite a few of these in the water here. They have a bright red bill and a bright red face. They seem to be diving a lot. I think they are mostly vegetarians, so i suppose they are eating submerged waterweeds.

Florida and the Birds of Florida

Just before Thanksgiving, we moved to Lake Worth in Southern Florida. Lake Worth is on the Atlantic side of Florida, just south of West Palm Beach, and north of Fort Lauderdale. We spent Thanksgiving with our son, Hap and his family. Shortly after that we took a short trip north to Inverness, Florida and visited my niece and my sister.
We have been quite busy seeing our family!

Our daughter Diana flew out from Las Vegas for a short visit; last week I flew to Virginia and visited by son, Tom and his family. Daughter Debbie is coming to visit us in February and perhaps her husband Stu will also accompany her. Son Tom may fly down to see us at the same time.

Our new RV makes it much easier to have company. There are two sofa beds, and they are comfortable. (In our former RV, the sofa bed was “unsleepable”, and we usually set up an air mattress on the floor, with a sleeping bag.) Also, as you might guess, with the greater length (40 feet vs. 37 feet), and more slide-outs (four vs. one in the former coach) we have a lot more room --- well, for those of you who live in a house, you might not think it is a lot of room, but we find it spacious – in fact the two of us seem to rattle around in here.

It is always nice to get to southern Florida when winter comes. The weather has been pretty nice; although there were a couple of rainy spells, but usually it has been warm and sunny most of each day. The weather in Southern Florida differs from that in the north. It is warmer, and probably a little wetter.

We are staying in a county park, John Prince Park. This park is quite large, and surrounds about two-thirds of Lake Osborne. Only a small part of the park is devoted for camping – mostly RV, but room for a limited amount of tents. There is a bicycle/walking trail around the lake, and if one wished, one could take a ten mile walk or bike ride. Since I lost my sense of balance, I no longer bike, but I do walk some. There are several species of palm trees in the park, as well as banyan trees and some type of pine trees. The fishing is pretty good, but I have not tried it this year. There are bass, catfish and tilapia. However, when I did fish, I only succeeded in catching bass on artificial lures. When I tried to use worms, I caught turtles, and believe me, that is not much fun!

There are lots of water fowl here. There is a small family of wood storks (3-4 birds). They are impressive, both because of their size, but also they are quite ugly, with bald red heads. From time to time there are pelicans. These are huge creatures, soaring over the lake looking for fish. When they see one, they go dive head first in a free fall of perhaps fifty feet. You would think they would hurt themselves, but they don’t seem to.

When daughter Diana was here she gave me a small guide to southern Florida water birds. While on a one hour walk yesterday I saw the following birds:

Great Egret
Glossy Ibis
Little Blue Heron
White Ibis
Anhinga
Common Moorhen
American Coot
Limpkin

My New Year’s resolution: I will try to update the blog each week. If nothing eventful happens, I will entertain with political commentary and colorful observations.

Red Bay, Alabama

October 31, 2006

When I last wrote, we were in the Richmond area, visiting our son and his family. We had a wonderful time, going to various activities the family was engaged in. We went to an indoor facility, where people could race in small gasoline-powered race cars. Kathleen and Sean participated in one race, then Tom, a die-hard NASCAR racing enthusiast, participated in another. It was interesting. There was no coordinated start. All the folks seem to get out and go as fast as they could. The winner was determined by who had the best average time, or perhaps it was the fastest lap, I am not sure which. Actually the main point seems to be to go as fast as possible, without skidding out on the turns (There were a lot of sharp turns.) and avoiding hitting anyone. Occasionally cars ended up on top piles of tires defining the side of the track; such an event resulted in instant disqualification. Anyway, our racers did pretty well, and had fun. I think Sean came in either second or third.

We left the Richmond area and went to Gaffney South Carolina, to have our chassis serviced. The Freightliner factory that manufactures all their RV and school bus chassis is located here. We got what was probably the most thorough service and inspection of any of our regular checkups. We also visited the Freightliner factory which was quite interesting. We watched them put wheels, motors, transmissions, gas tanks, etc and all the wiring and stuff needed to make a chassis. It is a lot more complicated than I anticipated.

From Gaffney we hurried on to Red Bay, Alabama to get our rig worked -- sort of an annual checkup – and that is where we are now. While here, we met some people who were trading 2005 RV for a new 2007 RV in the process of being manufactured here. We looked at the 2005 RVand it was so beautiful we wanted to buy it --- so --- we called the dealer (in Texas), made a deal, and will have a new (to us) motor home, when the motor home that the former owners are buying, is completed, probably next week. Madeline and I are very excited about soon having a new home.

World Series --- wasn’t it great the way the Cardinal came through in the last minute to win their division, although with a terrible regular-season record, and then go on to eventually get to and win the World Series. Since I saw the Cardinals in spring training, it was special delights to see some of these same players succeed in October.

Finally a word on this blog, if you use the Yahoo or Google home page, you can create a link to your home page, by scrolling down to the left of this blog, and clicking in the appropriate place under “Links”. To make a Google home page go to www.google.com and then click on “Make Google your homepage!”

Dan and Madeline in Iowa, September, 2006

 

Ocober 6, 2006; Migration

It has been over two months since we have added to our blog!  Since I last wrote, Madeline went to Florida for a three-week sojourn to visit her son and his family, returned, and we started our annual migration east. I will try to give you a run-down on our life since my last writing.

While Madeline was in Florida, I moved the RV up to Estes Park for about 8 days, in order to spend a little time in the mountains. I took several beautiful hikes. Unfortunately my photographer, Madeline, was not there, so I don’t have pictures to share. One hike was up Boulder Creek. This hike was very steep and strenuous. The creek had numerous little water falls and cascades. The hike ended up on another trail so, I could follow it back to the road, where a bus returned me to my car on the road to Bear Lake. Another hike started at Bear Lake, went up a couple of miles to about 11,000 feet, where one could look down from a height, viewing Odessa Lake. This is part of the trail to Fern Lake which is the locale for the book, “Hard Truth”, by Nevada Barr. I was a little proud to be able to hike, albeit slowly, at 10,000 to 11,000 feet.

When Madeline returned, we started our journey east. We stopped in Iowa a couple of days and visited our friends, Tom and Liz. They are our friends, formerly from our Saint Louis. While there, we visited the Athens battlefield. This is a battlefield during the Civil War in what was once a town on the Des Moines River. The town has since disappeared, but several houses remain, maintained as a state park. The battle occurred early during the Civil War, and consisted of Home Guard units fighting --- two groups of guerrilla really – rather than regular army units. It is interesting to reflect on the violence in the Border States during the Civil War. Missouri, in particular was racked with fights, killings and acts of terrorism, which were many times undertaken by vigilante gangs. (In fact, Jessie James got his start with one of these gangs.) It was impossible for people to not take sides. Families that did not take sides would be terrorized, robbed, and likely killed. They had to choose a side, in order to gain protection from some group. The parallels between this and some of the activates in Iraq are obvious,

After Iowa we journeyed on to Van Wert, Ohio. We went there to attend the rally of Escapees, which is the name of our RV club. There were about 700 RV’s and about 1400 people attending the rally in the Van Wert fairgrounds. We volunteered to help, and were assigned to the team helping set up the parking area for the RV’s in the fields, and then assisting with parking on opening day. This was a lot of fun. Although it was ostensibly work, in truth, there was a lot of socializing, with pot luck dinners, visiting, and a social hour (drinks, snacks as well as socializing) every evening. The actual Escapee meeting was interesting, with seminars and booths by venders. Following the end of the meeting there was a day and a half work shop for computer users (Madeline attended) and genealogy buffs (Dan attended).

After the meetings we drove on toward Virginia. We spent a couple of interesting days in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Harpers Ferry is in that little corner of West Virginia, wedged in between Maryland and Virginia, where the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers meet here. Thus Harpers Ferry is at one end of the Shenandoah Valley – a good agricultural valley west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Although Harpers Ferry is just a small village now, with perhaps a population of three or four hundred people, in the early eighteen hundreds it was an important industrial center, because of the abundance of water power. It was a center of arms manufacture and consequently had a large armory.

Now Harpers Ferry is largely a National Historical Park. The town was devastated during the Civil War, changing hands a number of times as the Union and Confederate armies moved up and down the Shenandoah Valley. By the end of the war, the town was in bad shape, with many of the buildings burned, and most of the population gone. A series of floods petty much finished the job of ruining the city and its economy. The area was made a National Historic Site. In recent times many of the building of been rebuilt or renovated; so much of the town is a big museum, demonstrating how people lived in the early eighteen hundreds during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

Harpers Ferry was also the site were John Brown with a small group of men tried to occupy the city, in order to get rifles to start a war to free the slaves. I reflect on John Brown and wonder if he is to be admired as an idealistic though perhaps an ineffective abolitionist, or to despise him as a terrorist, with a history of planning and engaging in murderous terrorist attacks in Kansas. (Bleeding Kansas occurred when abolitionist and pro-slavery people tried to populate the Kansas. which was to choose or reject slavery by popular vote.) At any rate, John Brown became a martyr for the abolitionist. I was raised in New England and taught that John Brown was a hero to the cause of abolishing slavery. (I suppose we would call that cause human rights, today) Of course, many raised in South were taught to despise John Brown. Who is right? Where would we stand if those circumstances were to occur today?

Following our visit to Harpers Ferry we moved down to the Richmond area to visit our son and his family. We are having a good time. We will be moving on South soon. Our next stop will be to South Carolina and then on to Alabama to get work done on our rig.

Aug 6, 2006 A week at Rocky Mountain National Park

Below are a couple of pictures Madeline took. One is a picture of the sun rising and the first light on the mountains. The mountain in the picture is Longs Peak, the highest mountain around here – over 14,000 feet. People (stronger hikers than me, for sure) get up at 3:00 in the morning and hike up there, hopefully to arrive and leave before the afternoon thunderstorms come up.

The other picture is of the Loch. The Loch is a beautiful mountain lake at the end of a three-mile hike. There are several hikes that end at these mountain lakes.

Tomorrow we will take one last long hike, and then return to Lyons, where I will camp, and Madeline will visit Florida.

The Rockies

Sun rising upon Longs Peak

The Loch, a mountain lake at the end of a thre mile hike
 

July 31, 2006 A Week in the Mountains

We spent the last week in the San Juan Mountains, north of Pagosa Springs, on the west side of the Divide. We were camping on National Forest Campgrounds. One of the campgrounds had full hookups, so we stayed there a few days, and then moved up to the reservoir. I did a little fishing and caught all the fish we cared to eat! One rainbow trout was over 15 inches long, and was more than Madeline and I could eat in one stting.

This area is one in which I camped with my family over 40 years ago. I wondered if it had changed much and was pleased to discover it was still as wild and unspoiled as ever. I wonder if my children remeber camping there. It was our first camping vacation in Colorado.

The muntains there consist of layers of lava which are some times level and sometimes tilted. This makes for very striking mountains with many big square blocks -- sometimes building pyramids -- sometimes making structures resembling castles and walled cities, and many other delightful structures. One evening, as we watched the sunset, Madeline and I fashioned names based on what the mountain reminded us of.

Sunset at Dinosaur Mountain