The Never Starting Trip

So last winter I stayed at home. This summer I took a number of trips in my RV.  I should be able to get it together fairly fast. But this winter I just couldn't get it to work. I planned to leave Dec 10th, but finally left a week later. Forget about leaving at 7:00 AM. I promised myself I would get on the road that Sunday, by hook or by crook. I finally left at 2:00 PM.in my RV. The day before I left I put together a month of pills - for the morning and night. Then bringing them out to the rig the case came apart and pills fell all over the floor - under the couch and the recliner. I just picked up the pills and put them in a container, to be sorted out on the road. After two days on the road things I had not secured fell to the floor and pills again escaped. I'm counting my blessings that they didn't fall outside.

So this was a trip of many little mishaps. But one that amused me quite a bit concerned my driving. I was at a Flying J truck stop. I drove around and around looking for a place to park. I remembered they usually had some RV spots in the front by the restaurant. Not this time. I then went into this little enclosure. It had some trucks in it but I could see an opening on the far end of the trucks so I wouldn't get stuck. As I got closer I could see the opening was not big enough for me. Thank God I didn't try to get through it. I have done that before and made a mess worse. But this time I stopped. I cannot back up my tow. When I bought the tow package I asked the mechanic if you backed up the tow like you would a boat trailer (not that I was ever able to do that very well). He quickly said NO, don't back up. OH,OK!! I decided I would have to take the car off and move the vehicles separately. BUT... I couldn't budge the connections. Maybe if I had been lifting 100 pound weights for 10 years I could have done that. BUT...with my muscles there was no hope. I was going to have to wait until the blocking truck was moved. SO...I went to bed to worry about it in the morning. At around 2:00 AM I had to go to the bathroom. I got up and went into the facilities. When I came back it was obvious that a gaggle of geese had flown over and chosen my little car for their MANY deposits. I have a black car which was at this time was half black and half white. So maybe they were seagulls or some other bird with white poop. Who knows!!! I was just upset they had chosen my car.

I decided to back up - very slowly and cautiously - back up a little, straighten it out and go back some more, etc., etc. Then I moved the vehicles in position and reconnected them. While doing that, I noticed a sign which said "Reserved." Ahhhh - I shouldn't have been there anyway. In my seat with the RV running a man approached telling me I was blocking his way, and I was not supposed to be there. I smiled sweetly, said I just realized that and was leaving. Please excuse me, and thank you for giving me a place to sleep. And so Tawny (my cat) and I took off again. And by now it was raining and did so for 18 hours. I was very happy. Nature was removing all this bird shit. It is stubborn though. When I hit Dallas some of it was still there and I needed a car wash.

Still in Texas

As always I had a fantastic time with my cousins and cousins’ families in Dallas. I stayed longer than I usually do. We didn’t take in any museums or special exhibits.

We visited, played lots of games, including a new one from Columbia? Peru? It was called DuDoe??? And was similar to liars’ poker?? You start off with 5 dice each. and the first person mentions a number that he or she feels will be present on the total number of dice at the table, say 3 3s. As you go around the table numbers get higher (4 4s, 5 6s, 7 6s etc.) until someone doubts it is true, and challenges the last person to up the number. I played 3 games and was the big loser twice. I never was very good at lying.

I’ve included a picture of some decorated trees. The last few years I have seen them doing this near home. But I have seen it in Dallas for many years, wrapping all the branches with lights. I guess if you don’t have snow, you have to decorate in another way.

From Dallas I went to the hill country, staying in New Braunsfel. I camped along side the Gadalupe River which is a destination for tubing, fishing, and swimming. In early November the Guadalupe flooded. In fact one of the stories was on national news. A family was lost with the house they were inhabiting. Only the father survived, being outside at the time. While I was there the river stayed about 24 feet down from us. When I drove along the river I would see 1, 2 or 3 fishermen straggling along the river. And then the weekend came and I saw probably 70 fishermen (saw no women, although I didn’t take my eyes off the road for long). They were in clumps up and down the river - maybe a pack of 15 in one spot, all in their waders, in the middle of the river. I guess they were locals out of work for the weekend.

I loved this area. I visited a number of the towns through the hills. In Gruene I went to the oldest dancehall in Texas, and it is still alive and well. My cousin told me to wear my cowgirl boots which I forgot to do. It was just as well because I wouldn’t want to show up everybody doing the Texas two-step. This is a small town with a lot of parking. They need it for all the tourists that come to town. It had lots of little stores and restaurants and music venues. I really liked the town.

I went to Boerne and followed part of a walking tour of historical homes. This whole area has a very heavy German influence. I learned more about it as I traveled around the area. 

I traveled up to Johnson City and toured the boyhood home of Lyndon Johnson. Johnson’s father was a state legislator; his mother’s passion was education.

His mother had a painting hanging in their house which at first glance looked like a skull. Looking at it longer you could see a woman getting ready for a party. She wanted to teach her children that things were not always what they seemed. Johnson himself was schooled in politics at the side of his father, during campaigns and legislative sessions. He was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1937 and stayed in public office for a little more than 3 decades. After seeing where LBJ grew up I went to see where he lived while President and later.

I caught the last tour of the day, and was impressed with the “Texas White House.” I loved the tour as I enjoy pretty much every tour I ever take. This is still a working ranch. 

Johnson did something I found pretty interesting. He had all his guests to the ranch put their hands in concrete and these tablets were placed around the ranch. It was interesting to pick out the hands and names of people I recognized. There were a number that were hard to read. Whether they had faded or were gently marked I don’t know, but it wasn’t because I am old and losing my eyesight. I wish I had taken a whole day at the boyhood home and ranch. There were many other things I would have liked to investigate. I also missed going to Austin to see his Presidential Library. When I miss things like that, I always say, “Next time.” Well, believe me, there will be a next time. After all, Texas may become my winter home.

I liked LBJ as President. I thought his domestic policies were good. More than 1000 pieces of legislation were passed during his tenure, including Medicare, Head Start, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the voter registration act passed in 1965, and more. He declared War on Poverty and reduced it. He pushed through programs to help fund college educations - like low-interest loans and work-study. (Thank goodness!!!! They helped me get through college.) Washington worked when Johnson was President. It was not deadlocked. More legislation was passed at this time than any other President except FDR, and FDR was in office much longer than Johnson. I predicted Johnson wouldn’t run for a second term. I think it was because of the quagmire of the Viet Nam war. I liked him as a President but, after learning some of his quirks, if I were Lady Bird I would have divorced him, as well as change my name.

In New Braunfels I visited the Sophienburg Museum which outlined the beginning of the town and had numerous dioramas of the mid-1800s when people from Germany settled in the area. They also had an extensive exhibit about Lindheimer’s Texas. They call him “The Father of Texas Botany. “He served many other roles too - superintendent of schools, justice of the peace, newspaper editor and publisher and other governmental roles.

I then took a tour with a woman who was very informative. She had explained how noble Germans were unhappy with the government and restrictions in Germany and formed a society to prepare a group of settlers to locate in Texas. They had bought a large tract of land while in Germany, but when they arrived in Texas they discovered it was inhabited by Comanche. They then bought a smaller tract of land and settled in New Braunfels.

I thought New Braunfels was especially interesting. They renovated their courthouse, a historical building. The renovation is beautiful. They had some pictures to reference and found wallpaper and paint many layers under the current one. They hid modern necessities like projectors and screens to keep the renovation authentic. I was very impressed.

New Braunfels has a number of murals downtown which depict the history and historical figures. It is referred to as their outdoor museum or art display. A number of families descending from the original settlers are still in town. I kept thinking how much fun it would be for kids to point to a mural and say, “That’s a picture of my great-great-great grandfather (or grandmother)”. The German heritage also places the proper emphasis on beer and pastries, which the locals made me try.

An Interesting Trip

Well, I am on the road to escape the snow again.

This year I just couldn’t get moving. I left 3 days later than planned. When I finally got the rig totally packed I thought I should take it apart and start all over. I have with me for 3 months approximately twice what I took last year for 6 months. And this year I may not need any winter clothes at all. All the days around Christmas here are expected to be mid to high 70s. I may not wear all the clothes I have with me. Last year at Christmas I had on 4 layers of clothes and was s-h-i-v-e-r-i-n-g!!  This year I’m in my shorts and short-sleeved shirt. What a change a year makes!!!!

I stayed at truck stops for a couple nights until I got to VA. I camped near Staunton and looked for something to do. The natives call this “Stanton” while I was calling it Staunton. Of course when you are in Rome…… I had a conversation about this with a fellow who was actually a transplant to “Stanton.” We were talking about “Ant” vs Aunt; “Stanton” vs Staunton. For years when I lived in the NY area, my friends said “Ant” while I used the King’s pronunciation Aunt. Of course, they drastically outnumbered me but I never gave up the fight.

I found out that Staunton was the birthplace of our president Woodrow Wilson.So I hightailed it down to his library, museum, and birthplace. I never knew much about him, and was fascinated to pick up some of his history. He was a preacher’s boy, born in the Manse (read rectory/parsonage) and left Staunton when very young. But he thought of Staunton as his hometown. As President he came back once and was VERY warmly welcomed by all the townspeople. He was named Thomas Woodrow Wilson. He completely eliminated the first name. I guess he couldn’t get people to stop calling him “Tommy”when he was a lawyer. He had attempts at different careers - a minister, a lawyer, administrator, politics. He went to college in New Jersey at what later became Princeton. He was a college professor and later President of Princeton University. WW was the only president to have earned a PhD, which he received from John Hopkins University in political science. He was Governor of New Jersey, where he was considered a progressive. 

He presided as President through World War I. He proposed the League of Nations to resolve conflicts between nations before they blossomed into world wars. But the US never joined the League. WW won the Nobel Peace Prize for his endeavors at the end of the war. WW began the Federal Reserve and the Federal Trade Commission.

He supported the 19^th Amendment endorsing the rite of women to vote. His history with slavery and emancipation is not as clear. He grew up in VA during the Civil War when the North marched into town. At the museum they talked about there being servants that waited on the Wilsons at the Manse. Undoubtedly these were slaves.

At the end of his life, he was very sick, having had strokes - plural. The controversy has always been who was running the country at that time - Woodrow Wilson or his wife? I came away with the distinct feeling it was his wife. 

I found a great store in Staunton. It had products from Nepal, Fair Trade goods, goods which supported endangered species, and unusual things. I loved it and bought some gifts there.


As I left Staunton I stopped in to see a natural bridge. I thought this was going to be an arch type of structure maybe six feet high. It wasn't. It was beautiful. Well worth the trip.

Then I was back to the truck stops. I thought about going to Chattanooga but decided it added too many miles to my trip. On one of these trips I put another s  c  r  a  p  e on my rig and scrape on my car.  At a truck stop ( I mean, really, a truck stop?) there was not enough room to pull around my car. I have a 25’ motor home and small Ford Focus. I was watching my car in the side mirror to see if I was going to clear the concrete barrier, and I hear a scrape. I had bumped the front of the RV into a concrete barrier on the other side. What a mess. And then pulling out I still hit the car on the other barrier, and was about to hit a truck. Eiiii-yeeeiiii-yei!! The cowboy who owned the truck wasn’t even there. He was over examining the damage I had done to the barriers.  I checked to make sure I was going to clear his truck, but he didn’t trust me and moved it back. So now I had yellow paint and dents on the rig and the same on the car. The man at the register said it happened all the time. That didn't make me feel any better. I got gas safely - at another station - and continued.

My last night before Dallas I camped on the Mississippi. It was fun to spell that out. There were barges being pulled or pushed by tugboats and they passed by all night. I completed some tasks and had a great night sleep. I was only 3 hours from Dallas.

The next morning I needed gas again. When I used my credit card it said I should see the station manager. That’s never a good sign. The fraud department had cancelled my card. I was on the phone for quite a while but it had to be cancelled. Someone not me tried to charge $500 on my card. Yecggh!! Now I have to change all the ones that are automatically charged to my card. Maybe I should have a card just for the automatic charges. Then this would probably not happen again. I called my cousins in Dallas to say I would be delayed, and started on down the road. Then in the county east of Dallas there was someone in the breakdown lane. I slowed down to pull over but the car beside me slowed down too. We played this game for a short time and then I brought my speed back up to the limit. That car pulled in back of me. The next time I looked in the side mirror there were flashing lights. I decided not to try to outrun him and, I pulled over.

A sheriff came to the big door. He asked me if I had any animals. I told him I had a cat. He asked me if I had any weapons in the rig. I said no. He repeated this a couple times through the ordeal, asking if he searched the motor home would he find any. He asked me if I had any wrapped Christmas gifts and I said yes. He told me I was hitting the white line on the outside of the highway lane, and wondered why. It was windy. Then he told me to exit the highway at the next exit and pull over, which I did. There was a fireworks company right there and I pulled in thinking it would be good to get off the road. He told me he couldn’t go in there and gave me directions to a Texaco. FINALLY we were parked where he wanted. He came into the rig, took my papers, and asked me to take my phone out and lay it on the dash. I was not to make any calls. He then told me to go back with him to his car and sit in the passenger seat. Then he called into dispatch and spoke mostly in numbers including my license number. He said there was quite a bit of drug running along that route, and he was going to search my wrapped Christmas gifts, and then they would get the dog to go through the rig. So back to the rig we go.

I pulled out the two bags of Christmas gifts, and he asked me what one item was. I knew and told him it was a package of sausage sticks like Slim Jims. He felt it and I told him I could unwrap it. He thought that was a good idea. He peered at it and tried to look down this little 1/16^th inch hole. Then another guy came and he too looked down that tiny hole. I told him I had a flashlight and went to get it. I said I would open it if they needed to see what was inside. As I was figuring out how to open it he said he didn’t need to see anymore. So he walked out and I tried to get the sausages back in the Christmas wrapper. Then he’s back. I guess he wanted me to follow him. So, back to the cruiser. He has mentioned the drug sniffing dog a couple more times as he asked me where I was going and whom I was visiting.

We sat in his cruiser and talked for a short time. He said they were finding wads of cash in wrapped Christmas gifts, gave me a verbal warning and told me to be careful about going over the white line. (Again - very strong wind) (I guess I’m being defensive.) As we sat in his cruiser, I was looking at my rig. I had the flashers on and they were working on the rig, but not on the car I was towing. I’m glad the only thing he wanted to find was cash in wrapped Christmas gifts.

At Last - Back on the Road

September 24-28, 2015

I've been without my motor home all summer. I was away until about June 20-22. Then I brought it into the shop on June 30th, and picked it up on September 16th. No, it didn't need to be rebuilt; no, it didn't cost me thousands. I'm not going to bore you with details. Suffice it to say, the service departments (first one was fired) took in too much work, were overloaded and couldn't catch up. At first I wasn't bothered about it. I had no plans to go anywhere until August. But then in August it was very annoying. I had to cancel my August trip, but am now on the one in September. It's fun to be on the road again.

I joined a group of RVW (RVing Women) up in Canandaigua, NY, right in the middle of the Finger Lakes - beautiful country, and a hotbed of revolutionaries back in the 1800s. A small group of women got together for tea and complained to each other about their lack of rights. They then wrote them down in a document fashioned after the Declaration of Independence. And in 1848 they held the First Convention for Women's Rights in Seneca Falls, NY. It's amazing what can materialize from a humble spot of tea.

In Seneca Falls I visited the Women's Hall of Fame, and the Women's Rights National Historic Park. I am always in awe of the women who led the way for the rest of us. The first woman doctor, first woman lawyer, first Congresswoman. Women who were denied education in their fields and then started schools for women. Women like Rosa Parks who had had enough. Women like Billie Holiday who suffered through discrimination and degradation to pave the way for others to pursue their passions in the arts.

Being a little familiar with the first Women's National Convention held in Worcester, MA in 1851, the underground railroad and activities of the suffragettes and abolitionists, I admire and am very grateful for those who suffered in order to bring the vote to women and the elimination of slavery. I can't imagine having lived back in the early 1800s. We toured a house which had stairs that were very narrow and steep where our speaker on the history of the area stated the women would climb with a child in one arm, a candle in the other hand and 20 pounds of petticoats. Thank goodness for pants and electricity.

I also visited the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge and the Sonnenberg Gardens and Mansion. You guessed it - the life of luxury. This was owned by Frederick and Mary Thompson. Frederick was a founder of what is now Citibank. My friend Valerie would love the rose gardens. Both of these attractions were very interesting, but dwarfed in comparison to all the Women's Rights history.

The next day I went to the grape festival in Naples. My friend Linda would have loved this - lots of shopping for new stuff, old stuff and rejuvenated stuff. I bought some grapes - those sweet Concord (I think) grapes used for wine. You could smell the grapes up and down the street. I noticed myself getting tipsy.

I want to come back to this area. There is so much to see - including the wineries. They have tours too, so you can leave the driving to them.

Crazy Horse Memorial

It snowed in the beautiful South Dakota Black Hills on Saturday and Sunday. I woke up to a foot of snow, and a lot of it melted on Monday. You can tell how dry the land is since it absorbed all that snow so quickly, and no flooding. S-l-u-r-p-p-p-p-p.

On Tuesday I set out to tour. I went to Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial. I have been to both of these before, but saw some real changes. Mt Rushmore has developed the area quite a bit. I walked in with a woman who works there. She said there used to be a few benches. Well now there is a bookstore, 6 parking garages, gift shop, flags of all the states and of course the noble men carved into the rock. And an additional bonus of some mountain goats on the way out.

I remember seeing the Crazy Horse Memorial in 70-71. I love it - the concept, the history, the actual carving, the passion of the sculptor and his family. The sculptor was sitting at the bottom when we were there in 70-71. I don’t think he had brought any heavy equipment up to the top at that point. The sculpture was begun in 1948. What a colossal undertaking this is. I can see the changes through the years, but I can also see the amount of work to be done. The major work already done is the removal of millions of tons of rock. The complex also houses the Indian Museum of North America, the Indian University of North America and a medical training center. Crazy Horse Monument is not funded with any government support.  Most of the funding comes from the admission fees. Sales at the complex and donations from individuals and groups make up the difference. They have thought of so many ways to make money, selling this, selling that, now bus trips up to the bottom of the sculpture. But the best way is to sell rocks taken from the mountain. You can buy a rock and you get a card describing the type - an authentication so to speak. I hope they get to sell at least a million ton of these.

In Mitchell, South Dakota I went to the George McGovern Memorial Library. I always liked George McGovern. He stayed true to his ideals and worked for the American people. Even now the family asks that if you want to give a donation in the name of George McGovern please give it to this organization which combats hunger in the US (or SD). When he ran

I think Massachusetts was the only state to vote for him. I remember, although my brother would never admit this, he and I were the only 2 votes for McGovern in our home town.

I stayed in Hinckley, MN for quite some time. I enjoyed the Swedish history of the area. I also loved the campground. I stayed in the campground connected to the casino in Hinckley. The sites were big, and the amenities were great and the cost was reasonable - at least before the Memorial Day holiday. They had over 100 campsites and I thought I’d stay over the weekend so I didn’t have to be on the road. They could accommodate me Tuesday through Friday, and Sunday through Monday. So I just had to go find a place for Saturday, which wasn’t too bad. But I lucked out and found a campground with only 30 sites which would take me Saturday through Monday. Being at the campground at the casino reminded me of being at Swansey. “Hey, Jim, how was your winter?” ” Laurie, Grandpa’s here. Come see him.” I guess a lot of them come back each year.

While in Hinckley I explored my Swedish routes. I visited 4 towns which had Swedish heritage. One of them had a great museum. It had buildings put up by Swedish immigrants, including a house, barn, church, etc, and this year featured Swedish handicrafts. I was told many years ago they were filming a movie in Sweden about emigrants to the US. They sent Ingrid Bergman to this museum. There were a number of pictures of Ingrid Bergman doing handicrafts, smiling, etc. There were people from Sweden visiting the same day I was. All in all, I loved the museum. Of course, years have passed since the first Swedish immigrants came. I asked a number of people before I went, about the towns (one called “Little Sweden”), the big round barn, and other things I had heard.  Not one person I asked knew anything about anything Swedish. Driving down the road I saw this big sign that said Swedish Mall, and drove in and parked. There was a memorial for the first Swedish immigrants to land there. It said there was a restaurant and gift shop, among other things. I went in to the big mall building and found no gift shop. One shop owner said he didn’t know there was one, but directed me to the owner of the mall building. She told me it was in the restaurant, and there I saw 2 short shelves last dusted in the 50s, on the wall with “Swedish-looking” articles like those little red wooden candle holders with a couple flowers painted on them.  So much for roots. But I did find the big round barn, the water tower built like a Swedish teapot, and the mention of immigrants from Sweden, Finland and Norway. They must have sought out the snowiest areas of the country.

In Hinckley I visited the Fire Museum.This was very sad. On Saturday, September 1, 1894, a fire storm raced through the area. The fire wall was 4 ½ miles high. In 4 hours it destroyed 6 towns, 48 square miles of pine forest, and killed 418 people. Of course at this time they only kept records of the white settlers. There are no records of how many native Indians also perished. The most interesting thing I learned here was that 2 trains saved hundreds of people from Hinckley. They piled all the people they could on the trains. One raced through the fire storm. One couldn’t go forward and had to back up. Once it couldn’t go any further, the people jumped out and into a mud flat/swamp area. There were sad, sad stories and stories of heroism. Another interesting fact was that the state set up a relief committee which provided modest homes and basic furniture to families. They had an example at the museum. Another interesting fact is that the soldier who shot and killed John Wilkes Booth apparently died in this fire. It really is a small world.

My next state was Wisconsin. I stayed in Superior, first town on the Wisconsin side beside Duluth, MN. I went to the downtown waterfront of Duluth. It had typical tourist restaurants and shops, but it also had a lift bridge. On the news I had seen huge ships coming in, dwarfing the people watching beside them. While I was there only fishing boats went through, but it was fun to see the bridge lifted.

When I was at a tourist information center I picked up a brochure of the Apostle islands off the shore of Wisconsin in Lake Superior. The officer at the center told me not to miss these. They were really something. So I booked a boat ride to see the islands. The history of the islands was interesting. We went by a fish camp on one. All the trees were about 50 years old on another. We found out that was because they logged the island until all the trees were gone. We heard about an enterprising young realtor who offered a house for sale with a sunken living room, dining room and kitchen. This was his house which he had built and attempted to move over the ice one winter. It had sunk to the bottom of the lake. But the islands were green wooded pieces of land. In other words, I wasn’t impressed. I’m not usually negative about things I see, and I wondered why. I kept waiting to see the islands as they were shown on the brochure. I think what they did was display a picture taken by someone standing in the water in front of Devil’s Island.

There were caves on this island, which looked interesting. But from the boat they were not as big or the rocks as high as on the brochure. When I got back to the pier I went to the restaurant, Pickled Herring, and had - you guessed it - pickled herring. Mmmmmm, it was good.

On my travels this whole trip I have not seen a lot of wildlife. I’ve seen mountain goats, deer, pronghorns, rabbits - one that was really big. I might have thought it a jackalope, but it had no antlers, so I guess it was just a jack. I heard a lot of coyotes a couple camps back. I picked up a Ranger’s book describing all the harrowing visits from bear. My next stop is an area well known for moose and bear. Hopefully I’ll see something, like maybe a moose or bear.

The Upper Peninsula is pretty because of all the water. I keep calling Lake Superior the ocean. I don’t feel too bad though, there are scads of SEAgulls, so they got it wrong too.

I Love My Life

I love my life. I am so grateful that I am able to travel.

Today, though, I am not traveling. I am stranded in the Black Hills of South Dakota in a blizzard. We have 10-12” of snow outside. I’m staying here until the snow stops and melts enough for me to travel the roads. There are lots of sites I want to visit in this area. Most of them I have seen before, but want to check on again. So this is a great time to continue my blog, which I have ignored for a while. I’ll highlight some places I loved.

I stayed in the Redding/Red Bluff area of California for a time waiting for a part to come to get my rig fixed. California is so desperately in need of water. One of the parks had little pools of water that the ducks usually enjoyed. There were signs with warnings about using the pools. They didn't need them this year because all the pools were dry. The ducks pretty much ignored the signs anyway.

One of the sites in the area was the Lasson Volcanic National Park. It has all 4 types of volcanoes within it. The last to erupt was Lassen Peak. Since it was winter, a number of the roads were closed, so I couldn’t get to the geysers and bubbling pools. I thought the roads might be open because the snow cover this year over the park was a fraction of a normal year.

In the years  1914 - 1917 many small explosions took place after a 27,000 year-long sleep. Then on May 19, 1915 a large explosion sent hot lava blocks down the side of Lassen Peak. On the 22nd of May, 7 men including a photographer were examining the devastation from the explosion, and 5 hours after they left Lasson Peak exploded again.

Volcanic ash and gas rose higher than 30,000 feet. Hot rocks were thrown a long distance from the peak. One man was awakened by his dog. He got up thinking there was an animal outside and when he looked out the window, he saw the lava moving down the sides of the volcano and rocks being thrown out the top. Time to leave!! The explosion devastated a huge area, which is now, uniquely enough, named the Devastation area. You can see all these lava rocks sitting around. One in particular was quite large.

I mosied down to Sacramento and spent a day with my cousin. That’s another great thing about traveling. I hadn’t seen my cousin for about 20 years. We spent a great time talking and talking and then visiting the state house.  What a beautiful building! Later my cousin’s husband joined us and we had dinner and saw a play. It was so great seeing them. Cousins are very special.

I visited Columbia which is a great little town representing a gold mining town in the mid-1800s. It had a blacksmith shop, a barn for carriages, a place to pan for gold, and more. What I liked most was the Wells Fargo office. They had all these old packages and trunks from the mid-1850s. They also had a mission bell from the El Camino. Valerie and I had seen these and wondered what they were. And here I found out.

I’ve realized that I like to visit trains and fish hatcheries. Was I a fish-eating conductor in a past life? I went to Railtown in Jamestown, CA.

This location features one of 2 continuously operating steam locomotive roundhouses in the U.S. It also features the Sierra Railway #3 - the movie train. Its movie credits include  High Noon, Back to the Future III, among others. Its TV credits include “Gunsmoke,” “Petticoat Junction” and many more. I lucked out because the day I visited they were getting the locomotives ready for the summer, so I saw them blowing their steam.

I traveled to the desert, staying a couple weeks in Desert Hot Springs. The campground was great - they had hot springs galore - about 7 of them in my section.  It was right near Palm Springs, and I took a tour there.  I thought it was more than celebrities’ houses, but it wasn’t.

I did get a kick out of Liberache’s mailbox - a piano, and the fact that we saw that Leonardo Di Caprio was getting ready for a party. None of us got a kick out of the fact that owners hired gardeners to wash down their driveways. Do they not know there is a water crisis?

Next on my agenda was Colorado. I stayed near Boulder and Denver, in Golden. I visited my niece and her fiancée quite a bit. That, of course, was fantastic. We took advantage of a few Happy, Happy, Happy Hours, and brewing establishments. I like Boulder’s atmosphere.

I’ve taken a few walking tours of homes this trip, a lot of them Victorian. One I went into in Denver was terrific, because of the owner, not the home. It was the home of Molly Brown. What a woman!! She got the name the Unsinkable Molly Brown when she survived the sinking of the Titanic. On the Titanic she was helping others get into the lifeboats, using her knowledge of many different languages.

She put all her clothes on, and then took off layers to keep others warm. She was literally picked up and put in a lifeboat. Molly Brown constantly fought for the rights of others, particularly miners and children. She ran for Senate 3 times before women even had the right to vote. As I said, what a woman!!!!

I've also visited quite a few museums. One I enjoyed very much was the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver. I like his work from the 1920s into the 1940s, before he was a full abstract expressionist. I also loved the Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum in Buffalo, WY. You can’t take pictures there since many of the articles are very meaningful to different people, and recording the images dishonors their contributions. Jim Gatchell was a most interesting and honorable man. He opened a drugstore and was an equal friend to the white settlers and the native Indians. He was known to them as a medicine man, dispersing some of the medicines from his pharmacy. There are so many stories attached to each of the articles in the museum. I think I spent 3 hours there and didn’t see everything. There were boards and boards and boards of old pictures which were unique and informative. They had a mounted head of a jackalope and a story of a few guys who finally got this elusive wildlife. I first heard about the jackalope (half jackrabbit; have antelope) in Jackson Hole, WY 45 years ago.  I was very impressed to read this long story and see the trophy head.

In Cheyenne, WY I stayed at the Terry Bison Ranch. I played the washboard in the band and went out to feed the buffalo during the day.  I told Tawny she should have one of those tongues. They also had camels at this ranch - started with 5 about 5 years ago, and now have 6. One of the cowboys said if they drop a baby in the winter it wouldn’t make it. He said the camels were too tall for the barn. I told him they should build a taller barn.

I was very glad I stayed for a few days in Buffalo, WY. I ate and drank at the Occidental Hotel which Butch Cassidy, Calamity Jane and other well-known outlaws frequently visited. I also followed the cattle wars and the cavalry-native Indian wars. Then I went to Sundance and got wrapped up in The Sundance Kid’s exploits. But the most interesting site to me was the Vore Buffalo Jump.

When they were building Rte 90 through Beulah, WY they found a mass of bones, stopped digging and called the archeologists. One of the ranchers gave the highway department some of his land to move 90, and the site of the buffalo jump continued to be researched. Between 1550 and 1800 a number of tribes used this location to trap buffalo. At the time they hunted by foot, not horse, and it was difficult to kill as many buffalo as they needed to get through the winter. The tribes joined forces and tricked the buffalo, sometimes posing as one, to stampede toward this sinkhole with high walls. The buffalo jumped off the ridge and into the pit. The natives then went down into the pit, made sure the buffalo were dead and took pretty much everything off the buffalo for food, clothing, grease, tanning oil, etc. They found 21 different layers of bone. Through oral histories as well as the archeological findings they recreated what happened so many years ago. I found this fascinating. And I really lucked out because they were not due to open for weeks but they had a group of students and the board members came out to show them the site.

Now I’m in the coach in the middle of a foot of snow, listening to a man play songs on his tuba. Could it get any better?