Still Here

I normally don't go for a week without posting something but then again I'm normally a little more mobile and more active and have more to report about.

The foot seems to be healing well. Every day I can do a little more without pain. The last few days I have even driven short distances in the car. This was not only to "work out" the foot a little but just to keep me from going stir crazy insane.

In order to drive I took off the hospital provided "bootie" and wore an open toe summer sandal. That however, caused an unusual problem. The sandal had a strap at the front which is secured by velcro. Because of the bandage on my foot I had to leave that strap unsecured. The sandal is on my right foot....gas pedal and brake foot...and the velcro piece is on the right side of the sandal. Right side of the right foot and that just happens to rub against the carpet that's over the transmission hump. Sooo.. the first time I tried to move my foot from the gas pedal to the brake....my foot was velcroed to the carpet! I had to yank my foot away to get to the brake pedal. Fortunately it wasn't an emergency situation and once I realized the problem I just made sure I put my foot on the left side of the accelerator pedal so I wouldn't get stuck to the carpet again.

This is pitiful! Instead of writing about the interesting stuff I'm doing and seeing while taking my new fifth wheel trailer to great places, I'm writing about my foot being velcroed to the carpet in the car! Woe is me!

Well, Monday morning the stitches come out of the foot and the doctor said I'll be on my own. I can start returning to normal activity as I feel up to it. I'm so stir crazy that I'm now considering starting my New Mexico/Arizona trip a week from Sunday. That would turn the planned two week trip into a three week trip and allow me to circle down to the southern parts of NM and AZ. We'll see how I feel by about Wednesday or so before I make a decision.

This post is being written on the blogspot web site using their post editor. It's been a very long time since I've done a post this way. For the past year or so I've been using Windows Live Writer. For some inexplicable reason, all of a sudden, when I use Live Writer and try to enter an apostrophe in a word, the program crashes. It took me a while to figure out that it was the apostrophe because the program hesitated just a bit and the crash occurred after I had typed a few characters after the apostrophe. The only thing I can think of is that there is some type of compatibility problem between Live Writer and my Norton security program?

I use Comcast as my ISP and they provided free McAfee security software until this week when they switched to Norton. Early this week I zapped the McAfee and downloaded the Norton stuff. Ever since then I've had a number of little gremlins pop up. It's very frustrating. It seems that every time I "upgrade" I lose functionality somewhere....but then again if you're reading this on a computer, you have most likely experienced the same frustration. Oh well....

Thanks for visiting.

When It Rains It Pours

This will describe the weather here for the last few days….heavy thunderstorms in the afternoon. This is not what this post is about however. It seems as if all the good times and good living is catching up to me. The Gods are throwing some bad luck my way to atone for all the good stuff that’s happened lately.

The first bit of bad luck concerns my 1999 Suzuki Grand Vitara. I’ve had it in the shop several times over the last few months for a variety of items that have put a dent in my wallet. I thought I had worked through all of the problems until this past Friday. An intermittent problem struck again. I hate intermittent problems! They are the toughest to find and fix and I’ll bet dollars to donuts that when my mechanic looks at the car, the problem won’t be there. The problem involves a very rough running engine that almost feels like one cylinder is not firing properly. It occurs at start up and will last for varying lengths of time….but it doesn’t happen at every start up. The check engine light illuminates but a diagnostic check shows nothing. So, tomorrow morning I guess I’ll have to take the car and leave it for a day or two at the garage and cross my fingers.

The second problem involves my desktop computer. We have both a desktop and a laptop computer in the house. I guess I should have said “We had….” Yesterday when The Bride tried to access the internet all hell broke loose with the computer. All kinds of error messages popped up continually and porn sites kept popping up on Internet Explorer even though my default browser is Firefox. I tried to run a McAfee scan in between pop ups and then even tried to run a restore program but most of the files had been corrupted by that time…….Trojan horse!

I have no idea how I became infected because I am very security conscious about my computers and never open unknown files. However it happened, it pretty well trashed the 4 year old desktop. Because it was four years old I decided to not even try to to have a computer whiz put everything back together again. For the price of a couple of hours of computer whiz, I could just buy a new computer….which I did. I am now the owner of two laptops. It didn’t make much sense to buy another desktop when today’s laptops have the same amount of memory and storage as a desktop, for about the same price.

So as I sit here typing this post I’m also trying to install all the programs on the new computer. It seems as if I might have a problem with some of the older printers I have. Everything nowadays is configured for wireless connection but I have three older printers and a scanner that do not have USB connections so this switch of computers might cost me the price of an all in one wireless printer in addition to the cost of the computer itself. I hate it when I get surprised like that!

It better stop pouring by Thursday of this week because The Bride and I are scheduled to fly to the left coast for a visit with my daughter CaJenn and her hubby of just one year…CaJon. We haven’t seen them since the wedding last year so we are looking forward to the trip.

Thanks for visiting.

Recent Read

Travels with Charley: In Search of America - John Steinbeck....an RV book and a Nobel Prize for literature all at once? How can you go wrong? Where did I go wrong in not reading this 1961 masterpiece long before now? Maybe it was a good thing because at this stage in my life I can really enjoy and appreciate the content.

The content gives you the hilarious and the soul searching cultural introspection all in a relatively short 210 pages. Steinbeck was in his late fifties when he began a cross country trip with his dog Charley and a three quarter ton truck and camper. The camper was named "Rocinante" which was the name of Don Quitoxe's steadfast horse. After many years of international travel and the high life of an important author, Steinbeck felt he may have lost touch with his countrymen. This trip was an effort to reconnect. Early on in the trip Steinbeck states that "We do not take a trip: the trip takes us.", and so it is he travels across the country recording his travels and observations. Most are not planned by him, they are controlled by the trip.

The two constants are his steed Rocinante and his standard poodle, Charley. Steinbeck waxes eloquent and hilarious when describing the character and foibles of his very French poodle. I was in literal stitches as he described showing his companion a redwood forest for the first time.

"Now there is not any question that Charley was rapidly becoming a tree expert of enormous background. He could probably get a job as a consultant with the Davies people. But from the first I had withheld from him any information about the giant redwoods."

"After this experience he might be translated mystically to another plane of existence, to anther dimension, just as the redwoods seem to be out of time and out of our ordinary thinking. The experience might even drive him mad."

In the true French manner however, Charley barely acknowledged these giants at all and Steinbeck mused that if he thought Charley did it to make a joke he would kill him.

About his own ability to navigate he was also eloquent in his lack of ability...

"I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found..."

It's not all lighthearted travel commentary however. Steinbeck visits New Orleans in the midst of a particularly nasty episode in the desegregation of the public schools in that area. In this arena his writing becomes darker. It is equally as eloquent, but darker. He states his opinions and beliefs but steers clear of offering solutions to society's problems.

This was a delightful read, totally deserving of the praise of the many people and institutions that have done so.

Thanks for visiting.

Golden Opportunities

A weekend with no formal plans....and it was probably a good thing or I would not have done as many things as I did. Sometimes plans can limit opportunities by creating a structure that leaves "dead time".

There was no "dead time" this weekend. On weekends that The Emmer works I'm up and about at 6 am. Saturday morning after dropping her at work I hooked up with Guitar and helped him install some needed equipment on his new truck camper. The camper will not fit on his dually truck without these modifications. It wasn't physically hard but it took all the brain power that us two old geezers could muster to decipher the installation instructions. We finished up right about noon and I headed home to do a bunch my own stuff that had been piling up for a few weeks.

The ladies of The Circle had planned for us all to get together for dinner in Golden, CO and so we did. Golden is a picturesque little town not too far northwest of Denver proper. The home of Colorado School of Mines and the original Coors brewery. We all gathered at the Golden Hotel which is in the heart of the tiny historic downtown and enjoyed conversation and libation outside on the terrace.

After dinner we decided to take a walk and ended up on the main drag of the old town, Washington Avenue. As we started our stroll we noticed two old restored Ford Thunderbirds cruising down the street. We thought that was a little unusual to see two of them at the same time but it was a little something to make the evening even more interesting. Pretty soon we saw a couple of old Chevy Bel Airs that had been restored, also cruising down the street and we began to realize that something was up.

Sure enough, we soon found out that one Saturday night a month during the summer, downtown Golden was the spot for a classic car cruise. We were lucky enough to be there for the August "cruise". All six of us grabbed a seat on the curb and just watched the show...there were probably 200 other people doing the same thing. Lot's of great looking Chevy Bel Airs, Ford Thunderbirds, Mustangs and even a couple of Galaxies. Corvettes....Corvairs. Plymouth Dusters. AMC Gremlins. Chevy Impala Super Sports. Cameros. Pontiac GTO and a bunch of "street rods". Even a red neck classic 70's Dodge Powerwagon pickup meticulously restored down to the CB antenna! Ah what memories....and really cheap entertainment.

Some of the cars were tricked out with engine lights and flaming exhaust pipes and they got cheers up and down the street as they showed their stuff. I was really kickin' myself for not bringing my camera to record the event. The car picture above is courtesy of Too Tall, Two Timing's cell phone. The show went on for about 90 minutes before The Circle decided to call it an evening.

Sunday morning I had determined I needed to take some pictures of an old drive-in movie theater in a suburb not too far from the house. The newspaper reported last week that the city is looking at the land for development...and I'm guessing that it won't be long till this drive-in is history. I've posted some pictures of other old drive-ins in Colorado before. This one, however, is still a thriving business and is a two screen "twin". Unfortunately the land it occupies is more valuable as something else.

I'm here to tell you that if you want to photograph a drive-in movie theater, Sunday morning at 7 am is a great time to do it....I not only drove right up, but I drove right in. No doors, no gates. Wide open. I drove right in and took quite a few pictures. In the picture at the top you can see the second screen in the background, below the main screen.

After getting all the photo's I wanted it was off to the storage lot that I keep Bivouac in. I had a list of minor repairs that I've been meaning to do for a while and this unstructured weekend was perfect for getting it done.

If I work it just right, I'll even wedge a nap into one unstructured corner of the weekend too!

This next work week has nothing special to it except get me five days closer to the big "R". Next weekend however The Bride, The Emmer and I are doing a pretty fancy dinner out to celebrate Emmer's 26th Birthday and The Bride and my 30th wedding anniversary. The restaurant is rated in the top 3 of the Denver metro area so stay tuned for the report!

Thanks for visiting.

Natalie & A Drive in the Country

This was a weekend of contrasts. I like it that way. Different experiences to scratch the different corners of my psyche. To start the weekend off, the full power circle had tickets to see Natalie Cole in concert at a local venue.

As a group we have gone to a number of concerts and always enjoyed ourselves in spite of the fact that individually we have different preferences in music. I think this is because we are all broad enough musically (Let's not talk about physically!) to enjoy a lot of different types of music.

I have been a fan of Natalie Cole's for a number of years and have seen her twice before in concert so when I saw she was going to be in the area I suggest to the circle that we go. Of the group I would say that my taste in music tends to be a bit more sedate...Heck, I still listen to Glen Miller and The Andrew Sisters although I also listen to smooth jazz, beach music (another post), zydeco, country, classical and rock. What I'm trying to get at is that this concert was my idea and more suited to my tastes but I was hoping the whole circle would enjoy it.

Without going into great detail let me just say that for the first 1/4 of the concert I was really beginning to feel uncomfortable. Things weren't going right and Natalie didn't seem to be "hitting the mark". I'm thinking to myself that I'm gonna' have a lot of explaining to do to the circle....and...if I survive the initial harassment, they will NEVER let me forget this night. When we're sitting around the nurses station at "the home" they'll still be saying "Remember that terrible concert that "his-self" made us go to?"

Well, about a quarter of the way through, the switch flipped. You could see it. You could feel it. The woman was totally in control not only of herself but the audience as well. She was "rockin", "gettin down"....whatever words you want to use, she was doing it. A fabulous voice, great presence, great tunes. If Aretha is the "Queen of Soul", Natalie is surely in the entourage.

Most of the songs she sang were from her latest CD pictured above. Almost all are covers of songs by different artists like Sting, The Alman Brothers, Neil Young and others. The album has gotten very good reviews. If you like, read about it here.

So Friday night was a success. Saturday was devoted to "life support". That's a fancy way to say routine chores around the house.

Sunday the bride and I had planned to take a drive in the country. This day I wanted to explore some areas of Eastern Colorado I had not previously been to. If you've spent any time on this blog you've read my comments about the history of Eastern Colorado. It's totally different than that of the mountains but fascinating in it's own way.

Talk about scratching the corners of my psyche!...First stop was Ramah, Colorado, a small town with a population of about 120, 50 miles east of Colorado Springs. Ramah appears to have been a rail stop at one time and was probably an agricultural center. It now is...? I'm not sure exactly what it is now but if you're into old cars, you need to come see this place. I'm thinkin that the old cars out number the people here. A lot of these are not your run of the mill junk cars. These are gems just waiting for a restoration...

As I was taking a picture of this great old Nash, a beat up, almost junk car pulled up and stopped. Keep in mind that this is about 10 am on Sunday morning....The driver gets out of the car with a beer in his hand. If they had a pool room in Ramah, I'll bet that's where he came from. He says, "Wanna buy that one?"

After some real intellectual conversation I elicited the fact that the town was indeed jam packed with old cars...most of which belonged to this guy's friend who went unnamed. Un-named but identified as a one time president of "Sons of Silence" motorcycle gang. The guy is really very nice and says that this friend collected these cars at one time and old cars would just "show up" in town periodically with no real explanation from his friend.

After spending the better part of an hour nosing around we headed west towards Colorado Springs. On the way out of town we saw what at first, looked like a small prison, with high fences and spotlights all around. After looking a bit closer it looked to be a "private residence"????

The bride and I speculated that perhaps that's where "the friend", the president of "Sons of Silence" lived?

Do you want to read about the rest of the trip? I promise it won't bore you. I'm gonna break this down into two posts because I'm looking out for my readers well being. Don't want to put you in psyche overload. Take a break and come back for part two...


Thanks for visiting.