Taking the back roads

 At pleasant Tuesday afternoon at my friend Judi's back yard patio, we sat enjoying a beautiful Sierra mountain afternoon.  The sun was shining, the breeze was lovely and cooling and the wine was delightful.  The conversation was effervescent and the day was a delight. We had started the day off with a great breakfast of bacon, eggs, fruit and orange juice on the deck and quickly decided that this was going to be a day of "relaxing and enjoying the great outdoors."  After breakfast, that turned into a morning of short naps. I took the first turn of laying on the floor with a pillow on going off for about 30 minutes of "power napping" and then getting on with some person business on the Internet. Judi decided to get some things done around the house and just "play it cool and take it easy" for once in her very busy schedule.  Since she rarely has a whole  day off, this was a unique opportunity for her to take a "short snooze".  So while...

Friday was definitely the day for visiting history.  First it was the Crater of Diamonds, to find precious and semi-precious stones.  Then it was a trip to the historic town of Washington, AR and the state park to see how things looked from 1824 to 1889. http://www.historicwashingtonstatepark.com Washington , AR is a lovely museum village that preserves and interprets the history of the 19 th century town.  At that time Washington was a major commercial and professional center in southwest Arkansas .  It was the home of the Bowie Knife and a major stopping point for travelers heading down the Southwest Trail as well as serving as the Confederate State Capital of Arkansas from 1863 to 1865.  The town is being fully restored so that it shows what life was like in the mid 19 th century of the south. As we drove into town we could see some beautifully restored building and some with scaffolding around it in the process of being restored.  There are many h...

Diamond hunting… now who’d-a-thunk that was possible just an hour from the house.   Well, Jenia and I found out on Friday when we went to Crater of Diamonds State Park a few miles from Murfreesboro , AR.   http://www.craterofdiamondsstatepark.com Just the drive there was quite beautiful.   When I think of Arkansas I kind of think of shacks in the rural parts and not much else.   But when you travel the back roads, as we did on Friday, you become entranced with the beauty of the countryside.   Sure, there are the rural shacks and the cars scattered in the yard, but when you look at the other side of the road you see some beautiful countryside with huge trees and the occasional small stream.   I commented while we were driving that this trip surely qualified as part of my blog of “back road traveling.” Fortunately the Garmin GPS took us on the round-about roads and that was fine with us because we got to see so much of the rural area. Had we taken the inte...

Spring is different in different parts of the country, obviously.  After reading my friend Judi's blog, http://www.beautybreadsierra.com  about spring in the lower Sierra’s, North Fork , CA , for example… I wanted to show how things look in the south, Texarkana , AR , for example. One thing I never knew about this part of the country is how the pollen sits on the ground, all over cars, and blows in an open window so it sits on the window sill.  I don’t think I’ve ever really “seen” pollen.  I always knew it was around when I lived on the east coast and also in So Cal because I would always have allergies at this time of the year.  But to actually see pollen is a bit on the strange side.  This is what it looks like sitting at the end of the driveway just before heading into the garage.  With the little dip in the driveway, water sits in this spot and this is dryed pollen just sitting there Pollen is a fine-grained powder with just a bit of grit to...

Today I realized what the sound of silence is all about.  Stasia is out of school this week on spring break and the neighbors next door were out last week so she doesn't have anyone to play with, except me. We have been spending the days doing a few things, like a 4 mile round trip bike ride to a park.  Yipes, I need to get back to that cause I was popped when we got home.  Anyhow, a lot of time we have been just sitting outside (me that is) while Stasia rides her bike around the street.  We live in a very quiet neighborhood where the only cars you see belong to people in the neighborhood. Be that as it may, today we sat out for an hour or so and it was so quiet.  The only sound you heard was Stasia laughing at something she saw and the wind.  It's kind of a dank day cause the sun isn't out yet and the clouds are still around and the wind is blowing a tad more than lightly... and therein is the sound the silence. It is so relaxing to hear nothing but ...

Finally, it seems like the south, at least this part of the south, spring has decided to come visit for a while.  After what seemed like a very long winter, in other words, temps in the 20's, 30's and 40's most of the time, it's  become a bit warmer. According to those in the know, like the neighbors who have lived in this area most of their lives, this has been a very, very cold winter.  Not like some of the others with terrific ice storms with lots of wind and even some snow, but cold nevertheless.  For a transplanted west-coaster, it’s been exceptionally cold, rainy and cold and even cold.  I think you might be getting the picture.  But in the last week or so, the sun has been shinning and the weather has been warmer. Take this past Sunday for example.  The temps were in the low 70’s and the sun was shinning… just my kind of weather be it here or in So Cal.  We decided to check out one of the local parks we have seen driving by.  Of cou...

Here's Jenia and Stasia with just a few of the beads from the local parade And here's what some of the things that are thrown from the floats How the floats look passing by Just a few trinket for my neck - cool hat When arms get in the way, it's hard to see the floats.   Who Dat was a common theme for all the parades. And this is only the beginning of the parade. So many more beads and so much fun. Honestly, the only thing I had to drink at this point was water, and lots of it.  Some of the things that are thrown are panties and one has to wear those on your head. How about some gymnastics on the top of the levy next to the Mighty Mississippi  This is what the back of the Yukon looked like near the end of the parade I kid you not... people do all kinds of things for these parades It's always helpful when you get a boost to get closer to the float for the beads Even the front of the truck gets decorated.

For a long weekend, we took a trip to New Orleans for a mini-Mardi Gras celebration. By mini-Mardi Gras I mean that we went to local parades and didn’t venture into downtown New Orleans . I think the local parades have more heart to them because the represent the town itself. I’ve been to some of the downtown parades… granted it was many years ago. But like any large parade, there are always large crowds and way too many people for me. It really was much more fun being at the smaller parades. The drive down to New Orleans (from here on in known as NO) would have been a few hours less than the 8.5 hours that it took us. We had to go thru parts of Shreveport and that’s where the trouble started. The drive to Shreveport itself is a little over an hour and that presented no problem. We were to take I49 south to Lafayette and then east toward NO. The only problem was I49 was closed due to an accident further on down the road and the potential for icing on the bridge...

As I get older I think I get more thoughtful about my life. Having more time to myself and not having the usual day-to-day pressures of working and living, allow for more thoughtful moments. It also shows me how life works in strange circles. I guess when you come down to it, I’m a person who believes in things happening for a reason at the time they happen. I make the moves and I make the decisions, for the most part, so the changes are caused by my decisions. When I was writing my previous post, I mentioned things about my working life and a brief note about my entering college. And that simple explanation is the crux of this blog. Ever since I can remember I have always wanted to go to college. As a young kid, school came pretty easy to me. I loved to read and I loved to learn. Maybe because as a youngster I felt my family life was so chaotic, I learned to escape by reading. I also figured out I could find out about any thing, any place or any person by reading...

The other day as I was tooling around Texarkana (AR and TX) I got to thinking about how I'm no longer working and how I felt about that. But first some history on my working life. I started out kind of early on the working scene. When I was just 9 I starting taking the almost year old baby of a neighbor on stroller rides after school. My neighbor had asked me if I wanted to earn some money and of course the answer was yes. We agreed upon 50 cents per hour (a lot of money back in 1948) to take her daughter for stroller rides around the block on nice days. I would report to Mrs. Wagner's house after I got home from school and she would let me know if I were to take the baby out for that day. I would walk around designated blocks for an hour, sometimes two, and then bring baby Carol back. And that was my introduction to being financially independent. Shortly before the end of my sophomore year in high school, I saw an ad in the Boston Globe for waitresses in Ogunquit, Maine...