Palmdale - IV

Jett - 2 months

It must be time to write again. It’s been a while. We’ve been back at Palmdale for almost 2 weeks and I thought that I would have plenty of time to write once I got here. Today I’m making some time. Yesterday there was something on Facebook about it being time to get Christmas cards in the mail so I started addressing envelopes today. Not having a printer to make address labels I have to write using that antiquated cursive that I learned in grade school. Things are so much harder nowadays.

The good thing is that winter is over and the snow is gone.

The winter day at Palmdale

Don can get back to the golf course tomorrow. Yesterday we introduced our new friends, Frank and Connie from Iowa to the Don Wes Flea Market, a cultural experience not to be missed by Winter Texans in the Valley. Tonight, is potluck and there is a big vote coming up about how best to serve our food. The Palmdale TRADITION has been to form the tables into a horseshoe or square and place our food in front of us. When we all get seated on both sides of the tables we stand, push our chairs in, take our plates and circle to the right serving ourselves until we return to our seat which pretty much gets us all back to our seats at the same time. Apparently, there are those who would rather have a buffet table in the middle with all the food on it and we go around it. Hopefully, we can get the vote over without much discussion so we can eat before the food gets cold. The only upside to the buffet table concept is that I can distance myself from the store-bought pie that I brought instead of having it sitting right in front of me and everybody can tell that I went to the beach while they were cooking.

Foll moon over SPI

The Boat Parade on South Padre Island

It’s good to be home among familiar faces with things to do. The Red Hats are not at Palmdale anymore and instead we have the Ladies Social Club and I went to their first get together 2 days after I got here. The only red hat that I have is Don’s old St. Louis Cardinal’s baseball cap so I never felt like I could join before. I have other plans for expanding my horizons this year but I haven’t gotten around to those things yet.

I’ve listed the completion of our 2017 travels at the end of this post. Some of our most memorable highlights include…

Landry's Vineyard

Children playing in the background

Landry’s Vineyard is a Harvest Hosts venue. We pulled in there on a Saturday so that we could attend the last of their seasonal concerts. A group of musicians played on a stage that was placed at the bottom of a hill in front of the grapevines. A large crowd gathered on the hillside in lawn chairs and on blankets with their families to enjoy the beautiful fall afternoon. Children were racing around behind the stage some of them tossing footballs back and forth.  All of this combined with their good wine made for an very enjoyable afternoon.

Diamond Jack’s Casino where we relived last year’s election at the place in which we experienced the original trauma. It seemed with our timing the way it was that we couldn’t avoid returning at the same time of year to this site.

Sutherland Springs

This has been the year for us to pass by and visit the sites of some of the worst tragedies that have occurred during our lifetime. Last spring while driving to Hartford, CT, we passed the sign on I-84 to Newtown. We didn’t stop but we visited our friend who was a school teacher and she remembered that day vividly. When we drove to Kelly’s in September we stopped by the crash-site of Flight 93 on 9/11. That is memorialized in Somerset County in Pennsylvania. Coming through Texas this year we came through Waco and took some time to visit the memorial at the Branch Davidian Compound. Depending on who tells the story, it was either a massacre of a stand-off that ended in a mass murder-suicide. Then while we were staying in Pleasanton, TX we took a day to go and pay our respects at the Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs. They have done an amazing job of covering the evidence of that recent horror and turning the building into a memorial for those who died that horrific day. Grief is still very fresh there.

Cruise-ship Christmas Tree

One week before Thanksgiving we decided we better find some place where we could spend that day and enjoy dinner with a group of RVers. Unfortunately, every place that I called was full and we began to think of alternatives. Don suggest that we might be able to find a deal on a last minute cruise. We found some good deals but needed to have a place to store the motorhome with electricity during our absence. That took the better part of a day and by the time we had things arranged with the Gillespie County Fairgrounds in Fredericksburg, there was nothing available. So we woke up Saturday morning not knowing what we were going to do. I contacted Royal Carribean one last time to see if there were any last minute cancellations. It wasn’t as good a deal as we would have wished but it was leaving out of Galveston the next day and we could make that. So we packed up the RV, moved it to the fairgrounds, plugged it in and set off for Galveston, about 290 miles. We stayed in a motel and were on board the ship shortly after noon. We spent 2 days at sea. Then stopped at Costa Maya, Mexico; Roatan, Hondurus; and Cozumel, Mexico.

11/4-5 Landry’s Vineyard, Monroe LA

11/6-8 Diamond Jack’s Casino, Bossier, LA

11/9-14 Tyler State Park, Tyler, TX

11/13-15 Airport RV Park, Lake Waco, TX

11/16 Royal Palms RV Resort, Austin, TX – just about the worst and most expensive place we’ve stayed

11/17-18 Lady Bird Johnson RV Park, Fredericksburg, TX

11/19-26 Gillespie County Fairgrounds, Fredericksburg, TX (during which time we drove to Galveston and boarded the Royal Carribean Liberty of the Seas and traveled to Costa Maya, Mexico; Roatan, Hondurus; and Cozumel, Mexico

11/27-28 Bar M Mobile Home and RV Park, Pleasanton, TX

11/29 – present Palmdale RV Park, Los Fresnos, TX

Baby Jett!

The last time I wrote was from Philadelphia back in August. Once I returned to Minnesota, we turned our focus on getting back to Philadelphia before the baby was born so that we could deliver some furniture, but most importantly, The Crib. That Honda CRV that we purchased last December to replace our Toyota was pancaked in a 4 car pile-up in Minneapolis on July 28. ^th. We continued to drive it while we waited for the insurance company to tell us where they wanted it repaired. Turns out after some thought they decided to total the car and just give us money so we had to spend some time purchasing a new car and then getting it ready to tow. We found a 2014 Buick Enclave which worked very well because we could use it to tow a trailer full of furniture to Philadelphia.

We stayed at Mississippi Riverwood RV Park until September 13 and then moved the camper to our friend’s house in Excelsior Springs, MO where they let us store it for a few weeks. They had sold their property but we had plenty of time before they closed on that sale on October 20. While all this was going on we attempted to spend time with Greg’s family.

The view at Mississippi Riverwood

Minnessota Blue Grass and Old Time Music Fesitval

Edie at MBOTMA

At Ken and Lori's for pizza on the grill 

Gymnastics 

Fat Chance Jugband at the Boogie at Deer Lake Charlies in Effie

Trailer packed and ready to go

On September 15, we loaded up a U-Haul trailer and headed for Kelly’s. We arrived on September 20. Due date was September 24. We all commenced to wait for the much anticipated arrival of Baby Jett. We had work to do fixing some things around Kelly’s house. She comped us a room at the Time Square Hampton Inn so we took the train from New Jersey into Penn Station and checked out Manhattan for a couple of days. We continued to wait. Finally, on October 5, I said we need to go back to Minnesota. Both Don and I had doctor’s appointments scheduled for the 9th.

The view from our window.

So we headed down the Pennsylvania Turnpike going west. We took off in the afternoon and made it about 240 miles. We texted Kelly at about 7:00 PM. No sign of labor starting. If labor didn’t start on it’s own by 10/8 she was scheduled to be induced. I started figuring out how I could fly back to Philadelphia so I could see this baby. So we were totally amazed on Friday morning to find a picture of a newborn baby
 on my cell phone as we sat down for breakfast. We discussed our options and decided to turn around and head back to Philadelphia so we could spend a couple of hours with the family. So we did that.

Jett was born on October 6 at 7:06 AM. 7 lbs. 9 oz. 19 in. in Philadelphia Hospital. We got there in time to spend a couple of hours with the new family and then returned the way we came through downtown Philly’s rush hour traffic. We managed to make it back to where we started in the morning.  By the time we finished that day, the Turnpike had about $100 in tolls from us. It was hard to leave that baby behind.

Grandma meets Jett

Grandpa meets Jett

Aimless Wandering:

Yesterday, my sister Elaine called and she asked me where I was. Well, I said, “I’m in my camper. Just finished making cole slaw for supper.” She paused for a minute and asked, “Where is your camper?” “Oh,” I said “Jackson, Mississippi.” So you see now I’m home when I’m in the camper wherever it is parked. It just so happens that it is in Jackson now. Tomorrow we will be heading west with plans to be at home in Landry Vineyard in Monroe, Louisiana. We have no plan other than to be at Palmdale on December 1.

The Black Iris for which the farm is named

So here is where we've been. We got back to our camper in Excelsior Springs on October 10 and spent a few days helping Kay and Max finish packing their house. We went over to Don’s sister’s in Ottawa, KS for the weekend and came back to pick up the camper and head out.

After that we did our normal visiting old friends through Missouri and Illinois and I showed everyone my daily pictures of my beautiful new granddaughter Jett, and a few new ones of my beautiful older granddaughter Edie who has started Kindergarten.

Beautiful new granddaughter - Jett

Beautiful older granddaughter Edie - Kindergarten

Cotton…

Bumper crop

Pickin cotton

When we got to Blytheville, Arkansas, we were impressed with the enormous colorful bales of cotton laying around the fields and the abundance of unpicked cotton. We drove to see Johnny Cash’s boyhood home in Dyess which is town that was settled during the depression. About 500 families were given 40 acres each of swampland and enough to build a house. The families then were able to drain the swampland and grow cotton along with food for
themselves. Johnny Cash’s family was one of the lucky families that had this opportunity. We arrived just as the caretaker of the place was closing up the house and talked to him briefly. He did point us towards the cotton gin about a half a mile down the road and said they might even give us a tour. It wouldn’t hurt to ask so we headed over to Rabbit Ridge Gin and Warehouse. We drove in not far behind a truck hauling a load of cotton onto the scale. Off to the side was another truck backing up to the gin preparing to unload. The gravel driveway and weeds around the edges were gathering wisps of cotton that was blowing around in the wind. Back behind all of the buildings were stacks of huge bales and loads of cotton that were gathered the old way. We could hear the roar of heavy equipment coming from buildings where the cotton was being unloaded. We entered the office without much hope but asked at the desk about a possible tour.

Citton seed - how the gin makes a profit

Unloading bales behind the gin

The young woman said she would ask and soon we were approached by a man, about 50 years old. He said sure and led us to a diagram which showed the steps that go to separating the seeds from the cotton. We had picked a handful of cotton from the field we stopped at to get a picture of the cotton picker and I knew that getting the seed out was not an easy thing to do. He described all the steps and we weren’t sure if that was all but he invited us to follow him to the gin and spent about an hour with us walking around the gin showing us all the steps that involved fluffing up the cotton drying it out and cutting the seeds out and then adding moisture back in the cotton so that it could be packed into bales for shipping. So we walked around immense pieces of noisy machinery as he explained what was happening in each step. Workers were busy monitoring the equipment and in the end filling the bags that contained the finished bales. We saw the building that housed the cotton seeds which are what provides cottonseed oil and animal feed which gives the gin their profit margin. Then the warehouse which is stacked high with bales of cotton to be shipped, much of it overseas. When we finished watching a truck deliver and label another 4 giant bales of cotton, we returned to the owner’s office where he had some pictures and samples of how cotton was picked in the old days. I was surprised when he said that they were still picking cotton by hand as recently as 1964. He told of how workers migrated to the area from the hills in the Ozarks to help pick cotton in the fall and then went home.  I thought of the town that we drove through over by the river where it appeared mostly African American people lived in small rundown houses and shacks. We saw a large American Greetings plant and other large manufacturing plants nearby so the economy is transitioning. I recently saw an article why cotton is bad for backpacking and hiking. Fortunately for us we have survived major backpacking trips wearing cotton but not anymore. Our gin owner showed us on a board he has posted in the office where the number of bales that they gin every year has been dropping steadily from a high of 26,000 bales 6 years ago compared to 9200 last year.

Mississippi

Mississippi State Capit0l

Martin Luther King's last motel
stay in Memphis.

Here in Jackson, I toured Eurdora Welty’s home and found her book on my Nook and started reading it again taking my time to just enjoy the people and places she describes so deliciously. We toured the new capitol, the old capitol and the Governor’s Mansion. A woman at the tourist information center suggested that we ask about the ghost in the Governor’s mansion. She said that no one would bring it up. So we did that. Our tour guide was appalled that someone had suggested that and she told us briefly that there have been stories about Governor Bilbo’s ghost which is said to hang out in the bathroom. But she said not to ever bring it up because they were not supposed to talk about it. I looked up Governor Bilbo on my Google and figured out that he wasn’t just controversial as she said but he was an appalling human being and I can understand why the tour guides do not bring up that shameful piece of Mississippi history.

Jett - 1 month old

Aug. 11-13 -  El Rancho Manana, MBOTMA Festival
Aug. 14 - Sep. 13, Mississippi Riverwoods RV Park, Osceola, MN
Sep. 14- Oct 15 Black Iris Farms, Excelsior Springs, MO
           Sep. 15-Oct. 9 - Minnesota - Philadelphia by car
Oct. 16-17 – Mark Twain Caves Campground, Hannibal MO

Oct. 18-22 – Illinois State Fairgrounds Campground, Springfield, IL

Oct. 23 –  Walmart, Festus, MO

Oct. 24-25 – Cape Camping and RV Park, Cape Girardeau, MO

Oct. 26- 28 – Grizzly’s RV Park, Blytheville, AR

Oct. 28-29 Memphis South RV Park and Campground, Coldwater, MS

Oct. 30 – Wal Mart, Ridgeland, MS

Oct. 31-Nov.  – Timberlake Campground, Brandon, MS

Philadelphia - Take One

 I will get around to writing about our travels through New England and Canada but since I’m here at Kelly’s house in Pennsylvania I will start out with this day. Turns out the Media Farmer’s Market is not in business this summer so I ended up going to the Giant supermarket for vegatables for the Moussaka with Onion Nut Sauce. The recipe said that it would take 2 ½ hours so I thought that I had time to make it before the Silver Sneakers Yoga class at the Y. It took me 4 hours so I missed the class. It’s taking me a while to get to my point. Kelly and Jason have this fancy device that you can talk to and it just does what you want. Like I say, “Computer, play NPR.” It says, “All right, WHYY out of Philadelphia.” I say, “Computer, Play louder.” And it turns up the volume. So, when I decided to just do my own yoga routine, I said, “Computer, play yoga music.” It said, “OK, maybe you would like John Prine radio.” Perfect.

The Moussaka is out of the oven, I’ve done some yoga, WeeChee, Jason’s little dog went wee and now it’s time to think about where we’ve been and what we’ve done. I wrote down all our stops in my last post. Here, I will describe some of the highlights of that trip. 

Philadelphia  - Memorial Day

We drove the camper into Philadelphia on the Friday before Memorial Day and parked at Campus Park and Ride in downtown Philadelphia. This really is just a parking lot but they have RV sites backing up to an old warehouse from which you can hook up to water and electricity. It was the closest and most convenient place in relation to Kelly’s new house in Media, PA. She and Jason had just moved in 2 weeks before we arrived. We did not see the Liberty Bell or any of the other things for which Philadelphia is famous. We hung out with the two of them at their house, went out to dinner once and met Jason’s parents at a family dinner hosted in the new house. For the life of me, I can’t recall any touristy thing that we did while we were here for 4 days. 

 Connecticut

We have almost completed one of my goals which was to visit with all of the friends we’ve made over the years that moved to far flung places. I have to say that some of the most enjoyable times we’ve had have been when we spend time with our old friends. Tom and Mary Vandermeid lived in Springfield back in the 80’s and shared leadership roles in the Parent Teacher Club at Hazel Dell School and helped coach softball for a couple of years. Tom is a minister for the Covenant Church and Mary is a teacher until she retired last year. They moved to West Hartford Connecticut sometime in the 80’s and that is where they live today. They have 3 children close in age to ours. So, on our way north we gave them a call and Tom invited us to park the camper in the parking lot at Covenant Congregational Church. He even provided electricity. We enjoyed a bike ride on one of the beautiful bike trails in the area and spent a day going to visit Gillette Castle which is a unique and somewhat strange place built by actor William Gillette who was famous for portraying Sherlock Holmes back at the turn of the last century. We also took a tour of Mark Twain’s house in Hartford. 

RI-MA-NH

While we were stopped in Rhode Island, we took a trip up to Providence to see the State Capitol. We took a long car trip the next day to see Plymouth Rock and then drive around Cape Cod. Plymouth Rock is surrounded by sand bags to keep the ocean back. I’m guessing that the ocean is a little higher than it was when the pilgrims landed in 1620. Two plaques erected not far from each other juxtapose two themes in American history. One commemorates the burial ground for the passengers of the Mayflower. “….History records no nobler venture for faith and freedom than that of this pilgrim band. In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and cold, they laid the foundations of a state wherein every man through countless ages should have liberty to worship God in his own way. May their example inspire thee to do thy part in perpetuating and spreading the lofty ideals of our republic throughout the world.”

The other, erected much more recently, marks The National Day of Mourning. “Since 1970, Native Americans have gathered at noon on Coles Hill in Plymouth to commemorate a National Day of Mourning on the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. Many Native Americans do not celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims and other European settlers. To them, Thanksgiving Day is a reminder of the genocide of millions of their people, the theft of their lands and the relentless assault on their culture….”

Is our challenge maybe, to hold these two truths or realities together in our heart? This is our history and it’s all true. One does not negate the other just as in the South the reality of the horror of slavery does not negate the reality of the civil war and the destruction of a way of life. Is the story of the United States about growing up enough to be able to handle it all? It’s not one or the other. It’s both/and.

Bah Hahbah and Acadia National Park

Mount Desert Island on the coast of Maine is the home of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. We spent a few days at the Bar Harbor Campground just down the road from Bar Harbor. We enjoyed hiking around the park and drove up Cadillac Mountain to see the views. One day we went down to one of the lobster pounds (C-Ray) along the roadside near the campground and were served a box with a couple pounds of mussels, a fresh whole lobster, an ear of corn and boiled potatoes with melted butter. We brought our own bottle of white wine and sat at a picnic table provided by the host. This was the best lobster that we had in our travels. I found a turquoise hoody to replace the one that I lost last year. I needed it to keep warm.

We spent 2 nights in Calais, Maine, taking a day to drive around and check out the border crossings and get a preview of Canada. We had some time so we drove over to St. Andrews and drove across to Minister’s Island while the tide was down. We hiked around the island and enjoyed a beautiful afternoon. The next day, we brought the camper into Canada and headed for St. John where we celebrated my birthday with another lobster dinner in a fancy restaurant. Twice as expensive and half as good as lobster from the pound. 

Bah Hahbah and Acadia National Park

Mount Desert Island on the coast of Maine is the home of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. We spent a few days at the Bar Harbor Campground just down the road from Bar Harbor. We enjoyed hiking around the park and drove up Cadillac Mountain to see the views. One day we went down to one of the lobster pounds (C-Ray) along the roadside near the campground and were served a box with a couple pounds of mussels, a fresh whole lobster, an ear of corn and boiled potatoes with melted butter. We brought our own bottle of white wine and sat at a picnic table provided by the host. This was the best lobster that we had in our travels. I found a turquoise hoody to replace the one that I lost last year. I needed it to keep warm. We spent 2 nights in Calais, Maine, taking a day to drive around and check out the border crossings and get a preview of Canada. We had some time so we drove over to St. Andrews and drove across to Minister’s Island while the tide was down. We hiked around the island and enjoyed a beautiful afternoon. The next day, we brought the camper into Canada and headed for St. John where we celebrated my birthday with another lobster dinner in a fancy restaurant. Twice as expensive and half as good as lobster from the pound.

Fundy National Park and Alma

We camped for 3 nights in Fundy National Park and got to know the amazing Fundy Bay tides. Here the ocean rises and falls 40 feet a couple of times each day. When we first drove into Alma, boats were sitting on the bottom of the ocean with piers sitting high above them. The beach was at least a half a mile out from the rocky shore. The next morning, the boats were floating next to the piers and the ocean was pounding on the rocks. I read somewhere that the amount of water flowing into and out of Fundy Bay each day is more water volume than all the rivers in the world. It must be true. We left the park and drove up to Moncton along the Peticodiac River, also known as the Chocolate River because of  it’s color. 

The waterfalls at Fund

In search of a moose at Fundy National Park

 Moncton: The friendliest city of them all

We drove into Moncton figuring that we would find a tourist information center to find a place to stay for one night. We crossed the river and I directed Don to take a right turn which took us into the city. A sign warned us of a 12 ½’ clearance so we took a quick left turn and had no idea where we were headed. The first opportunity to pull off the road happened to be a parking lot next to Bowen Hardwood & Stairs (www.bowenhardwood.ca/). When we explained to the two men working there our problem, the went to their computer and began looking up places for camping near Moncton. They provided us with a map of Moncton and gave us directions to Casino New Brunswick where we found a nice level place to park for the night. The battery on Don’s watch went out and we really became aware that our phones were useless in Canada except for taking pictures. The clock didn’t update to Atlantic time. We stopped in at Magnetic Hill Home Hardware Building where a nice young man spent about 15 minutes helping Don remove his old watch battery and replace it with a new one. We went into the Casino hotel and the concierge there let us use the phone to call a campground in Shediak, NB to reserve a campsite. At Costco, the worker at the phone kiosk explained what our cell phone options were while we were in Canada. We decided to settle for having cameras and when we had Wi-Fi available we would communicate with people back in the States. And we used real paper maps. We were set to continue our journey.

Parlee Beach

 Parlee Beach and Shediac “The Lobster Capital”

Shediac

About 100 miles from ice cold Fundy Bay on the other side of Nova Scotia the Gulf of St. Lawrence has much more reasonable tides and is warm enough for swimming in June. There we found Parlee Beach which stretches for kilometers and has shallow warm water for wading and swimming. We stayed for a couple of days in Shediac and took one day to cross the Confederation Bridge, the world’s longest bridge that crosses from New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island. There we visited the House at Green Gables and walked along the ocean. We stopped at the capital in Charlottetown on our way back where the idea of creating the Canadian confederacy first took place. We were there for Canada Day, July 1 when the country celebrated their 150^th anniversary. Every town we visited was planning a big celebration for the day. 

Confederation Bridge to PEI

The House with Green Gables 

The cliffs at PEI

On the beach PEI

 Nova Scotia.

Campfire with our new friends 

Grand Pre National Historic Site
Nova Scotia

Looking for the elusive moose.

Old Quebec City

In Montreal

With Dennis and Marilyn

Oh Canada!

Sudbury, Ontario

Back in the USA

Family in Duluth - Pam, Thomas and Rowan

Family - Alex, Deb, Rob and Ben