Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
The best made plans sometimes ….
We planned on making a short trip to Sacramento to take some of Tom’s dads’ railroad papers and books to the State RR Museum. After a crazy Christmas work season, granddaughter, Julie, finally had a few days off and wanted to travel again in the big gray motor home with grandma and grandpa. Julie is now in her 3rd year at Fresno State University and works part time as well so we do not have many opportunities to travel with her. Two and a half years ago she went with us for 2 months all the way to the east coast. We had a great time so this was to be another great adventure.
The trip started off pretty good; light traffic on Hwy 99 though as always the road is VERY rough. The first mishap was the fruit bowl bounced it’s way off the counter and broke. Julie and I cleaned that up while Tom continued driving up 99.
The next mishap was missing the signs alerting us to Hwy 99 being closed in both directions about 10 miles up the road. By the time we realized this we were past Hwy 120, the route that would have us avoid that hour and a half delay. Seems a big rig sideswiped a car, jackknifed the rig and then burst into flames. We followed the line of cars, and trucks big and small at 1 mile/hour for over a hour finally getting off the freeway only to then have to travel through the town of Manteca with these same vehicles all the way to I-5. Mishap # 3: While following a car hauler through Manteca, Tom had to use every bit of braking power on the RV and Jeep to do an emergency stop. All contents in all cupboard and closets were now as forward as they could go and Julie just about joined us in the front of the RV and we almost became another vehicle on the car hauler. Now that’s something we’ve not experienced in a very long time. Thank goodness for good brakes.
I guess third times a charm because from then on we had no problems, no emergency stops and no breakages. We pulled into CalExpo about 3’oclock and got set up in our new home.
We then went shopping at Fry’s. This was Julie’s first trip to the electronics mega store. We looked at a lot of things and only bought a little 4 gig tiny USB drive for $5 and a set of ear buds for Julie for $5. Good after Christmas sales.
Then we went to Best Buy. After lots of comparisons of tablets, small computers, and i-pad, Julie decided on the i-pad as the only 2 essential apps she must have for school and work only came on the i-pad. It is a pretty nice tablet. Tom had nothing to do while Julie was closing the deal on the i-pad so he decided on the least expensive Kindle. He liked the size, liked the price to be able to become familiar with the capabilities of the Kindle reader, and will probably buy the second generation of the Kindle Fire when it is released this Spring.
We were so hungry with all this shopping we went to Guy Fieri’s Tex Wasabi. All I can say is BBQ sushi is scrumptious. We could barely finish the Texas Toast bread pudding smothered in macadamian white chocolate sauce. Julie thought the soapstone sculpture of the Tex Wasabi logo was pretty special. With her background in Advertising and Design and Marketing she is always noticing this kind of stuff.
We came home and played on the new electronic toys. I continued reading the book recommended by Nick Russell, Redfield Farm, a Kindle e-book set in the 1850’s about a Quaker Family and the Underground Railroad. Excellent read.
Today we did some sorting of the Railroad stuff of Tom’s dad and headed down to the Museum. The curse was still active; the staff at the RR Museum archives were all on vacation for the week between Christmas and New Years. We did some shopping, sightseeing, and had a delicious lunch at the Delta King.
We got a geocache, fed the parking meter, shopped some more, then went to visit our friends, Irene and Bill Callahan. Irene recently fell and broke her hip and fractured her elbow and we wanted to wish her well. We chatted with Bill for a few minutes and were on our way to have dinner with fellow RV’ers Cool Judy and Luke Rinehimer. We never stopped talking about this and that and even the important stuff like the upcoming Escapee Geocaching event and the FMCA rally.
It sure is hard to post a reasonable short blog when we pack so much into 2 days. Maybe I should blog more often, but then when can I geocache, work on my genealogy, knit, make the bed, clean the rig and occasionally cook? My oh my, a woman’s work is never done.
Monday, December 26, 2011
A month gone??? Where did it go?
It seems like we just returned from the Coast and it was Christmas.
We did manage to visit Santa. That’s l to r, daughter, Jennifer, Mom, Santa, me, Julie and Sampson down front. That’s 5 generations if you count Sam.
However, this year Christmas was totally different from years past: shopping till we dropped, decorating every room in the house, and of course the extravagant Christmas morning breakfast. This year we celebrated a very simple but meaningful Christmas morning.
Shopping… well, we did do a little shopping for the grandkids, but that was all. After many years of exchanging gifts between our 4 generations (the upper 3 generations either bought everything they wanted or were trying to downsize the ‘stuff’ accumulated over a lifetime) our daughter Jennifer, thankfully called a halt to the commercialism.
Decorating… now that was just hard to do when everything was either packed away or given away. We did add a decorative steering wheel cover and our favorite hand carved Christmas decoration given to us by our niece, Denise.
Breakfast… it was much more simple at mom’s with all of us contributing. You know we enjoyed it just as much, it was just as delicious, and it was so much easier.
This year mom, Jenny and the girls, Julie and Jamie, and Tom and I enjoyed a simple church service. We sang Christmas carols, celebrated Jesus’ birthday with the rest of our small church family, and were reminded again of the reason for the season, the gift of salvation. I like the Quakerly way of worship; keep it simple.
We hope to get out of Fresno for a couple of days before the first of the year. Julie has been working her ‘you know what off’ as the manager of the Santa picture event at River Park and she will be traveling again with us if only for a couple of days. Fun, fun, fun.
Then begins 2012 and we will be On The Road Again, Caching Places that we’ve Never Been.
And so in closing, Tom and I hope your Christmas was as meaningful as ours was and your New Year will be healthy, filled with exciting safe travels, and many, many blessings.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Fresno Foggy Days
Not much happening around Fresno these foggy days. Well, today is not as foggy as it was a couple of days ago as we had WINDS yesterday. I thought once we left the Midwest we were done with the slide toppers blowing and the ‘homestead’ rocking, but I was wrong. When that 50 MPH wind hit in the middle of the night two nights ago I thought someone was breaking in; then I remembered the local TV weather report to expect strong winds. Luckily we are parked next to the garage/shop in our old driveway and somewhat sheltered from the buffeting. There were many trees and power lines down around Fresno and Clovis, but we were not affected. That is one good thing about being self contained… if we loose power we can just start the generator and we are good to go.
We have, however, been busy since coming back from the coast last month. One of the projects Tom has been tackling is helping granddaughter, Julie, get ready for the Santa’s Workshop so he has been out in the shop collecting little tools that look like Santa’s elves might have used them.
Julie had asked Grandpa Tom to help Santa make some toys. So after days and days of cutting, painting, sawing, and detailing the toys were done. The animal circus train and Alfred the Duck were finally done just in time for the grand opening of Santa's Workshop at Fresno's River Park Shopping Center.
And here they are in Santa’s Workshop.
Then on Black Friday we went to see Santa fly in at River Park in a helicopter. Unfortunately, this was one of Fresno’s foggy day so Santa had to come in a fire truck. There were a lot of kids, police on horseback and one big fire truck at the festivities.
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. Funny how things work out. We came back to Fresno for the Holidays and the first ‘big’ one was Turkey day. Mom and daughter, Jennifer, went to my sister, Janet’s, in Oregon. Son, Jason, and family went to Bakersfield. SIL, Greg and granddaughter, Jamie, went to Greg’s parents. So we were invited to go with granddaughter, Julie, to her boy friend Claudio’s family’s holiday celebration. This was to be a Mexican Thanksgiving celebration. I don’t know what we expected, but the volume of food for the 9 of us around the table was more than abundant. The menu went like this: a 24 lb. stuffed turkey, a 20 lb. ham, mashed potatoes, riced potatoes, gravy, corn, corn bread, muffins, cranberry relish and cranberry sauce, wine and sparkling cranberry cider. WHEW! I guess Claudio's family celebrates just like we do just on a larger scale.
Then came desert… 12 pies to choose from.
We were warmly welcomed by the Garcia Family and felt just like one of the family. We even were able to join in the Skype with Claudio’s brother and sister in New York City. It was a great Thanksgiving with our new and expanding family.
The other activity that has kept us busy since coming back has been Geocaching. We went to the 11-11-11 event at Marie Calendars and met lots of new (to us) cachers. Julie and Claudio also attended with us and Julie announced her Path Tag designing service. She has designed our Path Tags, and the Escapee Geocacher tags as well as her own. If any of our readers would like to contact Julie for a Path Tag design this is the link. We also placed a cache right in front of the house. It is a D-3, T-1 1/2. Check it out here as it is a doozie! We call it Eastside Connection. For our geocacher friends who will not be looking for this cache in Fresno, this is the spoiler.
That’s just about all the news I can remember for now.
We will be be, to quote another blogger we read, whimsically irregular bloggers while in Fresno. If you subscribe you will be notified by email when we post, or subscribe with your gReader on your android.
Until we are On the Road Again, we will be Caching Places We've Never Been.
We have, however, been busy since coming back from the coast last month. One of the projects Tom has been tackling is helping granddaughter, Julie, get ready for the Santa’s Workshop so he has been out in the shop collecting little tools that look like Santa’s elves might have used them.
Julie had asked Grandpa Tom to help Santa make some toys. So after days and days of cutting, painting, sawing, and detailing the toys were done. The animal circus train and Alfred the Duck were finally done just in time for the grand opening of Santa's Workshop at Fresno's River Park Shopping Center.
And here they are in Santa’s Workshop.
Then on Black Friday we went to see Santa fly in at River Park in a helicopter. Unfortunately, this was one of Fresno’s foggy day so Santa had to come in a fire truck. There were a lot of kids, police on horseback and one big fire truck at the festivities.
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. Funny how things work out. We came back to Fresno for the Holidays and the first ‘big’ one was Turkey day. Mom and daughter, Jennifer, went to my sister, Janet’s, in Oregon. Son, Jason, and family went to Bakersfield. SIL, Greg and granddaughter, Jamie, went to Greg’s parents. So we were invited to go with granddaughter, Julie, to her boy friend Claudio’s family’s holiday celebration. This was to be a Mexican Thanksgiving celebration. I don’t know what we expected, but the volume of food for the 9 of us around the table was more than abundant. The menu went like this: a 24 lb. stuffed turkey, a 20 lb. ham, mashed potatoes, riced potatoes, gravy, corn, corn bread, muffins, cranberry relish and cranberry sauce, wine and sparkling cranberry cider. WHEW! I guess Claudio's family celebrates just like we do just on a larger scale.
Then came desert… 12 pies to choose from.
We were warmly welcomed by the Garcia Family and felt just like one of the family. We even were able to join in the Skype with Claudio’s brother and sister in New York City. It was a great Thanksgiving with our new and expanding family.
The other activity that has kept us busy since coming back has been Geocaching. We went to the 11-11-11 event at Marie Calendars and met lots of new (to us) cachers. Julie and Claudio also attended with us and Julie announced her Path Tag designing service. She has designed our Path Tags, and the Escapee Geocacher tags as well as her own. If any of our readers would like to contact Julie for a Path Tag design this is the link. We also placed a cache right in front of the house. It is a D-3, T-1 1/2. Check it out here as it is a doozie! We call it Eastside Connection. For our geocacher friends who will not be looking for this cache in Fresno, this is the spoiler.
That’s just about all the news I can remember for now.
We will be be, to quote another blogger we read, whimsically irregular bloggers while in Fresno. If you subscribe you will be notified by email when we post, or subscribe with your gReader on your android.
Until we are On the Road Again, we will be Caching Places We've Never Been.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)