Our European Cruise

This was my second cruise in three weeks!

If you read my previous post, five of us guys went down the Arkansas River to Greenville, Mississippi.  We had been home for a week when Louise and I went on a cruise on the Seine River from Paris to Le Havre and back.

About a year ago, some friends from South Texas started talking about this trip.  Louise and I decided to join them and we bought our tickets.  As usual, I didn't do any trip planning until the day before (one of my traits which doesn't serve me well)!

We left Tulsa on October 10 and had an uneventful (read that "boring") trip to De Gaulle  Airport in Paris.  After the trip was over, Louise and I both told each other we would never fly across the pond again without at least Business Class seats!  Steerage is so cramped and uncomfortable that it's almost unbearable.

When we got to Paris, we discovered a somewhat major problem - our luggage hadn't made the flight.  We filled out the necessary paperwork and left for our ship.  For four days, Louise and I wore the same clothes we had flown in to Paris.  In fact, it got to be a standing joke on the ship that Edd and Louise were wearing their same clothes again!  I did manage to buy some underwear and socks a couple of days out.  By the way, French mens' underwear don't have flys but that's another story.  Finally, after four days our luggage caught up with us and we were happy campers!

The cruise line we were on, Vantage Travel, did all they could to make our trip enjoyable, as did Sandy and Gregg who were our group organizers.

Our ship, the River Venture, was a typical European river ship and held 138 passengers and the crew.  I think the crew numbered about 30.  One of the neatest things about a cruise like this is that you get to know a lot of people, most of the people on the ship, in fact.  There were 19 people in our group, only four of which Louise and I knew before the trip started.  By the end of the cruise, we were all good friends.

Our ship sailed from Paris to Le Havre and back.  As the crow flies, that's only a distance of about 120 miles.  As the Seine River meanders, and taking time for adventures, it took us 12 days for the round trip.

The list of things we got to see and do is too long to include in this blog but I'll hit just a couple of the highlights.  First, and most importantly, was the tour of Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery there.  It really is hard to imagine what happened there on June 6, 1944.  I would compare it to visiting the National Park at Gettysburg.

One thing that always stands out when we travel in Europe is how much older their culture is than ours.  We spent quite a bit of time touring cathedrals and other buildings which were built before Columbus discovered America.  It's hard to imagine!  We ate lunch one day at a Michelin rated restaurant in Rouen which was established in 1345!

We returned to Paris on October 20 and spent two days there at a dock within sight of the Eiffel Tower.  Paris was okay but we really enjoyed all the smaller villages we had seen along the river.  I did get a good picture of the Eiffel Tower, though.

Louise and I had a great time but, as we get older, we begin to worry about what might happen if we had health issues while traveling like this.  We aren't sure we will ever go to Europe again but, if we don't, this was a heck of a way to end our continental travels!

Misadventures as Art

A while back Louise and I were down in the shop and I showed her my "collection of shame", parts which had been damaged due to my negligence or stupidity.  A couple of days later, she asked me if she could have some of them for a project.

I had no idea what the project was but I said "yes".  After 48 years of marriage, I know the correct answers to most of her questions.  What she did was to use these as art to decorate our bathroom!

I must say that it is a very unusual choice of items to use as art.  I must describe each of these items.

On the upper left is a 32 penny spike which I accidentally left in the yard south of our house.  Years later, our neighbor, Roy, was doing us a favor by mowing that area.  He ran over the spike, which was at least 75 yards from the house, and threw it through our glass block window in the bathroom.  It traveled across the bathroom into the water closet where it left a deep gash in the sheet rock wall and landed on a small glass table in front of the stool.  Roy felt horrible but I was the one who left it in the yard and he was mowing our grass after all.

The nut in the lower left box was what was left from a trailer hitch which I grossly under designed.  We were returning home from a fishing trip to Lake Taneycomo in Missouri when the hitch failed, letting my boat and trailer come loose and almost roll over.  Ironically, my insurance agent, who was also my fishing buddy was following me at the time and almost had a heart attack!  The nut, which was holding the hitch ball on took the brunt of the incident and was ground almost nearly in two.  It took weeks to get all the asphalt out of the boat!

The large center frame holds a bent connecting rod from our '46 Chevy cabover, known as Butt Ugly.  I drove it to work at Tulsa Winch one day and a rain storm came through.  Well, the engine sits in the open behind the cab but I had no idea that that much water could get through the air cleaner!  When I went out that evening to start the truck, it turned over about twice, fired and then locked up.  The cylinder that that rod was in was full of water and it "hydrauliced", bending the rod.  A week later and some mechanic work and it was good as new.

The item in the right box is the only one not caused by my stupidity but I found it very unusual.  My neighbor, T.J., asked me to replace the PTO seal on his old Ford 600 tractor.  When I got the old seal out, I looked at it and was amazed!  The seal had the original Ford logo on it and the wiper on the seal was made of rawhide.  Early seals used rawhide as the wiper but I had never seen one.

If you get a chance, come by and look at the museum in our bathroom.

Winter's End

Winter is about to yield to Spring and Louise and I are planning our return to Oklahoma.  For the past several years (we think about eleven) we have spent the winter in the Rio Grande Valley trying to escape bad weather.

As far as weather goes, this winter was not great but tolerable.  We did have a couple of days which saw low temperatures in the high 20's.  And, in the past few days, we've had a couple which exceeded 90 degrees.  The weather was not as good as last winter but much better than in Oklahoma.

I seem to do my best genealogy down here.  In early February, I wrote about a breakthrough in my work, finding the background on my great grandfather, Harry Nash.  While there is still a lot of work to do, I now know what direction to head in.

Louise and the dogs had a good winter as well.  She, like I, is getting somewhat homesick, however, and we are anxious to get back to Mannford.  We will travel to Georgetown, Texas, for a couple of days; Louise wants to go to the IKEA store there.  By the way, a bad joke I've heard is that IKEA is Swedish for particleboard.

When we leave Georgetown, we will go to Sanger, Texas, and spend the evening with our good friends Don and Lynn, then head home.

I don't know how full-time RVer's do it;  I'm ready to get home.

An Epic Battle

As everyone who knows me can attest, I have always had a problem with my weight.  And, of course, that problem has magnified itself as I've grown older.

When I graduated from high school, I weighed 187 pounds (Its funny that I can remember something like that!).  For my height, that was considered overweight.  I stayed around that weight during my college days and when I first got married.

Marriage does a lot of strange things to you, including making you gain weight.  After a year and a half of marriage and a good "desk" job, I weighed 225 pounds.  In October, 1971, while Louise and I were living in Detroit, I went on a diet.  I lost 50 pounds in 90 days and, by the time we got back to Oklahoma for Christmas, weighed 175 pounds!  This was the lightest I had been in years.

Eventually, though, the weight all came back, plus a whole lot more!  At one point in the late 1980's, I got on the shipping scales at work and they topped 300 pounds.  Once again, I lost some weight but didn't really change my lifestyle like we are told we have to do.

In fact, over the years, I figure I have gained and lost over 400 pounds going on diets and then gaining the weight back.

Last year, we had a couple of friends who really enjoyed some weight loss with bariatric surgery and Louise decided that she wanted to do that.  Her doctor gave her a reference to a bariatric clinic in Owasso and, on September 21, we attended a seminar there.

That seminar acted as a motivator for us and we decided to change our eating habits and get more exercise.  In the meantime, Louise started seeing the doctors there and preparing for her surgery.  I even talked to the doctors about the surgery for myself but decided that I might be able to lose enough weight on my own.

It was decided that she would have her surgery after we returned from south Texas this spring.  Over the winter, we were very diligent about our diet and exercise and got a big surprise when we returned home.  Louise had lost so much weight that our insurance would no longer cover the surgery!  The doctors at the bariatric hospital did tell us that they would be happy to go ahead and do it for cash.  It would only cost $17,000!  By now, we had decided that we could do it on our own.

As of today, I've lost 73 pounds and weigh 203.  My goal is in the 160-170 pound range so I still have a ways to go.  I'll let you know when I've reached my goal.

One of the nice things about losing weight, other than the health aspect, is having people notice and comment.  In fact, one friend saw me the other day and raved about my weight loss.  She wanted to know how I had done it.  I told her that I had discovered the real secret to weight loss and she really pressured me to tell her what it was.  When I told her that it was diet and exercise, she was really let down.

Louise and I are now beginning to think about maintenance.  We are going to be at our goals in a few months and don't want to ever have to go through the weight loss deal again so maintenance will be very important to us.  This is something we've never done before so it should prove challenging.  Wish us luck!

Hurricane Katrina

Ten years ago, August 25, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in the Florida panhandle.  It turned and went back into the Gulf of Mexico and returned three days later, on Sunday, August 28.  Katrina was one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history, with 1250 people killed and property damage of almost $110 billion.

In 2003, Foster Harness, my brother Gary, several other people and I had made a boat trip down the Arkansas River to the Mississippi.  You can read more about that trip in my blog of October 17, 2013.  It was one of those trips that, the day you get back, you swear that you will never do again but a week later you're thinking that the trip had been a lot of fun!

Sometime in the summer of 2005, Foster ran into me at the local cafe and suggested that we should make the river trip again.  By that time, I had forgotten every one of the negatives of the first trip and I told him that I was all in.  The date of Saturday, August 20, was selected as the departure date.

On our first trip, the plan was to leave Tulsa, travel to the mouth of the Arkansas River just north of Greenville, Mississippi, and return.  The plan on this trip was to get to the Mississippi, turn south and go all the way to New Orleans.  We decided to recruit some more boats to go with us so we began to spread the word about our trip.  I had an additional task of trying to find a partner for my boat on the voyage.  My son, Dan, needed little encouragement and he as soon involved.  Foster also recruited a crew and we were set.

In spite of all our searches for additional boats, we only found one other guy willing to make the journey.  He had never done anything like this but he had a boat mate and was anxious to go.

The trip down the Arkansas was largely uneventful except for a couple of events.  When we got to Pine Bluff, Arkansas on the third day the marina where we planned to fuel up was closed.  Fortunately, there was a gentleman living on a boat in the marina who offered his pickup truck to us to go for fuel.

The evening of the third day was a disaster.  We had been sleeping on sand bars and hadn't had any problems.  On that evening, however, the mosquitos moved in and viciously attacked us.  That was probably the most miserable night I ever spent.

On Tuesday, August 23, we loaded up our gear, went through the last lock on the Arkansas, and headed south on the Mississippi.  Because there are no locks on the Mississippi, we anticipated making very good time.  Our plan called for my wife, Louise, and my daughter-in-law, Dorinda to meet us in New Orleans with the boat trailer on Thursday, the 25th.  We arrived at the marina in Greenville about noon and had a great lunch at their cafe.

By this time, I was beginning to have problems with the starter solenoid on my outboard motor.  In spite of this, we took off headed for our next fuel stop in Vicksburg.  We arrived there about 2:30 in the afternoon and quickly learned that there was no gasoline to be purchased on the river.  We were faced with the prospect of having to hire someone to haul gasoline to our boats.  My starter problem was getting worse and I was concerned that it might fail completely.

It was late in the afternoon, we were hot and sweaty, and there was a casino/hotel right up the hill from the ramp which was beckoning to us.  Dan and I looked at each other and decided to "pull the plug" on the trip right there.  After telling Foster Harness of our decision, we headed for the hotel.

We had been on the river for 3 1/2 days and looked like it.  In addition, we didn't smell wonderful.  In spite of this, we managed to check into the hotel.  I'm not sure I would have rented us a room!  We called our wives, told them of our change of plans, and headed to our rooms for a shower.  I think Dan took two in thirty minutes!

Later in the evening, after we had had our first decent meal in four days, we went to the casino where I found a blackjack table and parked there.  Within a couple of hours I had told the pit boss of our adventure and he liked the story enough that he "comped" us breakfast for the next morning, Wednesday, August 24.

Louise had taken the trip as an opportunity for a family weekend in New Orleans.  She and Dorinda were bringing the boat trailer, our Daughter, Rachel, and her then-husband, Mike, were flying in and, of course, Dan was with me.  Louise and Dorinda arrived in Vicksburg early on Thursday, we loaded the boat and were off to New Orleans.

When we got to New Orleans, we found a "you store it" place to put the boat, picked up Rachel and Mike at the airport, and headed for the bed and breakfast just outside the French Quarter where we had made reservations.

On Friday, we all got up, had our breakfast, and headed for the Quarter.  About this time we began to hear about the hurricane, Katrina, which was in the Gulf.  We weren't concerned, though, because it was headed for the Florida Panhandle, not anywhere close to us.  Late on Friday, we wound up at Pat O'Brien's and proceeded to drink a few "hurricanes".  They were aptly named, I suppose.

We finally got back to the B&B and crashed.  The next morning, Saturday, the women got up early and headed back to the Quarter to do some shopping.  The guys, including me, were suffering from acute alcohol poisoning (hangovers) and stayed in bed.  About 9 a.m., we began to stir and turned on the television.  That was when we learned that Katrina had made a left turn and was headed for the Louisiana coast.

This was one of those events where, the longer it goes on, the more panic stricken you become.  By about 11 a.m., we decided that we needed to get out of there.  It was about that time that we learned a valuable lesson - cell phones become useless in a crisis situation.  We were trying to contact the women to tell them we had to leave but could not get through to them.  Finally, we got a text message through and they said they would get back to the B&B.

Rachel and Mike had return tickets to Tulsa to leave on Sunday morning.  Against our urging, they decided to stay in the city and try to catch their flight.  As it turned out, theirs was the last flight out of New Orleans and they beat us home!

We left New Orleans about 2:30 after picking up our boat and headed for Lafayette.  Our plan was to take I-10 to Lafayette, then I-49 north to Alexandria.  The trip from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, normally about an hour, took us FIVE hours.  It was the worst traffic jam I had ever seen.  We finally arrived in Alexandria about 11:30 p.m.

Hurricane Katrina came ashore in Louisiana about 3:00 p.m Sunday afternoon.  I can't tell you how happy we were to be away from there!

Kinfolk's Cookbook

In about 1983, Mom decided that she wanted to compile a cookbook, based on her mother's family in Mississippi.  Grandmother Nash, Lessie Hester, had five sisters and two brothers who lived to adulthood and Mom wanted to honor these aunts and uncles, as well as their mother, Nancy Ann.  Of the eight children, only one, Aunt Mallie, was still alive and she contributed several recipes to the cause.

Mom sent out an invitation for all the cousins to send her their favorite recipes.  She wound up with about 150 of them, ranging from pickles to snicker doodles.  In 1984 Mom had not embraced the computer age (most of us had not at that time), so she typed each page of the cookbook.  She wound up with about 54 pages of recipes.

At this point, Louise and I got drafted to help her publish the cookbook so we dove in.  I'm not sure but I think we may have printed 60 to 100 copies, all of which were given away to the recipe contributors and anyone else who wanted them.  Louise and I laminated the covers, collated the books and bound them with plastic binding combs.

The Kinfolk's Cookbook has been one of our favorites over the years and Louise and I wore our copy out completely.  A couple of months ago, Melissa, our niece, copied the cookbook and put it on a web site, which got me to thinking.  Perhaps it was time to reprint this family heirloom.

For the past couple of months, I've been entering the recipes from the original cookbook into a file.  That work is finally done and we are going to put it into a presentable format.  Originally, it was done in an 8 1/2" x 11" format.  This time we are going to print it in a 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" style.  Also, its a lot easier today to have a commercial company print it than to do it around the kitchen table.  I think we'll go that route.

Before long, if you see my phone number on your caller ID, you'll know not to answer because I'm probably going to try to sell you a cookbook!

Hip Replacement Revisited

I had my hip replaced on March 26 so it has now been 2 1/2 weeks since the surgery.

I went back to the surgeon's office Friday for my first follow up visit and was told that everything was just as it should be.  My driving "privileges" were restored and I'm back on a walking regimen.   Its kind of interesting that I have had no significant pain in the hip.  For about four days right after I came home, however, I was tortured by a severe headache.  I'm going to blame that on the anesthesiologist just because it seems like the right thing to do.

One thing I would like to comment on is the trend toward the increasing use of Physician's Assistants, or PA's.  I have only met the surgeon who did this a couple of times.  All the rest of my interaction with him has been through his PA.  As an old "fuddy duddy", I would like to complain about this but the truth is that I was probably shown more care, concern and compassion than I would have seen in the old days.  It didn't hurt, either, that the PA was a young attractive woman!

Louise has been an able "nurse" throughout this process.  I have no idea how someone would get through this without having a partner to help them.  She tells me that it will be my turn next to take care of her!  Also, a couple of friends felt compelled to send me this cartoon:

Well, I think its time for my walk.  Later!

Bread Making

I don't recall what started it, but a couple of months ago, we got to talking about homemade bread.  It came up in conversations a few times and I started thinking about it.

I've always told Louise that beer is just liquid bread; they both have all the same ingredients (grain, yeast and water).  Beer, of course does have the additional ingredient, hops, but it is just a flavoring as are caraway seeds in rye bread.  This has been my excuse for the consumption of a few bottles of "liquid bread".

The other day, I finally took action.  I was at Whole Foods (or as my son, Dan, calls it, "Whole Paycheck"), and decided to look for rye flour since I had a yearning for rye bread.  Sure enough, there it was on the shelf so I purchased some.

I went home, found a reasonable looking recipe on the internet, and proceeded to make my own rye bread!  Surprisingly, it turned out quite nicely although I did trash the kitchen in the process.  It turned out so good, in fact, that I made another batch the next day and made two smaller loaves instead of one large one.  My neighbor, T.J., was the recipient of one of the two smaller loaves and, unless he was lying to me, really enjoyed it.  Of course, what are you going to say when your neighbor forces a loaf of bread on you?

Yesterday, I decided to try regular old homemade white bread.  Amazingly, it came out great too.  There's nothing to this bread making!  In my usual fashion, I'll probably wind up spending a lot of money on equipment to continue this and then stop as soon as the equipment has been purchased.  Lets see, we need a Kitchen Aid mixer, a bread machine, an outdoor stone oven, what else?

More bread projects will include English muffins, French rolls, and those really hard crusted rolls that taste so good!  I'm glad I don't have to worry about a gluten free diet!

South Texas Revisited

Every once in a while, my friend, Larry, reminds me that I need to post something on my blog.  He just did that again so I suppose I should write something.

Louise and I came to South Texas again this year.  We arrived here on January 6 and will be here till March 6.  The weather was absolutely atrocious the first week we were here, making us wonder whether we had made a good choice.  It has since corrected itself, however, and has been beautiful for weeks.

There are too many things to do here to get them all done - many of the activities center around eating.  No wonder I can't lose any weight!  For example, we had the Oklahoma luncheon the other day.  Everyone in the Valley who is from Oklahoma is welcome to attend.  There were about 300 attendees at the luncheon and it was a lot of fun to meet and talk to some of them.

The woman seated next to me won the prize for being the oldest attendee.  She will turn 101 in June and lives in Bearden, Oklahoma, near where my mother grew up.  In the course of the conversation, I found out that she knew my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and my mother quite well.  As the old saying goes, it's a small World!

Another man seated at our table heard us say that we were from Mannford and asked if we had, by chance, known a fellow by the name of Bill Heller.  Of course, I had known Bill and Mary Heller from when I was a kid.  It turns out that he was their ex-  son-in-law.

Speaking of eating, today is half price day on oysters out on South Padre Island.  Guess where we are going this afternoon!  Last week, I ate 2 1/2 dozen of them, I think I can repeat that this week

After we leave here, we are going to go to Louisiana for a few days before returning home.  We have some serious eating to do (crawfish!) over there.  I'll keep you posted on our food adventures.

Big Toys

When I was in college, I had a part-time job driving a truck.  Back then, the state didn't have a Commercial Drivers License, or CDL.  They issued what was called a commercial chauffeurs license.  You didn't have to take a driving test; only answer ten questions in addition to the standard test and pay them a few bucks more.  This license made it legal for you to drive any truck on the road.

Because they were so easy to get, I had a commercial chauffeurs license.  Dad always had a truck around the place which we used to haul hay or other things with so the truck license came in handy.  When I went down to Stillwater Milling Company during my junior year in school, the people there found out that I had a truck license and asked me if I wanted to drive a truck.  I told them that I would love to but I only had experience with "straight" trucks, not semi-trailer trucks.  They replied that that was fine; they had a lot of loads that were in straight trucks.

Because I was in school, the boss would call me when they had a load.  If I had the time, I would go down to the mill and take off from there.  Sure enough, within a couple of weeks, he called with a load to go to    Perry to the company store up there.  When I got to the mill, I discovered that it was a semi load, not a small
straight truckload!  I protested but the boss said I could do it so that was the beginning of my short lived truck driving career.

After another month or two, I worked my way up to a somewhat regular run to Muldrow, Oklahoma, just west of Ft. Smith.  The truck I drove was a 1964 Mack, Model B61.  This truck had a five-speed main transmission with a 4-speed auxiliary transmission behind it.  The B Series Macks were made from 1953 to 1966 and were probably the most recognizable trucks of that era.  By the time I started driving this truck (in 1968), it had become outdated and slow.  I could reach a top speed of 64 miles per hour on the Interstate and get my doors blown off by all the other trucks out there!

Even though the driving job only paid $1.85 an hour, I felt like I was a big shot truck driver.  I did wind up quitting though, when my boss told me I had to choose between my job and my girl friend, Louise.  I chose Louise and it has been a good deal, since I've been married to her for 43 years.

Let's shift to the current time.  For the past several years, Louise and I had a 1999 International truck to pull our fifth wheel RV with.  I also used it occasionally to pull the small dozer around.  When we traded the trailer off on a motor home, I didn't really need the International other than for the dozer.  I thought about an older truck (we've always liked older vehicles) but couldn't find one I liked.

One day at the doughnut shop, my friend Wayne mentioned that his cousin in Owasso had an old Mack B61 and that it might be for sale.  This got my attention big time and I started asking questions.  Wayne assured me that the old truck was in pristine condition so I conned him into going to Owasso with me to look at it.  Well, it was in excellent condition and I wound up buying it from Wes, Wayne's cousin.

This truck is a blast to drive!  Its big, loud, and attention-getting.  I've got some work to do on it but not so much that I can't get out and herd it down the road some.  The other thing thats neat about it is the Tulsa Model 34 winch.  Having worked for that company for 28 plus years, its fun to have a truck with one of their products on it.

As the old saying goes, the only difference between men and boys is the size of the toys.  I guess this one is probably right!

Wildfires

The past three days have been exciting, too exciting for my tastes.

We have had an exceptionally hot, dry summer.  In fact, at our house, we have received a total of .29 inches of rain since June 4.  The total for July was .26 inches and we got another .03 inches night before last.  We have had 24 days of 100° plus temperatures, 5 in June, 15 in July, and 4 so far in August.  The temperatures and lack of rain are very similar to last year.

Last Friday, August 3, there was a pretty good sized grass fire which started somewhere south of State Highway 33 and west of State Highway 48, about 15 miles from our house.  On Saturday morning, I drove down there to see if the fire had burned our land which we use for deer hunting.  It had not; the fire was west of our place about a mile.

Since Saturday was my birthday,  I planned to do nothing but laze around all day.  According to the weather forecast, it was going to be too hot to do anything outside anyway.  We decided to take Rachel and Mike, our daughter and son-in-law, out to eat that evening.

As the day progressed, that fire got bigger and bigger and closer to Mannford.  I was listening to a couple of scanners and it seemed that every few minutes, another fire department was called in to render aid.  About noon, we decided that we might not want to go off to Tulsa for dinner.  We lost both water and electricity around 1:00 p.m. and the house quickly began to heat up.  The high at our house that day was 109°.

About 3:00 p.m., the emergency management people issued a mandatory evacuation of the entire town of Mannford.  This, coupled with the huge amounts of smoke around and our lack of air conditioning, prompted us to decide to spend the night in Sand Springs with Rachel and Mike.  We packed a few things and the dogs and headed their way.

At the kids' house, we spent most of the evening keeping track of the fires on the television news and on Facebook.  I did discover how much misinformation can be found there.  There were several reports of people's houses and businesses being burned that later were proven to be wrong.  Facebook is a great social medium and I do enjoy it but I'm not going to believe much of the news I get from it!

Yesterday morning after breakfast, Louise and I and the dogs headed home.  We still had no electricity but we were going to stay home anyway.  We did get our water service back about noon and about 3:00 p.m., the electricity came back on.  The air conditioning sure does feel good.

We don't know yet how many people lost their homes but we do personally know about half a dozen who did.  Fortunately, there have not been any reports of fatalities or serious injuries.  We had lost a friend in the 2011 wildfires and were worried that that might happen again.

The only fatality at our house was our big old orange koi.  The fish pond pump was not running, of course, and the lack of oxygen and high water temperature was too much for him.  He was about 10 years old and weighed about five pounds.  Its kind of hard to get sentimentally attached to a fish but I hated to lose him after all those years.

We are extremely appreciative of all the emergency services people.  I know that some long, long hours have been put in the past three days to get these fires put down.  Hopefully, today will be the day that they all get to go home and rest.

Vehicles We Have Owned

This is a list of all the cars, trucks and motorcycles we have owned over the years.  Some were owned with Louise, some with my brother, Gary, and some with my son, Dan.

I was really surprised at the number although I shouldn't have since I'm OLD!  This is roughly in the chronological order that we had them, starting in about 1958:

Year Make and Model Notes 1955 Allstate Moped Red 1951 Rambler American Brown and Beige, shared with Gary 1959 Rambler Station Wagon Blue 1961 Rambler Station Wagon Red with Black Skunk Stripes 1965 Honda S90 Black 1965 Rambler 2-Door HT, Wrecked 1064 Corvair White Convertible 1963 Harley Sportster Blue, then Maroon 1963 Chevy Biscayne White 2-Door 1969 Ford XL Reddish Brown with White Vinyl Top 1972 Ford Ranchero Yellow with Woody Trim 1965 Ford Econoline Van Blue with Camping Stuff in Back 1969 Ford XL Red Convertible "Beater" 1972 Chevy Impala 4-Door Company Car, Blue 1974 Chevy Impala 4-Door Company Car, Maroon 1967 Pontiac Firebird Gold Color with White Interior 1963 Chevy Pickup 3/4 Ton, Lots of Rust 1972 Chevy Pickup 1/2 Ton, Beige, with Log Splitter 1983 Buick LeSabre Grey, Eckart's Old Car 1984 Buick LeSabre Blue, Company Car 1979 Volkswagen Rabbit Light Blue 1965 Ford Econoline Pickup Black 1986 Olds Cutlass Ciera 4-Door, Gray 1989 Ford Mustang White GT 1990 Ford Thunderbird Light Brown, bad car 1991 Ford Aerostar Van Two Tone Blue 1993 Meredes 300 Black 1994 Harley Sportster Custom Gleghorn Paint 1995 Harley Road King Turquoise Blue 1946 Chevy Cabover Butt Ugly 1999 Harley Ultra Classic Silver and Brown 1993 Ford Pickup Blue, Short Wide 1968 Chevy Camaro Red with Black Vinyl Roof 1996 Dodge Durango Silver 1971 Chevy Nova Drag Car 1995 Ford 1 Ton Dump Truck Red 1999 Dodge 1 Ton Dump Truck White 1999 International 4700 White, 4-Door 2003 Dodge Dakota Pickup White Extended  Cab 1974 Honda Trail 90 Yellow, Gave to Milt 1966 Harley Sportster Red and White 2003 BMW K1200 Navy and White 1981 Chevy Pickup Blue, Short Narrow 1974 Moto Guzzi Rusty White, From Jerry Adair 2005 Ford Pickup Dark Blue 4WD, Short Wide 2007 Dodge Nitro Brown 2009 Yamaha TW200 2004 Toyota Tacoma Pickup Red, 4WD, 4-Door 2006 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, Silver 2008 Holiday Rambler Motorhome Brown

Have you ever thought about making a list like this?  It is an interesting exercise although I'm not sure what it says about us?  I guess it indicates that Americans love their cars!

The Bucket List

If you saw the movie by this title starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, then you know the meaning of the title.

If you didn't see the movie, the premise is that you have a list of things you wish to accomplish before you "kick the bucket".  Louise and I have each developed a bucket list keeping in mind our income limitations and skill levels.

One of the things high on Louise's list, although not on mine, was a ride in a hot air balloon.  So, this morning, she left for Albuquerque with her good friend, Linda, to go hot air ballooning.  Linda has a brother-in-law and sister-in-law in Albuquerque  and they are going to be hosted by Terry and Sharon.  In case you don't know, Albuquerque is the "mecca" for hot air ballooning.  Every October, the grand meet for these guys is held there and it is not unusual to have over 400 balloons there.  Several of our friends who are RVer's go out there and work as ground crew in exchange for rides in the balloons.

It is kind of amazing that here is a device you can fly in but cannot steer (except for wind currents).  I believe that the pilots are required to have an FAA license, though I'm not sure.  At any rate, Louse and Linda have a reservation for Sunday morning, Mothers' Day, to go on their ride.  I sure hope the weather holds out for them.  After five days of "batching" it, I'm sure I will be very happy to see her.

A Lifetime of Motorcycles

I was 14 years old living in Pampa, Texas when I got my first motorcycle, an Allstate Moped.  My brother, Gary, and I flogged that thing as only youngsters can until it wouldn't go another mile!  Dad was continually working on it to keep it running.

Over the years since then, I've had countless bikes including several Harleys, Hondas, and even a Moto Guzzi.  Today, I have four bikes: a '66 Harley Sportster, an '03 BMW, a Yamaha TW200, and the '74 Moto Guzzi Eldorado.  My favorite ride was a '63 Sportster which I rode when I was at Oklahoma State back in the late '60s.  It was, at the time, the fastest motorcycle in Stillwater!  The picture above is me with it in about 1969.

Louise and I had our first date on this motorcycle and I can still remember that night vividly.  Over the years, she rode behind me a lot of miles on a lot of trips.  Several years ago, we were in Houston, Texas, on a Harley Ultra Classic and it was extremely hot that day.  Also, the traffic was horrible, a standard condition in Houston. When we got back to the travel trailer that evening, Louise told me that she was through riding.  She has never ridden with me again.

I purchased the '66 Sportster about five years ago in an attempt to re-create the old days.  It cannot be done, as most people know, so now I need to sell the Sportster.  I've also decided that, like Louise, I'm about through riding.  I won't completely quit motorcycles but there won't be any more cross-country rides.

It has been a lot of fun but it is time to move on to something else.  Besides, I can use the money from the sale of the motorcycles to buy a new antenna tower!

A New Dog

Our friend, Amy, spotted a small brown dog about a week ago out on the highway.  Well, Amy is a real softie for animals so she spent four days trying to catch that dog and keep him from getting hit by a car.

She finally cornered him last Wednesday; in the process of capturing him, he chewed her hands up pretty good!  The first thing she did with him was to carry him down to Dr. Lasarsky, the local vet, to see what kind of shape the dog was in.  The vet allowed that he was about two years old, with no heartworms, but also had not eaten well recently.  Also, his coat was so bad that they needed to clip it all off to get rid of everything.

Amy left the dog there and they called back in a few hours to tell her that the dog was white, not brown, after they got him cleaned up.  Amy posted a picture of him on Facebook so Louise and I decided to go look at him.  Big mistake!  One look and we told Amy we wanted him.  Since we were leaving town for the weekend, we asked her if she would mind taking care of him til we got home and she said she would be happy to.

We cut our trip short a day and got home yesterday instead of today.  When we got home, we called Amy and she asked if she could keep him one more day - she has already fallen in love with that little dog!

We don't know what breed he is but we do know he will always be a somewhat small dog, probably around 10 pounds.  He appears to be part poodle and looks a lot like J.J., our other dog.  We are excited about having another dog around the house; he will be great company for J.J. and for us.

We are wrestling with a name.  Our first inclination was to call him "Jake" but that name is really too close to J.J.'s name and it might be confusing.  Right now, we are leaning toward "Boo".  I'll let you know.  The picture is of him on the porch with Terry, Amy's husband.