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This past weekend we rented a bucket lift with the aim of completing the painting of Heart House. This was done, and more as well. Here are photos taken during the days we had the lift as well as a before-and-after comparison.

I have previously published other bucket lift weekends and do not want to be repetitive, but there are a few shots taken during this episode that can be shared.

First, here is Pam doing some detail work from the bucket.

I scraped and painted the NE corner of the house, the last area still in the mint green that covered the house when we bought it.

Before I put in the next two photos, note the “skirt” on the tower in the first photo. Close inspection will reveal the skirt is not in the second photo.

One of the ‘other’ jobs done was the removal of most of the skirt from the tower. The north and east portions were taken down as well as parts of the west and south sides. The skirt was sagging and very rotten in spots and there was some damage to the underlying shingles. If you look closely, a blue stripe is now where the skirt used to be. We think removing the skirt improves the look of the tower and house in general.

Part of the east wall, 2nd floor, received an additional coat of paint to bring it up to the minimum of two coats we had put on the rest of the house.

A finishing detail was added: A new address number plate was installed on the front entrance.

Finally, here are before and after photos of the house. The first is from the original listing. The second is from this past Monday.

It has taken us 5 summers to get to this point, and there are still maintenance items to complete, such as repainting or replacing some of the porch spindles. An old house is never finished 100 percent. We have taken this old home about as far as we will take it, leaving other work (replacing more windows comes to mind) to future owners.

I am going to close out this post with a few miscellaneous photos taken around the yard recently. The first is our peonies in bloom, quite a show this year.

This shot is somewhat whimsical as it features one of our neighborhood squirrels taking a rest on one of the suet feeder brackets. It stayed on the bracket for several minutes, just enjoying the nice day.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

The gymnastics required to get in-and-out of the bucket lift basket – truly special. Old bodies in their 70’s are not flexible enough to manage repeated efforts in this regard. The geriatric bucket lift model should include a small elevator to get a person into the basket from the ground. Or a ramp. Or something. Just sayin’.

Happy Trails.

Next week will be a “bucket lift” weekend so I am getting this post out a bit early. I went to a swap meet and multiple flowers are blooming around the yard. We made a trip to a greenhouse to purchase more annual flowers and Pam planted them in a bit unusual fashion. Here are the details!

One of the “old engine” shows on my 2024 list included a swap meet and auction near the town of Dundas, located a bit north and east of Faribault, MN. I decided to drive up and take a look.

While the main attraction was the auction of old and antique farm implements, the swap meet was fairly extensive as well. More family oriented than the Le Sueur meet, this one had quite a range of stuff spread out among the vendors. I purchased a few small tools and a motorcycle jack. I have already used the later to raise the front of the riding lawn mower to access the blades and spindles of the deck. At $20.00 it was a good buy.

Pictures often convey more than words, so here are a few photos taken at this event.

The Dundas group puts on a full antique power show over Labor day every year, and I may attend that show this fall. It was an interesting outing.

Returning to Elma, a few items to note. Main Street on our block was reopened to traffic. The reduction of noise was appreciated while it lasted but it’s just as well the barriers were removed.

Apparently the town is getting ready to remove a number of dead trees, mostly of the ash variety, from around town. As I drive around I do see quite a number that should be removed, including several in the city park. This will be an ongoing project throughout the summer months.

Our yard looks the best it has since we moved to Elma. Early flowers are done but new blooms are appearing. Irises, in particular, are doing great this year and blooming as they never have. A few photos from around the yard are in order.

We made a trip to a pair of local greenhouses to pick up a few more annual flowering plants. Pam planted them in transportable bags, a first for her. Several bags (not all, a few are in other spots) now decorate the east end of the garage, adding a bit of color to this otherwise fairly blank area of the yard.

As I mentioned in the opening, we have a bucket lift reserved for next weekend. Hopefully we can complete the painting and repairs, to the siding and trim we did not get to last fall, and finally complete the house painting project. That would be a relief! My next post, in a couple weeks, will have more details of the weekend’s work.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

While I do not enjoy being up in a lift, I do look forward to having the exterior paint project completed — after five summers. Hopefully this will be the last “lift experience,” at least in Elma.

I did do a test run on detail paint for the front porch ceiling trim. There has been so much fill-in putty used on that porch, I’m going to have to invent a straight line to paint along. Kinda what I figured.

The portable planting bags were a bust when I tried planting seeds in them. But they do seem to support greenhouse plant starts. Main attraction is being able to move portable bags around the yard, to fill in boring spots.

Happy Trails.

There are many small bits of news this time around, but most of the space will be dedicated to spring flowers around the yard. Storms hit the area and Felicity’s dream of home ownership moves closer. A new family video hit YouTube. All details are below!

I’ll begin with some weather news, as Iowa weather was featured on national news this past week. The devastation was quite some distance from us, but we did get high winds and heavy rain for a brief time. No damage to our trees but some of the flowers, particularly the lilacs, were affected. The storm effectively ended the lilac blooming season and left a lot of oak leaves scattered around the yard. Some trees in town were damaged as we saw the town’s front end loader carrying trees and branches out to the dump.

The town finally got around to patching Main Street in our block. A broken water line had made digging up the road a necessity some 3 1/2 years ago, The temporary gravel patch was the source of debris in the gutters and made for a bit of a rough ride. A concrete patch was poured and, as I write this, the road is still blocked off until the patch cures.

Felicity and Peter flew to New York to view their prospective fixer-upper. The place needs a LOT of work, even though the plan is to have the major projects done by contractors. Pam and I hope the pair are up to the challenges this place will present.

Recent rains have turned this spring into the greenest spring yet. All the flowers and plants are doing exceedingly well. Here are a few photos taken around the yard.

A by-product of the street repair was a surplus pile of black dirt. Some had been used to fill in around a new section of sidewalk, but there was a pile left over. I asked the crew’s boss if I could have some of it to fill in a few low spots on the lawn, and was given several small cart loads for my use. There are now places around the yard that have been filled and had grass seed spread on them. Several of these places were ruts caused by the house painter’s trucks and tires from the lift we rented on several occasions. Another low area, where water accumulates after storms, received what dirt was not used to fill in old ruts. I hope the grass takes root and covers these now-bare areas over the next few weeks as the yard now looks a bit rough.

I completed what may be the last of the family videos I will post in this blog. This one features Pam’s parents, Myron and Lorraine, and her older brother Larry. (Pam has a younger brother, Craig, and younger sister, Becky. Neither appear in this video.) Taken in Colorado during our early years there, the video is a compilation taken from 4 different Super-8 reels of film taken over the space of a couple years in the late 1970s. (One advantage of having converted the film to a digital format; it makes creating a clip much easier.) Run time: 5:15.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

I’m trying to work up the energy to start the painting season. This time it’s the front wrap-around porch ceiling. I looked at the various components and trim pieces involved. H-m-m. Gonna wait until after Memorial Day, as I don’t want to get paint on the front porch bunting. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Happy Trails.

It has been a busy couple weeks of yard work, nothing exciting, but satisfying. A new archive video featuring a late ’70s trip to the Albuquerque Balloon Festival was created and posted to YouTube. Daughter Felicity’s dream of a home in upstate New York moves a step closer. More on all below.

Yard work moved to the top of the task list. Grass seed was put down in some bare spots which are now ‘greening up’ a bit. The lawn has been mowed a couple times. Pam has been maintaining the flowerbeds and tells me the Grandpa Otts (morning glories) are just beginning to poke up out of the ground.

The daffodils have completed their run, also pretty much the tulips, but the lilacs have just begun to bloom; their scent is quite amazing. The hostas are really beginning to leaf out and add their spring green color to the yard. The honey locust tree is budding very well. The light green, almost yellow, of the honey locust buds add a nice contrast between the lilacs and the dark green of the lawn. It is a fresh time of the year.

The second topic of this post is one of my archive videos. This one consists of Super-8 film shot at the Albuquerque Balloon Festival. (The event was officially known as the “8th Annual International Balloon Festival.”) The year was 1979. Here is my edited video of that event. Run time is 4:36. Enjoy!

Daughter Felicity called last night to update us on the progress of her and partner Peter’s attempt to buy a house in upstate New York. Since the house does not have a certificate of occupancy (no working bathroom and questionable wiring) they have to obtain a construction loan to finance repairs before the house can be occupied. This has complicated the purchase. A general contractor has been contacted and a quote for the repairs created. The pertinent paperwork has been submitted to the bank.

The next steps: 1) a bank appraisal of the property, 2) approval of the loan + reno amount, and 3) determination of the worth of the house after the work is complete. If all goes well, the closing is tentatively set for the last week of June. Crossed fingers that all goes well!

There are always a few smaller bits of news as well. Pam scheduled an eye appointment — prescription the same, new frames only, several new supersized “floaters.” I suffered through a bout of stomach flu which curtailed my activites for a few days.

An older couple, in Elma for a funeral and walking through town, saw Pam working in the yard and stopped to comment on how nice Heart House looks. (The man of the couple, Tom, had grown up in Elma and the funeral was for one of his relatives.) I was ‘under the weather’ at that point but Pam felt comfortable giving the couple a tour of the grounds and of the first floor inside. Pam, Tom, and wife Lori had a pleasant conversation, with some reminiscing of life in Elma several decades ago. Tom and Lori now live in Florida. Lori appreciated the blooming tulips and lilacs, which don’t do well in the South. It was an unexpected but interesting visit!

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Impromptu house tours are kinda interesting, as Blondie is cooped up in the laundry room and there are cats everywhere. I had to think quickly — did I have the house somewhat picked up, so as not to be embarrassing? Sure didn’t want us to appear to be “low-life/filthy folks.” As I generally clean messes when made, put dirty dishes in the dishwasher, leave no clothes thrown around — all went well. (If one ignores imbedded pet hair…)

Happy Trails.

Highlights of the past couple weeks included a trip to our favorite greenhouse and an outing to the Le Sueur swap meet. I have a lot of photos to view. Hope you enjoy them!

Our favorite greenhouse is located a few miles south of us, west of Alta Vista, and is named Zimmerman’s. They have an amazing range of flowers and plants. Here are a few photos taken of this outing.

When we returned home, Pam planted the new geraniums, adding red mulch around the base.

I will finish this section with a view of the Mary Lynn Memorial flower bed, filled with tulips and daffodils, which is along the east side of the house. This year the bed is more colorful than it has ever been. A dozen or so new bulbs are added to refresh the bed every year.

Last year I had attended the annual swap meet held in Le Sueur, Minnesota, and had planned this year’s return. This meet features mostly old engines, equipment, and parts but does have a few other collectible items.

The one YouTube channel I subscribe to is run by a guy who restores old equipment, and he attends this show. I was able to meet him and introduce myself, and we had a short discussion about his channel and projects. This meeting was the high point of the trip for me. If interested, look up “Squatch 253” on your YouTube search.

There is always something new at this meet. The following photos show an early motor addition to a bicycle resulting in a “motor bike” from 1917.

I am including a few other photos taken around the swap meet grounds.

I do enjoy getting out to meets like this and had a pleasant day wandering the grounds and looking at all the antiques and parts.

Along the same lines of old things, here is a list of hits for 1972 courtesy of a FaceBook post. If you are anywhere my age you will remember these!

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Flowerbed prep continues. Seed planting next week.

Happy Trails.

There were no major events occuring over the last couple of weeks, just a series of smaller things the arrival of spring made possible. Although the upcoming forecast has a couple of below-freezing nights, we are in spring mode. Here are a few of our activities of the past week or so.

Pam put a new coat of stain on the decorative garden bridge that spans an area under a pair of our oak trees. The bridge was elevated to about knee height for easier stain application. She also planted some new seedlings that arrived in the mail. It will soon be time to visit a greenhouse to pick out this year’s annuals.

One new yard addition will be a flower pot hanger I picked up at a local antique store. With bends that resemble a heart, the hanger will occupy a spot near the front steps. I will have another photo of this in a later post once the hanger, with flowers, is in place.

Daffodils, hyacinths, and tulips began to bloom on the east side flower bed. Hostas are beginning to poke up out of the ground and trees are sprouting tiny green leaves. Hoses were taken out of storage and put in place on the west and east sides of the house. Spring has arrived!

I cleaned out the curb and gutter on the Main Street side of the house as part of a larger spring lawn cleaning. (The city does not clean streets or curbs.) Using the lawn vacuum with the hose attachment, I was able to clear fence lines and flower beds of leaves that had blown in over the winter and during some spring storms. A new home-made handle on the hose made this task much easier by eliminating the need to bend down to the ground as much.

The lawn vac needed some repairs as one of the wheel brackets had been cracking over the last few years. I had ordered a new spool of welding wire for my small wire-feed welder and stitched up the crack, then ground down the repair and added coat of red spray paint. It is an ugly repair as I am not a practiced welder but the bracket will not break, which is all I wanted.

Previously I had mentioned an issue with the equipment trailer suspension. During the warm spell I was able to remove a pair of old (loose) shackles and replace them with new ones. In this photo, the old hangers are at the top. Note the “spacers” made of old and mismatched nuts. One new hanger is at the bottom for comparison.

Installing a new wiring pigtail for one of the lights completed the trailer repairs and it is now road-worthy again.

A national story last week was the eclipse. It was cloudy here and we were not able to see any of the action. Pam did, however, come across this cartoon:

Anyone with more than one cat will understand…

I am going to wrap up this post with another home video. This one is titled “Winter in Colorado” and features footage of us in late 1979 (I think). We took a trip on the Gold Camp Road, an old railroad grade that runs between Victor and Colorado Springs. Another outing was to get our Christmas Tree using a National Forest permit which allowed us to cut or top any tree that seemed appropriate. I hope you enjoy it. Run time is 4:45.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Almost Mennonite greenhouse time! I really look forward to that first visit. A blast of color, fragrance and humidity will do my spirit a world of good.

Happy Trails

I left a couple of loose ends in my last post. I will try to tidy up with a few more details this time around, and have a video of our East Coast trip. Have at it!

First, going through a couple of old journals, I found the Datsun truck was a 1971 model. If you view the video later in this post you will see it as it was in 1976.

Second, I went through my converted Super-8 files and found the east coast trip footage. I did a new re-mix, adding more subtitles and editing out some of the poorer sections. Run time is 4:19 with the Bromley Alpine Slide coming on at about 3:30.

A couple other notes are in order. Some of the video “jitters” are from the conversion process, as the old film occasionally jumped a bit when feeding through the conversion projector. Also, there is something a bit surreal about watching a large vessel floating across the plains of upstate New York, hence the footage of the Old Welland Canal. The water wheel and covered bridge were on the grounds of Old Sturbridge Village.

At the end of my last post I mentioned hose cart races. Man-pulled hose carts were common fire-fighting systems used in many early towns before the advent of steam, and later, gas-powered fire trucks. Men would pull a hose cart to a fire, unroll the hose, attach it to a hydrant, add a nozzle, and spray the fire in an attempt to put it out.

Idaho Springs, west of Denver, hosted an annual Fire-Fighter’s Day which featured hose cart races. We drove into the mountains one August to watch the festivities. Several teams competed in this timed event; it was an enjoyable outing, visiting this Colorado town. Run time is 0:34.

I have other videos, mostly of interest to family and friends. Some of the events captured include a day at the Albuquerque Balloon Festival, riding the Cripple Creek and Victor Railroad, Pam and her mother feeding chipmunks on Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park, a trip to Yellowstone, and other events dating to our “before children” days in Colorado. I will include a few of these clips in future posts.

In family news, daughter Felicity and partner Peter are in the process of buying a fixer-upper home in central New York. Located between Rochester and Watkins Glen (Finger Lakes area of upstate New York), the 1,600 square foot home, on about 2 acres of land with a small stream on one border, appears to be in a good location. I have seen the listing photos and the place needs a lot of work (bathroom not functional at this point) but the price is reasonable at around $83K. Property includes an old (small) barn and shed, both in need of repair, but are something to get started.

My hope is that Felicity and Peter are up to the difficult and several-year project of turning the home into a comfortable, attractive, and energy efficient abode. Chances are pretty high that I will be helping them move and possibly adding some labor to help get the place into functioning order. Here is an aerial view of the property from the listing:

Felicity and Peter have long talked about living in New York and having a place where they can develop their homesteading skills and crafts. I hope they can make their dream a reality.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

I wonder if I’d have been susceptible to “old house renovation disease” if I hadn’t spent my adolescence in a < 900 square foot, ugly, rectangular builder box house, squished into tiny rooms with five other family members. Of course tall ceilings, spacious rooms and big porches would seem to be an amazing step up in the housing world after that experience. And, although her childhood was not spent in such confined spaces as mine was, I think Felicity is also susceptible to “old house renovation disease.” (Toby seems to be immune — maybe it’s passed along genetically on the female line.)

Felicity can look forward to: the cat playing with a bat on the floor at 2:00 a.m., a mouse springing out of the silverware drawer, the ladder [she’s standing on] plunging through rotten floor boards while she’s hanging those attractive holiday items on the porch. And so much more. There will be tons and tons of cleaning and painting, and visits to the lumber and hardware stores. Cold drafty winters and hot humid summers – indoors as well as out. Enjoy!

Happy Trails.

A winter mix returned over the last few days. We had accumulating snow, wind, and rain, then days where the high temps were below freezing. Several days have been cloudy and grey, not exactly conducive to spring activities. However, the upcoming forecast is much better with mild temps returning and a small chance of rain. Spring may finally arive!

The main focus of this post is a follow-up to comments Pam and I made regarding our “early years” and a trip we took to the east coast with the Datsun truck. I have a few scanned photos and commentary about that 1976 trip, so let’s get into it.

Yes, we did sleep in the bed of the truck many times. Every few nights we booked a motel room to enjoy a shower and a more comfortable bed, but our budget did not allow us to do that the entire trip. Here is a photo of the truck set for camping, with a tarp over the bed and a mattress pad to sleep on.

Pam does not look very thrilled with this arrangement, but we managed OK.

Typically we parked in mall lots to have access to public bathrooms and minimal security provided by the parking lot lights. The white material you see was a mesh; we could drop the tailgate and mesh to get air into the sleeping area.

We created many memories on this trip. I ate lobster for the first time at Cape Cod; I remember picking a live lobster from a tank to be cooked for my meal. Getting the hang of cracking the shell was a bit difficult at first. Another memory was our visit to Boston, where I had a hard time understanding the New England accents (hah-ahrd vowels), and the visit to Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson.

One notable stop was Old Plymouth Plantation, a replica 1700s pilgrim town. This was my first experience with “living history” actors playing the parts of different pilgrims. For the purpose of this post I am including only photos of us, although I took many of various tasks being performed. (We have an entire photo album dedicated to this trip.)

Here I am, sandals and all, about to enter an early pilgrim house:

One of my favorite photos from this stop, and the entire trip, is this one of Pam near the replica mill on the grounds of the village.

Another strong memory was created in Bromley, Vermont, home of America’s first Alpine Slide. Here are a couple of internet screen shots of the modern track (there are now three offering various skill levels) and a sled used to ride down the track.

You sit on the sled and pull back the handle to slow down or push forward to speed up. This ride was a hoot, and we returned a second time to repeat the experience before heading home.

We didn’t have a camp stove at the time and relied on fast food places for meals. We got so sick of fast food cooking odors that we began to stop at grocery stores to pick up meat, cheese, and breads for a few meals. No cooler and no space, so whatever we bought had to be eaten quickly.

Other stops on this trip included the Whaling Museum, Old Sturbridge Village, and Quincy (including the Adams Home) all in Massachusetts, and Basketville in Vermont plus the Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Detroit. Lots of stops, lots of memories.

While not taken on this trip, I do have this 56 second clip of the Alpine Slide at Breckenridge, Co, which dates from the late ’70s. It features Pam, Becky, and myself. Again, quality is not the greatest but I hope you enjoy it. (There is no audio on this Super 8 film clip.)

I have a few other photos from around this same time, including this one of us just after getting the Honda CB-450 motorcycle.

To stay alert as we rode, we often brought Pringles with us to chew on, and I carried Jolly Rancher hard candy that I could tuck up between tooth and gum. Every now and then, at the end of a long day, I would feel Pam’s helmet hitting the back of my helmet and know that she was falling asleep on the back of the bike. While we never had an incident, I was always concerned her feet would slip off the footpegs as she tired.

You may have noticed a container on the rear luggage rack in this and other photos that include the Honda. We always carried spare clothing in Colorado as changes in elevation, and resulting temperature changes, required heavier gear at higher altitudes and cooler clothing on the plains. We put a lot of miles on the bike during those early trips.

One such trip was to the top of Pikes Peak, a “must” visit for any Colorado resident and most tourists.

I recall getting rained on during this outing, but the rain quit and we were dried out before returning home to Boulder. The road to the top had not yet been paved and riding the motorcycle up (and down) the gravel and twisting road was a real challenge!

Here is another shot taken in Victor during a fall visit. In those days, railroad artifacts, like this old rail car, were common and one could walk right up to them. I doubt this is the case today.

Finally, a photo that brings back some real nostalgia, as this place no longer exists. When we were first in Colorado, and drove to the top of Mt. Evans, we stopped at the summit and visited this gift shop / restaurant to buy soda, snacks, and souvenirs.

Sadly, several years later the building burned down and the Forest Service decided not to rebuild. You can still drive to the top but this building is now long gone.

So much for going down memory lane in this post. I plan to scan more old negatives and include a few in future posts. There are those hose cart races in Idaho Springs…

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Ah, the early days of marriage. We were so poor — both of us working plus attending college part-time, occasionally on food stamps — and definitely “vehicle challenged.” The Datsun truck was a step up in the transportation game, even though we had to sleep in it to take the East Coast trip.

These slides certainly reflect travel high points; day-to-day living back then was not so exciting in my memories.

A person might wonder how I could manage to fall asleep on a motorcycle. Since childhood [as I was plagued with motion sickness] I trained myself to fall asleep while traveling so I wasn’t sick to my stomach. Add in the reduced oxygen content at higher elevations, and you can see where falling asleep might occur.

Happy Trails.

This post covers a variety of topics and information. I saw the first flowers of spring, record temps have been set yet again, and more negatives (from 1975) have been scanned. These photos and other stories make up this post.

While walking the other day I saw these flowers blooming, the first in this area.

Temperatures have been warm, with every day in March above average so far, and many new highs-for-the-date set. While appreciating the decline of winter, the area is very dry. Raking the lawn raised dust! There was some rain on Thursday, which will help the lawn immensely, but NE Iowa is still in a severe drought. Cooler weather, in the upper 30s and low 40s, is in the forecast for the next week or so.

Speaking of weather, we had a power outage last week that lasted for just under two hours. The outage was attributed to high wind damage to power lines. The mild temps led to no inconvenience as it was during the day and we didn’t even need lights. I didn’t power up my standby generator, as I might have had to do if the weather had been colder or the outage had been during darkness.

During the week I did some lawn clean up. Pam scheduled herself to paint some galvanized planter frames in the garden. The shade of green she chose will help the planters blend in with the lawn. It feels good to be doing outside tasks again.

I found a problem with my equipment trailer suspension, a worn / loose set of u-bolts that hold the rear axle to the springs. New hangers have been ordered and will be here shortly. I will install them after the weather warms up again.

My last post, with the story of our motorcycle trip over Rollins Pass, generated some interest so I have decided to continue posting more photos and telling stories from our “early days” of marriage. This batch is from 1975 and includes several threads of commentary, including family, friends, and events from that time. I hope you find these stories interesting.

I will note, again, that some of these negatives have suffered damage over time so the quality is not the best. My camera then was my father’s 1940s (?) vintage Argus 35mm (which I still have), and the optics were not up to today’s standards. After we moved to Colorado I purchased a “modern” Pentax MX and the quality of photos went up somewhat.

This first photo is included for Pam’s brother Craig. I was rebuilding the engine in the 1946 Plymouth featured in an earlier post and Craig lent me his Honda CB500-4 motorcycle to use during that time. The 500 is for the size of the engine in CCs and the 4 indicated a 4-cylinder engine. (I didn’t buy my Honda CB-450 featured in the last post until later, although I did buy it in Wisconsin.) Years later, in Arizona, I briefly owned a CB550-4, a bike similar to Craig’s 500-4.

After I rebuilt the ’46 Plymouth I sold it and bought our next vehicle, an old Datsun pickup. (Datsun later became Nissan.) It was a “back row beauty” from a dealership in Eau Claire and needed some TLC. I don’t remember the year of the truck, but think it dated from the mid-60’s.

There are many stories related to this vehicle. We owned it for many years and moved to Colorado with it. Many times on our travels, including a trip to the east coast, we threw a tarp over the back and slept in the bed. Once we were in Colorado, Pam’s mom helped us finance a replacement used engine, swapped in for the worn-out original. The used motor was from a Datsun sports car, a 240Z, which made driving the old truck more fun. Eventually I sold it to a co-worker and we bought a Ford Pinto station wagon. More on that in future posts.

Shortly after the purchase of the Datsun, Pam made door panel covers that dressed up the inside of the cab. I pulled the original seats and replaced them with a bench seat out of an old Ford Thunderbird, which took some doing, but resulted in a more comfortable ride. The rear bumper was painted, along with the white stripe around the top of the bed. With installation of new carpet we had the nicest old Datsun truck around.

We celebrated our first wedding anniversary in 1975. Some college friends who were at our wedding the previous year (Stout State University in Menomonie, Wisconsin) invited us on an inner-tubing adventure down the Apple River. I took the camera along.

We have good memories of this trip and the friends that shared our 1st wedding anniversary with us. Amazing to contemplate we are approaching our 50th…

Menomonie is located on Lake Menomin and the college had an “outdoor sports” facility that rented canoes and related gear. One weekend Pam and I rented a canoe, paddles, and life jackets and went out for a trip around the lake.

This outing is particularly unique as Pam is not a fan of water sports, and perhaps her siblings will be quite surprised to see her out on the water.

Here is what we looked like that fall. Man, we were skinny then! (I didn’t start growing a beard until 1991.)

We moved to Colorado in 1977 and future posts will document more of our early Colorado days. Here is a sample photo from one of these trips.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Well, what do you know, I have bikini photo evidence of how thin I used to be. (NOT the image I see in the mirror now.) I barely recognize that girl!

I well remember sleeping in the bed of the Datsun truck on that [infamous] trip to the east coast. It wasn’t glamping, that’s for sure. Himself has promised additional images of that vacation in a future post. Ah, yes, we were young once…

Happy Trails.

A few small projects received my attention this week. The first was construction of a dog ramp, followed by scanning of old color negatives. The results of each can be seen below!

The dogs are getting older, and are beginning to have problems negotiating the back steps when Pam takes them out, particularly Blondie, the oldest of the three (15.5 years old). Pam recently asked me to build a ramp that might ease doggie access in the south porch area. While not done yet – it’s been too cold to paint and I need to add another hand rail – the ramp is now serviceable.

Getting the dogs to use the ramp is another thing. Blondie, Bru, and JoJo have had four years of going up and down the steps and are reluctant to embrace a new technique. They will go down the ramp, but the idea of walking back up seems foreign to them, much to Pam’s frustration. She hopes they eventually take to this new, and easier, approach to getting in and out the back door.

The weather has been on another roller coaster swing, with record highs on Monday, followed by single-digit lows on Wednesday, accompanied by -15 degree wind chills. More moderate conditions are in the forecast, getting into the 60s by Sunday.

There was an annoying problem with our internet service — our cable modem developed intermittent outages. Faced with an almost two-week delay before a Mediacom tech could make it out to our rural location, I drove over to Mason City’s Mediacom office and swapped modems. This trip combined a visit to Mediacom, a Walmart stop, and a haircut at Great Clips so several tasks were completed during the outing. The new modem, an Arris brand, appears to be working as it should. I’m now looking into buying my own modem to eliminate the $14.00 per month rental fee Mediacom charges us.

I spent some time during the cold snap scanning a few more old color negatives. The photos included here are from a 1978 trip over the old Moffat Road trail, which used to be the main rail line over the mountains into western Colorado. The Moffat Tunnel, shown on the sign as double-dashed lines and still in use today, made the line over the mountains obsolete.

The Honda 450 was our main transportation while our Datsun pickup needed repairs. I wore the green helmet and Pam’s white Bell helmet is hanging on a hook below the luggage rack.

I have always had a soft spot for waterfalls and many are featured in these shots. Here is Pam along one of the many streams we stopped to view.

The trip included a tunnel, named Needle’s Eye, which was later “daylighted” by the forest service as it kept shucking rocks onto the roadway. It is now an open cut, but at the time we visited it was still intact. Note the snow still present, although it is late June when this photo was taken.

The high point on the trip is Rollins Pass, where the railroad had a station complete with a snow shed, barracks for workers, and a restaurant for summer visitors. The – now – ghost town of Arrowhead was just down the west side of the pass. The line continued into Winter Park and met the mainline at Dotsero. We made the trip to the top of the pass a few times over the next several years.

We took many such trips in our “early days” in Colorado, including to Mt. Evans, Pike’s Peak, the Great Sand Dunes, and visits to mountain mining towns. I will have more archive photos and descriptions of these trips in future posts. I am responding to a comment by daughter Felicity to the effect that we never talked about our early days to our children, so these reminiscence may help fill in that omission.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

A question I’ve been asking myself for some time: Do we really need another construction and painting project (plus clutter) on the south steps – just for aging dogs to access the dog enclosure? Ugh. To avoid this, I’ve been physically carrying Blondie down the four porch steps all winter. Holding a 27-pound [wiggling] dog under one arm while using the handrail with the other arm kinda/sorta worked — until — Blondie accidentally edged off the landing at the top of the steps last week and took “a header” to the bottom. Luckily nothing was broken, but the old girl did whack her face pretty hard.

So, time for a ramp. Reluctantly. Teaching old dogs new tricks is not going to be easy; treats may be involved. (Cheeto, the neighborhood cat, already finds the ramp an attractive sunbathing location. A problem – keeping Cheeto off the ramp when I’m trying to send the dogs down.) These animals…frequently frustrating.

Happy Trails.