As I write this it is Christmas Eve day. Pam and I are at home relaxing, although Pam is going to bake a rhubarb pie later today. Yesterday she made a batch of oatmeal-raisin cookies using a new recipe and adding less sugar than specified. The cookies turned out great, possible the best batch ever.  After all, it would not be Christmas without fresh baked goodies! (Even with no sugar/medical issues, always moderation…)

Christmas will be quite low-key this year for us. We have no travel plans and what little shopping needing to be done has been done. There are the after-holiday sales, to see what we might want to add to our outdoor decorations for next year, but if we don’t go out it would not be a big loss. (Pam checks a few on-line vendors for sales now through January.) Mostly the season is a break from work, something we both need.

The main news about this Christmas is lack of snow in the high desert. We had around 1/2 inch this past Thursday morning but it has since mostly melted, giving us a snow-less Christmas for the first time in awhile. This helps with commuting and fewer icy sidewalks, but it doesn’t make the time seem very Christmas-y. Still, I enjoy coming home to our holiday lights (on timers) that we put up after Thanksgiving and not having to worry about sliding around on slick patches.

Some of my vacation time has been spent in finishing the re-coding of my web pages. All should now have the ’rounded corner’ navigation links at the top and bottom of each page and updated links that will allow the pages to load faster. Content has not changed much although there are a few new pages concerning the OC-3; these can be found on my OC-3 Repairs page and our 2017 Christmas E-card has been added to my E-cards page. During the process I re-coded pages going back to my UW-Whitewater days (which ended in 2001!) and had a chuckle looking at those early attempts to create web pages. Times and techniques have changed a lot since then.

My next post will probably be my “year in review” for my last post of 2017. Until then, Pam and I hope everyone who reads this has an enjoyable Christmas. I’ll close this post with a few around-the-house photos.

Our holiday welcome figures

Bare yard this Christmas, no snow.

Christmas tree detail

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

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

Fields and I are having a “conversation” regarding what is a gift and what is a purchase. Buying oil and filter for a vehicle around Christmas does not make that a gift for Himself, just as buying a rug cleaning appliance around Christmas does not make that a gift for me. (I do believe this whole “need vs. want” dichotomy was muddied by “gifts” of socks and underwear during Midwest childhood Christmases past.)

In any case, we are of an age where items we need are purchased as required (and in Fields’ case — this year in particular — buying what he wants from on-line auctions).

Happy Trails.

Update: Surprise!

A fast moving storm that was supposed to affect only higher elevations dropped several inches of snow on our place giving us a white Christmas after all!

White Christmas Day, 2017, something of a surprise.

I have just a few updates to pass along this week including news on our latest foster kitten and the Oliver OC-3 tractor plus a few other small tidbits.

The kitten, Pumpkin Pie, is doing well and is exploring outside his pen. Here is a short video of him; Pam thinks he is about 8 – 9 weeks old.

[cincopa A8JA4KebJhFb]
Kittens are always fun to watch at this age.

I’ve made a bit of progress with the Oliver OC-3; I had the starter cleaned, repaired, and tested and received my rebuilt magneto from the repair shop. Here are photos of these two components:

OC-3 starter

Wico brand magneto for the OC-3

I have reinstalled the starter and hope to get the magneto installed before the end of the month. Installing the magneto requires timing it with the engine and I need to find out if the engine will spin over first.

Moving on…

Our weather is gong to take a change for the worse later this week. Still no snow but the temps are going to drop below zero if the forecast is accurate. I’ll have to get the kerosene heater out and light it up to try and keep the garage above freezing for the outside feral cats’ comfort and to make sure the cars start OK. We have appreciated the above-normals we have had so far but everything is very dry; we are officially in a drought. When walking across our lawn you can feel the grass crunching under your feet. Pam is worried that without some ground moisture the 100+ bulbs she planted last fall will not bloom as they should. She’s thinking of putting together an indoor cistern arrangement for household water and doing some mid-winter flower bed “moisturizing.”

We may get some snow this Wednesday or Thursday, a 50 percent chance, but if we do it will be light and have little moisture in it. Not like Wisconsin; brother-in-law Craig posted a photo of their place under a fairly heavy coat of new snow. I guess we will just have to see what the next system bring us.

Weather forecast (Click for larger view.)

The other project completed was Christmas cards; all have been addressed, notes attached or included, and mailed. We don’t do a lot of Christmas shopping, as we tend to buy “stuff” as we need it. This makes Christmas less of an event (no gifts beneath the tree).

One financial advantage we have this year has to do with my payroll. Beginning  last January I was moved from a once-a-month paycheck to a check every two weeks. December is one of the two months out of the year where I receive a third check, most of which will end up in the savings account and be used to defray our tax bill come April.

Woo-hoo, the Denver Broncos have won two games in a row! They will still finish the season with a losing record but perhaps not the worst in the league. I have a feeling heads will roll within the Bronco organization after the first of the year.

We are looking forward to the Christmas break. The community college closes between Christmas and New Years, giving Pam almost two weeks off. I will be taking a few days of vacation as well. We might consider a day trip or two but don’t plan to do much except take it easy. That would be a pleasant change!

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

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

Lovely to enjoy paid time off til the end of the year — only down side is getting back into the grind come January 2nd.  Maybe I’ll get a chance to pick up my uke more often.  It’s been sadly neglected of late.

Little Pumpkin Pie will be fostering with my boss starting the week after Christmas. If all goes well, it will be a foster-to-adoption arrangement.  He is one personable kitten, a total “orange” personality.

Happy Trails.

The weeks after Thanksgiving have been pretty routine. Work for both of us is a bit slower with the end of the year approaching but will pick up again after the first of the year. For Pam this means the start of a new semester and accompanying registration of students; for me, my 2018 budget will kick in and new projects will be initiated.

Weather is a constant issue this time of year. Temperatures have returned to seasonal normals, low to mid 40s for highs and low teens overnight. No snow; the weather service reports that November was the 2nd warmest and 3rd driest (0.1 inches) on record. I don’t miss the snow for commuting purposes but it would be unusual to have no snow for Christmas — a possibility this year. The upcoming forecast for the week of December 10 – 17 has no snow in it. Ski areas are not fully open; some slopes are operating with man-made snow but Aspen’s daytime highs are still in the 40 degree range and higher slopes, where snow making is not an option, are bare.

On to miscellaneous notes. Here is a screen shot of our ATV group in Cactus Park, taken by our group leader:

ATV group in Cactus Park (photo by Steve Canelle.)

I am in the front row just right of center and wearing a yellow vest.

Pam has a new kitten to care for; this one was stuck under our trailer skirting, meowing, and driving the dogs wild. Named Pumpkin Pie, this kitten is a real sweetie and purrs up a storm when petted:

7-week old Pumpkin Pie

Pam is making arrangements for first vaccinations, and then will explore kitten adoption in the new year. In fact, Pam’s supervisor is looking for a kitten and Pumpkin Pie may end up at her house. We hope for the best. Photo is a bit fuzzy; I may get a better one this weekend. (Getting a kitten to stay still for long enough to photograph can be a chore!)

Pam has completed the design of our Christmas cards; now it’is time to write notes in them and get them mailed. That is the project for the coming week. Our card list shrinks a bit every year and it seems like fewer people send cards by mail. We always include cards as part of our Christmas decor and display them throughout the Christmas season.

I have been making some stylistic changes to a few of my web pages, creating some “rounded corner” icons and playing with links. I don’t think these changes are significant but it does give me some opportunities to play with CSS style sheets and HTML coding which should make the pages more consistent and reduce the amount of code each page requires. Due to these changes and a few other underlying code changes the pages should load faster as well. If you notice these changes let me know what you think of them. (My E-cards page shows off the new ’rounded corner’ design.)

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

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

What would Christmas be without a kitten or two in the house? Some years I wish I knew! Looks like Pumpkin Pie might be one of a late-season litter of three; I see two tiny black fuzzballs (Butterball and Cranberry) coming to the back deck feeder on occasion.  One down, two to go.

Happy Trails.

Pam and I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving holiday. In case you missed it you can view our 2017 card here or on my E-card page.

Given that the weather was exceptionally good for this time of year with near-records being set (low to mid 60’s) the weekend was unusually active. Here are some of our activities:

I mowed our lawn and our sunbird neighbor’s lawn to clean up the last of the autumn leaves and level out the grass for the winter. I was surprised at the amount of grass that ended up in the bagger; the leaves I had expected, but there was a fair amount of grass as well. After that chore was done, I took the mower deck off the John Deere lawn tractor and put on the blade, weights, and cable chains to get the tractor ready for winter snow plowing.

The Friday after  Thanksgiving I rode with my ATV group in a place called Cactus Park. This area is south and west of Grand Junction and offers a lot of trails and some history; mostly homesteading and prospecting for uranium. The homestead we visited was old enough to have a log cabin house but new enough to have an old tractor from the ’50s on site.

Homestead log cabin in Cactus Park

Club members examine old tractor at Cactus Park homestead

We had a total of 22 machines in the group, giving me a chance to say hello to people I knew and introduce myself to some new club members. There was a mix of single seat “quads” as well as several side-by-side two-seaters and even a 4-seater that looked like a miniature Jeep. Two dogs and a couple of kids were along for the ride and it seems like everyone enjoyed the outing.

ATV group in Cactus Park the day after Thanksgiving

While I was out Pam took care of the grocery shopping and worked on making Christmas cards.

Pam working on Christmas cards

Saturday’s task was to get the outside Christmas decorations put up. We don’t have any new stuff this year but did some rearranging of a few items. “Stars” that were in our front windows last year ended up on the front of the garage, a move both of us think is an improvement. Here is a photo:

Garage lights

We don’t do a lot of indoor decorating due to the six cats and three dogs, but we generally have a small tree in the master bedroom (which is off limits to the animals) and a few other “up high” decorations that the cats and dogs can’t reach. Decorating brought our day to a close.

Sunday was a “down” day, no major projects planned. I did some minor work on the Oliver OC-3 crawler tractor and watched a little football. A walk took up some of the afternoon as I needed to work off some  Thanksgiving calories.

It was a pleasant holiday weekend. Food and weather were excellent, the ATV ride was interesting, outside decorations are up, the last of the lawn chores completed, and the John Deere LX176 garden tractor set up for the winter.  Both the Packers and the Broncos lost, the only bummer during the 4 days off.

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

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

I’m hearing crying kittens in the neighborhood again.  Late Fall litters are not rare here, but those babies are in a struggle for their lives in cold weather. Kittens so small are very tricky to catch; they are usually not heavy enough to trip the trap.  It is always something.

Happy Trails.

Coal Canyon is located about 25 minutes west of our house off I-70 but I had never ridden the BLM trails in this area. Given that the BLM would be closing the gate by the end of the month I decided a Sunday morning ride would be a good way to spend the morning of November 19th.

Start of Coal Canyon

The area is not very scenic and very little remains of the coal mines that once dotted the area. The mine sites have been closed and bulldozed flat (these were pit mines, not shaft mines) so no structures remain. Still, it was a bright, if chilly, day and I looked forward to the ride.

Coal seams are present along the ATV trail and it is not hard to see why coal was mined in the area. Known as the Cameo Plant, for years a coal-fired electrical generating plant was located a couple miles away from the trailhead and used local coal as fuel. (The plant was dismantled and removed a  few years ago.)

Black coal seam along trail

The main trail offers two side trails to explore, one going up either side of the canyon. The western side trail terminates on a ridge that overlooks Grand Junction and offers interesting views of the Grand Valley.

Grand Valley, Colorado

The eastern trail just ends at a washed-out gully. Faint traces of the trail can be seen on the other side but I simply turned around and headed back to the main trail.

East trail ends at this point

The upper end of the main trail follows a wash that is passible when dry and shows signs of rock erosion from the seasonal stream that must flow through it in the spring or during times of heavy rain.

Rocks along wash show signs of erosion

Finally, after climbing out of the wash and heading uphill, the end of the main trail offered this view with Grand Mesa in the background:

Views from end of Coal Canyon trail

I would rate couple of places along this trail “difficult” but fun because of that. The western side trip involved getting up a rock-strewn trail where you had to keep your momentum going so it was taken a bit faster than my normal pace. A spot on the main trail involved going up a pretty steep slope that had rocks embedded in it; experience loading the ATV into the truck (45 degree angle on the ramps) helped me get up the slope and over the rocks. In these places you just have to go into 4-wheel drive, low range, and trust your tires to pull you up and over the obstacles.

The main trail is not long, less than 9 mile each way, but with the side trips I put on 28.8 miles during the two- hour ride. This will not be one of my favored routes — it does not have the scenic and historical significance I prefer — but it is a nice outing for a half-day ride close to home.

I was surprised to see how much traffic this trail was getting this day. I met a pair of dirt bike riders, several horse riders, a couple of mountain bikers, and an entire family on bicycles heading up the trail along with 3 other utility vehicles and two 4×4 rigs at different points. Most of the high country trails are closed now either from snow or seasonal closures and Coal Canyon was still open, making it a destination. This is a lot more traffic than I usually see on most of the trails I ride.

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

Pam’s Penny’s Worth:

At least it got him out of the house.

Happy Trails.

The weekend of November 11 – 12 we took an overnight trip to eastern Colorado to look at potential retirement homes. Pam had seen a few candidates and printed out descriptions and maps to aid in locating them.

Some of the town names will be familiar to people who have kept up with this blog over the years; properties near or in Como, Cripple Creek, Lake George, Woodland Park, Florissant, Cascade, and Green Mountain Falls were all on the list. Lets get started.

I took quite a few photos this trip. Here are the houses we drove by and looked at; the most likely one is at the end of the list. It is located in Cripple Creek.

First stop, first day: Como.

Home for sale in Como

This place is overpriced; Como is not much of a town and the surrounding properties are quite run down. A big plus is it would be within a half hour of our lot at Sanderling Court. If the price drops we may revisit this one.

Lake George had this listing:

Lake George house

Located on a narrow lot with neighbors fairly close, the main trouble with this house was access and distance from amenities. Several miles of unimproved road (mix of dirt and gravel) lie between this house and the nearest paved road. We decided to pass.

Florissant had a few listings:

Mesa Drive, Florissant

Listed at a half-acre, the lot is very steep and mostly unusable. Not what we had in mind.

House on Beaver Creek Drive

This place was large but the commute, oh my. Off the side of a side road. Given we will need to work part-time in retirement and commute, this place would not be a prime purchase. We did like the lot and trees.

We arrived at our lodge in Woodland Park around 4:30 and decided to call it a day. With the sun setting at around 5:00 PM we planned to visit the rest of the properties the next day.

The new morning of the second day — after a breakfast of waffles and fruit — we headed out and began looking at more properties.

Woodland Park had this listing:

Potlatch Drive home

Again, no garage and no place to build one. Newer and with nice views, it was in an area with upscale homes around it. A bit of a drive from any services though.

We drove by a few other properties  in Cascade, Green Mountain Falls and Florissant (one had a lake view but already had an offer) that I did not photograph as they were not even in contention. Realtor descriptions can get quite imaginative and only a visit can serve to confirm potential as a retirement location. The houses were either on very steep lots or required extensive repairs and updates to bring them up to our standard. Disappointing.

The last town for us to visit in the two-day tour was Cripple Creek, where we made a few stops.

Prospect Avenue home in historic district

With lots of architectural features, this place is appealing to Pam in particular. Unfortunately it is right across the road from a large casino and very close to neighbors on either side. Another drawback is steps all over the place, and with Pam’s bursitis steps are a major drawback. The lot did have a one-car garage accessible from a rough “alley” (more like a cart track) and the current owners appear to be cat friendly.

Garage off alleyway

Cat on victorian house porch

The best house of the day was also the last. Located at 409 South First street, this brick home sits on a somewhat larger lot:

409 S. First (Tulley House)

Tulley house and yard

Smallish but on the edge of town and not in the historic district, this place features trees and a larger (for town) back yard and few neighbors. I have since spoken to the town about building a garage and other aspects of town living. An alley runs behind the lot and could provide access to a garage. An “antique storage building” (realtor comment) is present as well –picture a leaning shed with old barnboard.

Given the house’s smaller size and no storage building or garage, the challenge would be to fit all of our stuff, inside and out. Still, it is in town (Cripple Creek has a few services including a grocery and hardware store) and the bigger community of Woodland Park (big box stores such as Walmart and City Market) plus all services is about 30 – 45 minute away, similar to what we now have in De Beque.This could be a winner, but there would be hoops to go through to make it so.

On the leg home [after our last stop in Cripple Creek] we visited The Lot. Here we distributed some old bread products for the chipmunks and squirrels and let out dog Jo to stretch her legs. The weather both days was great with lots of sun and decent temperatures. There was very little snow on The Lot and the stop made for a nice break. Then it was off for the long ride home.

Trips like this help us define what it is that we are looking for in a retirement home. Our wish list includes at least one bed/bath on the main level, a lot big enough for the dogs and cats to run and still be safe, a garage or storage building (sadly lacking in most properties we’ve looked at) and access to services such as grocery shopping, medical and veterinarian services, and good access to job markets. And last, affordable on a retirement income. We have yet to find a place with all of these features but we will keep up the hunt.

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

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

Trips like this help us define what we can afford in a retirement home. I’ve pretty much given up on a lake, pond, or stream view.  Homes with that feature are definitely out of our price range, both in Colorado and the Pacific Northwest.

While driving around the last house in Cripple Creek (South 1st Street) we did hail and talk to the near neighbor of the property.  She was so kind as to give me her e-mail address once we struck up a conversation (that included her cat rescue efforts in Cripple Creek).  I’ve e-mailed her several times with questions we didn’t think to ask at our initial drive-by. Nice.

Happy Trails.

PS:

Since I wrote this post the house has disappeared from the market listings, reason unknown. Bummer!

Big news in our part of the world…the new Grand Avenue Bridge opened for traffic last Tuesday.

Monday afternoon saw a “pedestrian walk” event scheduled as the grand opening; all area workers and residents were invited to walk across the bridge before it opened to auto traffic. Scheduled for 4:00 PM, I made plans to attend.

I don’t know how many people the organizers planned on but an estimated 3,000 people showed up for the walk. (I heard a couple hundred was the expected turnout.) Brief remarks were scheduled followed by a ribbon cutting; the walk was to begin at about 4:10 – 4:15.

I finally started walking at about 4:35, still don’t know what the hold-up was but it was getting dark and a cold wind was blowing. I saw several people heading back off the bridge rather than wait any longer but eventually all the walkers did get across.

Here are a few photos of the event plus the front page of the local newspaper.

Headline – Local Paper

People gathering on bridge before opening. (Charles Engelbert)

View of march from bridge level.

Having the bridge functioning, particularly during the morning and evening commuting hours, is a great relief for anyone who has to work in Glenwood Springs. Commuting times immediately returned to normal, eliminating the (often long) backups on the side roads that had served as detour routes. It helps make our commute much easier and quicker and we are very happy the contractors were able to open the bridge 10 days ahead of schedule. Generally good weather and a $25,000.00 per day contractor bonus for every day the bridge opened ahead of schedule undoubtedly helped!

Looking ahead, we are planning an overnight trip this weekend to the Woodland Park area of Colorado, not that far away from Colorado Springs. Pam has located a couple of interesting properties  in the area that we will drive by and look at. On the way home we will stop by The Lot and check it out. More on this trip, with photos, in my next post.

In a few unrelated events, here are a couple miscellaneous photos that don’t really belong to any large topic. The first is the back of our RAV4 after a shopping trip showing how convenient it is to have a small wagon, and the second is Laax, Switzerland, where daughter Felicity concluded a 5-week house sit.

RAV4 after a shopping trip

Laax, Switzerland (stock photo)

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

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

Thanks for birthday greetings.  Another year – yippee.

Heard from Toby.  His first week working for the Tribe is going OK; there is an employee cafeteria to which he has access for a minimal fee, definitely a bonus. Full benefits and a retirement program makes us happy. He is [finally] “adulting.”

Felicity’s current house sit in England (she flew there after the Switzerland house sit) is near the ancient site of Sutton Hoo. Which is on her “to visit” list, but actually getting to Sutton Hoo using the local bus system will require a walk of a little over a mile from the last bus connection. Felicity contrasts British transportation connections to the Swiss transportation system – Switzerland wins.

Happy Trails.

It has been a quiet week and I’m at a loss for words to make into an interesting post. Here is a rundown on the routine and mundane that makes up a large part of our lives.

This weekend saw the second major leaf clean-up for the fall. Taking care of two lots, ours and our snow-bird neighbors, takes some effort and time. Some of the leaves went into flower beds as mulch, the rest taken to the drop-off point provided by the town. There is one last push to do for the season but the bulk of the leaves are off the trees so the last push should be just a tidy-up job.

In kid news, our son Toby is starting a new job with a Native American casino opening in his home town of South Bend. The job (shipping and receiving) is full time with benefits, benefits Toby has not had since he moved to Indiana. We hope this works out OK for him.

Felicity is currently in the United Kingdom and will be there for the next few weeks. When she does return to the States she has a couple more house-sits arranged in the Portland, OR area and will not be back into her Vancouver, WA digs until mid-January. Felicity reports it feels comfortable being in England again and the town where she house sits has at least three good pubs including one that serves very good food. Sounds like she is enjoying herself.

My mother has reduced her in-home care down to days rather than 24 hour care. This saves her a lot of money without a great loss of coverage; she does wear one of those “emergency call” buttons to summon help if something does happen that she cannot handle. Mom would like to stay in her own home as long as possible. We’ll have to see how long that might be but for now she is doing OK.

Closer to home, most people who read this blog know Pam and I commute a long distance to work. The commute has been complicated recently by a bridge replacement project in Glenwood Springs (which is where both jobs are located.) Good news: The replacement bridge is scheduled to open for limited traffic this coming Tuesday, 10 days ahead of schedule. The opening should help reduce the commute time, both into and out of town, by at least 20 – 30 minutes in each direction. We had changed our schedules to try to make the best of the situation but are getting pretty tired of the seemingly endless delays the construction project has caused.

Opening the bridge will not be the end of it; the associated interchanges, roundabouts, signage, and even putting the lines on the roadways is on-going and will take another year to complete fully. The bridge will be surfaced with a new type of polyester concrete that requires warmer temperatures to install so we can look forward to periodic bridge closures running into next spring or early summer. Still, opening of the new structure will help ease the constraints imposed by the project.

City of Aspen folks are looking at the early bridge opening with hope as ski traffic into the resorts will use the new bridge through Glenwood Springs for access. There’s a lot of money on the line for the resorts and businesses that depend on easy access. Without traffic flow up valley the area ski industry will suffer.

Here’s an artist representation of what the bridge and intersections should look like when completed:

New bridge across Colorado River in Glenwood Springs. (Colorado Dept. of Transportation.)

Life moves ahead but — absent our trips into the high country — the weeks get pretty routine. Hopefully next week will have a bit more news to report!

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

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

My mail order tulip bulbs arrived last week. All 100 were carefully placed in “The Mary Lynn Garden,” a corner spot in memory of my best friend who succumbed to cancer in August.  Extra soil blankets the bulbs, plus lots of leaf mulch. The corner should bloom spectacularly in the Spring.

Outside flower beds and yard look tidy but sad.  Everything tucked away for the winter, brown leaves mulched into flowerbed cover, bare trees – unsaid but anticipated is the “s” word (s-n-o-w).

Happy Trails.

Last week I took a trip back to Wisconsin to visit my mother. I can’t say the trip was very exciting but one has to keep the family fences somewhat mended.

My mother is living at home with caregivers helping out. The caregivers make meals, do laundry, and generally help Mom with tasks she can no longer do on her own. This arrangement seems to be working well but is expensive. Mom said she will reduce her care from 24 hours to a lower level, probably days only, now that a routine has been established and she knows what she can and cannot do on her own. My sister Sienna lives in the area and also stops in frequently to keep an eye on Mom.

The trip (2,597 miles in total) was just a lot of miles on the road. Good thing the CD player was working! Weather was not bad but was cold and windy the entire trip. There were only a few hours the first day that I did not have heat on inside the car. On the way home I ran into some rain around Des Moines and there was fresh snow in the Denver foothills and eastern slope.

Mom has decided to sell some of the land she still owns. There are two river-front lots (Black River) that are within the Greenwood city limits that have been surveyed and are ready for sale. My brother Jon (whom I visited at his house in Stoddard, Wisconsin this trip) made this sign for the first lot:

Jon’s Lot for Sale sign

Proceeds from the sale of the lot(s) would go toward Mom’s care and ease the settlement of the estate when she passes. We hope the lots sell in the next few months.

Other than driving and family visits the trip did not yield much in the way of entertainment. I did make a quick stop at a museum I had passed many times during previous trips; the Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles in Lexington, Nebraska. I found the museum contains more than vehicles; the museum also has uniforms, munitions, small and large weapons (mortars and howitzers, for example) and would be of interest to anyone interested in WWI and WWII history. They also has a couple Huey helicopters that were used in Vietnam. There is a lot to see as the place is much larger than it appears from I-80. Here are a couple photos:

Part of the munitions collection

Crawler tractor pulled large weapons and supply wagons

The rest of the trip was uneventful with few slow spots due to construction or accidents. The one exception was an accident on the interstate going through Omaha; I had stop-and-go traffic for several miles until a 3-car accident was pulled from traffic lanes.

As this trip began on Monday and I arrived home Friday night there isn’t much of anything else to report. At home there are Fall chores such as raking leaves and cleaning out flower beds. Pam did buy a new lot of tulip bulbs that will be planted later today. Grocery shopping, a routine weekend task, is also on today’s To Do list.

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

Pam’s Penny’s Worth:

In many respects, the past week was actually my vacation for the year.

Happy Trails.

Last Tuesday I drove up to The Lot and brought The Box home for the winter. Weather was perfect for Fall, sunny, high in the 60s, no wind, blue skies. However there was measurable snow on Hoosier Pass and ice was rimming some of the streams and lakes. Summer is very definitely over.

Our snow-bird neighbors, Jim and Jolene, left for their Winter home in Arizona last week. The Box sits in the spot Jim normally parks their Class A motorhome. We still need to get all the dry food items out of The Box and finish winterizing it but that will be a weekend day task. It’s getting dark so early now that when we get home around 6:00 PM there isn’t much time to do outside tasks; weekends are busy getting all the various jobs and chores done.

I will be driving to Wisconsin this upcoming week to visit my mother. Just an out and back, no side trips planned. I’ll leave on Monday and be back home on Friday or Saturday. I hope the weather cooperates!

A couple of posts back I included a photo of a badger. After I took the still shot I recorded a short (32 seconds) video clip of the little critter. Like the photo, the video was taken from inside the car at maximum zoom on my iPhone so the quality is not the greatest.

[cincopa AQJAkG-nXiib]

(Looks better if you view it full-screen.)

The new Mac computer has a different version of iMovie on it with a different interface so it is taking me some time to re-learn the program. The new Mac renders and saves video clips much faster than the old Mac which is a greatly appreciated feature.

There is not much else going on right now, probably a good thing as we transition from Summer to Fall chores. We have had a few below-freezing nights where we covered most of the outdoor plants and they seem to have survived OK. It would be nice to get several more days or weeks of Fall-like weather, at least through Halloween and perhaps beyond.

The manuals have arrived for the Oliver OC-3 crawler. To my surprise the parts manual is a factory original 1959  version; the owner’s/service manual is a good copy and I had expected the parts manual would be a copy as well. Nice surprise. The manuals contain basic and advanced information such as what oil to use, recommended spark plugs, lubrication points, and other basic maintenance stuff as well as more advanced repair procedures. They will be good guides as I move along on trying to get the Oliver to run.

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

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

Bru (middle dog) suffered through a dental cleaning + extractions at the vet on Thursday.  This is the dog with high anxiety at the vet during a routine exam, so Bru had a pretty rotten day.  A total of eight teeth were loose in her gums.  Also a fatty lump was removed on her leg.  It’s always something.

I found the house of my dreams!  Take a look and you will know why I love this house.  The idea of living in Cripple Creek?  Not so much – especially in winter.  This lovely home has a beautiful front porch where one can sit and look at — the back of the casino.  Fields says we cannot buy it.  But I can think about it…

117 Prospect Avenue, Cripple Creek, CO

Attractive house in Cripple Creek

Happy Trails.