OCT 2003 my wife and I quit smoking and began saving the money we would have spent on cigarettes. For 2 years we saved and in 2005 we took the family to Disneyland California. We stayed in the Disney land hotel, eat breakfast with the Disneyland charters and spent 3 full days at the park going on all the rides. I remembered the park as a kid only this time we had a 7, 11, 13 year-old daughters with us who had never been to Disneyland.
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When I was a child my parents would go on many trips bringing the family. One trip I remember fondly to this day. One hot summer with my younger brother in tow (I was 14, he was 8) We all loaded into the 1971 Ford F-250 with a cab over camper, and headed to Devil’s Postpile National Monument in California.
I remember my mom making Kool-Aid (black cherry) with the carbonated water from a natural Soda Springs. It was so weird that this water came out of the ground already carbonated. It resembled black cherry champagne. I still remember the favor to this day. Pretty Cool!
To get to the Postpile we had to go through the sequoia national forest very huge redwood trees one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen on this or any trip since. It was driving a cab over camper through the trunk of a giant Sequoia the road went through. This tree was hollowed out and you drove right thru it! That was so impressive to a young boy; you just can’t believe how giant these trees are until you’ve seen them in person.
On the way, we stopped at an Indian burial ground where no one’s camera would work. There were 5 different cameras in the group, mine was a disposable all mechanical 35mm camera right out of the package that I had taken several pictures with on the way up the mountain, and even it stopped working just before we got the Indian burial ground site and the cameras all started working again half way down the mountain from the grave site. No one could explain what had happened to the cameras to quench my curiosity.
The Devils Postpile is rock formation of hexagon shaped pillars of columnar basalt, and to a child it is huge and strange thing that it could form naturally. There was lots of trout fishing in lots of streams and lakes on this trip. There was one called rainbow falls the water was so blue and glowing and around the corner down from the falls I remember the river cut into the far side of the bank so you could let your baited hook flow with the water under the ledge an hook a good size trout every time, until I caught my limit for the day or my mom went for a swim in the freezing cold water trying to convince others to join her being a kid of course I did. I remember my brother and me climbing huge rocks and having to help him get back down he could go up no problem but couldn’t go down. We seemed to go on this trip every few years. My parents also had a lot of boats over the years and loved to water ski my dad would tow my mom all over the lakes and the river between California and Nevada, at one time we had a jet boat we would ski up river and the water was so smooth but we ran out of gas and floated down river to the gas station marina right on the water.
When I was a child my parents would go on many trips bringing the family. One trip I remember fondly to this day. One warm summer with my younger brother in tow (I was 14, he was 11) We all loaded into the 1971 Ford F-250 with a cabover camper, and headed to Devil’s Postpile National Monument in California. Read More
When Carnival cruise lines had such low prices on cruises we booked a couple of future cruises for next year. We have one booked for Jamaica, San Cruises and Cozumel in Jan 2022, but because of Covid Omicron they sent me an email saying they have to change the ports to the same ports we just did on our last cruise in Oct Belize, Coastal Mya and Cozumel, not a good start to the new year. We also took up square dancing and booked a cruise in Feb to see the pacific side of Mexico, Port of Viarta, Mazalon, and San Rios. This also was at a very good price hopefully they won’t change or cancel it as we are very much looking forward to the square dancing on a ship.
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When I was young, my parents used to go on many family trips. There is one trip that I will always remember. It was a very warm summer day. I was fourteen, and my brother was eight. We packed our stuff and loaded everything into a 1971 Ford F-250 camper, and went to California to the Devil’s Postpone National Monument.
On a recent trip from Oklahoma to California we went to Williams Arizona. They have a very nice campground across from the train station and Williams is a very clean little town with many restaurants within walking distance of the camp grounds and a pool with hot tub in the adjoining hotel. We spent two nights there and took the train to the Grand Canyon. We spent the day looking around the Canyon. There is a spectacular view of the Canyon with walking trails along the rim and of course shops at the Grand Canyon train station. Then we took the train back to Williams but not without a couple of stops, as it is an old train and it had some issues, but we were well entertained on the train. We do recommend bringing some water with you just in case. All in all Williams was the unintended highlight of the trip.
And now, for what was to be the highlight of the trip. Trout fishing at Tinnemaha Creek Campground in Inyo Country California for five days. It was extremely hot outside and I had had a great idea before we went on this trip. Knowing there was no hookups at this campground I bought two 2500Watt inverter generators with the parallel connection kit, the thought was they were very quiet and would use less fuel when the AC was not in full cool mode, the only problem was the AC never cycled and when one generator went down the other one would go down on an overload, also as this is a big fifth wheel with two AC units. I quickly found I could only run one unit and due to the heat it was let’s say hot inside the fifth wheel. Just so you know, we did catch our limit in trout and had a very good time sleeping outside in the 57 degree creak on Colman air cots but we only stayed 2 days.
P.S. We now have a full size RV generator mounted in the front cabinet of the fifth wheel where it is supposed to be and a 65 gal propane tank on the truck that runs it all for next time!
Recently my youngest daughter joined the American armed forces of the USA. I retired from the U.S Army aviation. Throughout the years she has listened to many stories from me and my friends. One friend is a retired Navy seal he told her if she joined the Navy she would be treated well as a woman and the food and training were great not physically demanding as deployment was by ship. She was working as a bagger at TAFB so there was a lot of Airforce opinion. The opinion which she heard the most from the Airforce was if you went to the field you stayed at the Holliday Inn and the Airforce was less physically demanding as deployment was by airplane. As she is only 5’2” the Marine Core was a bit intimidating and thought to be too physically demanding. She talked to the Coast Guard but was unable to find a MOS or job she qualified for or wanted to do. I don’t know what the Airforce recruiter told her but the Airforce seemed to be off the table.
Most of the stories she heard about the Army were about SOCOM or elite units as I was Airborne and an avionics repair technician I spent my time in a 189trailer or TSS unit or the flight line. I was trained on multiple aircraft and systems. As Avionics QC I got to fly on, and crew many different aircraft on test flights and missions including firing the M134 mini gun from a UH60 Blackhawk (that was incredible) I want one.
My father was Army as was my wife’s father. We all survived with a few scares and some worn-out body parts and my PTSD from a couple of “HARD LANDINGS” aircraft and parachute we all got a small retirement check each month and some post/base privileges and medical that is slowly being diminished by the military hating Democrats. The VA used to be known by the troops as where a soldier went to die. President Trump fixed a lot of the problems with choice and the ability to fire those who needed to be removed at the upper levels of the VA. Sorry I got sidetracked being in the service during the good President Regan, and the bad Clinton and Obama I didn’t want my daughter to join any service during Beijing Biden’s term in office, as shown by the loss of life during the pullout and arming the enemy with our left behind weapons due to only bad planning.
Back to my daughter’s choice, we had a long discussion I told her if she joined the Army she would go to the field eat food from a plastic bag dig a hole, and sleep in the hole she dug, do heavy rucksack marches in boots, and learn a lot about what her limits could be expanded. Her choice is the Army! She did well and made it through basic training where she called us from the hole she dug and was guarding, I told her we weren’t allowed to have phones, and she said she thought I was kidding. Nope! She has now made it through AIT (advanced initial training) and is now stationed in Tennessee. More to follow.
On a recent trip from Oklahoma to California, we went to Williams Arizona. They have a very nice campground across from the train station and Williams is a very clean little town with many restaurants within walking distance of the campgrounds and a pool with a hot tub in the adjoining hotel. We spent two nights there and took the train to the Grand Canyon. We spent the day looking around the Canyon. There is a spectacular view of the Canyon with walking trails along the rim and of course shops at the Grand Canyon train station. Then we took the train back to Williams but not without a couple of stops, as it is an old train and it had some issues, but we were well entertained on the train. We do recommend bringing some water with you just in case. All in all, Williams was the unintended highlight of the trip. Read More
We recently went on the Carnival cruise ship the Dream, in which we got a very good price of less than $500 each for an unobstructed eighth-floor balcony room, departing from Galveston TX. Before the cruise, we had purchased an excursion that required a mask snorkel and water shoes. It is late September no one had their summer stuff out anymore. We looked all over Galveston for the water shoes with no luck but we did find the mask and snorkel at a dive shop, but they were made of some very precious alloy! Or the dive shop just wanted to keep them, due to the price they were trying to get for them. We drove north a bit and looked around south Houston, but again didn’t find any water shoes. After we boarded the cruise ship we found the water shoes but they only had her size so we decided to wear our tennis shoes to the excursion, it worked out well though as we were able to take off our shoes before getting in the waters of the blue holes anyway. That was a good trip and the food was fantastic. Read More
My wife and I just built a 12 foot by 24 foot steel building on a heated concrete slab. We played hell trying to get someone to pour the concrete slab even after we framed it in, leveled it and added the sand to get 4” we put the rebar in and ran all of the 5/8 oxygen barrier tubing and under the slab we placed 1 inch foam-board insulation. We finely found 2 people willing to help us work the slab after the truck delivered the concreate. We searched for 3 months for a concrete company to do the job. It took most of a day to get it nice and level I installed J bolts using 1/8th inch plywood prior to the pour as to anchor my posts. We waited for the next weekend and had the frame up in less time then it took to pour and work the concrete Why you ask because I pre tabbed the post and corners so we could screw the C- channel into place this made the framing a breeze. The next weekend we had all the exterior skin and ¾ inch blue foam-board insulation up and installed just my wife and myself. The casement windows and large French metal doors with windows in it were next. Colors are blue trim on grey
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