Nick and Tonyia Visit The Villages

Nick and Tonyia came to visit Rich and Donna this weekend. We made plans to get together at our place Friday night, but ended up moving it to Saturday. Ava had fun catching up with Rich and Donna and Nick and Tonyia. Donna brought a mix, and Nathan got to work making us some yummy frozen drinks.



We visited on the lanai for a bit, until it started to rain. Nathan also made us some very yummy fajitas. Donna brought two different kinds of chips and salsa to add to the dinner. We had plenty to eat and it was nice to have a table that we all fit around.



After dinner, we got out the Phase 10 game and played that until quite late. Only half of us had played before so we played a practice hand to teach the others and then we were off and running. We were neck and neck at the end with Nick being the final winner.



This morning we met at Golden Coral and then Nick and Tonyia had to head back out. It was a great weekend that went by much too fast!

Jefferson, Ohio to Reading Center, New York

Morning Visitors

As I walk to work each morning, I'm amazed at the things I see in such a short distance. Different people, different animals, different rigs and different light each day. One of my favorite things to see is beginning to be a somewhat regular event around here. And it is something to have them visit right next to our RV.

They are so close, we give each other a Good Morning wave sometimes.

What a way to start the day! Even better than coffee!

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! So beautiful in fact, I've been known to trip on the speed bumps because I'm watching them instead of the road.

I've got to go to work now, but I'll see you again soon! Living the life in beautiful Florida!

Amazing Wadi Rum Desert Adventures: Introduction to Wadi Rum and the Visitor’s Centre

For starters, Wadi Rum is a government preserved and protected area located in the Aqaba province of Jordan. It is the largest WADI or VALLEY in the country, and this is where Prince Faisal Bin Hussein and T. E. Lawrence based their headquarters during the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans during the World War I.

We drove from Amman, Jordan's capital city all the way down to Petra and then Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum is about 60 kilometres from Aqaba. Map courtesy from Lonely Planet.

Because Wadi Rum is a preserved place and an important attraction, entry is regulated, and of course, commercialised to serve a vital purpose. Unlike its neighbouring Arabic countries, Jordan doesn’t have extraordinary resources to depend on such as oil, but fortunately it is rich in history. Tourism is a major industry in the country and is a big income generator for its economy. Locals are quite aware that their country benefits from tourism so they treat their visitors very well. Tourist police are everywhere in the country.

Entrance to Wadi Rum is 5 JOD per person and I believe this is a per day fee. The tickets are bought at the Visitor’s Centre. In the Visitor’s Centre you will find all information that you would need with regards to various desert adventure tours: 4x4 jeep tours, camel tours and many other types of fun and active activities. The tours and activities can of course be customised according to duration and what you prefer.

The Visitor’s Centre is a good place as well to scour for accommodations in Wadi Rum. There are a handful Bed & Breakfast types of accommodations (they are very basic) in Wadi Rum village run by enterprising Bedouin families, and of course for the adventurers who want to experience Bedouin culture at the core, there are Bedouin-style desert camps with ultra-basic facilities available in the heart of Wadi Rum. I believe there are options to camp in the desert on your own as well.

The Visitor's Centre, a few kilometers outside of Wadi Rum. The foto on the big poster is the King of Jordan, King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein.

The Bedouin brother of our guide.

4x4 Jeeps for rent for Wadi Rum Desert adventure tours.

Next, our Wadi Rum lunch.

Petrified Forest National Park

After leaving the Grand Canyon, I drove east on Interstate 10 to visit the Petrified Forest National Park. In order to appreciate this place, you must exit the Interstate, get out of your vehicle, and take the short walks that are available. From Interstate 10 on the north side of the park there is a road that will take you a short ways into the Painted Desert, then it turns south to take you through the Petrified Forest. It comes out on U.S. 180 east of Holbrook, where you can easily pick up the Interstate again. It may take you a couple of hours to drive through the park, but it is well worth the slight detour.

The colors in some of the pieces are incredible. It looks like someone came along with a chain saw, a very large one in some cases, and cut up the “trees” into small pieces.... then they went and tossed those pieces and scattered them around the desert floor. Of course, the Rangers deny any such thing.

Actually, the Petrified Forest, as we see it now, is but a shadow of its former self. Before it became protected as a National Park, people came and took away quite a bit of the petrified wood. Even now, with a warning of a fine of several hundred dollars, people still walk off with bits and pieces. I can understand the attraction. It is beautiful stuff and the colors are startling, but I resisted the temptation and went away empty handed, except for the photographs I took.

Low-Trailing and Didn't Even Know It

From the first time I rode a vintageSteyrWaffenrad in Vienna two years ago, its handling impressed me as unusual; categorically different from other classic city bikes I've tried, vintage or modern. Despite being large and heavy, the bicycle is extremely maneuverable.The cycling paths in Vienna are narrow and twisty, often requiring cyclists to make tight turns. I can do so on this bike at speed, without much effort. I cannot make the same turns on myGazelleat home, or even on my roadbikes, in the same easy manner. Additionally, the bike feels easy to control and "place" when going downhill. In the summer of I rode it up an then down a small mountain on the outskirts of town via a winding road. I thought I'd be riding the brake the entire way down, but the bike was able to follow the curve of the road with extreme precision.



On the downside, I have already mentioned that the front end handling at slow speeds takes getting used to, requiring a very light touch. When I first start riding this bike after a long absence, it shakes so much that I always wonder whether the front wheel is loose. Then my body adapts to the handling and the shaking stops. Weird how that happens, and I even tell myself "Don't worry, remember that if felt the same way last time and then you got used to it." An hour later, I am invariably convinced that it is the best-handling bicycle in the world.



While I've felt these things on Jacqueline from the beginning, it was only later that I made the connection between these characteristics and low-trail geometry. I asked Wolfgang, the bike's owner about it, and while he does not recall the exact figure, he does believe it is a low trail bike. He also agrees that the SteyrWaffenrad bicycles have unique handling compared to other seemingly-similar city bikes. As someone whose cycling experience ranges from the velodrome to climbing the Grossglockner, he prefers this model as his own city bike and owns at least half dozen of them from different decades.



Jacqueline's being low trail would certainly explainwhy I was not surprised by the handling of theRandonneur we made: having already gotten used to some of the same characteristics, I now considered them within the range of "normal."



I will be leaving Vienna soon, and Jacqueline has already been returned to her owner. Wolfgang has an extra Steyr Waffenrad frame that can be mine if I want it, and I've been toying with the idea of building one up to see how it rides in Boston.I don't know though, it almost seems "wrong" somehow, as if Jacqueline belongs in Vienna. Of course the Boston version would be Jacqueline II... Funny how every now and again I think that I'm "done" with experimenting! But I do need to learn how to measure a bike properly - including angles, rake and trail.

On a side note: For anyone interested in pictures of Vienna's city center, I've posted some here - to give you an idea of what I meant earlier by the white Historicist buildings.

I'm not in Kansas anymore!

Ah, there's no place like home. An old cliché but oh, so true. As much as I enjoyed the brief sojourn in Springfield and roaming around the countryside in eastern Kansas, and even though I was gone only ten days, it sure feels good to be home.

I decided not to go to Iowa. Mixed results and a bit of frustration in Kansas, combined with realizing that there really just wasn't enough time to do full justice to the search, and the fact that I was just plain tired, lead to the decision to head home yesterday. I got home at about 6 p.m. this evening.

On Monday, from Baxter Springs I drove west on US 160 towards Grenola, in southwestern Elk County. I stopped at the library in Moline, but it was closed. I was hoping they had a diagram of the layout of the cemetery in Grenola. On Sunday (11/18) I had found the transcriptions online for Rachel (Fisher) and John Harvey in Greenlawn Cemetery in Grenola, Greenfield Township, along with several of their children, in section "B". Rachel is the sister of my 2nd Great Grandmother, Louisa Fisher Phend. Rachel died February 18, 1899 and John died in September 1899.

Moline is a small town but Grenola is even smaller. It was about 3 p.m. as I drove down Main Street and I felt as though I was in a ghost town. Not a soul was stirring, not an open store in sight. At the end of Main Street was a sign pointing left that said "cemetery" so I turned. It was a narrow road and seemed like miles, but was probably only about one. The cemetery was on the left, on top of a hill. I turned into the cemetery on the first lane. It was huge. The sections weren't marked. I thought there was no way I'd find them. I drove down each lane, slowly, hoping I'd see their stones.

There have been several times when searching for ancestors that I've gone to a cemetery knowing they were buried there but not knowing where and walking directly to their gravesites. But alas, no such luck this time. I stopped and walked around for a while then gave up and drove on to Winfield, county seat of Cowley County. Rachel and John had moved to Harvey Township in Cowley County sometime between 1870 and 1880. Harvey Township is bordered by Greenfield Township, Elk County on the east, which is probably why they are buried in Elk County.

Tuesday morning I went to the Courthouse in Winfield. Their original marriage record books have been moved to the Cherokee Strip Land Rush Museum in Arkansas City, about 12 miles south of Winfield. The Probate office has the records digitized on CD Rom discs and they charge $12 for a lookup if you don't have the exact date of marriage. Which of course, I didn't have. Just have an approximate year, and several names to lookup. I asked about Guardianship or Probate records since Homer, the youngest son of Rachel and John, was only 16 years old when they died. The index books didn't list them. The clerk didn't seem to know what the transcribed information online for Homer meant.

Next stop was the Winfield Library. They have a nice little local history section but I didn't find anything helpful there. I then went to the Cherokee Strip Land Rush Museum. If you have ancestors or relatives that lived in the Winfield and Arkansas City areas then this place should definitely be on your list of places to visit. In addition to the Original Marriage Record Books, they have cemetery records, obituary notices, miscellaneous newspaper clippings, etc., etc. for COWLEY county, and lots of neat things on exhibit. I didn't find anything helpful in my search for the Harvey family except that it appears that none of their children were married in Cowley County!

Since it was "sort of" in the direction of my next destination (Iola, Allen County) I decided to go back to the cemetery at Grenola thinking maybe I'd get lucky this time. Nope. I walked through each section, up and down the rows, for about two hours. It was a gorgeous day. Sun shining, blue sky, not cold, just a little windy. Maybe John and Rachel and some of their family are buried there, but I sure didn't find them! Did get some exercise though.


One of Rachel and John's children, Lillian, and her husband Orlando Sellers are buried in Moline Cemetery so I stopped by there on the way to Howard, the county seat of Elk County. I found the cemetery but when I saw how big it was, bigger than Greenlawn, I turned into the first drive to turn around and leave. As I glanced to the right to check traffic, there they were, right up front, next to the road. Now, why couldn't that have happened with John and Rachel?

By the time I got to Howard the courthouse was closed so I went on to Iola. My intent was to spend Tuesday night in Iola then go to the cemetery and library, etc. to see what I could find on William and Minerva (Joslin) Knight. Minerva is a sister of my 2nd Great Grandmother, Malissa Joslin Brubaker Bower. William died in 1902. Minerva then married a J.N. Storey and reportedly died May 12, 1905 in a wheelchair on the street in Hot Springs, Arkansas. William and Minerva are buried in the Iola Cemetery.

It was dark when I got to Iola so I went to find a motel room, but there was no room at the inn. Three motels in town and they were all full. Nothing available in the nearby towns, according to the innkeeper. It was 50 miles or more north to I-35 and Ottawa, which was near my next destination of Lyndon. . . to be continued.

Raleigh DL-1 Restoration!

In the excitement of describing the A.N.T. Open House, I forgot to mention that on the same weekend I picked up my Raleigh DL1 Lady's Tourist from the shop.

Here she is, in her restored glory. See this post for the "before" shots.

The DL1 had an extensive tune up that included bottom bracket replacement, rod brake adjustment, and lowered gearing (22 tooth rear cog) to make climbing hills easier.

Then of course there are the aesthetic changes: The old tires have been replace with the gorgeous cream Schwalbe Delta Cruisers, a full chaincase and vintage-style rope dressguards have been installed, and a frame pump has been added.

The rope dressguard is something I had envisioned on this bicycle from the very start, and hunting one down was not an easy task. Finally, a very kind gentleman found these for me in Portugal, and I am eternally grateful!

In the earlier days of the loop frames, this was probably the most common style of dressguards. There were simple versions like this one, as well as elaborate crochet versions. The dressguards attach with hooks directly to holes drilled into the fender.

On the bottom, the cords are gathered onto a hook-like contraption that attaches to the bolt that holds the rear stays together.

Close-up of the rod brakes, curved top tube and frame pump. I find it surprising that the frame pump was intended to fit between the tubes and I don't think it looks very good there - disrupting the flow of the frame's curvature. So I may remove it and just leave the braze-ons empty. Still, I wonder why they didn't place the attachment behind the seat tube?

Close-up of the Raleigh headlight mount. The heron on this one seems to be smiling.

Today I took the DL1 out for her first ride. She is extremely comfortable: stable, smooth, relaxed. The seat-tube angle is much slacker than either on the Lady's Sports or on the Pashley Princess, and it was a pleasant surprise to ride in that position. One interesting thing, is that this bicycle is absolutely silent - both pedaling and coasting. Neither of our other vintage bikes are like that, and I wonder what accounts for the DL1's quiet demeanor. In any case, I am not complaining, and I am thankful to Adam Rankin at Harris Cyclery for all the work he did to make it such a nice ride!

The first ride was meant to be just a short one, because the rod brakes still need some adjustment - But the bicycle was so easy-going, that I ended up cycling all over the neighborhood. Here she is locked up at the grocery store. During the time I was out, four people stopped to talk to me about the bike, being especially interested in the dressguards. Everyone loves beautiful vintage bicycles, and the Raleigh DL1 is one of the most iconic.

In The Shadow of Giants

These huge redwoods are awe-inspiring.

Shiloh

We made a trip to Shiloh over the weekend. I have umpty-million photos to download, but so far this one is my favorite.


Spotted fawn in the Union cemetery. (Click to enlarge.)

His cute little fuzzy close-up:



Awww.

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It was a very birdy weekend. This wasn't really a birding trip, but we did have our binoculars, so we looked every time we happened to see the branches moving. The list of warblers we saw without even really trying:

Yellow-throated
Black-and-White
Magnolia
Canada
Chestnut-sided
Redstart
Pine
Palm
Brewster's (!)
Tennessee

The gorgeous male Canada warbler was a special treat since we hadn't seen one in so long. And the Brewster's, wow! They are a hybrid between the Blue-winged and Golden-winged warblers, and we'd only seen one once or twice before, at Dauphin Island.

If we'd had more time, we'd have turned it into a birding trip until the migration fallout ran dry, and finished exploring the battlefield later. The weather was beautiful - the first fall-like days of the year.


Just resting.
Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis).

Wild Lupine

Here is a close up of the wild lupine flowers that bloom in the mountains.

Awesome Lightning!

This evening an incredible series of thunderstorms rolled across Grand Portage Bay between 9:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. It was some of the most intense lightning I've ever seen in this area. I photographed the lightning for almost 3 hours from my boat shed on the Lake Superior shoreline. The image above was a 9 second exposure, with an aperture of f8 and the ISO set at 200. I got really lucky on the image below, as the lightning flashed almost immediately after I hit the button on the remote shutter release, and it was a very bright flash so I hit the button again right after the flash. It ended up being only a one second exposure!

A tweaked German Breakfast and looking for Hansel and Gretel

Breakfast in Germany is more exciting than in the Netherlands, well at least from a variety and aesthetics point of view. You see I am a visual person and will always be. I made the decision not to take our breakfast at the hotel because I want to taste Berlin, smell the city and devour culture along the way.

We stayed at an allegedly typically Deutsch hotel in Mitte, Berlin—Grimm’s, from the Brothers Grimm fame. They are the author of many fairy tale stories we all grew up with such as Cinderalla, Snow White, Golden Goose, Rapunzel and many more. However, sad to say, the hotel did not live up to the fairy tale theme. Our room is supposed to be the ‘Hansel and Gretel’ room but there was no trace of the witch or of the 2 kids, just a poem written on the wall.

Where are you Hansel and Gretel? Are you hiding from the witch? Don’t worry please, I am not the bad witch, lol.

So on our first morning we walked to Alexanderplatz and before reaching the square we chanced upon this charming outdoor cafe terrace, ‘Cafe Kaffeestube Restaurant’ in Nikolaiviertel (Nikolai Quarter). I could not help it, the ambience looked so inviting so I announced to the Dutchman that we will have breakfast here. The cafe restaurant is located beside the Nikolai Church on a corner street facing the main thoroughfare but cosy enough to have a bit of privacy from the busy traffic.

I think we did our best to order the typically German breakfast but interestingly they tweaked it a bit and included a slice of Brie cheese with chives. Sometimes you just have to give in to the French, nicht wahr?

This pretty Deutsch breakfast is 4 stars out of 5.

This is much better than sitting in the breakfast area of the hotel.

Moi here in the hotel. They have nice bathrooms though. And the Hansel and Gretel poem in Deutsch on the wall, the only evidence I could find that this is indeed the Hansel and Gretel room.