Monday, June 7, 2021 Day twenty-two. It’s another of those gotta get out early days, and this time we’ve actually managed to get out early. It’s not a matter of beating the mid-afternoon heat but of finding parking. This day’s plan includes a stop at Devil’s Tower along the way to Sheridan, and the National …
June 4th, 2021. The Black Hills, South Dakota. After an interesting, if somewhat disappointing, stop at Wall Drug, we’re headed to our cabin located somewhere between Hill City and Custer. Our route has taken us through relatively large, Rapid City, slowing us down on a sweltering afternoon when all we want to do is get …
Friday, June 4, 2021 Day eighteen. It’s already sultry at six in the morning at The Raine Motel in Valentine, Nebraska. We’d arrived sometime during mid-afternoon yesterday and The Raine was a lonely place. Just us and one other car parked two rooms down. The Raine is another throwback motor court that we’re staying at …
Saturday, May 29, 2021 Day eleven. Note: Posts are not in chronological order. We’re traveling from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Amarillo, Texas. We’ve just hit Cline’s Corner’s at the junction of Highways 285 and 40 (Route 66}. Cline’s Corners isn’t a town, just a large rest stop; RV park, filling station, café, and last …
On Sunday we left Amarillo, a fair sized city in the Texas Panhandle, for Stroud, Oklahoma. Oklahoma City is on the way to Stroud and Cora and I debated about keeping the Oklahoma City National Memorial on our itinerary. I wasn’t ecstatic about taking on city traffic, but given that it was Sunday we decided …
Thursday, May 20, 2021 “Pardon me, you left your tears on the jukebox” That’s George Strait on the radio. It’s day three of a month-long road trip. We’ve travelled down the eastern side of California’s San Joaquin Valley and are now passing through the Mojave Desert on the Southeastern edge of the state. When it …
It’s been alleged that COVID is in recession in America, and with that news, along with the arrival of summer and increasing vaccinations, Americans are looking to rid themselves of a side effect of the pandemic; let’s call it hometown-itis. Whether they contracted the coronavirus or not, most Americans have exhibited symptoms of hometown-itis; alternating …
Groundhog Day is a movie in which Bill Murray plays a TV weatherman who finds himself reliving the same day over and over again There were a few moments of irony during Vice President Kamala Harris’s appearance with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, this morning. The Vice President paused in the midst of the ceremony, …
Fort Point is one of San Francisco’s often overlooked jewels. Built between 1853 and 1861 to guard the inlet to San Francisco Bay, the fort, surrounded by water on three sides, rests on the southern shore of the Golden Gate. While it is a historic fort, one doesn’t have to be a history buff to …
“You play to win the game. Hello? You play to win the game. You don’t play to just play it.” ~ Herman Edwards. I’ve been watching the second Trump impeachment trial, nearly gavel to gavel. I did bail out on some Friday’s session and the arguments being laid out by Trump’s attorney Michael van der …
Today, for only the second time that I can remember I watched a Presidential Inauguration. That wasn’t necessarily by design. This is the first inauguration held since I went into retirement. The other inauguration that I watched was in 2008, the inauguration of Barack Obama, America’s first Black president. I was working that day but …
Mumblypeg ~ A playground game where boys stand with their feet shoulder width apart whilst throwing a pocket knife point down between their own feet. The boy who gets closest wins. Getting the knife in your foot is an automatic win. It’s over, but it’s not. It won’t take days or weeks or months for …
I was ready to publish a light post to start the New Year. An attempted coup in America has compelled a more serious post. Today started out as a civics lesson; both houses of Congress convene and officially count the Electoral College ballots, a ceremonial final act in America’s drawn out electoral play. In normal …
It’s taken 232 years but America is on the very brink of losing the boasting rights of being a true Democratic Republic. We may have been the first, back in 1788 when the Constitutional ratification was completed. Even with some built in flaws it was historic; a landmark in world history. We’re in danger now …
It was 3:30 A.M-ish when I peeked at my phone, shielding the light from Cora in order to avoid an elbow in the ribs. Joe Biden had taken the lead in Georgia. Well, that was like the wee hours of Christmas morning when you hear the rustling of wrapping paper downstairs and sleep becomes the …
I woke up this morning at 5:30 with the expectation that we would know the election results. I let Lexi out, looked down at the tuner and asked myself, “Do you really wanna know?” A quick glance revealed no real change from last night. “What the hell,” I whispered at John Berman. (The family was …
Even with 15mg of Melatonin in my system sleep didn’t come easy this morning (bedtime was 12:30 A.M.) and didn’t last long. At 3:30 I was awake and peeking at my phone to see if there was any news but whatever I saw didn’t register. The rest of the early morning was spent looking up …
I voted early today, an hour or so after the polls opened. The initial plan, months ago, was to vote early by mail but after some consideration and, more to the point, reports of chicanery on the part of Trump’s man in the Postal Service and threats by the Republican Party to challenge the integrity …
Note: This article quotes from the book Bullwhip Days an oral history of former slaves. The original work was recorded and then transcribed into book form retaining the spoken dialect of the subjects. I’ve retained the dialect as published in the book. “Putting a national lockdown, stay at home orders is like house arrest. Other …
For the four days of the Republican National Convention, ending on a White House lawn festooned with American flags, the American people were warned that failure to re-elect Donald Trump to a second term will result in nothing short of an American Armageddon. The American people will lose their basic freedoms and have their guns …