Noah & Sarah

It didn’t take Noah and Sarah too long to remember who Papa and Memere are.
It is wonderful getting reacquainted with them. You don’t realize how quickly young children change and we had only been gone 7 months. It has been extremely hot and most days too hot to be outdoors with the children.
A lawn sprinkler, in the shade of their backyard, was a way in which to stay cool. One afternoon after we pick up them from day care we let them play under the sprinkler and they had a blast. You can see from the photos that they were not afraid of the water or the mud. Bob did take Noah swimming one afternoon and Noah wants to be able to swim as well as his friend, Griffin, who is 6 months older than he is. With a little work and patience, Noah will be swimming before the cold weather sets in. Sarah is definitely feisty and not much seems to bother her and as long as she has a clean diaper, her bottle nearby and is fed.

Mount Pleasant, SC

We arrived on July 29 a few days before scheduled. The trip across the country was quick and we put on 2,848 miles. Amy and the kids have settled into a lovely house in Mount Pleasant close to her friends, Stacey, Jeff and Griffin.
While we were traveling across the country Chuck, Becky and Lucy came out to Mount Pleasant for their annual visit. They took the kids to have their portraits taken and the children were not in a co-operative mood. The attached photo is of Chuck, Amy, Noah, Sarah and Lucy.
After the disc is reviewed I will include some additional photos.
We have settled in at the local KOA campground.

Swansea, SC

Since our good friends, Joyce and Larry Wannamaker, have a full hook-up site on their property, and they were gracious enough to invite us. We took them up on their offer and stayed the nights of July 27 and July 28. Larry drove up from Mount Pleasant, SC to open his house for us and we had a great visit. We ate at a couple of local restaurants and dined on some real southern cooking. We got the annual preventative maintenance done on the motor home chassis while we were there at Vern’s who happens to be a relative of Joyce’s. Vern does a great job and goes through the whole chassis.
Our friends, Dean and Trip, who live in the area were away in Virginia antique hunting, and we will have to catch up with them later.

Birmingham, AL

We arrived on Wednesday and our first stop was to the dealer’s who was going to repair the A/C unit on the motor home. He was not busy and he looked at the unit immediately. Of course, a part had to be ordered which would not be in until Monday. We found a nice campground that had a pool and a shade tree. The Peters, Bob’s cousins, live in Hoover, AL which is a suburb of Birmingham. They invited us to dinner and it was great time visiting with Scott, Carrie and their 3 children, Jack, Stephanie and Michael.
Scott is in banking and Bob was able to catch up on all of the new laws concerning banking.
While in Birmingham, we took in the Civil Rights Museum, which is if we all remember our history, fought integration to the bitter end. The museum laid out the Civil Rights Movement both on a national and a local level. The museum itself is new so it brought the movement up into the present time which is the lst Civil Rights Museum that has taken it this far that we have seen.
Birmingham has a large, free of charge, art museum. The collections that they have on display are outstanding. We spent most of the day on Sunday and still had not seen all that the museum had to offer. It surprised us that a no charge museum would have such a variety of collections.
It was over 100 degrees so we also went to the movies one afternoon in order to stay cool.
The part for the A/C arrived on Monday which took about 10 minutes to put and then a half hour to check the A/C unit out and then we continued to make our way east.

Little Rock, AR

Traveling from San Francisco we just stopped for a few overnights until we got to the Little Rock area. North Little Rock has a city campground right on the AK River. Our site was right on the river overlooking downtown Little Rock. They have a trolley that runs from North Little Rock to downtown Little Rock and the Clinton Library. It was a great way to get around. Downtown Little Rock is a great little area with many shops and restaurants. The main reason for stopping here was to visit Clinton’s Library. The architect was hired to make the library look like a bridge The bridge was to represent bridging over into the 21st Century. I’m not certain that we would have gotten this concept by just looking at the building itself. The library was well done and since we were well aware of his 8 years as our President, it did remind us of all the changes that occurred in that 8 year span.
The Heifer Organization has its headquarters in Little Rock adjacent to the Library. This is a non-profit organization that takes farm animals to underdeveloped areas in the world, along with farming practices, to help these people raise food and livestock and to help provide them with a better way of life. Heifer works with many non-profit organizations as well in order to assist these underdeveloped countries.
The A/C unit on the front of the motor home still needed to be repaired. This unit was replaced in San Francisco. Trying to get a service call in SC was difficult and we made arrangements to have it serviced in Birmingham, AL. So off we went to Birmingham

Spiral Stairs

Spiral Stairs

Heading East

Projects completed in CA and now heading East
Over the last 10 weeks we have definitely been able to bond with Lucy, especially Memere. Sue has had the time to spend hours reading and playing with her. Lucy is a delightful little girl, very smart and has a sweet personality.
Since Chuck was out of school for the summer, he kept Lucy out of daycare on Wednesdays and he, Lucy and Memere were able to spend the day with her.
Bob got to spend sometime with her when he finished working on the house for the day. Lucy has brought much to joy to us and we will definitely miss her as we travel East.
Installing the spiral staircase was just part of the home improvement project. Bob ended up reshaping 2 rooms, adding a closet and then building out a 3rd room in the basement which will be an office/study. This has increased the useable square footage in this small house. Since the area of the office was used for storage Bob built over 150 sq.ft. of storage racks in the garage area. Chuck and Becky are very pleased and this definitely will make their home more livable as they plan to stay in this neighborhood in San Francisco for many years to come. This was quite a project and, thankfully, Chuck was out of school and was able to lend a hand and do most of the necessary painting.
We will be heading back to Mt. Pleasant, SC to be with Amy, Noah and Sarah soon. Our plans are to establish ourselves with a site at the KOA and keep the site even when we travel so that we have a home base near Amy.

Hello from San Francisco

Hello from San Francisco
It has been a real treat getting to know Lucy. She has really taken to Sue and has the word, Memere, down pat. She enjoys the special time with Sue reading stories and playing, and, of course, Sue could not be more thrilled.
Bob is coming along with the home improvement projects and the spiral stairs should be delivered on Thursday, June 17. Now that Chuck is out of school, he is helping with the projects doing some of the painting.
We had the opportunity to baby-sit for Lucy when Chuck and Becky attended a wedding. As she had never gone to bed for anyone else except her parents, we had no problems whatsoever with putting her down. The picture of her wrapped in a blanket is after her bath.
Bob still says that he is going to have her and Sarah as his “sumo wrestlers”. Lucy already has her sumo shirt which you can see in the photo. Becky and Chuck are well and they look great.

San Francisco

San Francisco

We arrived in Pacifica at the campground on April 29. Dorothy, the Manager, picked a lovely spot for us as the view right out our front window is that of the Pacific Ocean. We are able to see the hand gliders who take off from the beach from our campsite. They’re fun to watch. We settled in and washed both the RV and the car as the desert dust was everywhere.
Lucy, Becky and Chuck are good and we were able to bond with Lucy almost immediately. She loves singing songs with Memere especially the “Hokey, Pokey.” Bob sat down with Becky and Chuck and went over what they wanted or thought they wanted accomplished on their home while we are here.
Besides the spiral stairwell, Bob will make an office in the basement for Becky, a closet to replace the one being taken out for the stairs and adding a number of walls to partition the stairs and the bedroom for Lucy which is now Chuck and Becky’s bedroom.
As typical with Bob, he started in right away and hopes to have everything done in a couple of months.
Lucy attends day care and her care takers speak Spanish. When she wants a drink she’ll ask you for “agua” and always says “masa’ when she wants more of something. She is quite a delight to watch and is fun to be with. She is a very good eater and serious about her food. One of her favorites is miso soup with tofu and I’ve yet to see her eat any candy or drink any fruit juices. Berries are one of her favorite desserts as is yogurt

Old Mission San Juan Bautista

04/28/10 Today we visited the Old Mission San Juan Bautista not too far a distance from Gilroy in San Juan Bautista, CA. It was June 24, 1797 when this Mission was founded by Fr. Fermin de Lasuen, Presidente of the California Missions, successor of the Blessed Juniper Serra. This mission was one of the 4 established by Fr. Lasuen that summer of 1797 and the 15th of the 21 missions in Alta, CA. Largest of all the mission churches, and is still an active parish today, faces the only ORIGINAL Spanish plaza in CA. There is a museum here as well as a gift shop and chapel. The garden area here adjacent to the veranda is just lovely with many rose bushes in bloom similar to the other mission we just visited in Soledad.
In 1817 the interior of the church continued through 1817 when the floor was tiled and the main altar and reredos (which holds 6 statues were completed by a Thomas Doak, an American sailor who jumped ship in Monterey and who painted them in exchange for room and board.
There are rooms off of the “convento” where the museum is where one can see old artifacts from the church, old vestments and even a living room which is displayed that may have looked a lot like that of the Breen family who occupied the mission back in 1847 and called this place home. This family actually survived the Donner Party tragedy.
The Our Lady of Guadalupe chapel is just lovely too. Mass is offered here at noon daily but for some reason the priest didn’t show up for mass today on time and we decided to leave.
We took a walk into town after and had lunch at a local Mexican restaurant, called Casa Esther. It was very good and the servings were generous.

Mission Nuestra Senora de la Soledad, CA

Mission Nuestra Senora de la Soledad, CA
We decided to take a ride through the hills and valleys to visit this Mission. This took us through an area which is used for grazing cattle. There were large herds of cattle which makes you realize that, where we are in CA, is a large producer of beef. When you were in the flat land, the farming was obvious. There were miles and miles of fields planted and others being prepared to be planted. The harvesting of ice berg lettuce and romaine were being done and we were familiar with looking at this as we had seen the same thing being done in Yuma, AZ. The wildflowers were in bloom for us all along the way. Sue is keeping track of the many Catholic Missions that we have visited in CA and this one is being added to her list.
This Mission was a small Mission, considered to be in a rural area, when it was established in 1791, even though there were over 2,000 baptisms and 736 marriages performed here.
As with many of the Missions, it fell into ruins during the secular period. In 1954 the Native Daughters of the Golden West and a local group began rebuilding the Mission. This Mission does not have an active parish and Mass is only celebrated once a month at this Mission. The rose bushes around the Mission were beautiful and are cared for by a lady in her 90’s.

Pinnacles National Monument, CA

Pinnacles National Monument, CA
Rock spires, ramparts and crags that bear no resemblance to the nearby foothills dominate the landscape. Massive monoliths, shear walled canyons and boulder covered caves define millions of years of erosion, faulting and tectonic plate movement.
This area was formed when the plates that fit together like pieces of puzzles moved, shifted along fault zones. The San Andreas Fault Zone slices through 600 miles of CA.
Along it, the Pacific and North American plates crush pass each other, one headed north and the other west. The off shore Mendocino fracture zone is the northern most extent of the San Andreas Fault System. The San Andreas Fault is part of the ring of fire, a zone of earthquake and volcanic activity, partly in circling the Pacific Ocean. The activity has formed the Pinnacles.
Someday when we are passing through the area we will camp at the National Monument and Bob will do some hiking. For this trip we just took in the beautiful views, especially the wild flowers.

Daggett, CA

Daggett, CA
We took the opportunity to stop and visit our friend, Ruth, and her son Jack. Ruth managed the KOA Campground in Mount Pleasant, SC up until September of 2009. She became a good friend and was especially good to the grandchildren.
Ruth is an excellent cook and when Sue had her back surgery she supplied us with many of her delicious meals. Bob rebuilt an A- frame pop up trailer for her. It was nice seeing them and her reason for moving back to Daggett was that she grew up there and has now come home. Sue likes diner food and there is a famous diner there in Daggett called Peggy Sue’s. We took Ruth for breakfast there and it was outstanding. Ruth actually worked there as a teenager and it certainly has become a famous landmark to stop at while in Daggett.

Deserts

Deserts
We have now had the opportunity to visit the 4 great deserts in the U.S. being: the Chihuahuan, Sonoran, Mojave and the Great Basin. The native Americans, who survived in these areas, were all able to do so with their hunting skills and eventually farming.
The thing that impressed us the most is that no matter where we visited the interpreters all indicated that these native Americans lived in peace. There were some communities where there were upward to 50,000 people inhabiting them. An archeologist found no evidence of any weapons. Until the Europeans introduced weapons, much later, no-one is certain where the original inhabitants eventually went to.

Casa Grande National Monument, AZ

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, Arizona
The monument preserves the remains of an ancient Hohokam farming village as well as the enigmatic “Great House.” The natives in this area, as well as in the Four Corners, were to be called, “The First Masters of the American Desert.” They were the first to be believed to be hunter gatherers who traveled as their food source traveled. As we have learned there are many edible food sources in the desert and these people took advantage of what was at their disposal. It is believed that as their population grew, they needed constant food sources that were more reliable than what they could just gather. Their farming skills developed. They developed a technique to harness the Gila River through a series of clay dams and canals. They were able to irrigate a large area in which to farm. They dug, by hand, miles of canals. It was an elaborate canal and water field which stood for many years. They developed trade since the village stood in the natural routes between present day CA, the Great Plains, the Colorado Plateau and Northern Mexico.
As with many natives, in this area and the Four Corners, no one is quite certain why they actually moved on. Their existence and their movement from hunter gatherers to farmers has been well established by archeologists but no one has pin pointed the reason or reasons why they moved or where exactly they moved to. We have seen this at a number of sites throughout the Southwest. The “Great House” was a 4 story structure made out of clay.
Its walls faced the 4 cardinal points of the compass. A center hole in the upper west wall aligned with the setting sun during the summer solstice. Other openings also aligned with the sun and moon at specific times. Apparently, the builders of the Great House, people who knew very well the ways of the land, gathered inside to ponder the heavens, knowing the changing positions of celestial objects meant knowing times for planting, harvesting and celebration. These people had to know how to live off of the land or would not have survived living so well until they left.

Mission San Xavier del Bac, Tucson, AZ

Mission San Xavier del Bac, Tucson AZ

Mission San Xavier del Bac, Tucson, AZ
A National Historical Landmark, San Xavier Mission, was founded as a Catholic Mission by Father Kino, a Jesuit priest in 1692. Construction of the current church began in 1783. The oldest, in tact European structure in AZ, the church’s interior is filled with marvelous original statuary and mural paintings. This has been an active Catholic church since the beginning. Someone had the foresight in 1978 to promote the conservation of the Mission Church. Through great efforts, conservators began a five year rescue effort of the interior in 1992. An international team of conservators cleaned, removed over painting, and repaired the interior painted and sculptural art of the Mission.
It is a sight to be seen. The job that was done here shows that with the right experts and enough capital you can restore to the beauty of the original structure. They now have undertaken the restoration of the exterior and are more than half done. Visiting this was a unique experience and we must thank our good friend, Jim Nickoloff, for making us aware of this treasure. The Mission is located on an Indian reservation. On Sundays, the Indians set up grills, which are 50 gallon drums, cut in half and start their wood fires to heat their pots of all types of goodies which they serve on Indian Frybread. This was a real treat. If you are ever in the Tucson area, you must make it a point to visit this Mission Church.
　

Saguaro National Park, Arizona

Saguaro National Park, Arizona
We have arrived in the desert at a great time of the year. Since there was enough rain this winter the desert plants are in full bloom now and are beautiful. There are 2 sections of this National Park, one on the west side and the other on the east side of Tucson. The saguaro has been called monarch of the Sonoran, supreme symbol of the American Southwest and a plant with personality. This is one of Sue’s favorites and they do grow to great size and in some surprising shapes. They may soak up as much as 200 gallons of water from a single rainfall which can last them up to a year. They can swell in size, with added water, so that they can survive up to 2 years without rain. There are over 25 species of cacti in the Sonoran Desert. We did lean a new fact about the jackrabbit, in and that it does not burrow to keep cool in the desert heat, but lays flat under a shade bush.
Saguaros grow very slowly, by year’s end a seedling may measure only l/4 inch. After 15 years it may be nearly 12 inches tall, at about 30 years they begin to flower and produce fruit. After 75 years it may sprout its first branch or arms. Saguaros that live 150 years or more attain the grandest size towering 50 feet and weighing 16,000 pounds or more dwarfing every other thing in the desert.