Back home from Pennsylvania

Got in last night (Monday) about 9:30.
Total trip was 2595 miles.
Going over Appalachia Mountains got caught in snow squall.
Barely made it up a hill, spent the night in school parking lot atop Mount Storm.
Cold!
then a big truck wrecked going down the hill, killed the driver, so we sat on top of the hill until it got cleaned up and road cleared.
Stopped at flea markets and antique malls and goodwill stores on the way home.
Spent the night in motel in Cincinnatti, Ohio.
Spent the night in Walmart parking lot in Tell City, Indiana.
Man cheating on his wife or wife cheating on her husband, big fight in the parking lot at 11:00, two cars and yelling and screaming.
Huge parking lot and they fight right outside our trailer.
3 cop cars came and hauled them off to jail.
Spent the night in East St. Louis motel.
wonderful trip.
We like the trailer, tows like a dream.

Yeahup, gonna git me a laptop and wifi and blog on the road.
Some photos for your viewing pleasure!
Jim

We came across highway 50, stopped for breakfast in Gormania, WV, ate at a little cafe, the locals all said, "Why highway 50?" I said, "Cuz it's not the interstate."
Jim

Off to Pennsylvania

My wife and I bought an old Airstream trailer last month.
1978 Airstream Sovereign, 31 foot, rear bath.
It is in Conestoga, Pennsylvania.

The ice storm is over, My Mother has her electricity back on after staying with us for the duration of the outage.

Our kids are all in warm houses with electricity.

So, we are off to Pennsylvania on Tuesday morning after my wife gets off of work.

It will be a 2,000 mile trip.

I took a test trip to St. Louis Friday night to feel out the truck.

We have a 24 foot pontoon boat that had been pulling from the cabin to the lake with my son's jeep cherokee, then I tried to pull it with my S-10.

Ended up buying a 1985 Chevrolet 3/4 ton pickup for $1400.00,,a buy!
Until I replaced the windshield wiper motor to get it inspected, replaced the heatercore so the heater would work, patched a hole in the secondary gas tank, replaced all the light bulbs, including the headlights, replaced the transmission, put four new tires on it, put a trailer hitch on it so our daughter could go to northern Missouri to pickup a horse, replaced the loud mufflers with quiet mufflers and tailpipes, and on the way back from St. Louis, on the side of the road by Waynesville, I replaced the thermostat.

Tonight, I re-patched a hole in the gas tank, checked all the fluids, put some belt dressing on the fan belts and vacuumed out the interior. Now I got $2400 in the truck. I hadn't planned on doing all that work, all summer long the truck made the journey from the cabin driveway to the boat launch ramp, about 1/4 mile round trip.

We have never been east so this should be quite the adventure.

We hope to antique shop on the way up there and camp in the trailer on the way back.

A couple of years ago I bought a big combination bus/truck to turn into a motorhome. It didn't work out because the motor was under the truck, not enough room for possum bellies.

I looked at a couple of greyhound conversions, bid on a 28' foot trailer off of ebay that was in Bolivar, bid on a 22 foot airstream in Sarcoxie, lost both those bids at the last minute.

When we found this airstream, I called the people up, got lot's of pictures, and made the deal.

So, we are all set to go! We got eight days to get up there and back. Reminds me of our travelling days when we were first married, we lived in a travel trailer and travelled a midwest circuit, from Louisianna to Canada and back.

I got a tool kit, a pocket knife, a ring of red and a loaf of bread! Yahoo Mountain Dew.

My wife told me last night that when I pass over, my daughter wanted to know if she could have my collection of Ozark memobilia. Certainly I said, the son gets all the trucks.

My fleet: 2001 S-10, 1998 Honda Accord, 1985 Chevrolet Scottsdale 3/4 ton pickup, 1960 Crown, 1954 Chevrolet 3800 grain truck, 1954 Chevrolet 3800 dump truck, 1954 Chevrolet 3800 Wayne bodied short bus, 1953 3600 Chevrolet 3/4 pickup and a 1991 Ford Escort that our daughter drives. All of them are licensed and insured and road worthy except for the dump truck.

We don't have rights, the government can't pass laws to take away rights.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/011807.html

Chilling reading.

ice storm

Unless you don't have any power, like my 79 year old mother, it doesn't make any difference.

The CU guys and tree trimmers came down my street at 2AM on Saturday, using battery operated chainsaws so they wouldn't wake people up.

They were courteous, polite and friendly. And they gave me very good advice on repairing mast head at my son's house. (I got a licensed electrician to do it).

We have a gas cook stove and gas logs in the fire place. And a gas hot water heater. So, son, his wife, two grandkids, daughter, her husband, and my wife and mother made it through the storm.

I put the coleman lantern on a ladder outside the front picture window and we played board games all evening long. It was fun. Well, we had a lot of food and beer too.

It is almost over, my Mom is still without power, she is still with us. I took out to all the thrift stores today, goodwill, DAV, salvation army, we ran her regular route. And I got to park in the handicapped spaces! (she has a blue windshield placard).

Maybe her lights will be on tomorrow.

The Hanging of Suddam

a friend writes:

But speaking of spectacles, wasn't the hanging of Saddam Hussein a doozy? As video of his march to the gallows appeared on the Internet, and then stopped abruptly after he was noosed, I mentioned to a friend that somebody, somehow would capture the rest of the story in moving pictures, if the price was right. And sure enough

As a news consumer and student of capital punishment, I was quite curious to see what it looked like to see a man literally come to the end of his rope. The outlaw few minutes that appeared on the Internet, although a muddled and incomplete piece of videography purported to be the rest of the story of Saddam's journey to the end, was nonetheless a grusesome tableau.

But that aside, there are other important questions from inquiring and skeptical minds that beg for answers. Was the purported cell phone video an actual account? Did someone get paid for it? By whom and how much? Was the gallows housed on property in the hands of the United States government or not? Who built the gallows, and how much did it cost?

A friend and I discussed these things at length last night in the context of gallows humor, and decided that the hanging apparatus was probably built by Haliburton or a subsidiary under a no-bid contract for an exorbitant cost to the American taxpayers.

And, in the end, the whole ordeal was a metaphor for the madness and botchery of the Iraq war. As the president of the United States himself said about Saddam's hanging, apparently with a straight face, it was not dignified.

Gangs No Longer Problem in the Ozarks

Grand jury dissolved.
end of discussion until tax increase appears on ballot.

Springfield First Night/Cruising the Square

Last year, on New Year's Eve, we took a bus load of people downtown to watch the fireworks. We parked in a lot below the baseball stadium, I think it was Harry Cooper's parking lot.

Afterwards, cruising the square, One particularily inebriated woman got on the bus and requested a ride home. We took her home.

By doing so, we broke rule #1: Never open the door of the bus.

Halloween night we took a bus load downtown and I openned the door of the bus on South Street because a uniformed police woman was knocking on the door wanting to check id's for alcohol possession. My view of her was blocked by the door, but I did see the Sam Brown belt and attachments.

I openned the door, she entered the bus. As soon as I saw the cleavage, I knew she costumed as a cop, and a very good costume too. It took forever to get her off the bus.

Remembering rule #1, a bunch of us went downtown Sunday night to view the fireworks. The parking lot we parked in last years was blockaded by security car. We ended up parking on Trafficway by the ice rink.

This was the first time I had been to Jordan Valley Park. It's ok, grass and concrete and some big blocks of stone we stood on to watch the fireworks.

I left the bus running to keep the heaters going to keep the bus warm.

It was nice to quickly get into a warm space when the fireworks ended.

People like the bus, lot's of cell phone camera pictures of it and horn honking.
Maybe the horn honking was because I was half a lane of traffic?

Our daughter had this theory that if people didn't respond to her happy new year's greetings to those outside the bus, they would have a horrible hangover in the morning.

Cruising the square, South Street was blocked from Walnut to McDaniel. Also, in front of the old bicycle shop was a big fire truck and several ambulances and police cars with lights flashing.

At Walnut and South, one reveller in a party hat came up to the bus and wanted to know if we could take him to Battlefield, he needed to get there in a hurry. Private Coach was our reply.

Lots of girls in miniskirts walking around downtown. One forloan looking young lady was walking down McDaniel, almost to Jefferson (by the Bell building) holding her shoes in her hand. She raised her hand halfheartedly to hail us, sorry not this year.

Rainbow sherbert, pink and blush champagne make a tasting punch.

There didn't appear to be as many people downtown this year as last year, but the weather was a lot colder.

A couple of highlights of the Xmas season, taking a high school friend and his Cobra Chorus carolling. We themed the bus out as "Special Bus for Special Singers" and cruised the neighborhood.

Xmas eve, after dinner, all the grandkids, nieces and nephews get in the bus and ride through the Elfindale light show, singing Christmas carols. My 78 year old mother rode with us this year.

Next planned outing for the bus, other than picking the grandsons up from school on Thursdays and Fridays....if the district won't provide bus transportation, I will....is St. Patrick's Day parade!