A trip to San Francisco

We have driven through San Francisco a couple times and stopped to grab a quick sour dough bread bowl of clam chowder and continue down the road. This time, we drove there to see San Francisco and a couple we were with in China two years ago. It was a great trip. Jason and Joline showed us the docks, a chocolate factory, Muir Woods (Redwood forest), beautiful views of downtown SF and the Golden Gate bridge and treated us to good restaurants and great company. I especially thank Jason for driving us around in the traffic. I honestly don't know how people can drive in that everyday. When they had to go back to work, Nancy and I took the public transit system (BART) into SF to Chinatown and walked around. It was cold, like it usually is, so we stopped in a TEA ROOM. A lady insisted we have a Ginseng tea for me and Ginger tea for Nancy. When we got warm we walked up to the Cable Car Museum and continued exploring on foot. So many restaurants, so when our bellies growled, we just ducked into a small place for some awesome food. We still had a two day drive back to Phoenix but we had fond memories of a wonderful visit with friends and a great city by the bay. Oh yeah, I DID get a bread bowl of some awesome clam chowder too. Thank you again Jason and Joline!

10 year old trip

Nancy told the grandkids, "When you are 10 years old, you can go on a vacation/trip with us." So, our oldest (Nicole) turned 10 in April. Since she loves horses, Nancy arranged and 5 day stay at the end of June at a Dude Ranch in southern Utah. This was mostly a girl's trip, which was fine with me. Nancy and Nicole cleaned the stalls, fed the horses, rode the horses, raced the horses in the arena, herded cattle and horses, went on remote horse rides, had an entire dinner cooked on a campfire in Dutch Ovens, sat around campfires and sang, sang in a pond, did some line-dancing to country western music and so much more. There were people from Holland, Germany and all over the US, including another Grandmother granddaughter, which Nancy and Nicole were drawn to. Nicole and Taylor became good friends and hung-out everyday. My favorite story was when Nicole taught the couples from Holland and Germany how to make S'mores...and they LOVED them. After the 5 days of Cowgirl-ing, they drove south to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon where I was waiting with our RV. We camped for 3 nights and, of course, visited the Canyon. I truly hope and know this trip with be remembered by Nicole, and us, forever fondly. The stories are still drawing laughs and smiles.

Something I admired

At the end of May, Nancy and I drove (trailering my 51 Chevy Street Rod) to Springfield Missouri for the National Street Rod show. We stayed with Odell and Juanita Shell, my first cousins. The hospitality was overflowing. Of course the rest of the family in Springfield came over a couple times to visit. Always love visiting them all. We all went to the car show and saw a ton of great cars, and then cruised down the main drag in town like the old days. What a kick. One evening as we all sat around and talked about our younger days, Odell had something he wanted to show me. When he came out of a back room, he unwrapped something I had not seen since 1974, my Grandfather's pocket watch. My Uncle Fred had it setting on the console TV suspended inside a glass dome display case for many years. I always wanted to have the watch as a bit of my history. When Uncle Fred passed, it was given to Uncle James. When Uncle James passed, I assumed it went to his son Ray, and I would never see it again since I moved away from Cincinnati to Arizona. When Odell revealed the watch, I was touched that he was honored to be the keeper, and happy for him. The watch was bought in 1920 and originally sold for $55. It could be bought for $2 down and $4.22 a month. Today they sell for nearly $900 on eBay. It was a very quality watch with 21 jewels and a double roller (whatever that means). These watch (Model 992) were used heavily by the train industry for keeping the trains on schedule and sold over 1 million. But the true joy was to see this watch again, and to know it was being kept by a family member who would take very good care of it. And when the time comes, it would go to another caring family member.