Road News from Penny and Karen

May 10, 2010 Ashville, North Carolina

Leaving the prairies of eastern Colorado and Kansas, Karen and I arrived in the Ozarks of Arkansas. What a different world! We stopped at a roadside flea market, inspected armadillo roadkill at close range,and laughed at the way the roadsigns simply didn't match the map (once we were going south and all the roadsigns labeled the highway as "56 North!)"

The scenery in the Ozarks is spectacular with lots of water, hills (mountains?), and lush greenery. This view, from the deck of a great antique shop, was especially lovely.

We found this lovely little house in Eureka Springs---only $240,000! We thought perhaps we should buy it! It is utterly charming---part of it is on stilts because most of Eureka Springs
is built on mountain-sides. It comes completely furnished...

Next we enjoyed a walk-through of a huge, old, Victorian hotel called the Crescent, on the cliff above the town. What a gorgeous place! We couldn't stay there because there was some sort of national dog show in town as well as an evening event at the hotel. :^( View of the Crescent Hotel from the parking lot....
View of the Crescent Hotel from across the valley--thanks zoom lense!

Then, on across the rest of Arkansas and northern Tennessee toward the Great Smokey Mountains. We carefully circum-navigated Nashville to avoid the flooding. As we crossed the mighty Mississippi we noted that the floodplains on either side were full of water. Then it was on to the Tennessee River valley which was also flooded, with water right up to the shoulder of the road. What a massive amount of water we saw!

We arrived in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park on a perfectly clear day so we could really see the mountains. We drove around part of the edge of the park and then completely through, whichy was utterly beautiful. This is a view from the high point of the highway:

Next was a lovely winding river valley with waterfalls...
Crossing over the Tennessee line into North Carolina made us feel FAR from home!
Then came the downhill drive to Ashville, NC, complete with wildlife.
The big thrill in Ashville, NC is the Biltmore Estate, built by the Vanderbilts. We spent today touring the house and gardens. The house has 250 rooms and the estate is 8000 acres. What a cozy little home in the hills!!

Karen in front of the house and front "lawn." I would recommend this tour to you. The gardens were spectacular, the house interesting and astonishing for something that was built as a private residence, and the staff of 1800 charming and helpful.
We had lunch in the former stables---here we are sitting in one of the original stalls. Note the hay manger in the back (bars) and the flower pots were in the grain bin. Great place.

Last of all, lovely orchids in the gardens. (The ones we saw were standing upright, not recumbent like these...)

We can also recommend travel with not much of a plan or schedule! Tune in again soon. Tomorrow we head north along the Blue Ridge Parkway toward Suzie's in Pennsylvania---later!

Leaving Colorado---Why Are We?

My friend, Karen Timbrell, and I were planning a road-trip to Pennsylvania to visit her mother and Suzie's family. "Why?", a friend asked. "You live in one of the most beautiful places in the country."

As I drove to Poncha Springs, Colorado, to pick up Karen I pondered the question. As I looked at the scenery on the beautiful May morning, I thought perhaps the friend had a point!

First, there was the view of the San Juan Mountains from the north....

The there was the view of new calves, green grass, and Mt. Sneffels in the background...
Next came the Blue Mesa Lake near the Black Canyon of the Gunnison....
Followed by the view of the mountains going up Monarch Pass...

And, finally, the view from the top of Monarch Pass.
My red car, Scarlet, and I drove merrily down the pass, having decided a long road trip
would be good for both of us. Colorado is gorgeous, and I am ever-so-glad to live in the western part of the state, but I have long wanted to drive across the USA, just to "have a look" as my friend Marie says.

So---off to PA, via Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia. Tune in now and then---see you on the road!

Seaplane to the San Juan Islands, Washington

Last week I enjoyed a jaunt to the San Juan Islands, northwest of Seattle, to visit my sister-in-law, Corinne Davis. This was the first time I have flown all the way to the islands, having previously always taken a ferry the last leg of the journey. This time I took a seaplane from Seattle, having always wanted to experience landing in the ocean on pontoons. Corinne captured this picture of me at West Sound on Orcas Island, waiting for the plane. The water in the sound was smooth as glass, making our take-off feel like sliding on wet glass!

Now, to explain how it all worked. Below you see the plane docked on Lake Union, right in the heart of Seattle (about a block from the Space Needle). It was time to load and lucky me! I was assigned the co-pilot's seat! Taking off, right over the Space Needle and out into Puget Sound---what a trip!

Here is Smith Island, which is all by itself in the Sound. It looks deserted...old buildings indicate someone used to live there. It has some radio towers on it...

Now a view of one of the islands from a ferry---so very beautiful.

The seagulls and ferry windows will always remind me of going to this wonderful part of the world..

A view of a Washington State ferry as we were approaching Friday Harbor one day.

Approaching the Friday Harbor dock. Travis and Suzie: note the "rubber buggy baby bumpers" are gone. They have been replaced with flat mats of rubber bolted to the docks to absorb the shock of the ferries hitting them...they are noticeable in the next picture.

Corinne and Penny posed just before getting off the ferry---the rubber mats are just

behind us.

Later in the week we went off-island (to the mainland) for a little fling with some of Corinne's island friends. We had a fine time shopping...

and eating sumptuous food. Washington has great food...and wine...
We stayed with another of Corinne's friends, Rosie, on the mainland, who has a lovely house right on the water. Among the amenities of Rosie's house are toilets with a built-in bidet feature. They wash and dry and have warm seats---I'm thinking they'd be perfect for winters in Silverton! Here is the armrest control panel...one could love a toilet like this!
Outside my bedroom was a deck with this lovely view of the water!
Time to leave, regretfully. Here is the seaplane dropping by to pick me up...
Thanks, Corinne, for a wonderful visit! I shall come again!!!

Sorting Out in Silverton

Travis has stored a lifetime of accumulated treasures at our family home in Silverton while he has moved about the planet (college-Texas for an internship-time while he was a regional director for his fraternity-Ireland-Australia) but now that he and Maggie are settled in their lovely Denver home, he is gathering everything under one roof. It would probably be fair to say that this is partly due to his mother's urging! At any rate, Maggie, Finn, and Travis came for the weekend so that Travis could labor away, sorting and purging.

In the meantime, the rest of us had a lovely, relaxing weekend. Finn and I enjoyed time in the sun (it is finally shining here now and starting to melt all our snow!) in my backyard where he relished the activity of shoveling the snow from the snowbanks onto the grass, to "give the grass a drink, Grammie!"
Next came Travis' endeavor to get into the woodshed where he wished to locate some tools needed in Denver. The snowbank in front of the door was about four feet high so he and Finn shoveled and pried and finally were able to squeeze into the shed. Finn loved going into the dark and damp shed---actually sort of a creepy place.

Things were fun for a nearly-three-year-old indoors as well. Wearing a set of his dad's knee pads (for in-line skating, maybe?) was great fun. It made Finn look like a miniature motocross

biker! Tonka would have proud of him, too, for he enjoyed the fleet of Trav's old trucks to the max. The yellow dump truck is missing paint here and there and shows lots of wear and tear and Finn said, "Daddy, this truck is messy!" However, it still can haul fleets of little cars and trucks all over the house as well as several timing chains and gears that have now found their way into the toy box!

Sitting with Travis to "help him sort stuff" was popular, too---so the weekend went well. Maggie does not appear in the pictures as she had a lovely time reading a good book while Finn, Travis, and I kept each other entertained.

I may regret urging Travis to remove his things---what will we all do next time they come? Finn is hoping we're going fishing--------------me, too! Talk to you later, right here.....PDM

Eternal Egypt and the Nile

Welcome to a short tour of Egypt! Please consider clicking on pictures to enlarge; then simply
click the back arrow or button on your browser to continue with the blog. Enjoy!
*******
My friend, Ruth Ann, with whom I've done such things as spend 39 days on an Italian freighter and I spent three weeks in February in Egypt and Jordan. Hope you'll enjoy this account!

One of the most popular things for tourists to do in Egypt is to ride on a felucca (boat) on the Nile. These delightful craft have not changed in thousands of years. They have one sail and travel by tacking back and forth on the river. It looks like so many lovely white gulls floating across the water. Here is Penny, Queen of the Nile for a day, enjoying a trip to the
First Cataract! This is a felucca, sailing near the hillside which has many tombs of ancient nobles. Note how absolutely barren the desert hillside appears---there is NOTHING growing on the desert.

One highlight for me was a hot air balloon trip, at dawn, over the Valley of the Kings. Here you see the mountains that hold the valley, where the ancient tombs were constructed, including that of King Tut and Ramses II. It was a spectacular trip---we went up to 25oo feet! (Please click to enlarge this photo---it is one of my favorites! Thanks!)

Riding camels turned out to be a great way to cross the desert from one ancient temple to another. The great lurching effort the poor beast has to exert in order to stand up nearly unseated us, but then I was able to wrap my leg around the horn and rock along over the sand in true Lawrence of Arabia style. I'm thinking a camel expedition might be fun!

This was one of the temples built by Ramses II to honor himself. It was truly out in the middle of nowhere. This was the reason for the camel ride---over the 100+ degree desert from one

ancient temple to another! Best $5 I ever spent! (Note all the resting camels in a row.)

Welcome to the Giza Plateau, where the Great Pyramid and the mysterious Sphinx have drawn visitors since they were built---four thousand years ago! It was very hot and windy on the plateau, somewhere close to 100 degrees, which was unusual for February.
You can tell the real estate was rapidly changing hands on the desert around the pyramids.

I am still pondering our visit to the area and my reaction to size of the pyramids and Sphinx. At first they didn't seem as large as I had anticipated---but when I walked along their sides and

climbed up some of the blocks of the Great Pyramid I changed my mind---Khufu's pyramid (the largest) covers 13 acres of ground and utilized six million tons of stone in its construction

Traveling through the Nile Valley was a feast for the eyes, as there were farming efforts everywhere. Egypt has 80 million people, most of whom live in the Nile Valley. Can you imagine the amount of food it takes for that many people? In this picture the water buffalo were going home from the fields at the end of the day and the poor little donkey was carrying fresh-cut alfalfa to feed the buffalo overnight.
Cairo is proud of the Mosque of Mohammed Ali---a copy of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. The number of mosques and minarets in Cairo was astonishing. There was a minaret just outside our hotel window so we could easily hear the call to prayer five times a day!!
Cairo insists it doesn't have pollution but has moisture vapor mingled with desert dust. I'd vote for pollution myself as the number of vehicles to transport 20 million people is significant! Here Ruth Ann and I are, above the city where the air was a bit better.

You must come to visit me to see other pictures. We traveled to Alexandria where we relished the magnificent new library which has reading space for 2000 people, we spent a week on old-fashined river boats on Lake Nassar and the Nile seeing temples galore, we went to Jordan to see the ancient Rose Red City of Petra (shades of Indiana Jones!), we toured old Luxor by horse and carriage and saw city streets that haven't changed in hundreds of years, we climbed up Mt. Nebo in Jordan where it is believed Moses stood to look into the Promised Land (the Dead Sea and the River Jordan were just below us), we shopped in the suqs with their narrow streets and agressive merchants (when one bargains in Egypt you start at 10% of the asking price so it takes a long time to buy anything!), we always had a plain-clothes armed guard with us and often a police escort with lights and sirens going---nothing like announcing one's presence,right?

It was a priviledge to be able to go to Egypt and Jordan. We learned a great deal about the cultural differences between their countries and ours. We learned why Egypt has such a concern about how to slow their growing population---they simply will not be able to feed their people.

Learning---learning---learning. That is what travel is about; this trip had almost too much

to absorb but it was a marvelous experience. PS--Ruth Ann is great as a travel-mate!!!

What Do You Do in Silverton in the Winter?

This is the question that has been asked of me over and over for the forty years I have lived here. The answer is: There are many interesting people in Silverton who do surprising and amazing things with their time. One of them is my friend, George Chapman, the former editor of the local newspaper. He is retired so has time to enjoy the print shop in his garage, where he prints a variety of types of documents. Today I had the pleasure of spending part of the afternoon with him, watching him print a page for an annual publication created by a printing association to which he belongs.

The press he used today is a Chandler & Price, an 8 X 12 platen press (sometimes known as a clamshell press) which was manufactured in 1911. George has electrified it with a small motor. Along with this press (and a number of others) his print shop is crowded with all manner of drawers of type and other printing gizmos and tools---most surfaces are covered with little bits of metal that are mirror images of some word or logo---it is the kind of place where you realize you'd best not move even one thing or the next time the printer started a job, he wouldn't be able to proceed because of the missing object!
This is George, in his printing uniform. Note all the nifty posters on the walls and part of the press on the left.

Here he is actually printing, hand-placing each small piece of paper with precision just before the flywheel of the press brings the type to the paper.

This is the flywheel and above George's hand you can also see the ink rollers which place the ink on the type. The round, flat metal piece in the background is the ink plate (George---I hope that's right!) where the rollers get a fresh supply for each page.

This is the counter (about 4" X 3" high) which has a nifty little spring mechanism on it, which is tripped each time the frame of type prints a new page. You can see the counter on the previous

picture. It is to the left of the ink rollers and above the flywheel.

This is the leather belt which wraps around the flywheel and runs the press. George recently had to replace the stitching that splices it together---it is a healthy inch wide and will soon need more repair. The current system of having the belt run the flywheel is a modern innovation done by George. The belt originally ran a drive wheel on the opposite side of the press.

Here is the final product---the page for the Amalgamated Printer's Association! (Hobo is actually a type style.) It was a fascinating afternoon. If George and Karen weren't about to move to Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, I would be tempted to see if George would let me learn to set type! Thanks, George!

(Now, faithful readers, you know what kinds of things people in Silverton do in the winter!)