Curbside Appeal

The title of this blog is Webfoot Wanderings, but it seems like I haven't been wandering very much outside of my own town. So, I guess I'll take what I can get. 

On my Instagram account (@webfoot55), I posted a photo of an imprint that I used to see all the time growing up in Santa Ana, CA. This photo was actually taken in Claremont, CA, but it reminded me of the neighborhood where I grew up, so I took a photo of it. I also liked the fact that this particular imprint, designating when the cement for the sidewalk or curb in this case, was poured. Contractors would get some free advertising and the city would get some nice curbs and sidewalks, plus an additional bonus of some historical perspective. Kind of nice to realize this particular curb has been around since before my parents were born.

Most of these imprints seem to come in two different varieties, either stamped into the face of the curb, or stamped at the junction between two pieces of the sidewalk. I seem to remember that most of these in Santa Ana tended to be in the sidewalks as opposed to the curbs. Claremont seems to have both. It's probably more of the contractor's preference more than anything else. The one posted above is the oldest I've seen, but there's one on a sidewalk north of my house that is dated 2002, so they've been used at least in the last two decades.

As I wandered around town today, I did notice that the sidewalk version of these imprints tended to be more worn than the curbside imprints. That's pretty obvious since there's a lot more foot traffic and so erosion is going to take its toll over the course of the years. I found one in a sidewalk today dated 1947 that was very difficult to read, almost looking like 1997. That was highly improbable however, due to the age of the houses and the look of the rest of the sidewalk on either side of that particular imprint. But hopefully you can see the difference between the first two images, the first being on the side of the curb, while the second is in the sidewalk. The curb imprint appears to be in much better shape than the sidewalk imprint, which is 27 years younger. Between these two imprints were other imprints dated 1943, 1946, and 1947, showing the progress of the streets, curbs and sidewalks northward leading to Route 66 which is Foothill Blvd., in Claremont. That's a nice historical record there.

However, the historical record is slowly being wiped away by progress and government laws. Not that this is a bad thing, it's just happening. Tree roots uplift the sidewalk and sidewalks need to be replaced, or shave down. If the tree happens to uplift a section of sidewalk that the imprint is on, the imprint will either be shaved away as the city attempts to even out the pavement, or be replaced entirely by another section of pavement.

The American with Disabilities Act (ADA) has also taken a toll on these historical artifacts. This law, passed in 1990, is a civil rights law which prevents discrimination against individuals with disabilities. It's the reason we have ramps now at street corners so people in wheel chairs can traverse throughout the city in which they live without having to bump off a curb, or go down the street to the nearest driveway so they can cross the street. As you can see in the third shot, what is likely a 1926 vintage imprint was wiped out because the curbing at this point had to be lowered to accommodate wheelchair access. 

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining about the ADA, I'm just noting that the law has some unintended consequences. Stuff happens. Some of these will hang around for a longer time frame, while others will disappear due to where they were placed.

Which brings me to my final thought. I seem to remember that most of the imprints in my Santa Ana neighborhood tended to be in sidewalks, but I also seem to remember them being on corners. I wonder if most of them have been wiped out because newer wheelchair accessible sidewalks have had to be built? I guess I need to head back to the old neighborhood sometime to see if those are still there.

The Great Outdoors

For those of you who follow me on Facebook, you've already seen this, but I thought this was rather apropos for P.J.'s photo blogging challenge for this week, The Great Outdoors. So yeah, I'm cheating a little bit since this is actually a collection of 10 photos that I took on a hike this past week, but they work for the theme. 

The hike is an extended hike in a park up in the foothills above my house called the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park. It has a nice 5 mile loop that I extended to make it almost 7 miles. The trails up in the foothills intersect at various locations and the first photo is the sign where the parking lot for the park is located. From there, the trail then splits into either Burbank or Cobol Canyon and those two trails meet on the back side up in the hills. I went up the Cobol Canyon side and then extended it into Johnson's Pasture, which is a large portion not really part of the loop, but has several trails that run through. The hike then continues through Johnson's Pasture and back into the neighborhood where I parked my Jeep.

In June of 2019, I wrote for another photo challenge about encountering a bear on this trail near the back side up at a higher elevation. I've encountered a variety of wildlife on this trail, but it was relatively quiet on this hike.

I found a new app called Relive, which takes your data as you walk and then puts into satellite images to give you a 3D video of your hike. This video is the second video I've created. Neither one is perfect. The first one, I forgot about the aspect ratio and so the edges were cut off so you couldn't see the data. This one has all of the photos interspersed on the hike, but I think it breaks up the hike aspect of it too much. I'll be working with this app in the future as I go on more and more hikes now that the weather has finally started to cool down again.

So here's my interpretation of The Great Outdoors. Please stop by the link at the top of the page to see how others interpreted this them for this month.

It's that time of year

For those of you who don't live in Southern California, this is wildfire season, because this is the time our Santa Ana winds kick into high gear. A massive high pressure system is sitting over the desert and the mountain passes are acting like huge funnels sending high winds (70 mph or higher is some cases) through the passes and into the coastal areas. Everything is tinder dry and there are already reports of brush fires in Orange County south of us.

We moved into our current house in 2003 in June and in October of that year the Grand Prix fire swept across the foothills just north of our house. The fire was 15 miles to the east of us when we went to bed that night and the next morning it was probably 5 miles beyond us to the west. Almost 70,000 acres were consumed and 194 house destroyed. Fortunately, no loss of life happened, but many people's lives were permanently disrupted.

I took this photo this afternoon of my front parkway. This would have been a major nuisance in my mind in my younger days. However, these lost limbs are a minor inconvenience compared to some people who are at this very moment preparing to evacuate on a moment's notice. I need to remember that.

Snap Away!

I haven't participated in P.J.'s photo blogging challenge in a couple of months, mainly because I don't like to force my photography, rather I like to let my photography happen and see if anything might fit the theme for that particular month. Needless to say, nothing in my photography in the last couple of months has really fit recent themes, but this month's theme was Snap Away! and I figured anything I took this month would probably work and I've got a few nice shots that I can write about. 

Hopefully, this will get me blogging again as it's been almost two months since I've written anything here too. Got into the doldrums with not being able to do much of anything and just didn't really feel like writing anything. I have a variety of subjects I still have in the back of my mind that I want to write about, most notably I'd like to finish up my 2017 road trip. When last we left our intrepid explorers, they were in Abilene, Kansas. But that's for another entry. This is for the photo blogging challenge.

So here we go.

Bobcat Fire

As anyone knows who follow the news at all, the west coast of the United States has pretty much been burning out of control. This shot, which was taken on September 9th, is looking over my garage. The Bobcat fire started on September 6th, so it was relatively new at the time I took that shot, but it just exploded over the past three weeks. As of this writing, it has burned 114,000+ acres and is now only 63% contained. And this is just one such fire in California, let alone the rest of the western states. If you click on the link and back out of the map a little bit, you can get an idea of what the fire situation is like in the western United States. It's brutal and we really have just started fire season now!

Mushrooms

Mushrooms don't seem to last very long in an urban area. People like to kick them over as soon as they come up. These particular mushrooms are actually creating a lopsided fairy ring. Unfortunately, the groundskeepers at our local park mow the grass on a regular basis, so the mushrooms don't last very long. The day after I took this shot, most had been kicked over, probably by kids, but they wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway because the grass was mown about two days later. Still it's interesting to see how the grass to the right, and inside the fairy ring, is slightly greener and always taller than the grass on the outside. I'm not sure if this is a product of the mushrooms providing extra nutrients to the soil or not, but I enjoy watching them pop up.

Watch where you walk

Last week, I went on an extended hike for the first time in awhile, due to the excessive heat we've been having here in California. We're having more right now, but this is sort of a "last gasp" of summer before it really gets cooler. Earlier, it was just damn hot, triple digit type of heat.

The reason for this shot, is more of a public service announcement more than anything. I've already posted this shot on Facebook for my friends and hiking buddies, but everyone should consider this shot. First, if you look closely, you will see that this is a baby rattler. How can you tell? First, there is little to no rattle, but it has a nice triangular shaped head, so I knew is was a rattler right away. Second, if you look at the footprints, you can see the snake is very small, compared to the footprints. Adults will get several feet in length. This one was no more than a foot long, just sunning itself in the middle of the trail.

When I hike, I usually scan several paces ahead of me, just in case I encounter something like this, so I was aware of it and stopped short. People not paying attention might have stepped right on this one. Once I got my shot, it decided that I was bigger than it was and it turned tail and headed back into the bushes and I made a wide berth around it on the other side of the trail. Thing to note is, not more than 100 yards (meters) to the right of this shot are residential houses. We live in their homes, so we should not be surprised if they show up in our back yards.

Embrace the shaggy

My last haircut was on February 12th. For those of you keeping track at home, that's 7 and a half months, for a guy who usually keeps his hair closely cropped, it's pretty much out of control at this point. I haven't felt comfortable going back to my barber to get it cut and so it continues to grow. This shot was taken on September 1st, so it's had another month to grow since then and it's almost as long as it was when I was in college, when it was "fashionable" to have long hair. I've been told to embrace the shaggy and I have done that, but my wife still likes a clean shave as opposed to a "Grizzly Adams" type of look, and so I still keep my face shaved for her sake.

I have had a beard from time to time, but the last time was the year before I retired. I shaved it off on the last day of school 2018 and haven't had one since. A co-worker said I reminded her of the movie character Benjamin Button, because it appeared that I was aging in reverse as I approached my retirement. Whatever works I guess. I wonder if it still looks like that however?

My better half

I took this photo when we were celebrating my youngest's birthday. My daughter ordered Ding Ding Dongs from a local bakery. We used to live right next door to the owners, so we're trying to support our friends and some local businesses at the came time. Cucamonga Cakery has a Facebook order form where you can order and then pick up on Saturdays, so if you live in our local area consider supporting a local business. Now after my shameless promotion, back to my better half.

She has become harder and harder to photograph over the years. I'm not sure what it is, but I used to be able to get, what I considered really good photos of her, but recently, I haven't, which is why I'm very pleased with this shot as it's one of the best photos I've taken of her in probably five years or so.

And there you have it. This is my five shots for P.J.'s photo blogging challenge for the month of September. Please stop by his site and check out how others interpreted the same theme. I hope you enjoyed my shots and I have to admit, I really enjoyed going through the shots I took this month to come up with five that I could really write stories about. Here's looking forward to writing more about more of my wanderings.

Abilene

This entry is another trip back in time to the 2017 road trip my youngest and I took that summer. After touring Harry Truman's library in Independence, MO, we crossed over into Kansa for a short trip to Abilene. Why Abilene? Well, we had some geocaching to do, plus some more history, since Abilene is where Dwight D. Eisenhower's Presidential Library is located. It's also the northern terminus for the Texas Cattle Trail. We learned that while finding a virtual geocache at the boulder that marked the terminus of the trail in the middle of town. After checking in to our motel, we just sat around as we were going to visit the library the next day. My youngest hung out in the room and I found some nearby geocaches and then we called it a night.

The next morning we drove south a couple of miles to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Museum and toured both his boyhood home and then later in the morning the library and museum dedicated to his presidency. Eisenhower's house was enjoyable, but unfortunately, due to safety standards we weren't able to go upstairs to visit the upper rooms as the foundation established originally didn't want to have to alter the house in any way. Fire codes would have necessitated adding an outside fire escape on the upper floor and that was out of the question, so no one was allowed upstairs. It was still interesting as to what we saw. The family bible was on display and it had the birth record of Eisenhower displayed.

Following our tour, we headed over to the museum to learn about the life of our 34th president. It should be noted that this museum was originally operated by the Friends of Eisenhower and so did not have any Government influence at first. Eventually, the National Archives and Records Administration took over the library. Because of its origins, the library had a certain slant and there didn't seem to be a balance approach to the coverage of Eisenhower. Everything we saw was hued in a way to put Eisenhower in a positive light, contrary to what we had seen the day before at the Truman museum. Truman's was operated by the National Archives from the get go and presented, in my opinion, a much more balanced approach to Truman.

I was very pleased with the amount of artifacts from Eisenhower's life, including the Emmy he won for his extensive use of television during his presidency (thus far, he's the only president to win an Emmy). We were able to see his cars, his military uniforms, his cadet hat from West Point, plus a golf card for a round of golf with Ben Hogan, Paul Helms and George Allen. Hogan won the round straight up, but when you calculate the handicaps in, the president actually won the round.

The only thing I found curious about the library in general was the almost total lack of any mention of his wife Mamie at the library. One room had some artifacts, but for the most part, it was almost as if she was just a footnote on his historical journey through life. Maybe that's the way it was, but the other presidential libraries I've toured, the First Ladies were definitely a part of the history. Mamie didn't seem to be much of an influence in his life at all.

Once we'd toured the museum proper, we then walked across the ground and paid our respects at the graves of the President and First Lady. From there, it was time to drive the length of Kansas, heading to the Mecca of all geocachers, the oldest active geocache in the world.

Letters

I seriously thought about not writing a blog for P.J.'s photo blogging challenge for this month. Those of you who follow this blog know that I enjoy photography and I didn't really want to post five photos of exactly the same thing (you'll understand when you get to my last photo here). So then I thought of a different way I could present the theme of Letters, without having to show a letter in each photo, and so you're getting an entry similar in style to how Sesame Street does it's letters, or how kindergarteners learn what kind of things begin with what kinds of letters. So here's my interpretation of the theme Letters for the month of July.

G is for Geocoins and Geocaching

Most of you know I like to geocache, but I haven't been getting out a lot during this pandemic. I like to geocache with others and that isn't really feasible at the moment, so I get out when I can, but I don't like caching nearly as much when I'm caching alone, and so I'm not caching as much.

I do, however, still enjoy talking about geocaching and participating in groups, such as the Facebook group, Worldwide Geocaching. That group  has weekly giveaways and these geocoins were offered as a giveaway about a month ago. I entered and my name was essentially pulled out of a hat and I ended up winning them. Since they have letters on them as well, I decided to use this as my initial photo for this essay.

C is for Comet

This past month, Comet Neowise (C/2020 F3) has been all the rage and I've been seeing some pretty spectacular photos of the comet on the internet. Sadly, because I live in an area (Southern California) that is heavily light polluted, I wasn't able to get really spectacular shots, but we did go out several times while the comet was closest to the Earth and I was able to get a couple of shots that I felt showed it and the tail. 

I'm usually not much in for filters on Instagram, but I decided to see if any of the filters there would enhance the shot enough that you could see the tail a little bit better. As it turned out, a couple of the filters did, so when I posted this shot to my Instagram account, the tail was much more visible than had I just posted the standard image I'd take that night.

Locating the comet was the toughest part of the shot. We used an app entitled Sky Guide, which allows you to search for particular things in the night sky and once we figured out approximately where the comet would be, I aimed the camera on a tripod up and took an initial shot. The comet was difficult to see with the naked eye, but the prolonged exposure of the camera allowed us to see the tail, even if we couldn't see it just standing there. From there on, it was taking different 30 second exposures until I felt I'd gotten a good enough image that I could post somewhere.

W is for Wall

A couple of weeks ago, at 4 o'clock in the morning, our wall separating our yard from our neighbor's yard fell over. Now we're in the process of getting a contractor to fix the wall. The wall was 60 years old, built to 1959 building codes and wouldn't have passed code today. Our contractor is going to repair the wall, including upgrading it so that it will meet builder's code for today. Once repaired, we won't have this nice hole between our two properties. At the least the part that was the retaining wall of the wall did was it was supposed to do. Only the part above the retaining wall fell, so that's a good thing.

H is for humor

I started to put this down as S is for Squirrel, but when I posted this on Instagram and Facebook, everyone said it looked exactly like the squirrel was fishing. Believe it or not, I hadn't really seen that aspect of the shot. I was more thrilled that I'd seen a native Gray Squirrel as opposed to the invasive Eastern Fox Squirrel that seems so prevalent in this area right now. Now that I look at the shot, it does look like this little guy is fishing. The only thing that would make this even better would have been if there had been a cobweb on the end of the little branch.

R is for Rocks

Since the pandemic started and we've been on shelter in place, I haven't taken many hikes, but I have done a lot of walking around the neighborhood. There have been several things that I've noticed that are not wildlife related and one of them have been these painted rocks.

Most of the rocks that I've noticed have a certain style to them indicating there's one particular local artist who is enjoying creating them and distributing them around throughout the neighborhood. Some of the rocks have disappeared, but many of them have stayed providing a bit of whimsy to people who walk by or encouragement in these trying times. I felt this one was rather appropriate in which to end this particular essay. Please stay safe dear readers.

And that does it for this month's photo blog. As stated above, I didn't want to post only rocks, so I chose to interpret it a different kind of way. I hope you enjoyed my interpretation of Letters. As always, please feel free to comment. I usually respond within a day and I promise I won't bite.

This is why we can't have nice things

Dear Whoever,

Thank you for wearing a mask at sometime during your trip to the park. But seriously? 

This mask has been lying in the grass for the better part of the last 24 hours. I know, because I walk in this park every single day since I can't go many other places. The photo also shows where it was in relationship to where the trash can is located. You couldn't walk the extra 40 feet or so to deposit your mask there? Apparently not.

OK, so let's now assume that it's one of your children's masks. You didn't notice that your child was missing a mask and go back and try to find it? 

Either way, it's just litter now, well not anymore since I was able to find a small stick, and pick up the mask through the loops with the stick. That added some extra steps to my walk today.

I will give you credit though. At least you were wearing a mask at some time during your visit to the park. It's amazing how many people haven't gotten that simple idea through their thick skulls yet. But, please pay more attention to your mask and your children's masks in the future. This is why we can't have nice things.

Sigh.

And to all of my other friends out there on social media platforms, please wear a mask when you're out in public. I'm getting really tired of this shit.

Happy Anniversary

5 years ago today, my oldest and only daughter tied the knot. I can't believe that five years have gone by already, because it just seems like yesterday, and yet here I am five years later reminiscing about the best party I hosted that year. And I can honestly say, that I didn't lose a daughter, but gained a son in the process.  He takes good care of her and we love him, just like we love her.

Happy Anniversary.  Looking forward to when we can celebrate in person again.

Paths

A very dear friend of mine gave me a tee-shirt when I retired last year. On it was the imprint of a boot print, but the print was actually words, which said, "Of all the paths in life you take, make sure some of them are dirt."

I've been trying to do that on a daily basis, not always successfully, but the park just north of my house has a nice walking path of dirt, so I count that, but I think I want to amend that phrase to include something about paths covered in flowers. The photo doesn't convey how orange this really is, but it literally is covered with orange petals from the tree at the right of the shot. 

If you can, walk on a flowered covered path sometime soon. It will make all the difference in the world.

Independence

This post title could mean a variety of things, but it is actually the name of the town we spent the night in on July 4th, 2017 on our 16 day road trip to Wisconsin and back. The timing couldn't have worked out more perfectly than it did. As noted in my last entry, we got into town late in the afternoon after driving across the state of Missouri. We had time to check into the motel, grab a bite to eat and then wander around a little bit watching different fireworks displays that were set up in different parts of town. It was a nice way to spend our 4th of July. 

We spent the better part of the next day touring the Harry S. Truman National Historic Site, which includes the home he and his wife spent most of their married life in when he wasn't in Washington D.C. We also toured the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library. We knew time wasn't going to be a problem today since our next stop was not a very long drive into Kansas.

Our first stop was the visitors center of the Harry S. Truman NHS for information and tickets to tour his home. We walked through the small museum and then wandered over to the historic courthouse. On the back side of the courthouse, we spotted a marker indicating the beginning of the Oregon Trail. By the time we'd gathered in some of the history of the area, it was time for our tour of Truman's house, so we walked the four or five blocks over to the house and took the tour.

Truman's house was built by his wife's grandfather and he and Bess Truman lived there for their entire married life from 1919 until his death in 1972. This was the "summer White House" during the time he was President of the United States from 1945 until 1953 and where he retired to after serving as our commander in chief. Touring the home, you get a real feeling as to how much of a down to earth kind of guy Truman was, not a whole lot of presidential trappings, just an average guy living out the best way he could.

Following our tour of the house, we then walked back over to the visitors center. That's when I saw some fake news, but this was really fake news. The visitors center had an actual print of the famous Chicago Tribune newspaper headline from November 1948, when they famously predicted that Thomas Dewey would defeat Truman based upon phone samplings they'd taken over the past several days. I inquired as to whether this was genuine, or a printed up copy of the paper and was assured that it was genuine. I also learned that the newspaper will not print any copies of that particular newspaper, because it is wrong and they will not be a part of printing things that aren't truthful. The interesting thing about this is, that it literally is fake news, because it has been proven incorrect, unlike a lot of other news stories that are just called fake news because someone doesn't like the coverage. Faulty polling by the Tribune caused the error, they owned up to the error, didn't double down on their error and admitted they were wrong and later printed a retraction.

Following our visit to the visitors center, we then hopped back into the Jeep and drove over to the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum. The museum and library I found very refreshing and much different than the Lincoln Library that we'd visited a couple of days earlier. While Lincoln's Library was very high tech, I felt that it lacked a lot of memorabilia that one would expect from a presidential library.

The presidential library I've visited the most, mainly because it's the closest to where I live is Richard Nixon's library. Because Nixon's library was created through private funds and through organizations like "Friends of Nixon" I felt that there were many aspects of Nixon's life that got whitewashed in the telling, most notably, Watergate. You don't get that at the Truman library.

On the side of Truman's library is a quote by Harry Truman which reads, "The Truth is all I want for History." Truman felt that a presidential library should reflect the history of the time, the truth of the time, be it good or bad. There was an interactive exhibit regarding the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Visitors could weigh in with their opinion on whether it was right or wrong. Just wandering through the museum, I felt that the exhibits overall, gave a very balanced detail of his time as President and as a human being, complete with all the frailties that come with being human. It wasn't whitewashed at all.

The last place we visited after walking through the entire museum was the garden and then over to President Truman's gravesite which is on the grounds of the library. We paid our respects to a great man, then got back in the Jeep and headed west into Kansas.

Gateway to the West

After spending the night in Springfield, IL, we headed southwest and once we got to St. Louis, MO, we looked for parking so we could explore the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, or at least, that's what it used to be called as it's been since upgraded to National Park status and is now called Gateway Arch National Park. Obviously, the arch is the main attraction, but there's enough here for several hours of discovery, as we soon found out. One of the things we decided to do was the St. Louis Arch virtual cache, which proved to be a small distraction as we actually had to leave the grounds and find something nearby to prove that we were there. I guess posting a photo of us at the arch wasn't good enough. 

That particular year, some of the grounds were under reconstruction, so they had limited service for the elevator that took you to the top of the arch and getting there when we did, plus it was the 4th of July and very crowded, meant that the tours were already sold out for that day, so we toured the museum at the base of the arch, plus the museums across the way over at the old St. Louis courthouse.

The museum at the base of the arch gave us good information about the construction of the arch, including a 15 to 20 minute movie that showed how it was constructed. The arch is an impressive architectural feat, standing 63 stories tall. It was completed in 1965 along the banks of the Mississippi River overlooking St. Louis and the neighboring state of Illinois. After touring there for awhile, we then walked the several blocks over to the old St. Louis courthouse where Dred Scott sued for his freedom. There were exhibits here dealing with westward expansion, including areas that were dedicated to the Santa Fe Trail and the Oregon Trail.

For those of you following along on this journey, we also contemplated taking in a baseball game or two as we worked our way across the area. Passing by the Milwaukee Brewers, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals' baseball stadiums, we had quite a choice. However, it didn't work out on this trip as there's only so many things you can do when you're on a road trip like this. In actuality, the only time a team was home as we were driving by was when we were in Wisconsin, but that was the one day when I didn't have to drive anywhere and I really didn't want to drive several hours to Milwaukee in order to take in a game. I think if I'm going to do something like that, it's going to take a lot more planning and logistics to pull that off.

But back to the road trip at hand. Once we were done touring the two museums, the base of the arch and the courthouse, it was time to hit the road, as we wanted to be in Independence where we were going to spend the night. Driving across Missouri, we stopped here and there to find a couple of geocaches, nothing that really stand out, with the exception of the virtual cache we did at the arch itself.

Pulling into Independence, we felt like we'd had a good day. We got to our motel, then found a nearby place to eat and then watched the fireworks play out in several different directions from our room's window. Not a bad 4th of July for my youngest's first out of state 4th, and the first I'd experienced since I was 3 years old. The next day, we would be touring Harry Truman's house and the Harry Truman Presidential Library.

Homeward Bound

The purpose of our 2017 road trip was to bring back family heirlooms from my father-in-law's house to his daughter who lives in Wisconsin. We spent a couple of days with my sister-in-law, then headed for home, taking a more southerly route on the way back to see other things, with our first stop being Springfield, Illinois. The trip out had mostly been scenic, with stops in several national parks, but the trip back would be more historical, with us visiting three different presidential libraries, so the focus of three of the next four posts will be a different presidential library. 

Obviously, we were in Springfield to see things related to Abraham Lincoln, our 16th president. Our first part of the day was devoted to the newly developed presidential library and museum. This particular library has been set up well after the death of Lincoln, so many things that are incorporated into other presidential libraries/museums weren't present at this one. One thing I have to say about this particular museum is, it's slick, meaning there's a lot of high tech things to keep everyone interested, but not a lot of artifacts that one would normally associate with a typical museum of someone's life.

We watched a presentation about Lincoln's time in office presented by a docent as he walked us through the Civil War, only to find out at the end that the docent was a hologram. Like I said, very slick and high tech. Now I have to assume his papers  and writings were probably over in the library part of these two buildings for scholars, but as a history buff, I would have liked to have seen actual artifacts that Lincoln used, etc. The lack of actual artifacts probably stems because of the amount of time between his death and the actual creation of the museum. Things like that tend to vanish into other private collections or, as in this case the National Park Service owns many actual artifacts at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site. 

I'd been to Lincoln's home when I was around 10 years old, but wanted to see it again as did my youngest. So after walking through the museum, we drove over to the Historic district and bought tickets for Lincoln's home tour. While we waited, we toured the grounds and the museum learning more about our 16th president. For those of you who don't know, Abraham Lincoln moved from Indiana to Illinois as a young man and settled in Springfield where he made his living as a lawyer and later as a politician. This house is the only house that he ever owned and many of the furnishings are original. You get a tour of both upstairs and down, seeing all of the rooms in the house. I asked about the tree out in front as there's a photo of the front of the house and the tree appears to be about the same height now as it was back in 1861 right before Lincoln was to head to Washington D.C. to become president. For historical accuracy, the National Park Service wanted to keep the tree the same height as it was in the photo, so the tree is literally dug up and a new tree is planted every so often, so the tree is not the original.

At the home, we were able to see a top hat that had been worn by Lincoln, furniture that was actually in the house when he moved to Washington, plus the bed that he slept in while living there for 16 years. The photo doesn't do the bed justice, but that bed is no longer than about 5 and a half feet in length and it could possibly be shorter. Knowing that he was our tallest president at 6 feet 4 inches, he had to have slept diagonally across the bed as there's no way he would have fit lengthwise. And yes, that's a chamber pot under the bed that would have had to have been used, at least in the winter months, due to the cold weather. I'm not sure if that was actually used by Lincoln or not and I didn't ask.

The house and grounds surrounding the house (they extend for several blocks in all directions from the house) are extensive and have many historical plaques to read as you wander around the grounds. Overall, this led to a much more pleasant experience for a couple of reasons. The museum was loud, there weren't as many actual historical artifacts that could be traced directly to Lincoln, while the Lincoln Home NHS had many artifacts and buildings that were standing during the time that he actually walked the streets of Springfield. Couple that with it being outdoors and the atmosphere was just more pleasant. I'm not saying to not go to the library. I thought it was a neat experience, but I thought his home was a better place representation of his life there in Springfield.

The next day was the 4th of July, the first that I would spend outside of California since I was 3 years old. 

Keeping busy

It's the end of the month (wow, it almost felt like a normal month) and it's time, once again for P.J.'s monthly photo blogging challenge. This month's theme was keeping busy and the tough part of this month was to narrow down my selections to just five photos and I actually cheated a little bit on one of them since it's a collage, but you'll see why I did it in the story. This is also the 1 year anniversary of my retirement of teaching. May 31st last year was my last day on the job and ironically, I was much busier in the early part of this first year than I am now, but then again, you could say it's a different kind of busy. Here's my five photos interpreting the theme of Keeping Busy.

1. Environmental art

I viewed part of this theme as not necessarily all me keeping busy, but seeing how others are also coping with this. I go on photo walks on a daily basis around my neighborhood and one of the neighbors just up the street from us has been creating some environmental art as a way to keep busy during this strange time we're having. She walks around the neighborhood looking for stones that she can use in her art projects. She told me she has a mental image of what she wants to create and then goes out looking for stones to help her create her image. She glues the stones to a tile and inlays the tile along the sidewalk in front of her house. This is the third of about 7 or 8 she has created over the course of the last month or so. There is a piece depicting a couple canoeing, a child holding a bunch of helium balloons and a couple backpacking. The backpacking piece just showed up this morning and she has room for about 3 or 4 more pieces along this part of her front yard. Since they live on a corner, I'm hoping she continues with this around the other side of their house.

2. Cairns

Another house near us has created cairns using their existing rocks, at least I'm assuming they're only using their existing rocks. But as you can see, they have a lot of rocks in their front yard in which to choose, so I think I'm safe in assuming this. The cairns actually have changed a number of times over the course of the month. I suspect that others in the neighborhood either are attempting to add to the cairns, or are just deliberately toppling them over. Either way, I've noticed that they take different heights and positions, so the owners don't seem to be deterred by their cairns changing shapes. They also have a rather large collection of gnomes and buddhas in the front yard, many of which are also balanced on some of these stones. You can see examples of both of these in the background of my second shot.

3. Angry Bird©

About three weeks ago, I noticed this Angry Bird© plush toy appear in our local park. I figured it would last a day or two before someone would pick it up and take off with it, but it kept showing up every single day in a different part of the park. Eventually, it made its way out to the front of the community center, where I figured, for sure, it will disappear as soon as a worker sees it just lying amongst the shrubbery. Nope, it continued to be busy and move around and I started documenting its movements as it spent each day in a different part of the park. Several times, I thought it was gone, but it showed up again, or I'd just missed it the last time I was out walking in the park. The park is a fairly large park and there's lots of nooks and crannies in which to hide something like this, but someone or several someones are having fun kicking it around. I guess that's why it's probably an Angry Bird©.

I thought about taking it myself and making a photo journey of it as I wandered about the park, but my wife convinced me that the spirit of the Angry Bird© was that it needed to just move naturally, by others, not manipulated by me, so I left it for others to move around. The only manipulation I did with the bird was to place it upright before taking its photo.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to spot it for the last four days and I'm worried that it might have flown the coop. It's gone MIA previously since I first noticed it in the park, but this has been the longest period of time that I haven't been able to see it somewhere in the park. Ironically, the last time I did see it was back in the far reaches of the park, that very few people go to, so I don't think it was regular foot traffic doing it in. There is a day care on the other side of the fence from where I last saw it so perhaps someone thought it was from there and tossed it over the fence. I went and looked over the fence this morning to see if I see it, but it didn't appear to be there. Hopefully, it'll show up shortly in another part of the park, but if it doesn't, I hope whoever took it will give it a good home.

4. Birds

In this post, I talked about the different kinds of birds I've been noticing in the neighborhood. I've been keeping myself busy rediscovering my DSLR and the main subject over the past couple of months have been birds. The same park where the plush toy had been found is also a great area to go bird watching. I discovered why one day while I wasn't in the park, but the day that I took this shot of a western bluebird. This shot was taken in the front yard of a house that abuts to the rear end of the park. On the park side is a nice fifth of a mile trail that winds in and out of some citrus and juniper trees. Five times around and you've walked a mile and probably seen a lot of nature.

Still, I kept thinking there seemed to be an inordinate amount of birds back in this area. Then I started noticing a peacock call. Hmmmm. So as I was out walking, I spotted the bluebird and got several good shots of it and the owner of the house came out and we had a nice conversation about birds in general. And yeah, he has a peacock in his back yard and so spreads seed around quite generously, which attracts other birds including the western bluebird pair.

So because of the neighbor keeping busy taking care of his own flock, I've been kept busy taking wildlife photos. We sort of have a symbiotic relationship, although he's not really getting much from me, but I seem to benefitting greatly. As noted in my other post, my overall knowledge of birds has increased in the last couple of months and I've been able to up my photography game as well. It's keeping me busy and I'll take that. Walking around outside is much better that sitting home inside on your butt all day long.

5. Speaking of butts

This particular nesting site is in the opposite direction of the park where I take most of my bird shots, but the acorn woodpeckers holing up here some to like this particular tree. There are a couple of different nests inside this tree, not all of which are acorn woodpeckers. 

Over the course of my many daily walks, I'd see the woodpeckers  flying to and fro from other trees back over to this one, but could never spot where their nest was until one day a week ago, when I came upon the tree from a different angle than what I'd normally been approaching the tree. That made all the difference in the world. I watched one of the two parents swoop down from a neighboring palm tree, alight on the trunk of the tree and then quickly disappear inside the hole. I feel fortunate that I was actually able to get this shot, but those two parental birds were busy flying here and there taking care of their young. I guess it's a concentrated burst of parenting as opposed to a longer period that we do over the childhood of our own offspring.

And there you have it, my five photos interpreting the theme Keeping Busy. Please stop by P.J.'s blog and check out some of the other photographer's interpretation of the same theme.

The Day the Music Died

After leaving South Dakota, we continued our travels eastward toward Wisconsin, but as we worked our way across Minnesota, we turned south and headed down into Iowa. We were close to Clear Lake, Iowa and if you at all familiar with the town, you know that's where Buddy Holly, J.P. Richardson, aka the Big Bopper and Richie Valens met their demise on February 3, 1959 - the Day the Music Died.

Tired of riding in cold busses, the three up and coming singers decided to charter a plane after their concert in Clear Lake, Iowa and fly to the next city on their tour. Unfortunately, sometime around 1 in the morning, the plane crashed in a cornfield just out of town and all three singers plus the pilot Roger Peterson perished. Holly was 22, the Big Bopper was 28, Valens was 17 and the pilot Peterson was 21. Adverse weather conditions and the inexperience of the pilot were both contributing factors in the crash.

As we came into town, we had several spots we wanted to visit, all of which were centered around the crash and geocaching. The first spot was a cache that took us to the dirt road that led to the crash site. There's a large monument of Buddy Holly's signature glasses at this spot. The next stop was a virtual cache a short quarter mile walk in between fields to the shrine that has been erected over the years in memory of the singers. 

At the shrine, both my son and I took each other's photos. Usually when crashes like this happen, the big name star or stars are listed, but no one else is reported or very rarely mentioned at spots like this. How many of you can name all of the people who died in the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash? I can probably dredge up a couple of names, but most of them are already lost due to Bryant's fame. At least at this shrine, there is mention of the pilot who also died in the plane crash, which I liked to see.

Following our stop there, we walked back out to the car and then headed into downtown Clear Lake to the Surf Ballroom, where there is another small area dedicated to the last concert the singers gave the previous night of February 2, 1959. After that, we left and headed east to Mason City, Iowa where we would spend the night.

The next morning was the first Saturday of the month and as is my custom, I host a monthly morning coffee event. It's a nice way to meet and greet the local geocachers. Almost exclusively, they are held at local coffee shops near where I live, but I was out of town on this road trip, and so I planned one for that morning in Mason City. It was the first geocaching event ever held in Mason City. I've hosted a couple of other out of state events when I've been out and about, and it's always fun to meet the local cachers in a particular area, this one being no exception to that rule.

We talked geocaching for about an hour or so, then went our separate ways, us heading eastward to Wisconsin. Our timing was impeccable  as we ended up meeting up with another group of geocachers in eastern Iowa for lunch that day as well.

I've always enjoyed attending geocaching events and as soon as this virus pandemic has eased and it's safe to attend or host events like this again, I plan to enjoy them in the future. As of this moment, we've only been able to connect with our geocaching friends on-line via Zoom meetings, but that will change hopefully in the near future.

By mid afternoon, we pulled into my sister-in-law's town of Beloit, Wisconsin where we'd spend a couple of days just relaxing. It felt good to visit with family and not have to drive anywhere for the next two days.

Badlands

Back in the 60s, my dad's best friend took a sabbatical from teaching to pursue an advanced degree. He ended up getting his degree from a university in Wisconsin and they ended up taking the entire family back for the year. When they returned his son, my friend had new decal stickers, one of which was from Badlands National Monument. Being the map nerd that I am, I was intrigued and looked it up and thought at some time in the future, it would be interesting to visit the park. Since that time, Congress has upped the status of the monument and now it's a national park located east of Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota.

As we approached Badlands National Park, we kept seeing advertisements for Wall Drug, which is a major tourist trap just north of the park. Yeah, we stopped there, only to look around, find a tee-shirt of the place, mainly because I like advertising weirdly different stuff I've visited and then headed south out of town into the park. The park is a geologic wonderland of erosion and there were pullouts along the road with many interpretive signs. We ended up stopping at several, including one where there was a herd of young bighorn sheep. The sheep are very hard to see mainly because they blend in so well with the browns of the badlands, which is why there are no photos of them here.

At another turnout, we stopped and took a walking tour of an interpretive loop trail while we gathered answers for an earth cache based upon fossils. The area is rich in fossil life and we weren't disappointed, getting to see several different varieties of fossils in the rock layers. What was also outstanding about the day was the weather. As you can see from the photos, we ended up driving through the beginnings of a large series of thunderstorms as we made our way across southern South Dakota that day. The first storm started while we were on our way out of the visitors center at the east end of the park heading back to the Interstate (third photo). The clouds made for some gorgeous photo opportunities. And, as always, I could have spent more time there, but we had an itinerary to keep to and were actually attending a geocaching event in South Dakota later that evening (who goes to a geocaching event several thousand miles from home?).

I'm sure I'll get back to the area in the future and the plan will be to camp a couple of nights there to fully enjoy the park. We got an appetizer of the park that day, be enough that made us both want to come back.

On our way back out to the Interstate, we got pelted with rain, as we had earlier the day before coming from Wind Cave National Park. This time, the storm got a little bit more severe as we drove across the South Dakota prairie. We had the radio on and we kept getting the weather alerts, those alerts that we rarely get in Southern California because we don't get any kind of severe weather, but scares the bejesus out you when they come on. These were coming every fifteen minutes detailing thunderstorms and worse, hail storms, with hail the size of ping pong balls.  Later, the size of the hail stones were "upgraded" to golfball size hail. Fortunately, they also listed counties where this was likely to happen and my youngest was tracking it using the atlas and checking out where the counties were and all of the major alerts were south of the Interstate, so we missed the hail, but did get an entertaining thunder and lightning storm accompanied by very heavy rain. Fortunately, the geocaching event was under a covered shelter in a park, so we stayed high and dry for the entire event except when we were walking to and from our car. 

I've attended five geocaching events out of state and every one has been very enjoyable. We share a common hobby and it's always fun to swap stories with the local geocachers. We'd had problems with a cache near our motel and I mentioned it to one of the cachers there and he pointed me to another cacher who was the owner. The owner of the cache met up with us back at his cache after the event and we discovered that the cache was indeed missing, so he replaced it with another one he'd had in his car. He had been intending on giving it to us, but instead, gave us a couple others that he had made using his 3D printer. And so I have a cache container that looks like an oak acorn and another one that looks like a pine cone. They are my souvenirs from South Dakota geocaching.

The next day we left South Dakota behind and headed into Minnesota and Iowa, spending the next night in northern Iowa in Mason City.

Wind Cave

Looking back on this blog, I realize that I haven't covered all the spots my youngest and I visited on our cross country road trip to Wisconsin the summer of 2017. With extra time on my hands at this point in time, I might as well get back to that trip and let you know about spots we visited on the way to Wisconsin as well as spots visited on the return trip. When I last wrote about this trip, it was July last year and I wrote about Mt. Rushmore. Right after that I ended up taking an extended camping trip to Utah, Idaho and Nevada, so I got caught up in that trip. Since I've covered that trip pretty extensively on this blog, it's time to revisit the 2017 trip.

Following our quick two hour visit to Mt. Rushmore, we headed south into Custer State Park and then into Wind Cave National Park. The two parks boast broad sweeping vistas, bison herds, but Wind Cave also has an underground cavern that's open for tours. We ended up driving through the state park in order to get to the national park. If you look at the first photo, you'll see there's a fence at the border between the two parks. Most animals can either burrow under the fence or hop over the fence so animal movement is not really impaired with the exception of the bison herds. There's a reason for this fence and that's to keep the two herds in the parks separate.

The bison herd in Wind Cave is a genetically pure strain of bison. Most bison in the United States, are genetically mixed with cattle. The herd in Yellowstone National Park and the one in Wind Cave are genetically pure, so it's advantageous to keep the strain a pure strain for the future of the overall species. This is why there's a fence around the entire Wind Cave park. The bison herds in Custer State Park, are not genetically pure and the National Park Service wants to keep the two herds separate for reasons explained above. The entire herd in Wind Cave are direct descendants from Yellowstone bison that had been captured in 1800s and then bred in the Brooklyn Zoo in New York. The herds in this area had been pretty much wiped out during the late 1800s, and when the park was created, offspring from the Brooklyn Zoo bison were reintroduced into Wind Cave National Park. Every year after calving, the herd is rounded up and culled, with some of the offspring sent to other areas in order to keep a genetically diverse line of bison. The photo of the bison was actually taken in Custer State Park as we didn't see any of the Wind Cave herd while we were there, so I'm actually glad that we ended up taking the scenic route through Custer.

Once inside the national park, we headed to the visitors center and purchased tickets to take one of the tours that were offered that afternoon. The cave is composed of over 100 miles of passageways, 3000 different chambers, the largest of which is larger than the largest room in Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. Cave popcorn, frostwork and box-work are the main types of formations in this cave, giving it a much different feel than many of the more traditional caverns like Mammoth Cave and Carlsbad Caverns. There aren't nearly as many imposing structures like you would see in other caves, but each cave is unique in its own right and it's one of the reasons I enjoy exploring caves - the differences that make each one unique.

I had been here once when I was a teenager and the main thing I remember of this cave was the Post Office, a formation of calcite that created something that looked literally like a set of post office boxes. You can see something similar to that in the last photo.

Following our tour of the cave, we came back out and encountered a gathering thunderstorm, which meant that our planned hike above ground would have to be curtailed and we decided to get back in the Jeep and head back to Rapid City where we would be spending the night. Nothing like driving through a torrential rain storm with thunder and lightning all around and hail falling down. Fortunately, it wasn't a really violent storm, so the hail stones were small and didn't dent the car.

In the coming weeks, I intend to continue with this series, taking you to Badlands National Park, the Gateway arch in St. Louis, the Buddy Holly memorial in Iowa, and three different presidential libraries. Thanks for stopping by.

Bird Watching

As noted in my last post, I don't claim to be a bird expert. I have a book that I rely on for most of my identifications and when I can't figure out what I've seen with my camera, I turn to several people on-line who I know are more well versed than I in identifying birds. What I have noticed during my daily walks is there seems to be a lot more birds out and about. It's either that, or I'm just more aware of them because I'm walking nearly the same route every day now.

Before "shelter in place" I would do more of a hike than a neighborhood walk. I saw things, but because of the areas I would walk I can honestly say I wasn't looking for the subtle beauty of small birds, but more likely the overall beauty of a landscape shot. That's one thing I've been working on since this confinement took hold. I've not been able to hike my normal routes, so I've found other areas that I know have wildlife and go back to those repeatedly in the hopes of getting some good shots, like this shot I took a couple of weeks ago of a lesser goldfinch.

I've actually learned where I can find certain birds. I know where the western bluebirds hang out and can usually get a shot or two every day I go there. A couple of weeks ago, I saw a pair of spotted towhees and a friend of mine told me they are usually heard, not seen, so I guess I was lucky. Except that I now know what their call sounds like and it actually alerted me to their being around. Because I've become more aware of bird calls, I now know what spotted towhees sound like and I've been able to get photos of them more than once.

This morning, I spotted this California scrub jay as it was searching the area for food. I'm not sure if that's a peanut that someone left, or if it's just a large seed from a nearby plant, but I learned today that these kinds of jays can still vocalize quite well, even with food in their bills. It gives an entirely different meaning to "don't talk with your mouth full." 

The jays tend to hangout in a certain spot in the neighborhood. Multiple times I've gone back to a certain spot and found several scrub jays hanging out looking for food. The mockingbirds and sparrows, on the other hand, seem to be just about anywhere and my wanderings have also alerted me to where a nest of acorn woodpeckers are. I have seen the mother and father coming to and fro from the hole in the top of this particular tree and I've heard the babies every time either parent shows up with a mouthful of food, but I have not been able to get a shot of them yet. They are pretty quick and the hole in the top of the tree is difficult to spot. I think I need to bring a ladder out sometime to get me closer to the action, but I think the neighbors might find that a little strange, especially since the tree is a couple of blocks away from where I live.

Suffice to say, you might expect to see more bird photos in the next couple of posts, mainly because I'm getting a lot of birds at the moment.