Well sort’a.

Friday morning we finished stuffing Ruby (the Jeep) with the rest of everything we had taken off the coach last July. She groaned as I put the last load in. We set off for Colton RV to reload and prepare for departure on Saturday/Sunday depending on which of us you asked. The first delay was waiting for one more part, a solenoid for the hydraulic system, don’t ask. It arrived and was installed by noon. The coach was parked in their closed for the season campground (Electric, no water or sewer) so we could begin reconstruction our interior. As I schlepped each bin/carton/package from Jeep to coach we unloaded and stored. It was easier than it sounds as we had memories of where most things went and had endlessly discussed possible new arrangements. We collapsed over a late dinner on board. We continued to store and arrange until we collapsed into bed.

This morning, Saturday, we seemed to be about done. I pulled in the living room driver side slide out so I could crawl under and rearrange the basement storage and put to use the new storage bins we had bought to move stuff off and back on the coach. With that task completed it seemed only natural to make sure we were ready to tow the car, especially since there were Techs around, just in case. Well it was a good thing as the connection between the coach and Jeep was fluky (very technical term, for it wasn’t working). It took a tech 10 minutes to diagnose and fix the problem, a blown tail light bulb – DOH! Now with the car connected and everything working it seemed expedient to drive the entire ensemble 4 miles to Wegman’s and stock up the food stuff. That only took 1 1/2 hours plus fifteen minutes to checkout and another 30 minutes to store it all away and have lunch.

There seemed to be plenty of time to make it to the Cleveland area so off we went. We had put out of our minds the shift to Standard Time. We don’t like driving in the dark, even less (more?) we don’t like driving in the dark and rain. Add 10 miles of very narrow back roads and I am on my second straight Strange Monkey Gin (I may get stranger myself). We are settled into the very spot we camped in in 2002 on our first winter trip in Goliath. Our water pump failed that night, I am not looking forward to a repeat.

Tomorrow, Sunday, we are meeting Carole and Jake for breakfast in the Cleveland area. We have made such stops to see them in the past as we pass by. After breakfast, well you will have to read the next post.

I must offer Kudos to the crew at Colton Auto in N Tonawanda, NY. Especially to Jesse to did most of the work and John, the body shop manager who made it all happen. The coach is beautiful and there is no sign we ever had a problem. We both highly recommend them for caring and concern and good work.

Pictures when we get some sun!

Seems this subject comes around about once a year. We drove from Rochester to Covesville VA in the Jeep, in a day and have been here since Sunday night. Carol and I have had to mesh with the family more than usual since we don’t have the coach to retreat to. It has been working out just fine. As I write it is Friday and we have plans to drive in to the UVA Grounds to see an original copy of the Declaration of Independence and wander on the Grounds. We hope that it is far enough away from the shopping zone to keep us out of trouble.

Given the presence of many chickens on the farm, Thanksgiving was celebrated with an excess of chicken and no turkey. All the fixin’s were wonderful from the cranberry chutney to the mashed potatoes – which made a wonderful pancake for breakfast too. We rolled away from the table by 4 PM and no one had any room for even a snack before bedtime. Alexander, Corey, Carol and I got very involved in batting a balloon around the living room. This simple entertainment continued for more than 45 minutes  until we were exhausted from laughing. Carol claimed her face ached from smiling and laughing. I must admit thta I too was feeling sore about the face from laughing so hard and for so long.

We have been suffering with smoke from two nearby forest fires settling into the Hollow. I can only imagine how much worse it must be for the Israelis being forced from their homes and communities as the Sabbath approaches and knowing that many, if not all, of the fires were intentionally set. Over the years so many of us have bought trees, forests with our contribution. On our trips we have planted trees ourselves to reforest a land that had been stripped of its trees in the decades and centuries before the founding of the State. To see those trees burning from arson is to see attacks on the very heart of Israel. The trees are important to moderate the climate and to preserve the land that Israel has been restoring. These are attacks not only on the State and the people, but on the environment.

Other very upsetting news come from the attacks on the Reform Synagogue in Ra’anana by ultra orthodox, why?

We got to the Small collection on the UVA campus where there is a display of many copies of the
Declaration of Independence including an original print of the broadside printed to distribute the news to the country side. UVA Small Library We were all moved by the installation and being in the presence of this document that is so important to our history.

More anon.

I haven’t talked about movies in some time and even less about politics. We had Trumbo (2015) sitting on our watch list for a while and kept forgetting what it was about. In short Donald Trumbo was one of the Ten, Hollywood screen writers who were blacklisted by the studios, under great pressure from columnists and congressmen. They were indicted for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” There was no “right” answer. “No” would have been met with “proof” of perjury and “yes” was met with a demand for who else was a member. I know this is old news, but the story of how Trumbo survived twelve years of black list and what it cost him is well told. Also it leaves me very worried that we now have an appointed member of the administration, Steve Bannon, who Southern Poverty Law Center says has no business in the White House https://www.splcenter.org/stephen-bannon-has-no-business-white-house and members of Congress who could create a modern day HUAC.

Moving back to the movies. The Black List was broken when Kirk Douglas made Spartacus and announced that Donald Trumbo was writing the script, already an open secret. Hedda Hopper went after everyone in sight to stop it or to prevent people from going to see it. The American Legion ordered its members to boycott and it was a box office smash. It didn’t hurt that John F Kennedy was seen to have sneaked out of the White House to see it. The movie is indeed a blockbuster, the cast includes, Kirk Douglas, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, Jean Simmons and Laurence Olivier. Also 10,000 troups from the Spanish Army and that is just half the battlefield. It is gory for its time and it is a love story and romantic for its time. It runs 3 hours 15 minutes. We got it from the library in an edition called the Criterion Collection. The finest piece in the extra material is a film made by the Hollywood Ten as they were preparing to go to jail for a year for contempt of Congress.The added material in the Criterion Collection made the experience far more than watching a movie, it even includes correspondence from the MPAA with their censorship concerns.

We did not set out to have a political experience, far from it, enough already. As I said Trumbo has been on our watch list for months. I would have preferred to have watched Roman Holiday (written by Donald Trumbo but the Oscar went to Ian McLellan Hunter who was not on the blacklist). Ricki and the Flash, with Meryl Streep is on our watch list, maybe that will be safe to watch.

Coach Update: The date is now December 1. I had a long talk with John, the body shop manager, and they are just getting ready to paint. He figures they need a week. There is no way we would be able to drive it to Virginia leaving next Tuesday. We are going to take the car to Charlottesville and have a great time there and see people in DC. Then back to Rochester for a day before picking up the coach and taking a day to settle back in before heading out on a northerly route dependent on how the weather looks. Wish us luck.

I have given up reading the NYTimes for a bit. I won’t read political rants on FaceBook. I’ve had it. Nothing I do or say is going to change the basic facts. The country will go on about its business, people will be worse off or better off and I want to get out in the desert with a whisper of internet to stay in touch with friends and family and find beauty in the plants and animals that make their own way unconcerned about affairs of people. Yes, I know we are changing the very places they live. So much damage has been done already. . .  argh, there I go off into politics without even meaning to.

I long for the feel of the road beneath our tires, knowing that we will find a place to stay the night, or a week, or a month if it suits us. To connect with people we have met living the same life and share a happy hour and a pot luck meal. To meet new people who will join the ranks of our extended friendship circle, or occasionally people who are interesting for one time only (ref: The Moon is Harsh Mistress, Heinlein).

Hmm, maybe just to sit quietly and reread some Heinlein and Asimov and Niven, not sure I am ready to reread Orson Scott Card again. Michael Connelly has a new Bosch story out, can I wait for the price to come down or will I just buy it and get on with it :)?  Carol says “get it from the library”.

Yes I know I am rambling. It comes from sitting and getting accounts current and hanging more pictures in the apartment so they will be up when we come back in the Spring and reading too many posts on RV forums. I will just let this ramble on for a bit more.

Just read about the 7.1 earthquake in New Zealand. Were we really there, just six months ago, in those very places. Saw Kate on FaceBook proclaiming they are well and unhurt, we first met her at Steven and Daisy’s wedding and then in Wellington for a day as we were passing through. The forces of nature are not to be toyed with. The pictures are horrifying although the death toll so far is low.

Enough words, how about some sunsets?

Itchy tires is a syndrome caused by staying in one place for too long. We have been in our apartment since our return from Africa September 19. That is more than 6 weeks with only two brief trips out of town. We were in Syracuse for a day and a half for my aunt’s memorial service and we had a couple of hours in North Tonawanda (Niagara Falls area) to see what was going on with the coach.

The primary symptom is endless reading of RV blogs by others, reading and responding to forum postings (rv.net/forums, tiffinrvnetwork.com and irv2.com). I am even deeply engrossed in a selection of Facebook groups dedicated to various aspects of the RV Lifestyle. Last night I even watched a video replay of a live presentation about lithium batteries for the house electric supply. No way am I even considering the expense of such a conversion which would take over five years to recoup/justify.

Another symptom is early morning wake ups thinking about the chores needed to get underway again. We took so much off of GeeWhiz that is a chore to keep it separate from the stuff we leave in the apartment. I am even rethinking all those hats I sorted last week which was really part of the process of getting ready to roll. Maybe once we roll I’ll sleep more soundly. After all preparing to move on in the coach does not require any decision making about what to take, everything, and it is all has it place for being underway.

I’m even writing this post, which if I look back over the years seems to be a harbinger of time to move on. But! I talked to John at Colton yesterday and he is slipping our November 15 departure date, he thinks. They have the new front cap installed and they only need one small part before they can put the generator back in and well, there are a world of small parts that still need to arrive. Meanwhile the compartment doors are in the process of being painted and other work is proceeding.

I am trying hard to live with indecisiveness. We will leave when the coach is ready and not a minute before, also not much more than a minute later. In reality, I suspect we would be sitting in Rochester even if the coach were merely in storage for now. We have friends to have lunch and dinner with, we have concert tickets and so many other wonderful activities right here. Carol has let the refrigerator and pantry drop to the lowest point we can remember. We are eating out so much and preparing to travel. Indeed we will need to shop soon just to be able to have breakfast in the apartment.

Life is good and I have learned that Itchy Tires is a syndrome with an easy and lasting cure: Get on the Road!

When we brought GeeWhiz into the shop we weren’t sure what our next steps were so we decided to unload as much of our personal belongings as we could in a couple of trips. Instant house move out! As I started pulling hats out of the large storage space over the couch and putting them into a plastic storage bin, I felt like the sorcerer’s apprentice. the more I pulled out, it seemed, the more there were to grab. I knew as I was doing this that I was going to have to leave many of these off the coach when we moved back in. 🙁

I never thought of myself as a hat collector. There must be many people who have many more hats then I do. But then, here is the oldest hat I know of in my “collection” (not as old as the head its on):

That’s Yiddish for Grandfather

In Japan, just when I had given up on finding a great hat, I found this beauty.

Now I had to go into the closet and see what was lurking there. I found four bins of assorted hats and this wonderful Baileys western hat:

 and these mostly winter caps. Those two hats in the top left that say Lester Lanin are from a birthday party my Dad threw for my mother. She wanted a big band and Dad hired this group from NYC a part of the Lester Lanin Orchestra. The hats were party favors. Just next to them is the Pink Cap my Dad wore when driving his white BMW convertible. I wear it now on special occasions.

and finally some baseball caps, many collected in our travels.

We started out with leopards on our first game drive. In the attached album the first 8 pictures are from that drive. We met the leopard crossing the road between our safari car and another from the lodge. When he went into bush we turned off the road and followed him through the brush until he turned down a gully where we couldn’t go. I say “he” because the guides identified him as the dominant male in the territory. The next 5 pictures are of the same male on another day when he has invaded the territory of a female guarding cubs. There was a lot of hissing and growling until he was run off. The rest of the pictures were taken over a period of 30 minutes or more of a single young male who changed position and “posed” for us in the sun. There are several pictures with his face in shadow and then it seems as if he realized we were not getting the shots we wanted and he moved into the sun. then he posed sitting up on another part of the same tree. We drove around to get pictures from the front.Leopard Pictures

The lions were being lazy and we only had one good chance to photograph them. Lions The pictures are not my favorites, but some people really want to see lions.

I know hyenas are not everyone’s favorites. They are actually classed among the Ugly Five. We came across a youngster in the den – obviously our driver and tracker knew about this den – and after creeping the safari car through the brush we got some pictures of it and then the rest of the pack came in to give us these pictures: Hyenas

Each days late drive ended with sun downers. They had selected sites for gorgeous sunsets and we would pull in and have drinks while the sun set as we prepared for a night time game drive back to the lodge. So here are some of my favorite Sunset pictures.

There will be more pictures to follow. Please understand these are lightly edited and mostly as the camera caught them.

We are still having a busy social life in Rochester and also some community involvement as well. Latest reports are that a November 15 departure is not beyond reason. We shall see.

I am still working on pictures and stories from our Africa trip, but life goes on in Rochester as well. We have watched a couple of interesting old movies. After touring Grand Canyon and other National Parks we are well aware of the Fred Harvey Company now Xanterra which provides accommodations and food in the parks. The Harvey Company’s hotels  were built at the depot of the train serving the parks and they were noted for the caliber of wait staff and food they provided. A movie, “The Harvey Girls” was made in 1946. Somehow we had never seen it. It is a wonderful musical and among the songs that Judy Garland and others sang is “On the The Atcheson Topeka and the Sante Fe” There is also a wonderful tap dance number with Ray Bolger. We really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who appreciated the old musicals. While I was cruising the shelves in the library I saw “Oklahoma!” and decided we needed to watch some more cliches. But they aren’t really cliche because this is the source.

We have had dinner out with many friends and dinner in with others. Our lunch times and even breakfasts are filled with social events and some business things too. As comfortable as we are in our apartment and gathering with our friends here, I am beginning to experience “itchy wheel syndrome”. I miss our life on the road and the delights of wandering across the US with very little plan. We have a thought schedule, sort of like a thought experiment in physics. Carol has planned to go to  a Jewish Community Women’s event on November 1 and, assuming the coach is ready for us we should be rolling no later then November 15. Following a visit to our Charlottesville family we will move on west, trying to stay in the 70 degree zone or at least well south of the snow line as we move. There are many people we hope to visit as we make the crossing.

For those who wonder where we will venture next as we try to visit all the parts of the globe we have signed up for “The Stans of Central Asia Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan plus Kyrgyzstan & Kazakhstan” This trip doesn’t leave until mid May so we have plenty of time to make other trouble for ourselves between now and then 🙂

Oh dear, way too much time has past since this was written and I still haven’t gotten around to posting. Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur have come and gone. this computer has suffered a major hard drive crash and I have been restoring all my software – no data loss thanks to double backups. So I will post this without further editing.

I have been trying to figure how to display the pictures we took and the experiences we had. I will start posting some category albums for those who like to browse through other people’s travel photos. I am starting with 166 pictures of African Birds. It may seem random, but they are in date order and are selected from many more, most of which went into the bit bucket.

In a day or so I will post Cats.

The Link to African Birds  This link will open a new window.

With a farewell dinner in Vic Falls the grand group of 16 travelers prepared to go our separate ways. Nine of us to continue on to Cape Town and seven to travel on on their own or to return home. We flew together, one last time, to Johannesburg where the Cape Town gang caught a domestic flight to our last stop on the trip. The return to city life was a bit jarring. No more worry about animals wandering through the camp and no more bush toilets readily available behind a bush. Some even had brought along city clothes. Our hotel, The Inn on the Square is indeed on the central square which houses a daily market of vendors selling the usual trinkets found in every vendors market we had passed throughout the trip. With only one more packing for travel ahead of us some used the opportunity to make purchases. The hotel is very nice and the staff is very helpful, if you are waiting for a “but” here it is. The bathrooms are the smallest we have ever tried to enter. Actually they are less spacious then on our motorhome and made even more difficult by having full size doors that swing in. I had to wedge myself between the toilet and the shower to open or close the door and I needed to close the door because there was no place for me if the door is open.

Enough about minutia. Post Mandela Cape Town is a great mix of contrasts. The people are still grouped into White (European) Black (African) and Colored (sort of everyone else). These categories are not pejorative nor do they speak of apartheid. Rather they are how the people refer to themselves and by choice where they choose to live. The city itself seems to be well integrated. It is in the Townships that the separation is apparent. Townships are a remnant of the old ways. They are “walled off” by expressways and rail lines and internally they are divided into sections depending on when they were built. The outer rings are terrible looking galvanized metal shacks and passing through sections of adobe shacks of two or three rooms eventually we saw newer sections whjere middle income people live and raise their families. We had a home hosted dinner in a private home in a Colored Township. We had a lovely meal and a lot of interesting conversation. We found here as elsewhere a great curiosity about the current election in the US.

The counterpoint to our day in the townships was a tour by five of us to the Stellenbosch Wine District. This is an Africaans area that has been producing wine for some time. We stopped at two wineries for tastings, the second included cheese pairing. The wines were very nice, but nothing I am rushing to buy. Lunch was on our own in Stellenbosch and we agreed on a student populated restaurant with tables on the sidewalk. This is probably as good a place as any to mention money. The Rand had dropped in value before our arrival and a US $ bought 14.2x R while we were there. Menu items ran from 70 to 90 R. The first time I bought dinner on our own in the hotel it came to $18 for the two of us. It was a nice meal with wine!

We did see the obligatory sites including the the Cape of Good Hope: