Month: March 2024

A winter mix returned over the last few days. We had accumulating snow, wind, and rain, then days where the high temps were below freezing. Several days have been cloudy and grey, not exactly conducive to spring activities. However, the upcoming forecast is much better with mild temps returning and a small chance of rain. Spring may finally arive!

The main focus of this post is a follow-up to comments Pam and I made regarding our “early years” and a trip we took to the east coast with the Datsun truck. I have a few scanned photos and commentary about that 1976 trip, so let’s get into it.

Yes, we did sleep in the bed of the truck many times. Every few nights we booked a motel room to enjoy a shower and a more comfortable bed, but our budget did not allow us to do that the entire trip. Here is a photo of the truck set for camping, with a tarp over the bed and a mattress pad to sleep on.

Pam does not look very thrilled with this arrangement, but we managed OK.

Typically we parked in mall lots to have access to public bathrooms and minimal security provided by the parking lot lights. The white material you see was a mesh; we could drop the tailgate and mesh to get air into the sleeping area.

We created many memories on this trip. I ate lobster for the first time at Cape Cod; I remember picking a live lobster from a tank to be cooked for my meal. Getting the hang of cracking the shell was a bit difficult at first. Another memory was our visit to Boston, where I had a hard time understanding the New England accents (hah-ahrd vowels), and the visit to Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson.

One notable stop was Old Plymouth Plantation, a replica 1700s pilgrim town. This was my first experience with “living history” actors playing the parts of different pilgrims. For the purpose of this post I am including only photos of us, although I took many of various tasks being performed. (We have an entire photo album dedicated to this trip.)

Here I am, sandals and all, about to enter an early pilgrim house:

One of my favorite photos from this stop, and the entire trip, is this one of Pam near the replica mill on the grounds of the village.

Another strong memory was created in Bromley, Vermont, home of America’s first Alpine Slide. Here are a couple of internet screen shots of the modern track (there are now three offering various skill levels) and a sled used to ride down the track.

You sit on the sled and pull back the handle to slow down or push forward to speed up. This ride was a hoot, and we returned a second time to repeat the experience before heading home.

We didn’t have a camp stove at the time and relied on fast food places for meals. We got so sick of fast food cooking odors that we began to stop at grocery stores to pick up meat, cheese, and breads for a few meals. No cooler and no space, so whatever we bought had to be eaten quickly.

Other stops on this trip included the Whaling Museum, Old Sturbridge Village, and Quincy (including the Adams Home) all in Massachusetts, and Basketville in Vermont plus the Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Detroit. Lots of stops, lots of memories.

While not taken on this trip, I do have this 56 second clip of the Alpine Slide at Breckenridge, Co, which dates from the late ’70s. It features Pam, Becky, and myself. Again, quality is not the greatest but I hope you enjoy it. (There is no audio on this Super 8 film clip.)

I have a few other photos from around this same time, including this one of us just after getting the Honda CB-450 motorcycle.

To stay alert as we rode, we often brought Pringles with us to chew on, and I carried Jolly Rancher hard candy that I could tuck up between tooth and gum. Every now and then, at the end of a long day, I would feel Pam’s helmet hitting the back of my helmet and know that she was falling asleep on the back of the bike. While we never had an incident, I was always concerned her feet would slip off the footpegs as she tired.

You may have noticed a container on the rear luggage rack in this and other photos that include the Honda. We always carried spare clothing in Colorado as changes in elevation, and resulting temperature changes, required heavier gear at higher altitudes and cooler clothing on the plains. We put a lot of miles on the bike during those early trips.

One such trip was to the top of Pikes Peak, a “must” visit for any Colorado resident and most tourists.

I recall getting rained on during this outing, but the rain quit and we were dried out before returning home to Boulder. The road to the top had not yet been paved and riding the motorcycle up (and down) the gravel and twisting road was a real challenge!

Here is another shot taken in Victor during a fall visit. In those days, railroad artifacts, like this old rail car, were common and one could walk right up to them. I doubt this is the case today.

Finally, a photo that brings back some real nostalgia, as this place no longer exists. When we were first in Colorado, and drove to the top of Mt. Evans, we stopped at the summit and visited this gift shop / restaurant to buy soda, snacks, and souvenirs.

Sadly, several years later the building burned down and the Forest Service decided not to rebuild. You can still drive to the top but this building is now long gone.

So much for going down memory lane in this post. I plan to scan more old negatives and include a few in future posts. There are those hose cart races in Idaho Springs…

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Ah, the early days of marriage. We were so poor — both of us working plus attending college part-time, occasionally on food stamps — and definitely “vehicle challenged.” The Datsun truck was a step up in the transportation game, even though we had to sleep in it to take the East Coast trip.

These slides certainly reflect travel high points; day-to-day living back then was not so exciting in my memories.

A person might wonder how I could manage to fall asleep on a motorcycle. Since childhood [as I was plagued with motion sickness] I trained myself to fall asleep while traveling so I wasn’t sick to my stomach. Add in the reduced oxygen content at higher elevations, and you can see where falling asleep might occur.

Happy Trails.

This post covers a variety of topics and information. I saw the first flowers of spring, record temps have been set yet again, and more negatives (from 1975) have been scanned. These photos and other stories make up this post.

While walking the other day I saw these flowers blooming, the first in this area.

Temperatures have been warm, with every day in March above average so far, and many new highs-for-the-date set. While appreciating the decline of winter, the area is very dry. Raking the lawn raised dust! There was some rain on Thursday, which will help the lawn immensely, but NE Iowa is still in a severe drought. Cooler weather, in the upper 30s and low 40s, is in the forecast for the next week or so.

Speaking of weather, we had a power outage last week that lasted for just under two hours. The outage was attributed to high wind damage to power lines. The mild temps led to no inconvenience as it was during the day and we didn’t even need lights. I didn’t power up my standby generator, as I might have had to do if the weather had been colder or the outage had been during darkness.

During the week I did some lawn clean up. Pam scheduled herself to paint some galvanized planter frames in the garden. The shade of green she chose will help the planters blend in with the lawn. It feels good to be doing outside tasks again.

I found a problem with my equipment trailer suspension, a worn / loose set of u-bolts that hold the rear axle to the springs. New hangers have been ordered and will be here shortly. I will install them after the weather warms up again.

My last post, with the story of our motorcycle trip over Rollins Pass, generated some interest so I have decided to continue posting more photos and telling stories from our “early days” of marriage. This batch is from 1975 and includes several threads of commentary, including family, friends, and events from that time. I hope you find these stories interesting.

I will note, again, that some of these negatives have suffered damage over time so the quality is not the best. My camera then was my father’s 1940s (?) vintage Argus 35mm (which I still have), and the optics were not up to today’s standards. After we moved to Colorado I purchased a “modern” Pentax MX and the quality of photos went up somewhat.

This first photo is included for Pam’s brother Craig. I was rebuilding the engine in the 1946 Plymouth featured in an earlier post and Craig lent me his Honda CB500-4 motorcycle to use during that time. The 500 is for the size of the engine in CCs and the 4 indicated a 4-cylinder engine. (I didn’t buy my Honda CB-450 featured in the last post until later, although I did buy it in Wisconsin.) Years later, in Arizona, I briefly owned a CB550-4, a bike similar to Craig’s 500-4.

After I rebuilt the ’46 Plymouth I sold it and bought our next vehicle, an old Datsun pickup. (Datsun later became Nissan.) It was a “back row beauty” from a dealership in Eau Claire and needed some TLC. I don’t remember the year of the truck, but think it dated from the mid-60’s.

There are many stories related to this vehicle. We owned it for many years and moved to Colorado with it. Many times on our travels, including a trip to the east coast, we threw a tarp over the back and slept in the bed. Once we were in Colorado, Pam’s mom helped us finance a replacement used engine, swapped in for the worn-out original. The used motor was from a Datsun sports car, a 240Z, which made driving the old truck more fun. Eventually I sold it to a co-worker and we bought a Ford Pinto station wagon. More on that in future posts.

Shortly after the purchase of the Datsun, Pam made door panel covers that dressed up the inside of the cab. I pulled the original seats and replaced them with a bench seat out of an old Ford Thunderbird, which took some doing, but resulted in a more comfortable ride. The rear bumper was painted, along with the white stripe around the top of the bed. With installation of new carpet we had the nicest old Datsun truck around.

We celebrated our first wedding anniversary in 1975. Some college friends who were at our wedding the previous year (Stout State University in Menomonie, Wisconsin) invited us on an inner-tubing adventure down the Apple River. I took the camera along.

We have good memories of this trip and the friends that shared our 1st wedding anniversary with us. Amazing to contemplate we are approaching our 50th…

Menomonie is located on Lake Menomin and the college had an “outdoor sports” facility that rented canoes and related gear. One weekend Pam and I rented a canoe, paddles, and life jackets and went out for a trip around the lake.

This outing is particularly unique as Pam is not a fan of water sports, and perhaps her siblings will be quite surprised to see her out on the water.

Here is what we looked like that fall. Man, we were skinny then! (I didn’t start growing a beard until 1991.)

We moved to Colorado in 1977 and future posts will document more of our early Colorado days. Here is a sample photo from one of these trips.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Well, what do you know, I have bikini photo evidence of how thin I used to be. (NOT the image I see in the mirror now.) I barely recognize that girl!

I well remember sleeping in the bed of the Datsun truck on that [infamous] trip to the east coast. It wasn’t glamping, that’s for sure. Himself has promised additional images of that vacation in a future post. Ah, yes, we were young once…

Happy Trails.

A few small projects received my attention this week. The first was construction of a dog ramp, followed by scanning of old color negatives. The results of each can be seen below!

The dogs are getting older, and are beginning to have problems negotiating the back steps when Pam takes them out, particularly Blondie, the oldest of the three (15.5 years old). Pam recently asked me to build a ramp that might ease doggie access in the south porch area. While not done yet – it’s been too cold to paint and I need to add another hand rail – the ramp is now serviceable.

Getting the dogs to use the ramp is another thing. Blondie, Bru, and JoJo have had four years of going up and down the steps and are reluctant to embrace a new technique. They will go down the ramp, but the idea of walking back up seems foreign to them, much to Pam’s frustration. She hopes they eventually take to this new, and easier, approach to getting in and out the back door.

The weather has been on another roller coaster swing, with record highs on Monday, followed by single-digit lows on Wednesday, accompanied by -15 degree wind chills. More moderate conditions are in the forecast, getting into the 60s by Sunday.

There was an annoying problem with our internet service — our cable modem developed intermittent outages. Faced with an almost two-week delay before a Mediacom tech could make it out to our rural location, I drove over to Mason City’s Mediacom office and swapped modems. This trip combined a visit to Mediacom, a Walmart stop, and a haircut at Great Clips so several tasks were completed during the outing. The new modem, an Arris brand, appears to be working as it should. I’m now looking into buying my own modem to eliminate the $14.00 per month rental fee Mediacom charges us.

I spent some time during the cold snap scanning a few more old color negatives. The photos included here are from a 1978 trip over the old Moffat Road trail, which used to be the main rail line over the mountains into western Colorado. The Moffat Tunnel, shown on the sign as double-dashed lines and still in use today, made the line over the mountains obsolete.

The Honda 450 was our main transportation while our Datsun pickup needed repairs. I wore the green helmet and Pam’s white Bell helmet is hanging on a hook below the luggage rack.

I have always had a soft spot for waterfalls and many are featured in these shots. Here is Pam along one of the many streams we stopped to view.

The trip included a tunnel, named Needle’s Eye, which was later “daylighted” by the forest service as it kept shucking rocks onto the roadway. It is now an open cut, but at the time we visited it was still intact. Note the snow still present, although it is late June when this photo was taken.

The high point on the trip is Rollins Pass, where the railroad had a station complete with a snow shed, barracks for workers, and a restaurant for summer visitors. The – now – ghost town of Arrowhead was just down the west side of the pass. The line continued into Winter Park and met the mainline at Dotsero. We made the trip to the top of the pass a few times over the next several years.

We took many such trips in our “early days” in Colorado, including to Mt. Evans, Pike’s Peak, the Great Sand Dunes, and visits to mountain mining towns. I will have more archive photos and descriptions of these trips in future posts. I am responding to a comment by daughter Felicity to the effect that we never talked about our early days to our children, so these reminiscence may help fill in that omission.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

A question I’ve been asking myself for some time: Do we really need another construction and painting project (plus clutter) on the south steps – just for aging dogs to access the dog enclosure? Ugh. To avoid this, I’ve been physically carrying Blondie down the four porch steps all winter. Holding a 27-pound [wiggling] dog under one arm while using the handrail with the other arm kinda/sorta worked — until — Blondie accidentally edged off the landing at the top of the steps last week and took “a header” to the bottom. Luckily nothing was broken, but the old girl did whack her face pretty hard.

So, time for a ramp. Reluctantly. Teaching old dogs new tricks is not going to be easy; treats may be involved. (Cheeto, the neighborhood cat, already finds the ramp an attractive sunbathing location. A problem – keeping Cheeto off the ramp when I’m trying to send the dogs down.) These animals…frequently frustrating.

Happy Trails.