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What we did in 2023 (Part 1)

Posted on December 6, 2024 by admin

This is a recap of 2023 (Part 1), a pretty interesting year in our lives.

January:

Bird watching. Our year began like so many of the days in the south in the winter begin for us, watching birds. We spent Christmas and New Years on a tiny private island, a few miles inland from the Georgia coast,where the owner has added a few RV hookups. Each day, when the tide went out, the shore birds would flock to the marsh in front of us and it was quite interesting to watch.

Just a few miles away was a wildlife refuge that was home to lots of birds, armadillos and alligators. We spent several days taking pictures and watching the activity.

We spent a week further south, in Brunswick, Georgia, at another park with armadillos and shore birds, plus an abundance of friendly rabbits.

The park we stayed in has miles of flat grassy trails along old canals and it is one of our favorite ‘wintering’ places. It is also a convenient spot from which to visit historic areas nearby.

Mid-month, we moved south to St. Augustine, FL, a very pretty and historic city. The fountain discovered by Ponce de Leon, which did not give him eternal youth, is still dispensing water to us tourists.

Crystal River, FL has a wonderful wintering spot for manatees and we were able to see quite a few of them when we visited Three Sisters Springs. The water was clear and sparkly and the manatees, which had crowded in to enjoy the warm water, gave us a good show.

The campground we stayed in was on a canal that drew in multiple Yellow-crowned Herons in the evening, looking for a fish for supper.

February

The promise of seeing lots of birds drew us to Gainesville, FL, where Sandhill Cranes overwinter by the hundreds, as do many other birds. The excitement of the birding areas for us was the number of species that we had never seen before. There are huge Apple snails living in the waters of the Sweetgrass Wetlands, and those snails bring in birds who love to eat them. The tall (and loud) Limpkins and Snail Kites were new birds to us.

Further west in Florida, at St Marks National Wildlife Refuge, we found our first Flamingo, named Pinky, who flew in during a hurricane event several years ago and has stayed. When Pinky was in the area, he/she was hard to miss – those bright pink feathers fairly glowed in the sunlight.

March

March found us in Georgia, visiting Plains, where Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter live. The tiny town was the launching point for Carter’s campaign and the Carter’s childhood home and campaign buildings are available to tour.

We followed that up with a visit to the Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta.

In Warm Springs we saw the Little White House, a small home built in the hills by FDR, so that he could spent time in the healing warm waters to ease his polio symptoms. This is also where FDR passed away.

The Martin Luther King National Heritage Park, in Atlanta, has a museum and the street where MLK was raised has been preserved.

Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King’s gravesite is also in the park and it is set in a lovely water feature.

We closed out March in North Carolina. One of the most interesting places we have visited was close to where we were parked in Supply: Mary’s Gone Wild. Mary has been creating buildings, art work, and just ‘stuff’ for years and it is a combination art gallery and junk pile. It was quite fun to pick our way through.

April

Raleigh is North Carolina’s capitol and a wonderful Museum of Natural History is located there. We spent 2 days in the museum because it was so interesting.

The Wright Brothers tested their powered airplane flight on the sand dunes near Kitty Hawk in 1903 and there is a museum built on the site where they did their testing.

The actual path of the 4 successful tests made on December 17, is laid out, marked with signs and walk-able, which is quite fun.

The OBX (Outer Banks) is a great stretch of sand and sea that we got to enjoy. Driving south to Cape Hatteras is an adventure itself, long bridges over water, snowplows (to us Montanans) scraping away huge piles of sand that easily cover the narrow strip of land that is the highway, and lots of birds and boats to watch.

The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse has had to be moved inland because of the shifting sands in the area. The urban areas are covered in a lot of bushes, which I would assume helps to keep the sandy soil in place.

The road ends in the ocean a bit south of the lighthouse and a ferry is the only way to continue your travels south. Ocracoke Island, the ferry’s destination, has a resident wild horse herd, probably the descendants of horses that escaped early day boat wrecks.

We shopped for souvenirs, checked out that lighthouse, had a fun lunch at a food truck and then found one of the best beaches for walking that we have ever discovered.

Our next state was Virginia, which has so much to offer that we spent two months exploring it, and still missed some of the interesting sites.

There is a ‘Historic Triangle’ at the bottom edge of the state and we enjoyed learning all we could about these places.

First up, Yorktown Battlefield, where Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington in the last significant battle of the Revolutionary War. Miles of trenches were dug into the farmland by both sides and some of those battles lines are preserved in the historical park.

We were lucky enough to attend a ranger talk by a very knowledgeable ranger who was able to describe the battle scene quite clearly as we walked around.

In the visitor center, George Washington’s battle tent is on display, still in very good shape, considering its age.

The second point of the triangle is Jamestown, the oldest permanent English settlement in North America. Archaeologists are constantly digging in the site, trying to discover where all the buildings were.

They recently were able to identify all the corners of the original fort and have put up a pole fence around the area.

The final point on the triangle is Colonial Williamsburg, a large park of colonial buildings with people in period costumes giving tours and demonstrations.

Our favorite Virginia day began with a lecture by a high school history teacher, at St. John‘s Episcopal Church, which is situated on a hill overlooking Richmond. The teacher gave an extremely interesting talk about Patrick Henry’s famous ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’ speech, why Henry was at that church on that day, what the speech meant, and how that helped spur Virginians into the Revolutionary War. The teacher also gave us the history behind the church and even the attached graveyard. He was a great speaker and drew us into the story quite easily.

We then visited the ‘White House of the Confederacy’, where Jefferson Davis and his family lived from 1861 to 1865. A young lady gave a good tour, with lots of details about the house, which is now part of a huge hospital campus.

The Canal Walk, a path along the James River and across a bridge over the river, was our final destination that day. The bridge displays information panels about the last three days of the battle where the Union overtook Richmond, Davis’s hasty evacuation of the city on another bridge across the river and then President Lincoln’s arrival.

May

May found us still enjoying the many things to do in Virginia.

We visited the state capitol in Richmond, which was undergoing some major renovations on the outside, something that we see quite often in our visits to other state’s capitol buildings. The older buildings need constant upkeep. This capitol was rather small and plain compared to others, but it was still quite elegant.

We always visit the capitol building and, if available, the state history museum in each state that we visit. Virginia has a Museum of History and Culture and we enjoyed the displays.

Appomattox Court House (where Lee surrendered to Grant) is a tiny village owned by the National Park Service and preserved as an important piece of American history. Some of the buildings are original and some have been rebuilt. Costumed actors play the part of villagers and stay in character while talking about their lives in 1860s.

The McLean House, where Lee surrendered to Grant, still stands after being dismantled and then rebuilt.

A very interesting note about the McLeans: their home was in the middle of the Battle of Bull Run at the beginning of the Civil War. The McLeans wanted to avoid any more war so they moved to Appomattox Court House, where they once again ended up in the middle of a battle. The family was witness to the beginning and the end of the War.

Several U. S. Presidents built their homes in the hills of Virginia and we visited them all.

President James Monroe built Highland and did not spend much time there after he was elected President. The house burned after he sold it and another home was built on the site; however the guest house and outbuildings are still the originals.

Close to Highland, and in the hills, is the town of Schulyer, the childhood home of Earl Hamner, the author of the book that became the TV series, The Waltons. It is a tiny town that has capitalized on the success of the book and TV series.

Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home, was next and we took several of the available tours. We ended up with mixed feelings about Jefferson; he fathered 6 children with a very young enslaved girl, while calling for freedom for white men. In the end, he willed Sally Hemmings to his sister instead of setting her free.

On to the final President’s house, James Madison’s Montpelier, another beautiful home with lovely grounds and even an old growth forest.

Two battlefields, where horrible bloody battles raged during the Civil War, occurred in this area of Virginia: Fredricksburg and Spotsylvania. It is always hard to imagine the horror that the now green, peaceful fields and hills once witnessed.

Mount Vernon, another ‘must see’ for us, was a great place to visit. We love walking in the footsteps of famous people. Parts of the house were open to the public, as well as many of the original out-buildings and gardens.

That ended the month of May and our time in Virginia, and we were on the road to West Virginia – the hilliest state!

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Family Research in Pennsylvania – Summer 2023

Posted on September 18, 2023 by admin

Through Ancestry.com, Find A Grave, and some written family history, I found information about our 3^rd, 2^nd and 1^st Great Grandparents (4, 3 and 2 for the next generation) – where they were born, lived and where they were buried.

I found a little gold mine of information in a booklet at the Centre County Historical Library – a listing of all the area cemeteries and the row and plot number of all the people buried in them. I found three area cemeteries where our relatives were buried, and driving directions to them since they were small, rural places. The cemeteries were all in the same general area, located near where the families had lived.

Heckman Cemetery is out in the farming country, as are all of them, and contains the graves of our 3^rd Great Grandparents: Johannes & Eve (Ream) Willaman.

Unfortunately, the gravestones in that cemetery were all of sandstone and quite badly deteriorated and/or missing altogether. Even with the row and space numbers, we could not locate the specific graves, just the general area. I am going to contact the Cemetery Association to determine if they can help us find where the graves are located. We want to see how much it would cost to place simple markers on the graves – it seems a shame to have them lost to history.

The only gravestone that we could read was for John Ream, a Revolutionary War soldier, who was probably related to Eve (Ream).

Our next stop was more productive. I found the deed to the family farm, but in those days the legal descriptions were very general. This is probably the area where our Great-Grandfather, Aaron Ezra, was raised.

The only landmark that still existed was the ‘base of Brush Mountain’ which was to the north of the cemetery.

We found the grave of our 2^nd Great Grandparents: Samuel and Sarah Grace Gobble,

2 of their children who died very young (so many children died in the 1800s) and Annie Margaret Willaman, a 3^rd Great Aunt.

Both of the children’s gravestones had fallen forward and were pretty stained.

Bruce is never far from his tools, and he found a nearby pile of dirt to use. He dug up the stones, cleaned them off and resituated them so that they will last longer.

I cleaned the Great Great Grandparent’s marker, and the back side, with Sarah Grace’s information, was very badly stained. I got quite a bit off, but it will never be really good. Bruce dug up the ‘Father’ marker because it was badly tipped over, and re-situated it. Someone has planted a pretty lily beside the gravestone.

I also cleaned Annie Margaret’s gravestone a bit, it had lichen and mildew on it as so many of them do.

Our third stop for the day was Holy Cross Cemetery, where we found the graves of John Wesley and Amanda Gobble, Aaron Ezra’s brother and sister-in-law. His two children Mary and Samuel and their spouses are also buried there.

Mary Gobble Steiger was Grandma Willaman’s ‘much beloved cousin’ according to the note on the back of her photograph.

These granite markers were in pretty good shape; we just did a little cleanup of lichens and mildew, plus tossed out the broken, empty plant holders. The cemetery association was weed-eating around the gravestones that day so we thought it would help to clean up a bit.

Samuel and Annie’s stone was in pretty bad shape, but we were able to clean it up quite a bit.

Our fun story for the day: We carry some water with us to clean gravestones, but we mostly rely on the cemeteries to have some kind of water supply. The cemeteries we visited this day had no supplemental water and we had used up the water we had carried with us. We had passed a house with a nice flower garden right beside the narrow country road, so we decided to go back to that house and ask for some water. We ended up visiting a very nice couple in their 80s who had lived in that area all their lives. They even knew Mary Steiger and her family. We could have visited with them for hours.

The next day, we drove to New Berlin, where Aaron Ezra Gobble had been president of Central Pennsylvania College and where Grandma Willaman was born. The New Berlin Cemetery is quite large and located on the edge of town, on a hill.

Paul Seibert Gobble, Grandma’s brother, died at 1 year old and that is when the family plot was purchased, according to the deed for the plot recorded with the county recorder. Paul’s gravestone was quite unreadable and Bruce spent over an hour carefully cleaning the mildew stains, trying not to take off too much of the sandstone. He got it cleaned up pretty well.

I cleaned our Great-Grandparents and Grandparents stones, which were not in bad shape at all, there was some lichen to remove and some staining to scrub off.

These projects ended our time in Pennsylvania. We headed east to New Hampshire where we have spent the rest of the summer. We have lots more family records to explore and will return at another time.

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Florida 2023

Posted on February 11, 2023 by admin

What would make retired people, who like to sleep in and have a lazy start to their day, get out of bed at 6:30 AM? Well, for us, it was the chance to see some amazing birds during the calm and cool hours of the day. And we were not disappointed.

We had been told that the area around Gainesville was a good spot to find birds in the winter and, boy, was that correct. Gainesville has many parks and trails all around it, but we spent our time in two of the biggest parks: Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park and Sweetwater Wetlands Park.

We spent 5 days visiting the parks, discovering some birds we had not seen before and taking lots of photos. Below are some of our favorite shots.

Pynes Prairie is the winter home to thousands of Sandhill Cranes and it was an impressive sight to climb the observation tower at the Visitors Center and see cranes in the wetlands as far to the north as you could see. When we were arriving at Gainesville, we saw a small field beside the highway where dozens of cranes were enjoying a marshy meadow.

Quite often during the week we stayed in Gainesville, we heard and saw cranes flying above us as they began their journeys north again. (We wrote about watching cranes in the prior post: ‘Our Summer in Montana’.)

Both parks are also home to two very specialized birds that we had never heard of before and who have a taste for snails. The Limpkin and the Snail Kite both have special beaks which they use to extract the tasty Apple Snails from their shells. The two birds are completely different in looks and techniques, and from the piles of empty snail shells we saw scattered around, they are very successful hunters.

The Snail Kite is a medium sized bird with a very hooked beak and long claws. They hunt over water, hoping to find a floating Apple Snail.

The Limpkin is large, long-legged and loud. You can certainly hear a Limpkin from a distance. They wade and probe for snails with their long beaks.

Wood Storks are very large mostly white birds with massive bills that we had seen a few times before, but always from a distance. One morning we just happened upon one that was feeding in the water close to a viewing area and we discovered that what we had thought of as black feathers were actually a lovely shade of green in the sunlight.

LBB’s as we call them, ‘Little Brown Birds’, are really hard to identify because they flit around in bushes very quickly and it can be difficult to pick out the characteristics that determine their species. We did manage to identify a few that hung around long enough to be photographed.

Eastern Phoebe

Orange-crowned Warbler

Robins aren’t really LBB’s but this one was sitting in the sunlight and posing nicely for a photo, so we included it.

Herons are some of our favorite birds because they are pretty, and it is fun to watch them hunt for food.

Tri-colored Herons are actually quite small-bodied.

The Little Blue Heron is one of our favorite birds because of their brilliant blue color and reddish head. .

Seeing a Great Blue Heron in Montana is a pretty rare treat, but in the south we have become accustomed to having them around us when we are in wet environments. We never tire of watching them.

The snow is still blowing around up north, but in Florida in February some birds have begun to lay eggs already. We found this Blue Heron sitting on a nest.

A Litttle Blue Heron is actually white the first year of its life and this one is just beginning to get its adult coloring.

Green Herons are quite pretty and more shy than some of the other herons.

They kind of hunch up when on the ground.

Glossy Ibis is another bird that looks almost black, until the sunshine hits those shiny feathers.

Snowy Egrets have black bills and yellow feet:

Some of the more unusual and interesting birds that we saw:

Gallinule are pretty birds with very large feet that they use to walk on water plants.

Sora are quite small water birds that run in and out of reeds. Their markings are striking.

Not a bird, but these guys are all over the place, so it seems appropriate to include them.

Turkey Vultures have a face that only their mother can love!

This swamp rabbit does have a cute face.

Red-shouldered Hawks are another fairly common bird in Florida; we have seen quite a few.

Three of the duck species that we found in the parks:

Blue-winged Teal

Hundreds of boldly-colored Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, whose calls are like whistles, were in Sweetwater.

We found one pair of Mottled Ducks, with their striking feather patterns.

We found this guy hanging around in the reeds in the sunshine.

A couple of our very favorite photos:

A sunlit Snail Kite

Another new bird for us and one that just glowed in the sunshine: Grey-headed Swamphen.

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Wallpaper

Posted on December 11, 2022 by admin

Our five year Discovering America adventure has taken us to some remarkable places and we have been able to capture many of these sights on film. We are posting a few of our favorite photos here for your enjoyment. Please feel free to download any, or all, of these for your personal use.

Fall day in Lincoln City, Indiana

Flowers blooming on a hillside near Mount Rainier, WA

Roseate Spoonbill building a nest at Rip’s Rookery on Jefferson Island, Louisiana

White-eyed Vireo at Peveto Bird Sanctuary, Holly Beach, LA

Missouri Botanical Gardens

Nesting Great Egrets at Rip’s Rookery, Jefferson Island, Louisiana

Green anole on the boardwalk at Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana

Small lake in our RV park in Hoquiam, Washington

On the beach at Long Beach, Washington

Yosemite National Park

The Redwoods in California

Alcatraz

Silver Bell Mine in Joshua Tree National Park, California

Foxtail barley in Willow Creek Recreation Area, Tiber Dam, Montana

Painted Desert, Arizona

Flower center

Chrysanthemums in Mitchell Domes, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Montezuma Castle National Monument, Arizona

Devil’s Tower in Wyoming

Fall colors on a very curvy road, Rockport, Wisconsin

South of Wye, Arizona

Rose in a city park in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Hay field near Merrill, Wisconsin

Early morning sky at Monahans Sandhills State Park, Monahans, Texas

Blooming Yucca at Big Bend National Park, Texas

Daylily in Alexandria, Minnesota

Monahans Sandhills State Park, Monahans, Texas

Loons on Rainy Lake, Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota

Center of a daylily.

Bald eagle enjoying a snack at Waveland, Mississippi

An old road in the desert near Wye, Arizona

Queen of the Prairie blossoms

Bee on a coneflower

Old homestead near Laramie, Wyoming

Little Blue Heron after a bath in Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia

Little Blue Heron hunting for food, Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia

Sunset on the beach at Biloxi, Mississippi

Hay field in Evergreen, Montana

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Tennessee

Posted on October 18, 2022 by admin

Tennessee is a small state but it has a lot to offer to visitors, like us. We began our visit there in late fall, 2021, at the north edge of the state: Nashville.

Andrew Jackson’s (7^th President, 1829- 1837) home, The Hermitage, was our first major stop. His mansion and some of the original buildings, including slave quarters, are open for tours. A small cemetery contains his grave as well as his wife’s and other family members.

Next stop: the State Capitol building, built high on a hill above Nashville.

The grounds are also the final resting place of our 11^th President, James Polk (1845 – 1849) and his wife Sarah.

And, of course, we had to visit The Ryman (a former church converted into the first Grand Ole Opry), and the area of Nashville that you picture when you hear the word, ‘Nashville’.

There were several bloody Civil War battles fought south of Nashville, and we visited the ones around Franklin. The Franklin battle was horrific because it started late in the afternoon, around local farms, and proceeded into the night. Once darkness fell, soldiers fought hand to hand combat with any kind of weapon that they could lay their hands on, including farm tools.

Several of the surrounding homes became makeshift hospitals for the wounded and the stains where their blood soaked into the wooden floors are still visible. One outbuilding’s wall was left intact as a reminder of the intensity of the fighting.

Franklin is also the home of long-time friends who invited us to Thanksgiving dinner for a wonderful day of visiting and eating good food.

Heading southwest, we stopped at the Meriwether Lewis National Park along the former Natchez Trace (or trail). Parts of the Trace are preserved so that modern day visitors can experience the way that people traveled before today’s improved roads.This is the site where Meriwether Lewis died in 1809 and there is a monument built over his grave site, as well as headstones for the grave sites of other local people.

A replica of Grinder’s Inn, the inn where Lewis spent his last night, has been built next to the original site, where the outline of the fireplace is still visible.

Our next stop was Chickasaw State Park, where the fall colors and Christmas decorations put on a showy display for us.

Indian mounds can be found in quite a few places in the central part of the country, and we have visited several of the mound sites. Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park contains the largest mound in the U. S., Saul’s Mound, which we climbed to the top of for a great view of the park.

We then walked the various trails to other mounds and sites and even became briefly lost in the back area of the park when the trail we were on disappeared in the trees.

Our next stop was the southwest corner of the state – Memphis, where we decided against spending $300 to see Elvis’ Christmas decorations in Graceland.

We did visit the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.

The museum is excellent and follows the growth of the Civil Rights movement.

At the end of the museum’s path, after reading all about Martin Luther King and the struggles he endured, you walk into the area next to the room where King was staying and that was a powerful moment for us.

After that museum, you walk across the street to the building and room where James Earl Ray stood to shoot King.

The entire complex is quite an emotional experience.

We then visited a more upbeat part of Memphis: Beale Street is colorful and historical and it was fun to explore its many stores, restaurants and bars.

After Memphis, we headed south for the winter and then returned to explore the east side of Tennessee in April.

Our first stop was Shiloh Battlefield, which we happened to visit on the 160^th anniversary of the battle in April, 1862. As is the same with the battlefields we had visited before, the large battle area is covered with plaques, markers and memorials, all marking where battles occurred, troops were stationed and artillery was placed.

The battle began in a peaceful meadow with a small creek flowing through and wildflowers blooming. It was hard to imagine the carnage that destroyed that quiet beauty.

The battle took place along the Tennessee River, which was an important trade route for early native Americans. There is an ancient mound community preserved as part of the battlefield.

Our next stop was much more light-hearted and fun: Lynchburg, the home of Jack Daniels whiskey. The town is built in the hills with springs and creeks running through the area and a pretty strong smell of fermenting mash permeating the air.

We took a tour of the facility and, unfortunately, we could not take any photos of the huge vats of bubbling mash and the (many) gallons of clear whiskey dripping slowly through giant barrels of charcoal, but it was impressive. The grounds of the distillery are beautifully kept and there is a small museum and gift store to explore while you wait for your tour to begin.

‘Jack on the rocks’

There is a historic downtown area with stores, museums and restaurants.

We topped off our stay with a wonderful meal at Miss Mary Bobo’s, a former boardinghouse that serves family-style southern meals.

Then it was on to Chattanooga, which is so close to Georgia that driving around the area we were constantly crossing state lines. We stayed in Chattanooga for a week because there was so much to do. Our first day there, we took a duck boat tour, something we have done before in other cities. The duck boats are surplus WWII vehicles that start out on land and then cruise in the water for a bit. We like tours like this because it gives us a good overview of the area.

Lookout Mountain overlooks Chattanooga and the surrounding area and we spent several days driving up the very steep and winding roads to visit its many places of interest. In 1863 there were several Civil War battles on and around the mountain and these areas are preserved by the National Park Service.

Even the RV park where we stayed was the site of a federal troop encampment during one of the battles.

Point Park, at the top of the mountain, preserves one of the battlefields. Once you walk to the edge of the park, you can see why this was such a desirable location for the Union army.

There are a couple small museums outside the park and one of them has a 3D lighted map that shows the surrounding battle areas and how the two armies moved into position to fight. There is also a wonderful wall-sized mural depicting the battle of Lookout Mountain in the NPS Visitor Center.

The next day we visited Ruby Falls, the tallest (145 foot) underground waterfall open to the public.

The elevator which takes visitors closer to the waterfall was broken, so we got to take a longer-than-normal walk through the cave to the waterfall and then a different route out again. There are all kinds of cave formations to enjoy along the way, and colored lights to add some drama.

The next day, we drove back to the top of Lookout Mountain to visit the fabulous Rock City Gardens, an area that was begun in the 1930’s by the Carter family. Mrs. Carter ran a string along a path through giant boulders and that began the gardens. The path today goes through huge rocks, over bridges and up steps to Lover’s Leap at the edge of the mountain where once it was possible to see parts of 7 states ..or so it is claimed.

We were there when the wildflowers were in full bloom and it was just beautiful.

Statues and rock creations were interspersed throughout the walkways.

At the end of all the trails is Fairyland, a special cavern full of characters from fairy tales and nursery rhymes for the kids to enjoy.

When we were finished at Rock City Gardens, we drove to the bottom of Lookout Mountain to take Incline Railway’s one mile long, very steep ride back to the top of the mountain and then down again.

The train is counter balanced with a rail car going each way, up and down, at the same time.

The angle of the track is so steep at the top that you have to use a hand rail to climb up and

out of the car and onto the platform.

As you might imagine, the views are pretty great.

The next day, we found all kinds of fun places to visit:

1st Stop – The International Towing Museum. Chattanooga is credited as the birthplace of the tow truck thanks to inventor Ernest Holmes, Sr.

Everything tow-related is displayed in this well-cared-for museum — from the earliest tow trucks to the most modern huge machines.

There is a toy tow truck section of the museum and there we found a little piece of home.

2nd fun stop of the day was at Ignis Glass Studio, where we each picked out a glass bauble that we wanted to make and then got to participate in its creation. We were allowed to hold the glass in the oven to melt and then blow on the tube while the glass artist did the actual shaping.

Our final stop of the day was at the Coker Auto Museum, one man’s collection of unique vehicles that he turned into a museum for the public to enjoy.

On our final day in Chattanooga we visited the Chickamauga Civil War Battlefield and Museum, which was fairly close to the RV park where we were staying and where federal troops had set up camp prior to the battle. This battle was the second deadliest battle of the Civil War, only Gettysburg had more casualties, and was a defeat for the Union forces.

We then drove back into Chattanooga to walk a trail along, and across, the river.

The Walnut Street bridge is a former traffic bridge that has been turned into a pedestrian trail across the river and it provides a unique view of the city.

The trail along the river is planted with trees and shrubs, which were flowering while we were there. This is one of our favorites, a Foxglove Tree.

Time to head north again, to Knoxville, where our camping site was on the roof of the parking garage of a coliseum, where there were full hookups.

Our first time camping on a roof!

Knoxville was the site of the 1982 World’s Fair and the town has left several of the fair’s structures in place and created a pleasant park space for people to enjoy.

While in Knoxville, we visited one of the most amazing museums that we have been to, and we have been to a lot of museums. The Museum of Appalachia, in Clinton, TN, is a collection of artifacts, buildings, art, animals, photographs and stories of the people that live in that area. We did not realize how much there was to see there and did not give ourselves nearly enough time for our visit. In reality, one could spend several days there and still not see everything.

I also got to indulge in one of my favorite activities…feeding goats!

Up on the rooftop…Bruce was able to fly the drone and get a wonderful overview of the area where we were parked.

From Knoxville, we headed into the Great Smoky Mountains and Gatlinburg, which is accessed via Sevierville. It was quite a shock to find a miles long traffic jam, in the middle of the week in April, between the 2 towns. The area is one long tourist attraction and I cannot imagine what it is like in July! So, we joined the other tourists and checked out some of the attractions.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited park in the United States and we visited on a couple different days. We took some easy trails to waterfalls and drove one of the roads past old homesteads on our first day.

We decided (actually Gail decided) that we had to check out Dollywood, ‘as long as we were in the area’.

Dollywood is known for the floral displays, but the spring had been unusually cold and wet and the flowers were just beginning to show their full potential.

This frog was right beside the Harvey water clock!

We rode the train, visited the shops, ate some food, walked through Dolly’s motor home (done in pink inside) and caught one of the musical acts.

At the end of the day, we both decided this was a place for kids more than ‘mature’ adults.

Pigeon Forge is home to many, many tourist attractions and we decided to visit a couple of the ones that sounded interesting.

The Titanic Museum is a half scale replica of the original ship.

Upon entry, you are given a boarding pass with the name and background of an actual passenger that was on the ship.

The path through the ship allows you to see the living quarters for each class of passenger. You also get to stick your hand in water that is the temperature of the ocean when the ship sank…and it is quite cold and unpleasant. At the end of the tour you can review the actual passenger list and learn the fate of the person on your boarding pass.

The Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum is, like so many collections we have seen, one person’s hobby that got out of control and ended up on public display.

That collection was very impressive, shakers were grouped by type – and there were rooms of shakers and types.

We spent one more day driving through Great Smoky Mountains National Park, enjoying the spring colors brightening the hills and marveling at the rustic 2 room cabins that once housed families of up to 18 (!) children.

Clingman’s Dome is the most popular spot in the park because of the views it affords.

Accessing the dome requires walking up a 1/2 mile long, paved and very steep trail to the top of the dome and then walking up an elevated walkway to a viewing tower that affords a 360 view of the park.

The Appalachian Trail crosses the top of the dome, just below the trail to the dome, so we took the opportunity to walk on it as we headed back down from the top. The trail is very rugged, from what we could see of the small section we traversed, but now we can say that we walked on the Appalachian Trail.

Then it was on to “Davy, Daavy Crockett, King of the wild frontier”, birthplace. He was born in 1786 in a very primitive log cabin located in a nice meadow and next to a rather large stream.

The park has built a reproduction of that cabin and some surrounding structures, along with a nice small museum.

One of the advantages of traveling north fairly early in the year is that we get to follow spring arriving in lots of different areas and that was true of David Crockett Birthplace State Park.

Wildflowers of all colors of the rainbow were blooming all around us.

The park keeps animals from that period onsite, so I was able to indulge in another of my favorite pastimes, feeding donkeys!

The park is close to Greeneville, the home of our 17th President, Andrew Johnson.

Johnson’s original tailor shop has been preserved by building a museum building around it.

Johnson and his wife owned two homes, and both are part of the NPS system. Their second home was quite a bit larger and on more acreage than their ‘starter’ home.

The Johnsons are buried along with other family members in a National Cemetery, perched high on a hill overlooking the town and also owned by the National Park Service.

Our final stop in Tennessee, at the top of the state again, was at Cumberland Gap, the opening which, when found by Daniel Boone, allowed settlers to enter Kentucky. The trail through the gap was originally very narrow and rough and through the years was expanded to a highway. In 1996, the highway was closed and re-routed under the gap, the asphalt was removed and the area was allowed to return to its original state.

The entire area is now a National Historic Park, with roads up the mountain, lots of trails and even preserved Civil War sites.

There is an overlook to the gap and the small town of Cumberland Gap at the end of one of the park’s trails.

Another trail takes you to the geographical corner of Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia.

Of course, walking on the Cumberland Gap trail is the highlight.

We then spent a day in the scenic town of Cumberland Gap:

Cumberland Gap has its own Historical Site:

There is a wonderful, tiny, bike museum in the town:

A few miles from the gap, across the Virginia state line, is Wilderness Road State Park, built along the original wilderness trail into Kentucky and which contains a reproduction of Martin’s Station, an outdoor living history museum depicting life on Virginia’s 1775 frontier.

The next day, we packed up, drove under Cumberland Gap and entered Kentucky…but that is another story!

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2022 Family Reunion

Posted on August 26, 2022 by admin

The third time was a charm: Two summers after Covid postponed our long-awaited family reunion, we were finally able to gather together on the shores of beautiful Flathead Lake.

These pictures were taken over the course of the 3 days that we were together: July 29 – 31.

Photo by Sheri

We began the week-end by gathering late on Friday afternoon. (Names in parentheses are the next higher family level or spouse.)

Marcy (Torrance & Betty), Nancy (Mick), Andrew, Dave(Adelaide & J.B.), Andrew (Mick and Nancy), Sheri (Jim) Beverley(Dave)

Jess (Neil and Laura Lee), Mariah (Neil and Kirk Anne (Marcy and H.A.) Gail (Laura Lee), Marcy, Nancy, Andrew (B0b and Kathy)

Kirk Anne

Beverley, Dave, Nicholas (Russell and Tamara) Marcy Maddox (Russell and Tamara), Boston (Russell and Tamara), Julia (Russell and Tamara) Russell

Tom (Bill & Betty)

Saturday:

Carson (Kirk Anne and Nik) Chloe (Kirk Anne and Nik)

Stasia (Marcy and H. A.) Carson, Chloe Beverley and David

Stasia and Carson Jim (Almont and Helen), Tom

Gail and Russell (Mick and Nancy) Beverley, Ken (Bill and Betty), Dave

Beverley, Ken, Dave, Carson, Chloe, Nancy and Betty (Bill) Kirk Anne, Marcy

Stasia, Gail, Russell Kirk Anne

Jim, Sheri, Gail Dave

Marcy Marcy, Tom, Joan (Tom)

Beverley, Andrew (on left-front)

Sara (Bob and Kathy) back of Jim and Sheri

Mariah (reaching across), Betty, Donna (Tom and Joan), Ken, Neil, friend of Donna’s, Laura Lee

Donna, Betty, Mariah, Ken, Diane (Andrew), Laura Lee

Tamara (Russell), Dave, Bev, Andrew Nancy, Tamara, Tony (Sara), Sara, Gail, Russell

Nicholas and Russell Julia, Marcy, Gail, Stasia, Tamara

Neil, Gail, Bev, Dave Marcy and David

Andrew and Diane Tamara and Julia

Nancy, Julia

Gail, Bruce(Gail), Dave Bruce was the photographer responsible for most of the photos on this blog. This photo was taken by Sheri and shows the deck and cabin where we were all able to gather during the day….and some stayed in the cabin overnight.

Sunday morning:

Sheri and Jim Dave

Andrew, Nancy, Russell Neil, Laura Lee, Mariah, Betty, Ken

Sara, Sheri, Jim, Ken, Gail, Beverley

Julia

Sara, Andrew, Neil Laura Lee, Sheri

Marcy, Jim Beverley, Betty, Nancy, Mariah

Betty and Nancy

A lot of people had scattered by Sunday morning, but we took a group photo with everyone who was still there after our brunch.

Back row: Neil, Sheri, Jim, Ken, Andrew, Nicholas Middle row: Laura Lee, Maddox, Boston, Dave, Bev, Marcy, Gail, Russell, Julia Seated: Sara, Mariah, Betty, Nancy

If anyone has photos that they would like to have added to this, please email them to me.

Those of you who could not make it, you were missed!

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More family discoveries…in Elkhart, Indiana

Posted on July 27, 2022 by admin

William Harvey & Carolyn Westover are my direct line ancestors (Great Great Grandparents) and spent most of their lives in Elkhart, Indiana. They had 8 children: Mary, James, John, William, Fredrick, Judson. Oliver and Albert.

We visited Elkhart to find information about this line of the family. The Elkhart County Historic Museum was able to find several newspaper articles about the family, which were quite interesting to read. For example:

March, 1885

There were old plat map books available, where I found property listings for family members.

1874 Plat

1892 Plat

I found it interesting that James married twice and both times to neighboring ladies: First to Kate Newell, and when she passed away, to Ellen Aurand.

The ladies at the museum were able to show me, on Google maps, where the property is located and it was only a few miles north of the museum. The area where William had his farm is now a huge industrial park with major roads surrounding it.

The museum also had a map of the grave sites in Zion Lutheran Cemetery, where we knew William and Caroline are buried, along with several of their children and spouses. The cemetery is only 1 mile from William and Caroline’s farm.

We found 2 family plots and there might be additional sites that we did not find. The records for the plots were not well maintained for quite a few years. We did some cleaning of grave stones, but for the most part they were all in good shape.

Plot 1:

(James)

Plot 2:

William and Caroline

William (Jr.) has a marker for the Spanish War/Cuba

The museum has a collection of Elkhart City Directories and I was able to find a couple of entries for Albert (Bert). The 1901 entry contains the word ‘lab’ and I don’t know what that means, but the 1899 entry states he works for ‘LS & MS’ and that was a railroad that employed many Elkhart men.

1899 – 1900

1901 – 1902

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The Burton family in Ohio

Posted on May 20, 2022 by admin

I wanted to spend some time tracing my Grandmother Gertrude’s roots in Ohio because we have so little information about her early life there. And so, we visited the south-central area of the state to do some research.

To get me started, Marcy provided me with a list of Burton family burials in Buena Vista, Ohio. I also used Adelaide’s research and various census reports to build a list of the Burton and Pitzer families, and found that the majority of them resided in two counties in Ohio: Clinton County and Fayette County. These two counties adjoin each other and, according to census records, the families seem to have moved between them quite frequently.

I visited the Fayette County Archive Center first, because that is where the town of Washington Courthouse is located and that is where my Grandmother was reportedly born. I found the record for the marriage of her parents, Vallandigham and Mary Elizabeth (Pitzer) in 1888:

I also found birth records for their first 3 children: Eva, Ballard and Irvin – but nothing for Grandma.

The old tax records listed a personal property tax record from 1889, the year after Vallandigham and Mary Elizabeth were married.

For personal property valued at $3.15 the tax was $1.95! I was hoping to have an indication of where they lived, but there are no addresses on any of the records, other than the township and county.

Next stop was the Fayette County Historical society, but they had no information for me.

The Clinton County Historical Society in Wilmington was next – this area is where census records show the Pitzer family (my Grandmother’s mother’s family) was living in the late 1800s. I walked into the genealogy department and said I was looking for information about the Pitzer family and one of the ladies volunteering there said that she was a Pitzer descendant! Two Pitzer brothers from Germany settled in that area and there are many descendants that still remain there.

There are lots of books and folders to review; most did not help in my research. The most information that I found about the Burton family was several booklets about Mabel Burton, who married into the Ringling family. She is the ‘claim to fame’ for Clinton County.

One of the Pitzer family descendants, not my direct line unfortunately, did extensive research and wrote a huge book, ‘The Descendants of Andrew Jackson Pittser’, by B. W. Thompson, Sr., about the family. It has some interesting information about the origins of the name and the area from which the family emigrated.

My final research stop was the Clinton County Archive Department, but they had no tax-related records for Pitzer names.

I did not find out any more information about my Grandmother’s early life in Ohio, which was disappointing. There is no record of her birth in the County records and the 1900 Census records were destroyed by a fire. Her time in Ohio is still a mystery.

Our final stop in Central Ohio was in Buena Vista, at the White Oak Grove Church Cemetery, where my Great-Great-Grandparents and quite a few of their children and their children’s families are buried. I contacted the cemetery manager and met her at the cemetery to find as many grave sites as we could, and we were pretty successful.

The cemetery was started as part of the White Oak Grove Methodist Church.

I don’t know what happened to the church attendance, but it stopped holding services in 1955. The property went through several owners over the years and the final owner stripped everything of value, including the stained glass windows, from it and then left it to the forces of nature. The building quickly became a hazard and the property was purchased by the Township, which now manages the still-active cemetery.

The building was razed several years ago. The area is a farming community and Buena Vista used to be a thriving town, but is now mostly ramshackle houses.

The earliest cemetery records were destroyed in a fire, so some family members grave sites that have no headstones could not be located.

The majority of the Burton family grave sites are quite close together and each family had their own plot. Quite a few of the headstones were all rather similar and most were in very good shape.

Bruce and I brought some cleaning supplies and were able to clean up some of the oldest headstones to a certain degree, but some of them were quite stained and worn.

The gravesites we found were:

My Great-Great-Grandparents, James & Elizabeth Burton:

(Before and after cleaning)

The inscription reads:

Farewell my wife and children all From you a father Christ doth call
Mourn not for me it is in vain To call me to your sight again

The inscription on the bible pages is too worn to read.

Their children:

George and Mary Elizabeth Burton Family

George and Mary’s children:

Clara (Burton) and Walter Wark and son Alec

Mary Amanda (Burton) and Bert Wortman

There is some inc0nsistency in the details of Mary Amanda/Amanda M. This headstone is Amanda M. I found 3 census records where her name is Mary Amanda, then Manda, then Amanda M. Find-a-Grave lists her as being buried in Washington Courthouse, and perhaps she is, but her headstone is here, next to her husband.

William Earl Benton

Alma Burton

Judson Burton

James and Laura Burton

Cary and Etta Burton Family

Cary and Etta’s Children:

Otis and Belle Burton

Norman Burton

Ray Burton

Cleo Burton

Herbert and Nellie Burton

Their daughter Ruth, who is living in Florida

The lady who manages the cemetery knew both Herbert and Nellie and knows their daughter Ruth, who sends flowers to decorate the graves each Memorial Day.

Pauline Burton Sanders

My Great-Grandfather, Vallandigham, is not buried here with the rest of the family because he disappeared while on a trip shortly after my Grandmother was born. Another family mystery!

Vallandigham is such an unusual name and I have wondered where it came from. When I was visiting the Clinton County Historical Society, I mentioned my Great-Grandfather’s name and the ladies there told me that Vallandigham was a name that was not much liked in that area. That prompted me to do some research on the name and found a Clement Vallandigham, who was very opposed to the Civil War and Lincoln’s war powers. I found this: “Vallandigham was arrested on May 5, 1863, and charged with “publicly expressing…his sympathies with those in arms against the Government of the United States.” Upon his conviction, the Lincoln administration banished him to the Confederacy.” He was also a supporter of slavery.

My Great-Grandfather was born in 1865 and it certainly seems possible that he is named in honor of Clement. It is too bad there is no one alive who knows the full story.

While I did not find any new information about my Grandmother, I feel like I kind of got to know her aunts, uncles and cousins a bit.

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The Harvey family in Wisconsin

Posted on September 26, 2021 by admin

My Dad was born in Gleason, Wisconsin, so I have always had an interest in exploring that area. In addition, the description of Wisconsin that his sisters wrote about in the family book was of a green, rather lush land and that made a visit there even more appealing.

We recently had the opportunity to visit middle Wisconsin and the 2 counties where the Harvey family lived from 1921 until 1926, when they moved back to Montana. Both counties have Historical Societies, which we visited and where we found some valuable information.

The family moved to Elcho in 1921, where Grandpa Harvey was a pastor in their Union Congregational Church.

I had Googled ‘Union Congregational Church in Elcho’ but could not find a reference. I did find a United Church of Christ on Dorr road, so I thought that was a good place to start my search. The Langlade County Historical Museum, in Antigo, had several booklets written about area churches and in one we found a picture of the church that was in the family book and it was indeed located on Dorr Road. The church was built on property donated by the Dorr family. In the family book it mentions that they lived for a time on the ‘Dohr’ farm, but I suspect the spelling was ‘Dorr’ since this is the name of the family who donated the land, the Dorrs owned a lot of property in the area and the church was built next to their land.

The museum had an old plat map of the area and I put a red star in the approximate location of the church, which had just been completed in 1921.

In one booklet, it states that the first church was turned into the parsonage when the ‘new’ church was built. The family book says that the family lived next door to the new church, so the old church was most likely their home. (The ‘new’ church is on the right.)

A note about the church’s architecture: The square tower with a cut-out edge must have been a fad in early Wisconsin. We visited 2 counties and found 4 examples of this design in churches.

This booklet has a reference to Grandpa Harvey’s time as the pastor, but his time there differs from a booklet we found later.

In Elcho, we located the church and found the current pastor who lived in the parsonage, next to the church. The original church was rebuilt in the 1970’s and it appears that the old church was removed after the new one was complete and a parking lot was added over the old site.

The church had just celebrated their 100^th anniversary – 100 years since Grandpa Harvey preached in Elcho – hard to believe! The church had compiled a history booklet and it contained a record of Grandpa’s time there.

A sign that hung in the original church is mounted on the wall of the current church’s sanctuary and that kind of tied it all together for me.

One more note about the ‘new’ church: the current Pastor was very proud of the community center that the church built. It is used by the church and by the entire community for meals and gatherings, and it contains a bar. Grandma Harvey would not have approved of that At All!

What I found particularly interesting is that the family moved 3 times while living in the Elcho area, if the booklet is correct. The Harvey family moved quite frequently and that cannot have been easy. We drive around the area marked on the plat map as the Dorr farm, but could not find any evidence of a farm.

In 1924, the Harvey family moved to the Deerbrook community and the older kids attended the Liberty Bell School. This area is several miles south and west of Elcho. We found the community of Deerbrook, but the site of the school is an overgrown field. A picture of the school can be found online.

Deerbrook is a few miles east of Gleason and Dudley and in 1925 – 1926 the family moved to an area which must have been between Gleason and Dudley. The towns are quite close together: Dad was born in Gleason, but the older kids went to school in Dudley.

Gleason is south of Dudley and is just a tiny area in the current town of Russell.

No buildings exist where Dudley was located, but the museum did have an early day photo of the town.

The Lincoln County Historical Museum in Merrill provided some of the most interesting items. They have historical school census records, some school photos and old plat maps of the area.

The Dudley School, like Dudley itself, no longer exists. The area is very overgrown and if there is an old foundation, it is not visible from the road.

When the Harvey kids went to school here, State Road 17 would have most likely been just a dirt track. Dudley Road is still just gravel, no asphalt.

The museum had a photo of the Dudley School, taken in 1977. I don’t know if the school had been rebuilt in the 50 years since the Harvey kids attended, but it looks like a typical rural school.

The most exciting find of our museum visit was a school census and 2 photos from the 1926 Dudley School.

What a treat to look back almost 100 years and see those faces!

(I am pretty sure that they are identified this way: Torrance left side of back row, Adelaide in front of him, to his right, Nellie middle of front row, Lucille right end of front row. Playground picture: Lucille on swing to the left side, Adelaide standing next to her, Nellie on middle swing.)

I tried to imagine what these areas were like 100 years ago, but it was kind of hard because so many things have changed. A railroad used to run through the area and the farm related businesses, like a creamery, are no longer there. In fact we could not find many buildings that appeared to have been built during that time.

However, what I did come away with was a sense of why Lucille was so dismayed when she ended up in eastern Montana, in November, after leaving Wisconsin. Even in late September, the grass is green and there are purple wildflowers growing in the ditches. Any grassy space of some size has grazing Canadian Geese. The trees are just starting to turn fall colors of all shades of gold, orange and red. Rivers, creeks, lakes and marshes dot the area. Wisconsin is very pretty and it must have been even more so in the 1920’s when the Harvey family lived here.

The final stop on our ‘Harvey Family in Wisconsin’ research was the first place that the family lived when they moved to Wisconsin: Genoa Junction, now known as Genoa City. This small town is just miles from the Illinois border.

We had 2 photos from the family book to work with to try to identify the church where Grandpa was a pastor and the house where the family lived.

Thanks to Google Earth, Google Maps and Google (all the Googles) we were able to locate what we thought was the church and house. We found the current pastor and church secretary at the church and they kindly found some old journals that mention Grandpa, so we knew we had the right church. The Church is much the same on the outside – a basement was added in the 1950s and an addition has been added to the back.

The sanctuary is small, but nice.

The house has been modified a bit but was still the same basic house. No one was at home in the house, but I was able to stand in the same spot where the early day photos were taken, so that was great.

These are some of the documents of interest that I found in the church archives (including Grandma’s name, which I had not seen before in other documentation):

1918: 1919:

1920:

1921:

Grandpa had planted a row of trees that were referred to as the Harvey trees, even years later. There were 2 large trees further down the block and I wonder if they are the trees he planted. I like to think so.

In the other areas of Wisconsin that we visited, there were no physical reminders of the Harvey clan, everything had been removed or rebuilt. But here, I could walk in the same footsteps as my grandparents and uncle and aunts (and even my great-grandmother) and that was very nice.

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Desert Life

Posted on July 20, 2021 by admin

We have stayed in several kinds of environments while on the road, and deserts hold a special place in our hearts. You wouldn’t think that a place which is bone dry, and mostly very warm or very cold and windy would be welcoming, but we have enjoyed our time in places just like that.

Each time we leave a desert area, we spend a few days sweeping up the sand and fine dirt which accumulates whenever we walk into our RV, or blows in when the wind kicks up. But walking, mostly easy walking, is one of the things we enjoy the most. Stepping out our door and taking a hike across the desert is one of our favorite things to do. In 2020 and 2021, we visited some old favorites and some new desert areas.

Deserts seem to be bland; all sand and rocks and not much color. But it does not take long to find the beauty all around, even in the color and shape of the many species of cactus.

Southern California has provided us some wonderful desert opportunities and Mojave is one of our favorites. We have stayed at the Kelso Dunes twice now, and enjoyed both times. Camping there is boondocking – no services, just pick a piece of the desert and make your camp.

The dunes are huge, and there is a trail to the top of the highest one – one which we did not take! We did walk all over the surrounding area, we just found it too difficult to walk far in the soft sand of the dunes.

The dunes change color as the day progresses and that is fun to watch. At night the skies can be dramatic and spectacular.

We found an area near the dunes where low brush and shrubs provided welcome cover to several species of interesting birds.

Trying to guess what kind of creatures leave all the footprints and trails in the sand is a fun thing for us to do as we walk around.

The Mojave Desert is large and has roads throughout it so that people can explore on their own and one of our favorite places to go is the lava tubes – leftovers from a long-ago volcanic eruption that shaped the area. The tubes are at the end of a sometimes teeth-rattling drive over a heavily-rutted dirt road, through scenic desert dotted with cinder cones and lava rocks. The drive also passes beside long abandoned corrals, remnants of past ranching in the area.

At the tubes, a ladder leads down into a narrow passage that opens up into a large open area containing vents to the surface above. Beams of sunlight coming through the vents provided the only light into the open area.

A new desert stop for us in 2020 was Joshua Tree BLM, just outside of the town of Joshua Tree. This place was the largest piece of BLM land that we have visited; it was huge, and on the week-end it was busy. It was much closer to civilization than the Mojave was, which probably accounted for part of its popularity. The spot where we picked to camp was close to a very large solar panel array which was located on the western boundary of the area.

We were able to walk across a big sand flat and up to some hills to get a good view of the surrounding area, and while we did not find much wildlife, there was the occasional tiny creature to watch.

We headed further south for a month-long stay in Borrego Springs, an area we drove through in 2018 and decided it would be a good place for a longer visit someday. The town is small and the snowbirds had not yet arrived, so it was laid back and quiet while we were there. We were parked in a full-service RV park (versus the previous boondocking areas) at the edge of town, under a big Eucalyptus tree which gave us some welcome shade. We could step outside our door and be in the desert and we took some great walks while we were there.

Our next-door neighbors had lived in their site for years and had created a backyard oasis, which we got to enjoy. Hummingbirds and Verdin were regular visitors and we attached a window feeder to our motor home so that we could enjoy them up close.

Rabbits were everywhere -Cottontails lived in the park and Jack Rabbits lived in the desert. We saw and heard coyotes, who probably thrived on the rabbits.

Borrego Springs is home to acres of metal sculptures which are scattered around the surrounding desert. The artwork was commissioned by one man who owned a lot of the land, and his family has maintained the artwork for all to visit.

At the beginning of January, we moved east to the Arizona desert and one of our favorite boondocking spots near the tiny oasis of Why. Gunsight Wash is a large section of BLM land that borders both sides of a dry river bed and it was pretty busy in January. We wondered if that was due to people trying to stay isolated, like we were doing. We were able to find a rather quiet spot along the river bed and set up camp for a few weeks. A once-a-week trip to a nearby dump station to empty our tanks and fill up on water and then another trip for supplies to the town of Ajo was all we needed.

We could not find a source of water anywhere nearby and wondered how the birds that we saw got their water. We decided it would be fun to provide some food and water, but first we wanted to make sure we were not going to harm the birds by getting them dependent on us, so that when we left they would be in trouble. We researched feeding wild birds on the Internet and found that the birds would be very appreciative of the free goodies, but would quickly revert to their customary sources of food and water once we left.

With that knowledge, we decided to put out some seeds and water and see what happened. We got way more than we could have imagined and it was so much fun.

It only took about a day before the birds started to show up. The first one to find us was a Gila Woodpecker and he announced his find quite loudly and soon his mate showed up.

Gradually other birds started to find us and they, and we, fell into a daily routine. The finches were the first to show up each morning, sitting in nearby bushes to warm up and coming in for some water and food.

Around 9 AM the California Quail would appear out of the surrounding area, all running with their funny little waddle. They quickly checked the ground for seeds and then headed for the water.

A Cardinal who lived in a nearby bush would come out once a day for food and water, as did a Mockingbird who lived in an even bigger bush.

Assorted Sparrows, the Woodpeckers and Goldfinches, showed up too, usually in the morning. In the heat of the day the birds took a rest and then in the evening everyone came back for more goodies before dark.

All that drinking and eating meant we had to refill food and water up to 4 times a day. Because we were trying to make our own water tank last a week, we had to find alternate sources of water for the birds. We found a couple of places where we could fill up multiple 2 liter pop bottles mid-week. All that bird food that we put out had to be replenished as well, so we ended up buying bigger, and more, bags of food.

We also put up our window Hummingbird feeder and enjoyed daily visits from a couple different hummers.

A small ground squirrel decided to join the birds, and at first it was very timid, running in and out quickly. Over time, it got more bold and would just hang out with the birds. The Quail were very bossy and usually chased off other birds who were eating ‘their’ seeds, but they didn’t know what to make of the squirrel and just left him alone.

The Saguaro Cactus is such an iconic symbol of Arizona and we really enjoy seeing them everywhere we visit in Arizona. Their shapes and sizes are as varied as people. Cholla cactus trees are also pretty spectacular – you just have to be careful not to get too close to them and the spiny ‘fruits’ that they drop all around.

This year we saw more peccaries than we have seen in previous years and I had to include some pictures of them because they are kind of cute(?) and we enjoy spotting them.

After Arizona, we moved into Texas and then Louisiana and out of the desert areas for the rest of the winter.

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