Once in awhile-now and again-this is us

highway 80 was good to us. it gave us a spectacular show. the snow was so beautiful. every turn gave us a new picture. here are some for you southern Californians who never get to see it. which is good because I wouldn’t want to live in it.

our first peek at the snow.

as we were driving I thought how long we’ve been traveling and how two of our schweethearts, on the left, have been with us the whole time. the ones on the right are only 4 or 5 years old. I see them over my computer all the time watching where we are going.  well look what’s going on when I put down the lid.

ha ha aha.

there’s ice on the pond. the snow was so soft, I guess what they call powder.

i love this picture I got out the window. the sun made the snow look so white and that one lone tree. I wish I hadn’t got the road in it though.

looking at that railroad on the side of the mountain made me think how long and how many men it took to build it.

the trees are showing some color now. this is the truckee river as we neared the end of highway 80.

we visit ted next.

stay tuned.

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hi all, just wanted to thank you for all the wonderful comments. it was like Christmas morning at mcdonalds this morning. finding all the new comments to read. thank you again for taking the time to look at the pictures and giving me feedback. i love it.

we took it easy yesterday. waiting for the weather to change. it did and we had some thunder and lightning and the blackest clouds. we watched as the sky turned into a beautiful pink.

we were waiting to go in the movie theater to see ‘martian’. it was pretty good but seemed to long.

we spent some of the rainiest hours in a goodwill. it was a huge one with some of the best prices. i got this old monopoly game for $1.99. the last copyright on the box was 1964.

it has it’s own banker tray. did we ever have one of these celia, ted?  did anybody? does anybody know what the bigger red pieces of plastic in with the hotels are?

the sun is shining today. not a cloud in the sky. ted says it’s cold and wet in reno. we are headed that way this morning, hope hwy 80 is good to us.

stay tuned.

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the old man is snoring.

since we are still sitting at mcdonalds, and jerry is still sleeping, I want to show you this picture, because I wish I would have put this one in the blog than the one I did.

jerry was cracking them up.

I guess I have time for a few more.

there were two cats at the ranch. tom and jerry. I never got a picture of jerry. tom looks like jamma, Hannah’s cat.

don’t you love this kara? I wish I still had all my fabric scraps. save all your scraps Emily, you’ll want them one day.

uh oh, jerry just woke up. more later.

thanks for paying attention to the blog and leaving comments. love all of you. jill

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we stayed at another Walmart in chico last night. no wifi at that one. we we’re at another good old mcdonalds this morning doing the blog.

we got an email from ted that said there may be snow on hwy 80 today. the way we were going. it might even  get down into reno. we don’t want to take a chance on getting in snow again, so we’ll hang out in chico today. maybe see a movie. open our bottle of champagne and toast to 53 years of highs and lows and all the in-betweens.

anyway, now I have time to do the mansion post. I know all of you can’t wait to see another Victorian mansion. jerry says that they all look alike to him, but he takes me and ends up enjoying it.

it looks kind of like the physco  house.

that generation sure liked big portraits of themselves hanging everywhere. could you see any of us having a picture of ourselves that big hanging in our houses now. but if you are the founder of the city of chico, I guess you can do it. he was also a general and a congressman among other things.

I loved his desk. look at that old typewriter.

this was the living room looking into the dining room. i love the flag drapes. the hanging on the wall on the right is a picture made out of hair. something done in that era.  that’s jerry in the mirror.

they also hang pictures from a pictures rail. see they used to really use them frank. I like the way this one is in a corner.

this is a few steps up from what the Indians had.

the library was enormous but I liked the collection of little books.

I put this picture in for amy. she loves pink, as do i.

third floor looking down. I wouldn’t like doing those every day. in those big dresses?

ok the last one. this is mrs. bidwell’s 150 year old rosewood  ‘baby grand square piano’. I thought it was beautiful. a work of art.

I guess we’ll go find something to do now. I found a movie theater and a thrift store in the same block.

stay tuned.

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the firestone beer people told jerry to come on up to the brewery on our way north. it’s in paso robles. well we got there too late and left too early to do that. damnrn. we spent the night on an out of the way street. it was across from a big car lot. we were playing dominos and at around 8:00 we heard someone opening and closing the car doors. it was the salesman going to every single car, probably 100 cars, locking them I guess. just one of the things that go on in the night.

we knew we would be driving all day Saturday. there’s just not much to do on 99. we did go to a few thrift stores. we ended up in tracy for the night, hi tracy,

at a walmart. a very nice new store. and look what it has now. something we’ve been wanting for a long time.

but I had no pictures to blog with.

the only thing we bought here was a sunday paper. the first paper jerry had read since we left home. at home he reads me pickles every morning. it was a good one today.

we headed for sacramento. there were a few things we wanted to do there. we hadn’t been in old town for a long time. and we had never seen the underground railroad. well the rain finally got here. around Stockton it started drizzling. by the time we were at sacremento it was pouring. we drove on. heading for chico to an air museum. the rain had let up by then, but the air museum was closed and not at all what it looked like on the brochure.

they had a cool fire truck though.

across the sky was this beautiful break in the clouds that almost looked like a rainbow. I couldn’t capture them. damnrn.

it was really so beautiful. no telling what you will see in north Dakota tracy. they say you can sometimes see the northern lights up there.

we went to an historical home here also. the bidwell mansion. i’ll do another post on that. we’re headed for reno today.

stay tuned

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