Once in awhile-now and again-this is us

oh  my  goodness. there were hundreds of them.  every make, color and size.  mostly fords and mercurys.  and as the saying goes,  for everything made, there is someone who collects it.

a lot of work goes into restoring some of them. would you even have started to restore this one? and it only took a year???????

the finished product

there were big ones

and little ones

unusual ones

awwwwah

this one is classy

didn’t you have a morris minor jim?

jerry liked this one

i loved this grill

and this license plate

and this hood ornament

it was fun looking at all the cars and hearing their owners talk so lovingly about them. I know daryl rebuilt his grandfathers truck just as loving and thorough as they did. norm puts a lot of love into his cars too. our cousin jim likes the model t’s to work on and has two of them. men have that relationship with their cars. don’t we wish they looked at us the same way?

and them we had lunch

you could see the board walk

and hear the people scream as they were shot up to the top

stay tuned for more

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there are some of the most artistic people in these small beach towns. a lot of lets say, unusual people too. on a walk in this one section of town called sqid row, I saw this building. a yoga studio. I liked it a lot. so for the artistic people, here are a few pictures. you can bypass this one ray.

we stopped at a goodwill bargain center on the way out of town. it wasn’t as good as the one in phoenix. mostly junk. but you could get a brown paper grocery bag filled for six dollars. I filled it with books. ray. oh I forgot you’re not looking at this post.

it only took an hour from santa cruz to get to our campsite in san Francisco. here’s a view from the back window.

we’re going to ride horses on the beach today.

stay tuned

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the weather has been great. it was a little chilly last night though. the campground has been full. summer starting, kids out of school and a major event going on. the majority of campers are so nice and friendly. it’s a fun place.

we’re leaving early this morning to get a parking place by the wharf.

the view out the window

looking straight up

this is as close as we got to the river.

bye

stay tuned, the woodies will be next

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not again, i’m on summer vacation

but we saw another mission. mission santa cruz. this one had been destroyed by an earthquake though. only one building survived.

the holy cross catholic church that is built on the old church site

the size of the original mission

a replica of the original church

uh-oh

the building that survived

an original room

what one may have looked like

uh-oh

a 200 year old avocado tree

I wish I had room for more of the factual pictures I took. it is so interesting the lives these buildings have housed. the joy and hardship. so pay attention in class Emily. there’s a lot to learn. I love you, grandma.

we finished the day at jerold o’briens wine tasting room. he has a nice place here. we tasted 10 wines all together. just sips mind you. they were all pretty good. we bought a case since we got a family discount. that should last the trip. ha ha aha.

jake, they need more signage

thank you very much

stay tuned for the woodies.

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what?

didn’t you say you were starting to learn about the missions?  we stopped at one yesterday. there are 21 all together and we’ve seen a lot of them. they are always interesting, and oh yeah, a good place to take pictures.  mission san Miguel arcangel was the 16th built in 1797 . we missed the tour but we saw the church and cemetery. the history of these being built is fascinating. when you think of the priests in their robes in the heat, and it was hot, dedicated to a cause of great significance to them. creating something that still stands today and is still meaningful.

so many of these are missing the sign now

I loved this shot of a broken headstone cast aside

one place jerry is always generous

I like the look of this. can you do this on the front porch Gregg

jerry is at it again

we are in staying the at a beautiful campground in the redwoods of santa cruz for a couple of nights. today we are going to see the mission santa cruz and tomorrow we will see a woody gathering on the wharf.  i hope to get some good pictures of that.

so stay tuned

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the trip started out great with dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in bulleton, ‘the hitching post’. a steak doesn’t get any better than this.  one of the specials was a  purely organic, 100% hormone free, the cows were never even offered chemicals, $42.00 12oz. ribeye. this is a steak to die for guys.

ours is the one on the upper left corner

look at the size of those burgers

I was still early when we finished dinner so we drove on to arroyo grande and spent the night at kmart. Walmart said no.

we decided to take highway 101 instead of 1. jerry and I were trying to figure out how many times we’ve been on highway 1 in the last 51 years. our closest guess, and it is just a guess, is at least 25. at least. probably more than that though. and then you have to add the drive home.

101 is not as interesting as 1 but we can always find something on any road we travel. and on this trip I decided to finally stop at the state hospital in atascadero  and inquire about my father’s time there. it turned out I needed more credentials to prove I was his daughter to get any information. I will send them that when I get home and I can finally get some questions answered. I didn’t realize what a prison like hospital it is.

it was hard and sad, but yet it made me glad that I stopped.

our next stop was the mission in san miguel. i’ll put that in another blog

so stay tuned

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we are up and running. the fridge is at 35 degrees and 0 in the freezer. so we are good to go. ready to get out of here while the getting is good .  we’re flying the coup and leaving the nest. going down the road less traveled.

we had a good day yesterday. since we had time we said a proper good-bye to some of the neighbors.

goodbye kara, cecil and bella. thanks for the envelope again.

good bye jose and chris. thanks for the treatment chris. thanks for all the joy you bring jose.

good bye linda and frank. thanks for the cabin $, for dinner last night, and being here for midas.

linda made us a delicious fish dinner and we had it al fresco on the porch. boy she’s a good cook. neighbors all stopped by to see why we hadn’t left yet. some stayed and we had a good time. boy i’m going to miss that.

did you hear the one about……….

we’re going to miss midas as usual.

good bye pretty boy – meoooooow

and all the dog walkers that pass our porch.

good bye nina, dahilia, and moma. we know the dogs names better than the humans

but most of all we will miss our wonderful family. we got to see them at tracy’s  on father’s day.  we had tortilla soup and taco salad. yumm.

it was also a celebration of Jessica’s graduation from Wilson high school. yeay Jessica, the honor student. she’s going to college in Oregon verses Hannah in minnesota. I wonder if their sports teams ever play against each other? hmmmm

good bye tony, Hannah, tracy, Jessica, Emily, thuy, Emily and amy

talking about leaving the nest, we have a hawk’s nest on our street. we’ve had fun seeing them fly by and hear their voices. the babies are big enough to fly now, so we’ll miss that take off.

mommy or daddy in a near by tree

I guess we’re just about ready for our take off. I hope I capture some good pictures for all of you. as always I love getting comments, but they are not required, except for our family. got that ya’all.

stay tuned

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Way up north (north to Alaska), way up north (north to Alaska)

North to Alaska, go north, the rush is on

Big Jerry left Long Beach in the year of 0-fourteen

With his faithful  huskies and his trusty coach too

They crossed the Yukon River and found the bonanza gold

Below that old White Mountain just a little southeast of Nome

Jerry crossed the majestic mountains to the valleys far below

He talked to his team of huskies as he mushed on through the snow

With the northern lights a-running wild in the land of the mid-night sun

Yes,  Jerry  was a mighty man in the year of 0-fourteen

Where the river is winding, big nuggets they’re finding

Way up north (north to Alaska), way up north (north to Alaska)

North to Alaska, go north the rush is on

Jerry turned to his huskies with his gold in his hand

Said Jerry, “you’re looking at a lonely lonely man”

I’d trade all the gold that’s buried in this land

For one small band of gold to place on my sweet Jilly’s hand

Cause a man needs a woman to love him all the time

Remember, a true love is so hard to find

I’d build for my Jilly, a honey-moon home

Below that old White Mountain, just a little south-east of Nome

Way up north (north to Alaska), way up north (north to Alaska)

North to Alaska, go north the rush is on

we hit a little snag in the coach. jerry turned on the refrigerator last night to get it cold. this morning it still wasn’t cold. bummer.

a trip to the shop revealed we need a new one. imagine that.  this one is only 22 years old and has always kept things colder than the one in the house.

so they are putting in a new one as we speak and it should be ready by tonight. so plans are to leave in the morning. actually it was kind of nice to get another day to pack. the bill is not going to be so nice though.

stay tuned.

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it’s almost time to leave on our next trip. (I thought I’d do a practice blog to get in the swing of things).

I hope our trip will be of interest to you this year.  we changed our destination from capitols of the dakotas to the capitol of Alaska, Juneau. our 48th capitol. with global warming and all, we thought we better get up there and see a glacier. ha ha. well, I guess it’s not really a joke. it is happening, they are melting, for whatever reasons.

we will leave the 17th of june and will probably be gone a few months. we’ll also be re-visiting a lot of our favorite places in Washington, Canada, and Oregon. speaking of Oregon, we hope to see the international rose garden with roses this time.

and, speaking of roses, I thought i’d share some pictures of our roses with you. they did really well this spring. the back yard has suffered from our lack of attention when we are gone for months at a time. but the roses just keep on blooming. even if I don’t get the weeds pulled.

French lace, eclipse ,love

paradise

brandy

brandy

voodoo bud

karl lagerfield

double delight

garden party

garden party

I bought another ‘distant drums’

remember to stop and smell the roses

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we stopped at Joshua tree on the way home last week. I took some pictures for ted, and the best way to show him is in the post. email won’t hold all these. so if you’re interested you can scroll down, if not just click out and go on with your day. thanks for supporting my blog. I work hard to show you something you might not notice otherwise. love, jill

when we hear ‘the desert’, we think of a hot, dry, sandy, barren landscape. but we encountered three different desert habitats. they all have their own look with their own plants. joshua tree had these magnificent boulders. we spent last Thursday night under the stars again.

instead of a sunset we saw this

I tried to take a close-up

we woke up to rain

that didn’t stop me from taking pictures

the cholla cactus garden

the joshua tree

the boulders

skull rock

I loved this one. it looked like a gorilla hiding it’s eyes

well that’s all folks. thanks for sticking with me, bad grammar and all. we always have so much fun and l love sharing the pictures I take, so I don’t worry about dotting every I or crossing every t. (wordpress likes to capitalize some words whether I want it to or not).  I hope it wasn’t too difficult to get through. what did you think ted?

until the Dakotas in june, i’m going to give my camera a rest. you’ll hear from me then. love to all, jill and jerry

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