Leaving Kansas

This will be our last blog before we are back in Guatemala, maybe New Orleans. It has been great up here. What a change it will be when we get off that plane in Guatemala. For one thing it will be hot. It has nothing to do with global warming. It’s just hot and has been “forever” in Central America this time of year. Here in Central Kansas the mornings are great and you can sleep at night as the cool sets in. This week lows in the 50s.

Looking out across the prairie

Another change in our life up here. We now have a lawn mower. A sore spot in the cruising world. You hear cruisers saying lawn mowers tie you to the world of less freedom. As our life changes some thing stay the same. Our last lawn mower was made up from parts people threw away. Most every thing we have has a Frankenstein element to it. When we get it most of the time, “It’s dead.” We start digging in junk for parts. Our out board motors on our boats have so many parts in them now we don’t know what year they are. The last mower we had we gave away when we left Southport, NC where we built our boat. “Would you buy a mower with not even one wheel matching another wheel?” The mower we have now is maybe not that bad. Maybe? We have only one wheel that is a little off. I’m now looking as we go in people’s junk for a matching wheel. Our son gave it to us and said it ran before this and that was broke. The main thing was the Clutch cable. Sounds simple but buying one was not so simple. Any one that knows me knows I’m not smart but this cable design is way off the mark. I have had people say I Tim-A-Size things so I redesigned and built a new cable. I like it and it’s working fine. Cheep paint gun from Harbor Freight and tractor paint from Tractor Supply it will look good someday.

We have run out of time and giving it a good paint job will have to wait until we get back out here. We are leaving other projects not finished now that we are living in two worlds of change. Our life will change next week for sure. Our first flight will land us in New Orleans for two days and then on to our boat. What will we miss out here? Food! Where you can buy a real steak. Home grown tomatoes. Just good old American stuff you can not get every where but one thing I will miss is our old motor bike.

If we get back for Christmas and to go hunting it will be too cold to enjoy riding. Maybe there is some joy that it is safe in the garage up here with us sailing around down there. When we are down there we use our little dink we call Dumpling. Little Dumpling down there is how we go to the grocery store. I hope it is safe, stored on the deck of our boat. We will soon find out but for now it’s car ride, airports and planes then cab rides to the bus station. A long bus ride, tuck tuck and maybe just walking. For now our boat is still home and we will be home soon. Back aboard the “Pamela Ann” our old home built schooner laying safely we hope to the dock in Calypso Marina up the Rio Dulce, river in Guatemala. Going home.

Farm Life in Kansas

Last week I said I was going to show more of what has been dis-guarded out here in Kansas as time has past when new and improved comes on the market. All most all these farms out here have there own junk yard that are mostly un-kept museums. Before we get to the old junk out here I would like to say there is new life on our son’s farm. Excitement last night was in the air as one lone chick hatched out in our son’s incubator. The lone chick may have been scared now in the world all alone and would not stop chirping so our son put it in his shirt pocket and it would get quite.

Two chicks now and some more to come.

This tractor has an AM radio on it. Top of the line in it’s day.

Old combine parts

Old grain drill was used for planting.

The weather is all ways a problem out here and Saturday night with thunder storms the wind blew. The little house we have out here on the prairie was built for this weather and we have trees. People plant trees around their houses to block the wind and sometimes you have to take care of them to keep them alive. This is prairie not forest land. Saturday night the house shook with the wind above hurricane force. It blew over a line of train cars waiting to be loaded, 140 in all. Looked like kid’s toys all hooked together laying on their side. Our whole life had been a weather event I think some time. We can tell stories for hours. With all the hurricanes and storms some of the things that has happen to us seem unreal like Pam and I were driving big rigs leaving Florida on Interstate 10. She was crawling in the sleeper and I was messing with the radio when they said a tornado was hitting the interstate at the mile marker we was going by. Looking up and there it was. We were driving into it. A truck behind us got rear ended and I felt safer that he was between us and all the traffic coming up behind us. I was trying to stop or go on at the same time I think. I could not decide what to do with this thing whirling in front of us. In a movie I had seen a cow flying by in the movie storm. Remember this was not a movie. No cow this time but there was stuff you could see and we were close enough I thought the truck was going over and a lot of stuff was hitting it. It was over fast and I never came to a full stop I think. When I saw it was passing I just went on with all that was happening behind us. The things I saw most was lawn furniture. In a very short time and a little more down the road it was like it didn’t happen. The mess was back there but it was just gone and now so were we. Now if we can make it out of here in maybe less than two weeks we will be back home on our boat in Guatemala and dealing with hurricanes and cold fronts.

Old Cars in Kansas

We are looking into plane tickets and going home in the next two weeks. Back from here in Kansas to our boat in the Rio Dulce river in Guatemala. It’s still fun out here. Years ago driving big trucks across the US Pam and I could see junk yards out in the desert and wondered just what was there. Out here junk yards set behind big fences and what is out here is amazing. What is out here in private junk yards out on these farms are little museums. From Junk cars to Car Shows. Here are a few:

This a rare 4 door hard top.

If you are a good old boy why not park on your friends truck. Let him see the love.

               Next week we will post some of the private junk yards on farms out here.

To our friends in the New Orleans area we will be stopping there for a few days looking up old friend on our way back to Guatemala.

 

Vine Ripe TOMATOES

We only have a few weeks left before we go back to our boat in Guatemala and our life and friends there. We are trying to take in as much as we can up here. We have our old motor bike tag out here now in Kansas and as sometimes when we do things other thing happen. We have had fiends say they hang out with us just to see what odd things happens sometimes as we are just living our lives. We had something happen last week as we went for our tag and Pam was determined to find a farmers market. In Guatemala the only tomatoes you can buy are Roma tomatoes and some times what they call apple tomatoes. A little better small round tomato but still low on taste. If you keep up with our blog you know I say a lot that in Guatemala as in most of Central America the food is bad, music is worse and it’s hot. We are here in Kansas to get out of the heat down there like a lot of boaters do each summer. Maybe here we should say why we even travel and live down there. It’s not for the food far sure. Maybe sometimes the music is okay down there if the radio is on a station aimed at older local people. Most stations are aimed at young people as it is in the US. As I have said in our blog before if you like to hear screaming and call it music add rap and remember it all done in Spanish down there. So again why do we live on our boat down there. It’s so different than the US. There is a lot to see there and before we get back to to what happen to us as we went to get our tag.

Happy Biker

Let me say this, you hear people say a lot you can live cheaper in Central America. What we call poor in the US live way above most people down there. Want to live cheap like in Central America. Move into a one room house with no power or running water and a dirt floor. Get rid of your car and buy a moped bike. Start eating mostly black beans and rice “every meal” . The most important thing to living like people down there is saying a lot. Just another day in paradise or maybe that just what boat people say down there. Now to what happen when we we were getting our tag and going to a farmer’s market in Kansas. We found a farmer’s market but had to wait for it to get stared. Rules there at this market no sell before 4:00 so all there can get what they have to sell out. We were talking and hopefully making a new friend that told us they were going on a trip and needed someone to take care of their garden. Maybe water it and get what is ripe and not let it go to waste. This is what happens to us sometimes and something we never expected it. Home grown tomatoes and blackberries straight from the garden.

These will be ripe in a few days.

Nice tomato Vines

Maybe if looking back on our life the diversity of our life has at least been very rewarding. I think we may start hanging out at some of these little airports out here. Maybe some one will give us a free ride or two. I have had my pilot’s license for over 50 years now or maybe some one maybe will give us and old air plane. A little duck tape and bailing wire and lives adventure goes on.