Life Here and There

I have put in a lot of our blogs I’m glad I have never had a mistress. When you have two loves in your life it can complicate your life. Never had that problem with another women but there are other things in life I do love. Another thing I have in our blog a lot is Pam and I have been married 60 years and counting with the day we met coming up in October and from that day forward I knew she was and still is my dream girl. That said with the other things in my life I love we are still here in Kansas at our little house out on the prairie with our old home built sailboat in a boatyard in the Caribbean.

Hauling the Pamela Ann out of the water in the boatyard with it raining.

If I had to use logic with us getting old and had to choose one over the other the most logical thing to do at our age would be this little house. No need to explain this house it’s just us and how we like to live. Small but with just what we need to live cheap and well.

Our Little House on the Prarie

Things to do out here. We like to do we can’t do in the Caribbean. Hunting, car shows, little theaters, a long list. But as I was saying there are things we love about living on our boat and cruising around. Even the simple living we need to live well on a boat. Mostly what people say they would like to do living off the grid until they try it. Remember dreaming and what it is really like to live that way is not the same. A good example, baking bread in a small boat anchored somewhere with no air stirring and it’s really hot where the temperature changes very little at night. You have to love the simple life to do it and most people just love the dream not the doing. Just learn to make drop biscuits with what you’re cooking on a grill outside as it is getting dark and set in the cockpit to eat. With our dream to go cruising we bought a production sailboat and it didn’t work for us. We decided to design and build us a boat the way we wanted. Very few people ever finish a boat they start and we found out why. The few that do finish a boat if there is such a thing as finished very seldom take it very far from where they built it. We haven’t taken our boat that far I guess. With a family member asking me not to long ago how many trips we had made around the world. Remember dreaming and doing. Would I like to be in a round the world race non stop so I could say I sailed around the world? Could not pay me to do that. If we had a trust and didn’t have to ever work in my life and could cruise from one place to another all the way around the world now that would be a dream. In building our boat, it was, you think you know how to do this and why is it taking you so long. Working a full time job to live and how much time do you have to work on your boat along with what money you have you can spend on your boat with what it takes to live. It took us ten years before we left on our maiden voyage. Even leaving then it was not like we wanted but Pam being Pam she said, “We are going.” It was pure determination that got us as far as we went but we did it. Next time I will post what we did. With it being crazy, scary and an unbelievable adventure.

                                          The Adventure of Life Goes On

 

Old Cars and Trucks

The last few days and maybe the last few weeks have been crazy, Pam has been sick with swollen and painful left shoulder. Like a little bird with a broke wing. Went to a doctor and had to go back. She is feeling better now.

Sick Truck

Along with this our old truck we over hauled two years ago we thought had a stuck ring it stared using oil so bad so we tore it back down again to find it was bad rings we bought on line. Maybe not all the problems. We used a block that had been bored 30 over in our son’s junk yard. Out here in the country most farms have a junk yard, Some with amazing cars they just kept when they bought another car. Double checking everything the top and bottom of the cylinders were worn more that the middle this means the rings were flexing and may have been a factor in the overhaul not lasting any longer that it did. Went to see an expert in a machine shop and he ask me if the ring still had tension and were they sharp. I said no and the ring would cut you trying to get them off the piston. He said he had a waiting list of 3 month before he could bore the original block but he had a friend. A longer drive there. He said when he bored the block, 30 over it wouldn’t do it so it needed to be bored 40 over. We needed new pistons. Our son said he would foot the bill so he had the crank turned ten/ten, new cam the works and now the old worn out original motor is new again.

We are still in the process of doing the rebuild on the 1972 truck motor. But it is looking Great with a few new chrome parts.

This is common out here for people to pay the price to keep what they’re driving running and you see it here. This is really true with trucks out here. Mostly trucks past 1960 models you see every day. Some tired some like new. Our truck looks good and we do get comments driving it. A 1972 utility truck with no chrome. Six cylinder with a granny 4 speed and a utility bed. Bought new for the town near here. Pam and I love old cars so we went to a car show near here a lot of the oldies were there. Here is a few that caught my eye. Remember they drive these cars some and you do see them on the road.

                                                       The Adventure of Life Goes On

1930  Model A Ford. Tim’s first car was a Model A. He was only 15 years old. He brought it with money he made working on other farms. He restored it and drove it around the local area he grew up in.