Change of Seasons

Well, here we go again. Pam and I truly love the changing season but being here in Kansas with all this weather we are missing our sailboat in the Caribbean. Cold and snowed in again. We are prepared of it and being snowed in is in a way an adventure.

We had an ice event just before we got the last snow. It sure was pretty.

Being here for Christmas was great. Being in the Caribbean for Christmas like we have before it feels strange with it so hot. Their seasons there is hot and not so hot. Being out of the country even being with newly made friends it doesn’t feel the same. I think it’s the season that makes it feel so strange. We are doing some things here for a few more weeks at our little house out on the prairie before we go back. It cost to fly back to Guatemala where our boat is so we try to do all we can while were here. Most people live in their little world and never think how different other people live. I still hear or read things that are not so nice about the old south in the USA but why are so many people moving there. Out here in Kansas it is a two-sided coin. City and rural. Our little house out on the prairie in in rural Kansas. Cities here are the same as cities anywhere with pockets in the cities that the politicians are going to fix, to get rid of crime and get poor people more money and hand-outs because they can’t work. Now out in the rural parts of Kansas it’s mostly farmland and miles between houses. There are lots more dirt roads than paved roads here. Here in town where our house is the streets are still all dirt. The wildlife here is different from where I was raised in South Carolina. We have seen a squirrel in our yard but they’re rare out here but are everywhere in towns where they can raid bird feeders. Another thing out here with small wildlife is birds of prey. Great horned owls can fly away with a grown chicken. Hawks everywhere. Prairie dogs and badgers. Badgers are not something you want to take out of the wild and make a pet.

Badgers dig holes to find mice and other rodents.

Coyotes are the call of the wild out here for me. Hearing them at night sounds a little scary, lonesome and somehow a connection to the past. Cowboys long ago bedding down for the night out here on the prairie listening to the calls of the night. I have put in our blog before we had a full-grown mountain lion, come out of a field and run down the road in front of us on our old motor bike. That’s an experience you can’t buy and may never happen again. Our son that lives 3 miles away (that is close out here) has barn owls. They’re somewhat rare and chose where they live. Building owl boxes doesn’t mean you will get barn owls. He leaves a little door open so they can get in and out of and old building there in his yard. They don’t fly to that little door and land. They fly in and out through that small door.

Barn owls have been nesting and living in this barn, before and ever since our son brought his little farm out here on the prairie.

Pam says if I was and owl that is how I would do it. What does she know about me? Coming up soon 61 years together and counting.

                                        The Adventure of Life goes On

 

Some of Our Travels

Last week the big event here in the US was a commercial aircraft hitting a military helicopter. I have a pilot’s licenses but haven’t flown now in about ten years. We have for the most part been out of the country. My licenses are small. Just single engine land with variable retractable and a tail-dragger certificate. I’m most proud of my tail-dragger endorsement. I know I would never fly across an active runway being used as a final approach to land and when I fly, I monitor my radio to help watch for traffic. Listen for pilots in planes talking to the tower and where they’re at. What ever happen it’s sad. All those young people having the time of their life and in a moment they’re gone. With Pam and I buying our (little house out on the prairie) here in Kansas near our only kid, a son. We bought it so cheap we just couldn’t turn it down. Still calling our home the sailboat we live on. We fly on the cheapest commercial flights we can find to our sailboat back in the Caribbean and back here about every 3 months. Stay there 3 months and back here for 3 months. If you’re out there going like we have all our lives maybe it doesn’t change your odds of getting hurt, but we have had some close calls. Truck drivers know the odds are high, that they will be coming back home when they leave but know some day, they may not make it back. Years ago, when Pam was still in her early thirties, we were driving big rigs cross country together. (Seeing America.) I was in the sleeper. We were driving what was normal at the time, a White Freight-liner cab-over where you literally set over the front wheels, and this makes it ride rough. It would do only about 74 miles per hour and knowing Pam that was what she was doing. I knew something was happening to the truck, when she screamed. As I came out of the sleeper it was raining a little and we were on black ice. The truck in front of us jackknifed with us almost hitting it and cars and trucks going off the road and crashing into each other. Remember how fast all this was happening. I was screaming at Pam now, “Just drive! Don’t hit the brakes. Just drive and let the truck slow down by itself.” As we got on the side of the road Pam was going to get out to let me drive and I was screaming again, “No!” as a car came by almost hitting us sliding sideways. She crawled in the sleeper as I got over and behind the wheel. I put the truck in enter-lock (that’s all wheel drive) and started to try to get the truck to move up the road out of all this to where I could see an off ramp. We made it down the off ramp and over to a small truck stop with just two fuel pumps and a restaurant. Spent the rest of the night there. While the emergency road crews were trying to clean up the mess on the highway. The driver in the jackknifed truck in front of us was already dead when they got to him. Lots of people hurt. It’s quick sometimes and you’re gone. We will be flying back to our sailboat up a river in Guatemala in a few weeks. Cheapest flights we can find. Am I worried? That is hard to answer. I guess a little with Pam always with me. I do feel better when we are down and taxing to the gate, but it doesn’t stop there with being maybe not scared but worried a little sometimes. We were on a delayed flight one time and after we got our bags we walked through a door and realized we were outside the airport on the street at 4AM in the morning and they wouldn’t let us back inside. We were back in Guatemala City and any city if you’re out on the street at 4 in the morning can be scary. I found a cab driver asleep in his car and he said the bus station open at 4:30AM. We had planned to get a room and rest some but now we found ourselves in the bus station waiting on a bus that would leave at 9:30AM. By this time, we had been up over thirty hours and still had a six-hour bus ride to our boat. There are things to worry about if you’re out there going for a lifetime like we have. When Pam and I married I think we didn’t know what we wanted more than just being together, figuring it out. But over time we knew we didn’t want a lifetime of keeping up with the Jones. They are risk in life, and I know for sure now after a lifetime of doing what we wanted to do dreams do come true for those that go after their dreams.

                                  The Adventure of Life Goes On

Pam and I on a trip on our old antique motor bike we still have.

Safe back on the ground in the airport.

This has no part in the blog it’s just Pam being crazy at a Halloween party and was in these pictures.

Pinata for a burn the devil cerebration in Guatemala. Always on December 7th and it’s still hot there.

Our sailboat. Remember we designed and built ourselves. Setting at a dock in Guatemala.