Tag Archives: retirement

local news

‘Living the dream,’ really and truly

We’ve all either said it or heard it said by someone else.

“How’s it going for you?”

“I’m living the dream, man.”

We know that the “living the dream” quip is meant usually as a bit of self-deprecation. When I say it, though, I mean it. I am not making fun of myself. I truly am living the dream.

The dream includes coming and going (more or less) as I please; my wife of 46-plus years has a bit to say about that, but she’s not terribly demanding of my time.

Today I got a chance to speak to an Amarillo, Texas service organization. Someone from that group was familiar with this blog; he said he reads it “fairly regularly” and likes a lot of what I write. He admitted he’s not too keen on the political stuff that spews from High Plains Blogger. I get that. I live in the middle of Republican-Red Trump Country and this blog is decidedly not cast from that mold.

He likes to read the retirement posts, entries about my precious granddaughter, about Toby the Puppy and the other “life experience” matters that grab my attention from time to time.

So he asked me to speak to his service club. I did so. I got to boast — if you want to call it that — about the indisputable fact that there truly is life after journalism.

I pursued print journalism singularly for nearly 37 years, I told these good folks. I gave them the extremely short version of how that fruitful and moderately successful career came to an end at the Amarillo Globe-News on Aug. 31, 2012. I told them about how Mom and Dad suggested journalism to me at the dinner table one night in 1970 shortly after I returned home from the Army and was getting ready to go back to college.

I then told them a bit about my career and how I enjoyed it so greatly for almost its entire length of time.

But that was then. The here and now allows me to write this blog and to express myself beholden only to my own conscience. I no longer work for The Man.

Thus, I am living the dream. It’s no put-down, either.

local news

Puppy Tales, Part 40

I already have declared Toby the Puppy to be the all-time greatest road warrior in the history of doghood. I also have proclaimed him to be the smartest, best-behaved and cutest puppy as well.

He joined our family slightly more than three years ago and he has blessed my wife and me daily ever since. He has made us laugh every single day since our great-niece brought him home Labor Day Weekend 2014 after finding him curled up next to a Dumpster in an alley.

Toby’s understanding of the English language, however, has taken a new turn. It occurred to us while we were on our three-week RV trip from Texas to Oregon and then back.

I occasionally turn in for the night first. I did so fairly routinely on our 4,200-mile journey out west.

I would fall into bed and then my wife would say to Toby, “OK, Puppy, go on to bed and snuggle with Daddy.” At that, Toby would jump down off his mother’s lap, scamper across the floor, jump into bed and curl up next to my legs. I would throw a blanket over him and that’s that. Lights out for Toby.

I want to bring this up to illustrate that my wife spoke to our puppy in a complete sentence. He understood it. He then responded appropriately.

It reminds me of how Lassie would respond to Timmy’s distress calls, how the boy would tell the dog to fetch Mom and Dad and rescue him from the well. Or how Rin Tin Tin would aid the soldiers from Fort Apache, alerting them on where the Indians were waiting to ambush them.

OK, I exaggerate, but you get my point, yes?

I don’t expect TV studios to call us while looking for the next Super Dog to cast in a series. For one thing, they don’t make those kinds of TV shows these days.

Then again, if studio moguls are interested, I’ve got just the puppy.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 52

I am happy to report that we have returned from another highly successful retirement sojourn.

It covered 4,279 miles — give or take a few — from Amarillo to the Pacific Northwest and back.

What I want to mention specifically is that Big Jake — our 3/4-ton pickup that hauls our fifth wheel RV — has flexed his proverbial muscle and has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s up to the task.

Jake lugged my wife, Toby the Puppy and me — along with our fifth wheel — up and over some of the most rugged climbs we believe we’ll ask as we continue our lives in the Age of Retirement.

We set out Oct. 9 for points west. We made stops in Gallup, N.M., Needles, Calif., Chowchilla, Calif., Grass Valley, Calif., Eugene, Ore. and finally in Portland, Ore. Jake took us on some hefty climbs along the way — through New Mexico and then into the Sierra Nevada.

Ah, but it got a bit more stringent on the return trip.

We set out for home on Oct. 23, with stops in Bend, Ore., Winnemucca, Nev., Provo Utah, Glenwood Springs, Colo., and Fountain, Colo. It was the Glenwood Springs-to-Fountain leg where Jake earned his spurs, his stripes; the Provo-to-Glenwood Springs leg was no picnic, either.

We managed to climb to 10,600 feet at Vail, Colo. Then we descended, only to climb again, when we reached 11,100 feet at the Eisenhower Tunnel just west of Denver.

Oh, my! Jake did well.

My wife and I knew we bought a winner when we acquired this beastly truck more than three years ago. Jake had hauled us through the Appalachians, the Ozarks and through the Black Hills. No sweat.

This trip, the longest yet in terms of distance, proved to be a stellar test of the muscle contained under Jake’s massive hood.

Big Jake passed. He gets an “A.” Now we’ll catch our breath, get ready for the next big transition in our life — getting our house ready to sell. Then we’ll hit the road yet again.

No worries. I am certain Big Jake is up the next challenge.

national news

Happy Trails, Part 51

WINNEMUCCA, Nev. — We might have discovered the nicest stretch of highway in the continental United States of America.

It’s not necessarily the most scenic. The quality of the highway, though, is unmatched by any other prolonged stretch of blacktop on which we have traveled in our retirement life.

I want to give a shout out to U.S. Highway 20 from Bend, Ore. to Burns, Ore.; then to Oregon Highway 78 from Burns to Burns Junction, Ore.; then on to U.S. 95 from Burns Junction to Winnemucca, Nev.

The stretch of highway(s) runs 354 miles.

I want to mention this briefly because the road was pothole/chuckhole free. We didn’t see a single blemish on the roadway from Bend to Winnemucca.

Our latest sojourn in our RV hasn’t been this smooth. Not by a long shot. We encountered a bit of rough riding along California Highway 99 through the middle of that great — smoke-clogged — state. I will not toss out any blame here; I merely am stating a fact.

Those who like to travel as my wife and I do will appreciate the observation, I hope, that the country does have some highly drivable rights-of-way.

The entire journey from Bend to Winnemucca was scenic as well. It was desolate, particularly the stretch from Burns southwest along Oregon 78. Even that has its form of beauty.

With all the talk we’ve heard in recent years about “crumbling infrastructure” and the need to rebuild our nation’s highway grid and bridges, I want to proclaim that a 354-mile stretch of highway way out West is in fine shape … thank you very much.

national news

Happy Trails, Part 50

BEND, Ore. — Our retirement journey has taken us to the place where our life together began slightly more than 46 years ago.

My wife and I got married at 2 p.m. on Sept. 4, 1971. Then we jumped into Dad’s car and drove to our honeymoon location in the middle of the Central Oregon Cascade Range.

But this post isn’t about that event. It’s about how I am discovering new things about our incredible journey so many years later.

We came here to visit with a couple members of our family who retired here five years ago. We have shared a lot of memories, some thoughts about current events and some views about what the future holds for all of us.

I mentioned to my cousin that he seems “well-grounded here.” I said he seems to “know the lay of the land.” He answered, “But you know the lay of the land in Amarillo, yes?” Absolutely, I answered, but “we’ve lived there for 22 years.”

We’re preparing the next phase of our life together. I told my cousin that we are preparing now to learn the “lay of the land” in a new community. We don’t yet know the precise location of where we’ll end up. We do know that we’re going to start over. We’re going to make new friends. We’re going to establish our identity among people who at this precise moment are complete strangers to my wife and me.

Does it frighten either of us? Certainly not my wife. She’s transitions well from place to place. Not me, either. I’ve learned already that I am far more adaptable than I ever gave myself credit for being. I discovered it when our young family moved from Oregon to the Texas Gulf Coast in 1984. We had a great run there. Then my wife and I moved up yonder to the Texas Panhandle.

We’re getting ready for yet another big change.

Thus, the challenge awaits.

I’ve long thought that we all need one final major challenge in our life. For me, at least, this one is it.

national news

Happy Trails, Part 49

PORTLAND, Ore. — Our retirement journey has brought us to where our lives together began nearly 47 years ago.

It was a rocky landing, though. It had nothing to do with my wife and me, or our relationship per se.

It had to do with an RV park where had reserved space.

We had intended to stay at an RV location in Vancouver, Wash., across the mighty Columbia River from Portland, where I was born and where I spent the first 34 years of my life.

I called ahead from Eugene, where we spent the previous night. We made the reservation. The young woman told us all she had left were “back-in” sites. Fine. Let’s reserve it, I said. She told me the space was “tight, but no one has any trouble” backing in.

All righty. We arrived at the RV park. We paid for our reservation. e drove our truck and our RV to the site. Tight fit? Uh, yeah. It was. It was so damn tight, we couldn’t get the RV/truck assembly positioned correctly to back it in. The spaces were packed like sardines.

I am not yet an expert at backing in our fifth wheel, but I am not a complete novice/dunderhead, either. I couldn’t get it to fit. A young man who works part time at the RV park took the wheel of our pickup. He couldn’t get it right, either. He had to leave to pick up his girlfriend.

My wife and I looked at each other. Then she spoke words of wisdom: Did we want to stay there or try to find another location … somewhere? We went to the office and read the riot act to the young lady, the one who told me “no one has any trouble” maneuvering their RV into these back-in sites.

The lady made an offer. “We can reserve a spot for you at a sister site in Portland, Oregon.” She called ahead. They had pull-through sites available. We could get in for the cost of our stay at the Vancouver RV park.

Deal! Done! Let’s do it.

So, we did. The Portland site was just a few minutes away.

The lesson? It came from my wife: Never again are we going to reserve a back-in site at a private RV park. State parks are OK. We’ve discovered that the Texas state park system, for example, has ample space for back-in sites.

The journey now can continue.

national news

Happy Trails, Part 48

Not quite four years ago I wrote a blog post worrying about the potential advent of in-flight cell phone use.

As far as I know, the Federal Aviation Administration hasn’t allowed passengers to gab out loud at 35,000 feet into their cell phones.

Which brings me to this point: My wife and I are planning to spend the vast bulk of our retirement years tethered to terra firma traveling in our RV across North America.

Air travel has become difficult enough as it is. We have been fortunate and blessed enough to be able to travel by air over the years since 9/11: Greece, Scandinavia, Israel, Germany, The Netherlands, Belize, Hawaii.

Almost all of those flights have been pleasant. The one that will stand out for the rest of my life was the flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport while sitting across an aisle from a toddler who screamed at the top of his lungs for 10 whole hours.

I cannot fathom for a single instant how I might have reacted had I been forced to listen to some yahoo blabbing on his cell phone for that entire time, too.

I trust the FAA will keep its wits and never in a zillion years allow such in-flight idiocy to occur.

I do know that my wife and I plan to continue our travel aboard our pickup and fifth wheel RV. There will be no such nonsense to endure while tooling along our nation’s highways and byways.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2013/10/please-please-faa-no-cellphones-in-flight/

 

national news

Happy Trails, Part 47

EUGENE, Ore. — Our retirement journey took us “home,” or a place we used call it such.

We aren’t spending much time here. Our drive from central California was spectacular in the extreme.

What made it so? I guess it was the topography.

I told my wife today en route to the Willamette Valley that “I think we’ve lived in Texas for too long. I have forgotten how tall those mountains and that timber are around here.”

Don’t misunderstand something. By “too long,” I don’t imply any regrets about moving to Texas. We left Oregon in 1984 so I could pursue a career that turned out all right. Our first Texas stop was along the Gulf Coast, in Beaumont. You don’t see any mountains anywhere near that part of the world.

I remember a conversation I had with one of my sisters, who asked me not long after we moved to Beaumont, “Can you see any mountains there?” My answer: “Yeah, maybe, but only if you get waaay up on your tiptoes.”

Our fifth wheel is a reliable traveling vehicle that we intend to take virtually everywhere in North America. On this leg of our extended retirement journey, we managed to cast our gaze on some of God’s most gorgeous creations.

Mount Shasta anyone? Fall foliage, too? The Sierra Nevada? Rivers with water rushing along them? Many miles of conifer-coated mountainsides? They’re all out there. We saw them up close.

Yes, there have been the fires in Santa Rosa, Calif., and close to where we parked our RV in Grass Valley, Calif.

Retirement has enabled us to load up and hit the road to some awesome locations already: Twin Cities, Mount Rushmore, Washington, D.C., Blue Ridge Parkway, Durango, Nashville.

And on and on it goes … and will go from here.

This return to a place we once called “home” has been quite special so far. The Pacific Northwest is a beautiful place, to be sure.

I’ve heard a few of my High Plains friends tell me they get “claustrophobic” driving among all those mountains and tall timber. I get it. I actually can understand why they might feel that way.

I am not there. I likely expect to never get bitten by the claustrophobia bug.

national news

Gold mining not exactly ‘safe,’ but the lack of loss is stunning

EMPIRE MINE STATE PARK, Calif. — Whenever I visit historic sites, I try to take something away from each visit.

We came to this mining exhibit in Sierra Nevada and discovered something quite unusual.

After they struck gold in California in 1849, they opened the Empire Mine and began digging the precious metal out. For 106 they mined gold at Empire Mine. The takeaway?

Only 26 miners died during the entire time the mine was operating.

I heard that statistic and was astounded.

The mine was primitive by the standards we know today. They lugged the metal out from deep within the surface of the planet by hand. They brought mules in later, treated them very well, and used the pack animals to haul it out.

Of the 26 miners who died while the mine operated from 1850 until 1956, only a handful of them — fewer than a half-dozen — died from rock falls. Cause of death might have been equipment failure or perhaps even mine-related illness.

The state park system has established a wonderful exhibit here, in Grass Valley, that gives visitors a marvelous look into the past. The offices contained an upright typewriter, an adding machine, table tops with T-squares and protractors and a vault that looked vaguely like a washing machine.

We stood at the top of a mine shaft that sank hundreds of feet into the dark. The shafts are now filled with water to about the 450-foot level below the surface, we were told; the water table here has filled it naturally.

Hundreds of men worked the mines at any one time. When you think of the thousands of men who toiled deep in the belly of the planet, I find it astonishing in the extreme that only 26 of them died doing this torturous work.

They were paid in the beginning $3 per day; they worked 10 hours a day; they worked six days a week. A state park ranger told us “That was good money in those days.”

They were sturdy, industrious men, to be sure. I quit long ago trying to imagine myself doing that kind of work, given that I live in the moment — today, in the here and now. Perhaps I could be a miner had I lived in that day and in that era.

A corollary question might be to wonder how those tough-as-nails men might fare in today’s world. My hunch is that they likely would fare about as well as we would being transported back to that era.

environmental news

These men and women are doing heroic work

GRASS VALLEY, Calif. — The nation’s eyes, ears and hearts are dialed in to the tragedy that’s unfolding a bit northwest of here, in Santa Rosa.

Fire has destroyed thousands of homes and killed dozens of people. The death toll is expected to increase. Firefighters have poured in from all over the continent to assist in that terrible fire.

My wife, Toby the Puppy and I came to Grass Valley on vacation. En route to this marvelous place we learned of another fire. We half-expected to drive to a site full of smoke; we thought we might have to purchase surgical masks to keep from inhaling all that smoke and dust.

We arrived to find the sky relatively clear, unlike what we saw in Chowchilla about 180 miles south of here. Then we pulled into our Nevada County Fairgrounds RV park and found quite a sight: dozens of firefighters roaming around; rows of firefighting equipment; tents full of supplies (food, clothing, blankets, etc.); one-person tents pitched everywhere.

They’re fighting these fires fiercely. They seem to have caught a break with the weather. The winds were calm upon our arrival, although we heard from several folks that the previous day brought choking smoke to the area.

We visited with a young man who appears to be a senior firefighting officer. He guesses about 1,000 firefighters are on hand. He said they are coming in “from all over. The Midwest is the farthest away.” Jail inmates are fighting the fires. They’ve got CCC crews on the task, too.

He estimated that the fire has burned about 14,000 acres.

It isn’t yet contained, he said.

What’s more, the efforts of these men and women are not going unnoticed by the community. They have made signs on the chain-link fence bordering the fairgrounds. They have earned the community’s gratitude and wishes for God’s blessings to all of them.

On our way back to our RV site, we encountered four young firefighters: three men and a woman. “Where you from?” I asked. “Northern Idaho,” came the response from one of the men.

“We just want to thank you for all you do,” my wife said. “That means everything to us,” he responded. “We sure don’t do this for the pay,” he joked.

These young heroes are here apparently for the long haul, or as long as it takes.

God bless all the firefighters scattered throughout this fire-ravaged state.