Good Bye Death Valley!

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Good Bye Death Valley until next year.

I had a great trip to the desert this year. I left home on Saturday morning the 18^th of October and met 2 of my fellow travelers at the Boron Rest Area East of Mojave. We drove to Boron for lunch at Domingo’s, a great Mexican restaurant and then on to Baker, CA where we camped back of the Mad Greek restaurant overnight. The fourth member of our group joined us there.

On Sunday we drove to a BLM area near Tecopa, CA where we circled the wagons in our usual spot. Later we drove to China Ranch which is in a canyon South of Tecopa. They raise dates and have great date shakes which we all partook of.

While at the BLM area we did day trips and hikes into the southern end of Death Valley. We did a hike into a canyon which is called Kaleidoscope Canyon by others who have visited it. It really is a stunning canyon of contrasting colors.

 Rhoads cabin, one of many such miners cabins in Death Valley

 Coyote looking for a handout.

After a week we moved to Furnace Creek in Death Valley for the remainder of our trip. Here again we did 4x4 trips and hikes the entire time we were there. I was a great trip and very rewarding in that we saw things we had only heard of and found out information which will be put to use for next year. Speaking of which, we already have our pre-trip schedule to Tecopa already planned.

Skull rock.

 Miners signature on a rock.

 A "slot" canyon.

 

A herd of 21 Big Horn sheep. Largest herd I have ever seen in Death Valley.

 Herd Ram standing guard.

Busy month.

Location, At Home

Much has happened since I last posted.

A cruise on the Star Princess.

On Oct 1 Clyda and I joined our friends Cindy and Gary in San Francisco for a 10 day round trip cruise to Mexico. We had great weather, (as in hot), low sea state (as in no waves), and a great time. We played lots of trivia against other teams and even won twice. We enjoyed the prize, a bottle of champagne for one win while the ladies won while we were ashore in Cabo San Lucas.

 Under the Golden Gate Bridge as we get underway to Mexico.

 

 Trivia in the VIsta Lounge with people from Illinois.

  The reason for the cruise.

Birthday cake from Princess.

Cabo San Lucas was our first stop where Gary and I tendered ashore. The sea was a little rough for the ladies to disembark. The town has been decimated by Hurricane Odile and all hotels were closed as well as many of the waterfront establishments. In particular was the demise of Senior Frogs. The only way we knew it was the correct building was because someone had spray painted the name on it.

 Plywood from store fronts in Cabo San Lucas.

We walked the waterfront, had a beer in one of the few open restaurants and went back to the ship.

Our next stop was Loreto which is a new port for Princess. Again we had to tender in but it was worth it as the town while small is unspoiled by tourists. We hired a cab and had the driver give us a town tour. Later we ate at an outdoor restaurant near the city center and then strolled back to the dock.

 On the waterfront in Loreto with Star Princess in the background.

The next day we were in La Paz where we docked but had a one half hour bus ride to town. La Paz is a nice enough town but it happened to be very hot while we were there. Instead of riding the bus back to the ship we opted for an air conditioned cab ride.

Our last stop was Puerto Vallarta which is well known and a fairly large city. Again we hired a cab to give us the town tour. As part of the tour we visited a tequila distillery, sampled the wares, and purchased a bottle to bring home.

 Gary, Cindy, Ed, and Clyda on the dock at Puerto Vallarta with ship in background.

The Star Princess visited Santa Barbara, CA today.

Yesterday I drove to Lompoc and picked up the RV. Everything was fixed but the new fender skirt is a much darker grey than the original. Of course, some of that is sun bleaching I am sure. The insurance company has already paid to have it repainted after my desert trip.

Speaking of which, I have been working like mad to get everything ready to leave Saturday morning. I bought food today, gassed the truck and did all those things that need to be done before any trip. Tomorrow I will load the truck and finish all the other chores.

This and that.

Location, At Home

Let’s see, what is happening.

I am still working some Genealogy, mostly checking dates. There is a big discrepancy in some data I have found as to birth and other dates so I need to check and recheck as much as possible.

On the RV side, not much is happening. I am still waiting to hear that the insurance check has arrived at the repair shop. Meanwhile, my drop dead date is creeping closer. All involved are aware of it.

As to my new PC which also operates as a tablet, BAD news. I called Dell yesterday and thought we had all issues settled with my email. Not true! When I turned it off then back on to test everything, it just wouldn’t receive email and every time it asked for a password it told me it was incorrect.

Later I found out from an Outlook website that Outlook at Microsoft was having a problem. Whoopee! Even Microsoft is against me.

This morning a Dell tech called me to see how everything was going and I explained what had happened. The result of that was his recommendation that we wipe all programs from the computer and start over as something was drastically wrong. This took some 3-4 hours. He will call me back tomorrow and we will go from there. I hope!

Yahoo.

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Yahooo!, Yahooo!, Yahooo!

A breakthrough!

I had mentioned in a posting a short time ago that I was working on family history and making some significant progress. Well, tonight I made a major breakthrough concerning my Great-grandfather and the two children he brought with him to America. I knew some of the facts related to their immigration but the details were missing.

For years I have searched the Immigration Ship Transcribers Guild website for records related to my forbears. These records are of ships and passengers who immigrated to America mostly before Ellis Island opened. I never found any record related to them.

Tonight while searching using Ancestry.com I found the original record of my Great-grandfather Franz, his daughter Rosina, and my Grandfather Stephan who traveled from Bremen, Germany to Baltimore in 1883. This information correlates with other data I had found including their passport which I have in my possession. They traveled in a Family Compartment on the ship and brought 2 steamer trunks with them. I have one of the trunks and my sister has the other.

With this information I can now enter more of the data that I have discovered in my Ancestry file.

What a great day!