On being in the right place at the wrong time

Casperson Beach, Venice, Florida

Saturday I put the bike rack on the old Ford van and drive Mrs. Phred to Venice. We do the five miles on the Legacy trail to Casperson beach. The gulf water is very warm. I float in deep water for about an hour until we get caught in a thunderstorm and eat turkey sandwiches under the shelter of the bathhouse.

You pass the old airport on the legacy trail and watch the old aeroplanes floating in for a landing without thinking much about them. Later, on the beach, I worry a little about being struck by lightning and fail completely to consider aeroplanes falling out of the sky...

 On Sunday one of the planes lands on the beach and kills a man from Georgia and badly injures his nine year old daughter. Too bad the pilot didn't decide to land in the water instead of a crowded beach....

 We attend a free concert at the Van Wezel on Friday...good music...if we go again we'll go earlier and get a seat closer to the sound...

 After the concert I take Mrs. Phred downtown for Margaritas and Mahi-Mahi quesadillas....

 Chilling in one of the Sun & Fun hot tubs...nice to be out of the sun in July....In case you were wondering, the little mockingbirds hatched, grew up, and flew away in the standard 14 days...guess they have less to learn than human whelp....

Little Birds

Hush, little baby, don't say a word,
Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird.

If that mockingbird won't sing,
Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring

The mockingbird mama built two nests in Mrs. Phred's bicycle basket so I destroyed them and then finally removed the basket. While we were gone she built a third nest in the sprocket and laid three blue specked eggs.

So now we're stuck here until the eggs hatch and the little birds fly away. Mockingbirds tend to build nests 3-10 feet off the ground. Once the eggs hatch they will attack you if you get too close. I figure about the middle of August....but a lot can go wrong....

Squirrels or cats could eat the eggs or the baby birds or even the adults....If you build a stupid nest, maybe it's best that you don't contribute to the gene pool?

Born to be wild....

There's a man who leads a life of danger....

Boat name is Ratty Bastard...Capacity 18 adults...

Wearing our new "Blow S**t Up!" shirts...

4th of July

Jason at rest.

Try anything once?

4th of July

 Mountain Home, Arkansas

 Fireflies...watermelon...blueberry pie 

Paul and Diane's family will begin arriving tomorrow for the big summer blowout. They don't do the 4th fireworks shows anymore because:

1. It scares the grandchildren.
2. When they set the woods on fire it's too hard to put out.

I have a watermelon chilling for the occasion. I'd also like to make three blueberry pies. There is a blueberry farm just up the road.

  
One Blueberry Pie

3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
4 cups blueberries
9 inch double crust pie pastry
1 tablespoon butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2. Mix sugar, cornstarch, salt, and cinnamon, and sprinkle over blueberries.
3. Line pie dish with one pie crust. Pour berry mixture into the crust, and dot with butter. Cut remaining pastry into 1/2 - 3/4 inch wide strips, and make lattice top. Crimp and flute edges.
4. Bake pie on lower shelf of oven for about 50 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.

 It's a pretty place. After listening us to us debate buying a house for nine years, they offered us their spare house for as long as we like to see how we like living in a house again...It's OK but after a few days we decide to stay mobile and avoid unnecessary entanglements and things like lawnmowers, leaf blowers and paint brushes for as long as possible...

The berry farm has onions and other produce...

A lot of deer in the neighborhood...the fireflies are very thick here in the early evening. My favorite species is the Photuris that kills other fireflies. The Photuris sucks out the juice from other fireflies to retrieve bad-tasting chemicals from their bodies, which it uses to protect itself from predators.

Stagger Lee shot Billy

Saint Louis, Missouri

Stagger Lee threw a seven and Billy swore he threw an eight

 It's about a four hour run up to Saint Louis. I book a $350 hotel room for $17.14 though hotels.com. It's right on the river next to The Arch.

Our first stop in Saint Louis is Pappy's Smokehouse. I chose this after studying Trip Advisor for two hours. We stand in line in a hallway for 25 minutes and then they let us in to stand in another line to place an order. The brisket is OK, but basically at the end of the day it's smoked beef and not the paradise of Earthly delights that I had anticipated..

Aside from Lindberg's Spirit of Saint Louis, the most interesting thing that happened in the 250-year history of Saint Louis was the result of a dispute over a hat."Stagger Lee" was Lee Shelton, an African-American pimp living in St. Louis, Missouri in the late 19th century. He was nicknamed "Stag Lee" or "Stack Lee". On Christmas night in 1895, Shelton and his acquaintance William "Billy" Lyons were drinking in the Bill Curtis Saloon. . Eventually, the two men got into a dispute.  Billy Lyons took Shelton's Stetson hat. Subsequently, Shelton shot Lyons, recovered his hat, and left. Lyons died of his injuries, and Shelton was charged, tried and convicted of the murder in 1897. He was pardoned in 1909, but returned to prison in 1911 for assault and robbery, and died in incarceration in 1912.

The Saint Louis History Museum is worth a visit. It was free except for the extensive Prohibition exhibit. Prohibition had a huge impact on Saint Louis because of the Anheuser-Busch breweries in the city.

We also take in the Museum of Contemporary Art. This art is made of broken 2x4s and drywall.

 We cruise though the Bellefontaine Cemetery after the art museum. Some of the horses in Saint Louis have painted toenails.

 The Arch....

 Mrs. Phred....

 Jefferson authorized the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. He paid France about $15 million dollars or 4 cents an acre for Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Louisiana and parts of Texas, New Mexico and Colorado.

One artist whose works were  on display in the Contempory Art Museum made her friends portraits from pieces of string.

On Friday night, we walked down Market Street from the Arch to the old Union Station. It has been turned into a big hotel and Mall. On our way we saw this building. A sign in front said that it was the Saint Louis City Hall.

 

Kilroy was here

Mountain Home, Arkansas

During WWII, this particular graffiti began to appear wherever the American G.I. advanced in Africa, Europe and the Pacific. Although it was not known originally where the phrase came from, one explanation was provided by James J. Kilroy, a New England shipyard welding inspector. According to Kilroy, The shipyard riveters at that time were paid by the rivet. At the end of the day they marked the last rivet installed with chalk. Less ethical workers might erase the chalk mark of the previous worker to be paid more. To counter this, Kilroy would write "Kilroy was here" on each chalk mark. These markings were subsequently discovered in many ships and landing craft when sealed compartments were accessed for maintenance. The inaccessible locations and ubiquitous frequency  of the markings lent an almost supernatural air to them, and soon the icon (borrowed from a 1938 British cartoon) and phrase was everywhere that the army went.

Our friends have invited us to stay in an extra house in they own in the woods in Mountain Home, Arkansas. It feels odd and a little confusing to be rambling around in a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home after nine years of living in a 300 square foot motor home.

 This weekend we went down to Conway to help their son-in-law Jason and daughter Caroline a little in the new home they bought. It has six acres and about 4,000 square feet of space with a pool and a tennis court. It was a sadly neglected short sale and another casualty of the great recession.  We worked on the kitchen rebuild and ate some good burgers, watermelon and key lime pie.

They are gutting the old kitchen, putting in a tile floor, new ceiling and lighting as well as installing new cabinets and appliances.

Like everything else, the tennis court is going to need a little work to bring it back.

The neighbors had called the pool "the black lagoon"...They pumped it out, scraped up a lot of black stuff with snow shovels and pressure-washed it...

I got to take about a six mile walk early Sunday morning....it went past the University of Arkansas School of Business...their mascot is the razor-back hog, I think...

I had my own graffiti during my travels in support of Vietnam in the Pacific Rim. It was on a rubber stamp and green ink pad that I carried in my flight suit....the stamp was meant to be ironic...it said

KILL A COMMIE

 FOR CHRIST.

 Perfect for restroom stalls in officer's latrines...Perhaps there is a god...if so, One still wonders how it would feel about the general human practice of making war in its name?