Messed up Computer

 Hi! I am having trouble using this computer, hope this works. I always allow updates when the system says so.  But the last two times the next time I turn on the computer AFTER an update,  My formats have changed and  i must sign in on every site I go to. Most refuse my pass words. I am tired of getting text messages with ID verification codes.

Will be back ASAP.

So far no news from Lake County in Florida. both sons are still in Florida. Haven't heard from there yet after the center passed over.

I will try to get back on to make a report.  If not here I will make a note on FB if I can get there.

Broken arrow

  A picture from the Past.

 
Liberty call in Messina, Cisely 

My ship was the third over.

For Today:

My memory is sketchy at best, but at times there are things that hit me with a force to bring back an incident in this odd life of mine. Words like Heads and Latrines.  Everyone knows the word latrine; it is the common name for toilet in the Army and Air Force.  Although ‘Head’ is the same in the Navy, just not as well known. “Darnell, you have head duty today!” That meant it was my day to clean the toilet.

Some words were ‘classified’, not to be used off the base or ship. Every ship or base had a ‘code word’ that meant there is an immediate danger, return NOW to your duty station.

When the skipper/commander deemed necessary to get everyone back to the base, or Battle Stations, Announcements or phone calls were made and one word was used; one I remember The code was “Red Coat!” The person receiving the call answered, “UNDERSTOOD” and hung the phone and took off back to the base.

Being part of the military sticks with you. The code word  “Broken Arrow” was part of my life for the last ten years of service. It was a classified word NEVER to be used publicly. So you can imagine my SHOCK to see that printed in a newspaper. It is no longer a classified word, But I did not know that. I took this off the internet:

·         An accidental event involving nuclear weapons or components that does not create the risk of nuclear war.

·         A code word indicating that a unit is in danger of being overrun and requires immediate assistance.

·         A situation where a nuclear weapon is lost, stolen, accidentally detonated, or mistakenly released

·       

I heard it once in my career. We were taking-on some ‘Nuc’s’ in the North Atlantic and the seas were rough. Our ship and the Ammo ship came together ‘collided’ because of a wrong move by one of the ships.  (Over the ships loudspeakers was heard: “THIS IS NOT A DRILL, ‘BROKEN ARROW! BROKEN ARROW’!  The weapons were on deck, but they were secured immediately, by the crew, and a big problem was avoided by fast acting men. Damage to both ships was extensive.

My mind said to me several times in the last couple years, ‘Broken Arrow’.  I am not unique, I am sure that there have been problems, disasters, accidents in all of our lives when we felt the weight of the world on our shoulders. When I see the problems created by Helene, my problems shrink, but they still exist, just minor in comparison.

I know this is  a crazy post, but on my mind.

 

NiteShipslog

PS: 

So, ‘Thanks’ AGAIN to y’all for stopping by the Shipslog. It is nice to know that folks read this stuff.

Home base for a period.

  A picture from the Past.

 

I think we are this tired after the trip, me gathering and burning limbs and Sherry catching up on laundry and doing the cooking.

For Today:

I am NOT complaining. Compared to the damage many have felt; ours is trivial.

We lost no trees. But those trees dropped one million limbs plus or minus a thousand or so. LOL  I am talking about little limbs that the winds bring down sorta pruning them. Away from the house you could not step without stepping on small twigs and limbs. So most of the debris was little 1 and 2 foot pieces. There were a few 3-6” thick limbs, I have one area about 100’ x 100’ cleaned up and burned. Tomorrow I will head into the woods to start clearing.

It is good exercise. I tell Sherry I am going out to play.  For me it is.  We were affected by one tree that fell across one of our drives. It was the neighbor’s tree.  It hit the power lines but did not take the lines down.

The tree was leaning completely across the road.  I called the power company 6 months ago about that tree and met their tree man to talk.  He looked at it and said, “This tree will stand years yet, it has vines supporting it also.”

Well it did fall, I am sure the tree man was not expecting sustained 50+ mph winds.

OH, I had a nice surprise upon my return.  My grandson Ben had come over and did work on the deck I have been playing with, he did some fantastic work; much better than I have been doing.

We do not know how long we will stay in NC before heading to Florida, but it won’t be more than 2 weeks methinks. Like everyone else, gotta the County/city property taxes here.  They are outrageous. We pay $777 a month here in Gaston County.

 We are not moving out of the coach, gonna live behind the house.

NiteShipslog

PS: 

So, ‘Thanks’ AGAIN to y’all for stopping by the Shipslog. It is nice to know that folks read this stuff.

PS 2: For sure got to wash the car and RV we were in rain on and off the whole trip home..

On the Road (again) and remembering

 Pic of the day;

 I mentioned the military paid in cash in the 1950s. The pay master came to the barracks and paid us. I am bending over tosign for my pay, Pvt Randolf is taking his.

WE also scrubbed our clothes, no washing machines. Dallas will remember this.

 For today:

WE are headed South, we want to check our home in NC before we continue to Florida. I have a smile on my face and a great memory added to my head of this visit. What a thrill to see the couple we knew as friends when he and I were corporals in the corps. Weeks before our marriages we sat on our bunks and talked about our girls.  We both were sure ours was the best and prettiest. (Of course mine was) Marion, his girl did come in a very close second (in my mind of course) once we met.

 They have a big family  3 boys 2 girls. We have the two boys. We interrupted their schedule I am sure.  We did something we had never done before, they invited us to attend church last Sunday and we did. WE attended the Lighthouse Baptist Church in Dover, PA.

We were blessed in Sunday School by a very good OLD teacher. I heard a couple SOLID statements I had to record and hold for later.  The worship service was also a blessing. Due to my hearing, I normally do not care for singing, but their pastor is a great singer and minister. Before service the pastor took time to greet and speck to us.

I have talked about Dallas. Picture is from a few years ago on a visit he was raising turkeys for a living but playing with Blood Hounds as a hobby. the Black is him about now, the dude did get old. I look the same. LOL

 It was all good. We had lunch together and parted after a super time of fellowship.  We may never see them again, but they definitely are in our hearts, wrapped in love.

This trip also put a scar on my heart.  Seeing a man who was once my boss, a solid steady leader. He was the kind of leader his troops appreciated and respected. He was a solid family man also. We were friends with his family in Key West. Dan accepted a commission and was an officer in the USN, but in the end reverted back to his rank as master chief and retired. We saw him and his lovely wife a few years ago. She had dementia and was growing worse.

I did not know but Dan took a bad fall and almost died. He was a shell of the man he once was, but was determined to recover. He still walks with a walker and visits his sweet wife every day even though she does not know him.  He is that kind of husband that would do that. Our prayers for my friend is that he will recover his strength, his family stands solid behind him, we are proud of that.

Nite Shipslog

PS 

Thanks for all the comments and visits here. It gives a boost to my life, I appreciate that.

 

Frugal & Devastation

 A picture from the Past.

 

Lake Lure NC. Peaceful small resort community, we spent our one night honeymoon here. Dirty Dancing was also filmed here. Check the pictures at the end of this post.

For Today:

An article on the net caught my eye, 15 wealthy people who are frugal. Some went to school hungry; some ate every Thanksgiving of their youth at the Salvation Army. One lady said she looked at her bank account every day and kept an eye on the balance. They remember!

I just looked over at my Sherry and said, “I married the right lady (she is our manager).  When I was in business I had an accountant, but I balanced my check book. If I was within a $1 I didn’t worry about it. My girl will look for hours for a nickel difference, the account must balance.

We are not RICH, but we have all we need, and most of what we want.  WE laughed together remembering our first year together. We had a budget. The USMC paid in cash in those years and we kept our money in an old cigar box with little separations for each expense. At the end of the month on my $78.00 a month salary we were able to play a round of miniature golf and share a banana split. We were happy as we could be.

One month we didn’t have quiet enough so I dug out a silver dollar dad had given me to hold so we would never be broke. I used it at the Miniature Golf Course.  The next month the owner asked, “Son would you like that silver dollar back?”

“Yes, Sir!” I said quickly. I traded an extra dollar we had that month to have that silver dollar. I may still have it. I have a collection of about 5 or six silver dollars. The owner said he could tell I hated to part with that one.

But we are penny pinchers, translate that, cheap skates. WE worked and saved to be debt free and have enjoyed that for over 50 years now.

When we bought our first big coach, 38 ft Overland,  we paid for it.  The salesman said, “You guys are in the top 3% of RV owners, most do not own their RV.” That surprised me.  We would not have been comfortable making payments and paying to park too.

Here in a Pennsylvania campground, we just received a call from our NC neighbor. They had a lot of rain and lost one tree that was leaning over the road and powerlines. We had not lost power, and the power company is taking care of the tree. Western NC was hit hard.  We spent our one-night honeymoon beside Lake Lure 68 yrs ago. Both communities are now devastated and mostly destroyed.

The entire Lake is like the above, Thank the Lord the dam held.

The Main St of Chimney Rock is not in Lake Lure.
We once lived 10 miles down river from Lake Lure and Chimney Rock.

Pray for all the communities hit by Helene. At present at least 35 deaths in NC alone.

NiteShipslog

PS: 

Once again ‘Thanks’ AGAIN to y’all for stopping by the Shipslog. WE are two thankful and blessed people. You add to our lives. 

Some of our Gypsy life

 Pic of the day;

 

 For today:

For many years we would drive 300-400 miles. Sherry would look in our travel books for an RV park. WE haven’t always had cell phones as you know. We would follow directions and fine the park. Most parks have weekly rates much cheaper that daily rates.  WE liked to take a week to travel the area to see the sites available. We also looked for that ‘local eating place’ with good prices and good local food.  We enjoyed it and met some wonderful folk.  Since we are church goers, it was so good to visit many different denominations and styles of worshsip.

Once in Gila Bend, AZ the pastor spent his morning sermon time chewing out his two boys and telling the congregation how mean they were. I do not remember him using a scripture. :-O

Most services and music was very good. BUT another unique thing was at a small church in the J-ville Florida, I think. The elderly pastor was preaching, and I noticed he nodded his head to a lady (his wife I learned). She stood went to the pulpit and continued the sermon and he walked out.  He returned later and took over to finish. I found out from one of the men attending the pastor had to go the bathroom.

I was amused as we crossed the country once during the rise of ‘Praise Teams’.  During that organizing time congregants did not know when to stand or sit.  I once heard a leader say, “Can’t you stand 30 minutes for our Lord?”  I thought, “YES If I felt that is what HE wanted!” otherwise I thought it was like the Pharisee's in scripture who said if God said you can walk a mile on the sabbath, let's go one better and limit ourselves to ½ mile.

Away from the churches, most of which we attended were a blessing and we were treated great.

Chatty asked, as we have been asked many times, how we get our mail on the road?  There are many mail services, ours is in Florida. WE have that listed as our mailing address. They hold our mail until we come and get it if we are in the area, or we call for it. It is a normal practice to have it sent ‘General Delivery’ to a small town near where we plan to be in 3 days.

I somehow picked too many pictures. I only wanted the above. But I cannot delete these or they will be deleted thruout my files. OUCH

These buildings are in Dawson City where they were on frozen land. Thaw messed things  up.

This is the sign forest in Watson Lake, Yukon, Canada, travelers leave their names etc.

Entering the /Top of the World Highway...

The only time our RV has ever been on a Ferry was crossing the Yukon River

Dick and I fishing on the Kenai, in Alaska

Salmon Fishers in Valdez methinks.

Our traveling partners, my sister Kat and Dick her hubby. boon docking (NO hook ups, just wild country)

Having it sent to a small town makes it easy to find and has given us so many wonderful experiences talking to the Mail Personnel.  One Mail Room was in a living room in Alaska. At the time we went they were closed while the family enjoyed their Lunch, then we picked up our mail. Most of our regular bills are drafted, some I pay online.

Nite Shipslog

PS 

LOL  Thanks for all the comments, you guys enhance our lives. I do appreciate the FRIENDS I have here on-line. If you have any questions about this life, I will be glad to try and answer.

Incidental to RV life

 Pic of the day;

 

Our present coach is 36 ft. with three slide outs.  This is a Gasoline Winnebago.

 For today:

Many years ago when close to retirement we met out first ‘Full-time’ RV’ers.  Someone who sold their home, bought an RV and set out to see the USA.  That planted a seed.  We have always enjoyed camping and travel. I was in the building business and Sherry was working for the US Army as a civilian in the Recruit processing area.  When she reached enough time to retire I had bought a large track of land and was planning a sub division, to get into the big time (for me) construction. I was finding out it was hard to deal with the city without an attorney and was getting a little disgusted.

My girl came up with a great idea, why don’t you quit when I retire and let’s hit the road. We bought a giant 45' storage trailer. and stored our tools and stuff that we couldn’t sale or give away. We hired a guy to move the big trailer to the woods on the property where I had planned the subdivision. When our house did not sale fast, we turned it over to a property manager to rent out, and we hit the road.

We lived in three big motor homes over 20 years seeing this country, never selling our house.

All that was said to explain that to live comfortably in an RV you need to pick your sites.  You need electric, water and sewer for comfort. At times that is not available. The RV is self-contained, and we can go at the longest 2 weeks without hookups. But ideally, we like to have all the amenities, called 'full hookups.'

This site in Lancaster does not have sewer, so we have a Blue-barrel. I empty the internal tanks every few days and go to the ‘Dump-station’.  

 Picture shows our blue barrel container beside the coach. I hook our storage tanks to the barrel by a 3" hose and fill it with our waste. We have a Grey tank and Black tank. the Grey tank is sink and bath water. Black is the sewer. Tanks are separate; about 50 gallons each.

This picture shows the barrel hooked to my trailer hitch. I tow it very slowly to a dump station. The facility has a hose to clean the tank before heading back for another load.  Usually run two trips each time since I am not busy with anything else.

Many RV'ers have never did this. But we have 'dry camped' with no connections for a couple weeks. In the desert and in Alaska. A challenge we do not mind.

Nite Shipslog

PS 

LOL  Thanks for all the comments, They are always a pleasure,  We certainly appreciate our on line FRIENDS!