W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, July 24, 2024
It is Wednesday, almost Thursday. Fern and I wrapped up our business in Illinois and we loaded the car and drove back to the lake this afternoon. She was a fabulous driving companion and slept most of the trip curled up in the front seat or laid out in the back seat.
Fern with her paws on the guard rails looks down on the Au Sable River, Grayling, Michigan, July 21, 2024 10:18 AM
Last Sunday, Fern and I met B (my wife) at Stephan Bridge several miles downstream on the Au Sable River to watch the canoe racers pass through on their trip down the river to McMaster’s Bridge. It is a timing station for the BIG canoe race this weekend. It is also a great place to watch the canoes approach from down river, and if you are hungry there is an amazing restaurant on the south bank. Continue reading W^2 – pretty girl→
It’s Tuesday and time for another edition of Tuesday’s Tune. A couple of weeks ago, I went home for a brief visit. Down Thursday, home Sunday.
the original ‘peanut photo’ taken June 2019
WARNING: While my trip how was brief, this post is not. It’s a long read.
Home is Texas, Sugar Land, to be precise. Sugar Land is a town southwest of Houston, though it’s hard to tell the dividing lines between the two these days.
The stars at night Are big and bright Deep in the heart of Texas The prairie sky Is wide and high Deep in the heart of Texas
It was a business trip of sorts, my stepmother died in January after a brief illness. She would have been ninety, ten days ago on the thirteenth. When she died, in January, we sorted through her apartment and dispersed what remained of her belongings. In the end, I packed several boxes full of pictures, letters, family memorabilia and shipped them to her niece and nephew in England. What we couldn’t keep, we donated. I decided I wanted a cedar chest which had belonged to my paternal grandfather. At the time, I tried to have it shipped home, but I couldn’t find a cost-effective freight forwarder or another way to do it, so I placed it in the storage locker and planned to come back during the summer to pick it up.
Fly down, rent a car, and drive back. I wrote about the return trip, or at least a part of it last week in my W^2 – farming post.
There is a lot to process when you lose a loved one. Saturday was the fifteenth anniversary of my dad’s death in ’09. His death, and my grieving, is part of why I started blogging in the first place. Therapy of sorts, I am work in progress. Continue reading Tuesday’s Tune – Deep in the Heart of Texas→
W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, July 17, 2024
It is Wednesday morning, and I have returned to the lake after a quick trip to Houston and back. The lilies are still blooming, and Fern and Ivy are enjoying their time here, just as we do.
soybean field along highway US 61 near Holland, Mississippi. Sunday, July 14, 2024 12:29 PM
I flew to Houston last Thursday morning and drove back over the weekend stopping Saturday night at my favorite bed and breakfast in Vicksburg, Mississippi. I had gone home to collect a cedar chest which had belonged to my paternal grandparents and had been sitting in storage since we had cleared my stepmother’s apartment this past January.
I arrived in the wake of Hurricane Beryl to find Houston reeling in power outages, downed trees, and sweltering heat and humidity. Though the latter is normal for summer in southeast Texas, the lack of power and air conditioning made conditions in the city much more unpleasant.
My trip was successful, and I was able to visit with my brothers and nephew, clear out the storage locker, collect the chest, and take in two baseball games at Minute Maid Park as well as collect more material, aka stories, to share through MakingtheDaysCOUNT.org.
I left after breakfast Saturday morning, and I took the long way home stopping in Vicksburg Saturday night. I had planned a side trip to Oxford to take one final look at Juliana’s home which sold in February ‘23 before finishing the drive home on Sunday.
O my, I am dropping the ‘h’! and it is Tuesday and time for a Tuesday’s Tune, Canada style. I am in Toronto for my 29th baseball stadium. It’s been an adventure.
Yesterday morning, I woke up early and drove from northern Michigan to Toronto, Ontario. It was a six-and-a-half-hour drive, and it was smooth driving, even when I got close to Toronto.
When Major League baseball released the 2024 schedule way back in July of ’23, I began looking ahead. At that time, I had my ’23 trips planned – Colorado, Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Miami, and Arizona, which left two teams: the Toronto Blue Jays and the Boston Red Sox. When I planned my baseball trips for this season, I was looking for games when the Houston Astros played the Toronto Blue Jays and the Boston Red Sox to complete my bucket list of all 30 teams. For the Blue Jays, the schedule read four games: Monday July 1 to Thursday July 4. I didn’t realize the significance of the date of the July 1st game, I knew the significance of Thursday’s game – July 4th, but not Monday’s game.
July First in Canada is Canada Day and it’s a BIG DEAL.
It is the day Canada celebrates as it’s ‘birthday.’ But that is an oversimplification. It’s the day when Canada (Quebec and Ontario), New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia became a country under the Dominion of Canada within the United Kingdom. It happened in 1867, two years after the ending of the American Civil War and two years before the founding of the first professional baseball league. Canada would add the remaining provinces to become the nation I know as Canada. But they are still part of the Commonwealth of Nations under the British crown. Continue reading Tuesday’s Tune – O Canada→
It’s Thursday and it has been too long since I have posted anything on MtDC. Since summer began three weeks ago, I have been posting daily or almost daily on Instagram and if you follow along there, you’ll see the progress of my summer break. If you are curious, there is a sidebar of the blog – it’s a three by three graphic on the right-side.
Since my last post from 36,000 feet, I have been to Ohio and back, logged two more baseball games, served others at the food pantry, mowed the yard, spread mulch, cleaned up after a wild storm (which I slept through), collected the ends of branches the cicadas have snipped off, and much more.
When MtDC was in its infancy, I was posting almost daily. I don’t have the energy or creativity to keep up that pace today, though I do follow a couple of bloggers who do. If you are reading, you know who you are. It also seems the blogging community I connected with more than a decade ago has dropped off and their blogs are shutdown or static. At some point that will happen at MtDC, but for now I am simply too stubborn to let happen or stop. Continue reading Day 24: Creativity→
It’s Thursday and I am sitting at the gate waiting for push back. After five baseball games and two days driving along the coast, I am headed home.
I am trying something new with this post. I am going to write directly into WordPress using my iPad and the plane’s WiFi as I fly home to Chicago. I have never posted from my iPad or typed directly into WordPress, so I’ll see how this goes.
the view from my seat over Colorado….
I was able to piece together the video below from Monday’s drive north along the Pacific Coast Highway. I uploaded the video to YouTube this morning and added the pictures at the airport before boarding.
It is Day Ten of summer break. This summer’s break is 76 days and like every summer before, I am going to Make the Days Count.
Yesterday, was a day game and a chance to spend an afternoon with my friend, Tonette. She and I worked together in the late 80’s until early 1990 when I lived in the Bay Area working in the restaurant business for Vie de France. All these years, we’ve kept in touch via cards, birthday wishes, Christmas cards, and Facebook ever since. The last time we saw one another was in 1995 when I was in Southern California opening a restaurant for Vie de France.
Won’t you get hip to this timely tip:
When you make that California trip
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six
Three baseball games in San Francisco, the first two were night games before yesterday’s day game.
San Francisco is not a new ‘baseball city for me, it was the third baseball city for me back in 1987. I moved to the Bay Area in June of 1987 when I worked for Vie de France. Monday’s baseball game was my first game in San Francisco since the World Series earthquake game was played on October 27, 1989; ten days after the devastating earthquake. Continue reading that California trip …→
W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, May 8, 2024
NOTE: This post was originally titled “Baseball”, but after reflecting overnight, I changed it to “baseball is back.” Enjoy
Tuesday night baseball at Wrigley Field, Chicago, Illinois. Tuesday April 23, 2024, 7:09 PM
It’s baseball season, again. Baseball season begins at the end of March and lasts until the final out in late October. Every team will play 162 games, the good ones will play more, and the best teams could play 173 or more. It all depends, because baseball is a funny game.
“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game — it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.”
“Ohhhhhhhh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”
Terrance Mann in Field of Dreams
I made it to my first game of the 2024 season two weeks ago and I am just now making time to write about it. I’ve been to Wrigley Field more times than I can remember. My first game was in 1993. Wrigley Field opened with its first baseball game one hundred ten years ago in 1914. It’s the second oldest ballpark in the major leagues and there is something magic about watching a game there. Continue reading W^2 – baseball is back→
It’s April and we are at the lake for a short weekend getaway. My wife picked me up Friday after school and we drove up as day turned to night arriving before midnight. We will leave later this afternoon. Instead of chores I am writing a post, which was supposed to be a quick post.
yesterday evening’s sunset… they are never the same… created with Adobe Express
It all started in 2010 and it is difficult to believe I am still writing (and posting) at MtDC after all these years, but I am.
Last year, before school let out for the summer, I signed up for a professional development class hosted by Adobe for their new dynamic content creation software, Adobe Express. I’ve been using it to edit and create since; almost entirely on my phone where I take all my photos. There are desktop and mobile versions of the software, but they weren’t the same and frankly I preferred the mobile app for its convenience, but that changed Friday morning.
Sometimes, learning is difficult.
It’s been a couple of days of figuring things out. I’ve tinkered a little and used it to create a couple of images learning as I go.
When I started writing and posting, I wanted a logo that fit what I was doing. I created my first logo in 2010 and it stuck around until 2014. I changed it again in 2016 and it has been the site icon since.
created 2024
created 2016
created 2014
created 2010
first attempt…
I still have these blocks….
Earlier this month I was tinkering with Adobe Express and created a new logo, the above logo. A couple of weeks ago I added it to WordPress as my site icon and planned to write a post but didn’t. This morning, I changed all my social media to the icon.
WARNING: it’s Wednesday so I titled the post W^2, but it’s hardly wordless.
It’s spring break and we’ve escaped then blustery chill of a midwestern early spring for the Florida Keys and sun, wind, and sand. Mostly sun.
I remember my first visit to the Keys with my in-laws in 2002. Our son had recently turned four and my wife was pregnant with our daughter. We arrived in Miami and were picked up by my in-laws at the airport.
Until then, my only experience with Florida had been passing through the airport on the way to somewhere else: Venezuela or England to spend the summer or Christmas with my dad and stepmother.
With my father-in-law at the wheel we wove our way through Miami traffic to Homestead and US1. US1 is the only road from the Florida mainland at the tip of the Florida peninsula to the Keys where it terminates at Key West.
US1 travels along the path of the defunct Miami to Key West extension of the Florida East Coast Railway. Construction of the railroad began in 1903 and was completed in 1913. The railway operated until 1935 when the Labor Day hurricane washed out the rail bed in Islamorada and the railroad abandoned the railroad. Two years later the Florida Highway Commission purchased the right of way and began construction of a highway to Key West. They used the old railroad bridges constructing roadbeds atop the concrete viaducts and bridges built by the railroad. Over the years, the highway has replaced the original railway bridges with wider end more modern concrete bridges.
The view from the bridge to the Atlantic Ocean
The first several miles of the two lane road travel along the path of the old railway. First through the thick mangrove swamps and across Lake Surprise before reaching Key Largo where the highway opens up to the Atlantic Ocean on the left and Florida Bay to the right.
As the highwaybridges were replaced, the original railroad bridges were left in place. Most have been repurposed as fishing platforms or observation decks and others have been left to decay and breakdown in the elements. The Seven Mile Bridge has a two mile extension from Knight’s Key Key to Pigeon Key open to walkers and bicycles with breathtaking sunset views.
Anyway, Tuesday afternoon my buddy and I (we are here with another couple) took off on an adventure stopping at the western approach to the Bahia Honda Bridge.
The original railroad bridge on the left and the new highway bridge on the right. Looking west from Bahia Honda State Park – photo from 3/28/2017
The old bridge has been abandoned since the present bridge was completed in 1977. The original railroad bridge is an iron trestle bridge which was only wide enough for a single railroad track and the passage of a single train. The highway engineers decided to construct a two lane road atop the railroad trestle to connect the two keys, or islands.
We toured Mackinac (pronounced – mack-i-naw) Island in a horse drawn carriage Monday with friends. One of the stops along our tour was Arch Rock. Our tour guide shared the Ojibwe legends of a young woman whose tears slowly created the arch and another of how angry pileated woodpeckers slowly pecked away at the rock so a maiden could see the lake. But erosion, and science, explains the arch.
Mackinac is the Ojibwe word meaning ‘turtle’ as the island looks like a giant turtle shell emerging from Lake Huron. The Ojibwe were the Native American tribe which inhabited the island and the region long before Europeans explored and settled the region in the seventeenth century.
We had a wonderful time with our friends on Mackinac Island. They returned home yesterday while we helped our daughter move into her college apartment before the new term begins. Sometimes, I should simply stick to six words as Debbie from Travel with Intent suggests.
It’s Saturday and today is going to be an amazing day. After week with friends it is back to life andI have a long list of chores with all sorts of diversions possible. But I am going to try to stick to six words and make the day count. Making the Days Count, one day at a time, carving away at the to-do list. (My Saturday six words)
What are your six words for your Saturday? Or Sunday?
My video of our trip to and from the island on the ferry.
