Back To Home Base

Well this adventure that I started on May 20 that took me to Salem, OR, where I spent the summer, and then back down to San Diego where I spent two weeks, has come to an end. I had a great time and took over 7,000 pictures and put most of them in slide shows to which I added music and sound affects. I am back in Apple Valley where I am camped in front of my daughter and son-in-laws house. I plan to be here until just after New Years. At that time I will embark on a new 10-month adventure that will take me to San Antonio, TX and then on to Salem, OR and back to Apple Valley again. I have scheduled many stops along the way. In the meantime, I will be posting from time to time on events that I am involved with while here in Apple Valley.






After I parked the coach I looked out my bedroom window and was greeted by Singe and Jack.



One of the first tings I did was attend a luncheon for the group of guys that I worked with at AiResearch (which is now Honeywell). We met in Carson at the . . . . .

On the way I saw this neat old car making a turn in front of me.

We had a small turnout, but had a great time visiting as we had lunch.

USS Midway

After attending the 55th year reunion of my high school class at my college room-mate's house in Corona, riding the Metrolink to the Union Station in Los Angeles and taking the Gold Line to Pasadena and back, visiting my brother in Yucipa and various other activities, I moved the coach to Santee in the San Diego area.

I spent one whole day at the 1,200-acre Balboa Park with 15 major museums and took about 300 photos, which I put into a slide show with music. They even have the Sprckels Pipe Organ, which is the largest outdoor pipe organ in the world. I took in an hour concert of a wide range of music on that amazing instrument. It was well worth the price of admission (FREE).



I also spent a most interesting day (5 hours) touring the USS Midway Museum which is docked at the foot of Broadway. I took the Green Line trolley to Old Town and transferred to the Blue Line trolley and got off at the Santa Fe Station and walked two blocks to the museum. I found a new display of 13 life-sized bronze figures situated in a tree shaded area that are clustered around a figure of Bob Hope. This is to commemorate his USO trips to entertain the troops. According to the posted information, this work of art took several years to complete and at a cost of $1.6 million. It is VERY GOOD and is worth the time to stop and see. The area is located in a small park just south of the Midway.

Here are a few of the 380 shots that I took while on the tour. I think I took the complete tour and then some, all the way from the Bridge to the Engine Room. I talked with several of the docents that had served on the Midway and learned even more than what I heard through the headset of the best tour information system that I have come across. The unit is about the size of a cell phone and all you do is punch in the 2-digit number that is displayed at each exhibit and you will hear about that exhibit. If you want to know more on that exhibit, you just push the PLAY button and you can hear stories about it from a person who actually used it or was there when it occurred. This system lets you wander around the ship and punch in the display numbers in any sequence that you desire.

If you ever get a chance go there, it is well worth while. They currently have about 35 aircraft on the flight deck. You can go inside several of the helicopters. Here are just a few pictures:

The plane that I had a close relationship with was the F-14 Tomcat.



You are able to see the M-61A1 gun.

Here are a couple of photos taken in the Flight Control Center that is located above the flight deck.





The served 13,500 meals and baked 1,000 loaves of bread daily.

There is just SO much more to see from the pilots Ready Rooms to the Captains quarters to the Sick Bay and Brig.

I had a great view of San Diego bay is from the "horn" on the boue of the Midway.

Pasadena Train Station

I have made an uneventful trip south to Southern California to the town of Riverside. The stayed at the very nice Rancho Jurupa County Park for a few days.



This is the view from my entry door early in the morning.

This is one of the ponds in the park that are stocked with fish.

One of my excursions while staying here was to take a ride on the Metrolink to Union Station in Los Angeles. I boarded the train that departed Riverside at 6:29 am.

After getting off the train (above), I walked next door to the Metropolitan Water District building and had breakfast in their excellent cafeteria.

After breakfast, I boarded the Gold Line light rail train and headed north to Pasadena.

Once the Operator was buckled in, off we went.

Through Highland Park . . .

and on until we came to the Del Mar Station. That is what they call the location of where the old Santa Fe Depot was in Pasadena.

Below is the same view after the pulled up the rails.

This is what the Station looked like before the area was changed.

This is what the front of the Station looks like today.

I spent many happy hours watching trains come and go from this station back in 1943.

As the trains left going east, they had a 2.2% grade and I would stand next to the 4-8-4 engines as they struggled to get moving. You don't think it got real exciting whenever they would loose their feet?!

It is time to head south for the winter. I left Salem and headed south to Eugene where I stopped for one night at Quality Coach Services to have a thermal switch installed on the Norcold refrigerator. I was put on to take care of a recent Norcold recall.

After leaving Eugene, I drove on down I-5 to Seven Feathers Casino, where I parked the coach and drove the car back to Myrtle Creek to visit my good friend Will Garner and his new wife, Darline. When I drove up his driveway and saw all the posts and wire fencing, I thought he was putting in animal inclosures, but Will was in the middle of putting in a terraced vegetable garden. He had already put up the retaining walls of 2" by 10" and 2" by 8" planks. He had put 4" by 4" posts in concrete to support the planks and all we had to do was cut down the top of the hill and fill in the low spots in the terrace. Well, it was not all that easy. The ground was very rocky and we had to use a pick to break up the soil. Will bought a new roto tiller to help with the process and it did a fantastic job, but to break up the really hard stuff, we used a pick. Here are a few pictures.









Here is a picture of the small roto-tiller. It has a 2-cycle motor.





You can see how rocky the soil was.





This is Darline in the kitchen fixing supper for us. After a workout in the yard, it tasted GREAT!!!