TWO CANADIAN NAVY MINESWEEPERS IN THE PORT OF GODERICH TODAY
MIKE'S post this morning talks about the hazards of having an RV awning ballooned out or ripped off while driving. He has tried several different devices to prevent that from happening but has not had confidence in them. He recently installed something new which he is hoping will be the final solution. We had a big Kansas wind balloon an awning out on us while heading west on I-70 near Salina, Kansas in November of 07. That turned out to be a harrowing experience which I blogged about in BIG KANSAS WINDS . Two months after this incident we were able to get a new awning installed while boon docked south of Quartzsite, Arizona. This turned out to be a busy day in the desert which I posted about in, A BEEHIVE OF ACTIVITY.
CERTAINLY A DIFFERENT LOOKING TYPE OF CREW FROM MY NAVY DAYS MANY YEARS AGO
Received an email from friend and fellow RV'er ED about an early winter snow storm in the area of Colorado we hope to head for one month from today. Weather report in part says, 'The agency has issued a winter weather advisory for the central and southwest mountains of Colorado, including the Elk Mountains surrounding Aspen. Snow is expected to begin accumulating above 12,000 feet in elevation at around 9 p.m. Wednesday. Snow levels could drop as low as 9,000 feet, the weather service said. By Thursday morning, 2 to 6 inches of snow are possible above 10,000 feet.' Ed says, "You can add Wolf Creek Pass to the list in this news item. But it means nothing until you get there in October." Of course that is a bit disconcerting to hear of snow this early in those parts. We have a weather site on our desktop for that mountainous region which I will begin monitoring daily in another couple of weeks. Unfortunately, we cannot get away earlier than October 15th so we will have to play it by ear. If push comes to shove and the weather is too bad we will have to change our plans and divert south at some point. We could be down to some day by day decision making based on current and existing weather conditions when we get into that area.
SURE WISHED I HAD A NICE PAIR OF POWERFUL BINOCULARS FOR ASTRONOMY VIEWING LIKE THOSE IN THE TOP PHOTO AND IS THAT ‘RUST’ I SEE ON THAT GUN!!!
Like a lot of fellers my age I grew myself up in blue jeans and for many years never deviated too far from that track. But, somewhere in the last decade I seemed to have slipped out of my blue jeans into other things like dark green work pants, large pocketed tank pants and fat guy's track pants etc. And, in the cold Canadian winters I mainly wore some kind of lined pants because I never did care for blue jeans in frigid weather. That denim material is just way too cold for me. Sure, back in the teenage days we all wore those jeans regardless of how cold it was. The first priority then was looking cool and the last priority or care in the world was freezing to death!! At some point in the last 6 months I seem to have shifted back to wearing blue jeans again. Don't know exactly when that took place but it dawned on me this morning while doing laundry. Went through a cowboy boots faze back in the late 60's for awhile too but they were too hard on my feet. Took me a lot of time and pain before I was finally forced from my 'cool' cowboy boots to the much more comfortable footwear of running shoes and finally to the Rockport shoes I have been wearing now since the late 90's. Never was a sandals and shorts guy so no problem shifting around in that area over the years.
LOTS OF AREA FOLKS LINED UP TO TOUR THE SHIPS
I never was a hat guy either. Made it through about 62 years without having to stick any silly hats on my head. But, that all changed when we began RVing!! I am one of those fellows lucky or unlucky enough to have a full head of hair and it has a tendency to be curly, unmanageable and unruly. When I wake up every morning it looks like a Chinese Road Grader with a serrated blade has run over my head in the night. Remember Kramer from Seinfeld, ya, now you get the picture. In humid weather my hair can frizzily stand up making me look like I stuck my finger in a light socket. There is no known man made device in the world that can straighten out my hair in the morning except an abundance of water and shampoo. Therein lies my daily morning shower routine. Now, as any self respecting RV boon docker knows, it is not always possible to have a full blown shower every morning due to water conservation aboard the rig. It is here where a chapeau rides to the rescue. I can chose to forego the shower and step out of the rig looking the way I do and scare the hell out of all wildlife around including birds or I can festoon myself with some kind of hat cloaking device and keep the top of my head humanely hidden. Well, no choice there so I have to be hatted. If you meet me when we're traveling I will likely be adorned with either a baseball or cowboy hat and if you meet me around Bayfield anytime in the summer it will just be the top of my head el natural:)) Believe me, I much prefer a cowboy hat to the standard issue everybody where's em baseball cap. It all depends on how bad my head looks as to which hat I choose each morning while traveling. And, now ya know:))
THE ARMED FORCES EVEN HAD THE OFFICIAL RECRUITMENT BUS HERE TODAY AS WELL
No morning walk for the Bayfield Bums this morning because our all night rain continued to nearly noon. Two of Canada's Royal Canadian Navy minesweepers had sailed into Goderich's port this morning so I Jeeped myself up to the harbour for a look see. They were tied up alongside each other at the south end of the harbour. I was a bit surprised at how small both the HMCS Shawinigan and Summerside were compared to the DDH Destroyer H.M.C.S. Saguenay I was on back in 66. Shortly after the ships arrived around 8 a.m. a work crew from both ships headed into the center of Goderich to help clean up tornado damage from 3 weeks ago. Goderich's Maitland cemetery was hard hit by that tornado as well with a lot of big trees down. Part of the ship's work crew helped with clean up there too. In particular was the Sailor's Memorial commemorating the sad loss of life during the great storm of 1913. The naval ships will sail out of the Goderich Harbour Saturday morning at 9 a.m.
Storm clouds rolled in while taking some photos of the ships and that led to a few nice photos later along Goderich’s long beach front and board walk. I would have to say Goderich has one of the nicest beach fronts along this entire Lake Huron shoreline and I will have those pics in a following blog.
STORM CLOUDS OVER GODERICH ONTARIO
GROANERS CORNER:(( A man is skydiving off the coast of Florida, enjoying his free-fall. When he reaches the altitude where he must open his parachute, he pulls on the rip cord but nothing happens. "No problem," he says to himself, "I still have my emergency chute." So he pulls the emergency parachute, and once again, nothing happens. Now the man begins to panic. "What am I going to do?" he thinks, "It's curtains for me!" Just then he sees a sailor flying up from the earth toward him. He can't figure out where this man is coming from, or what he's doing, but he thinks to himself, "Maybe he can help me." When the man gets close enough to him, the skydiver cups his hands and shouts down, "Hey, do you know anything about parachutes?" The flying sailor replies, "No! Do you know anything about gas stoves?"
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