Dec - Sunday School

Our Sunday school class brought in shoes, socks and underwear for CAM this morning.  Christian Assistance Ministry is a San Antonio organization that assists the the homeless and several members of our class work at least once a week with CAM.  Not everything got hauled upstairs to our classroom and a few people are missing from the photo, too.  For the past nine years our class has sponsored Undie Sundays in June and requests donations of socks and underwear from the whole church.  The crosses on the wall come from all over the place.  We all bring them back from vacations and amazingly there are only a couple of duplications.

Dec 4 - Gig in Comfort, TX

We played from 4-6 on a lovely day in Comfort.  
Galen and I have our good sides to the camera.

After the gig we stopped at PoPo's in Welfare, TX for dinner.  
This is our friend Richard.

There are about 2000 plates hanging on the walls at PoPo's.

Dec 3 - Riverpickers party

Lovely party - good food, good friends, and good music.

Nov 16 - A day together

Galen and I had a lovely day together today.  We started by exploring the new section of the Riverwalk

These fish glow in the dark.  San Antonio Art Museum is in the background.

Another view of the fish and new section of Riverwalk.

The old Pearl Brewery

After walking the Riverwalk, we went to a movie at the Quarry.

It is not your average movie theater.

Nov 14 - Austin Get Together

Moon Tower

This is one of the scrapbook pages I did of the Digital Scrapbook Place Austin Get Together.  I lived 80 miles from Austin for decades and knew about the murders but didn't know about the Moon Towers.  Austin is the only city in the country that still has them.

Oct 22 - Outside the Box

First Performance of Outside the Box

Click on the link above to see a shortened version of the first performance of the new band, Outside the Box.  All the guys are playing home made instruments.  Galen plays the washtub, which unfortunately you can't hear so you will have to take my word that he gets great sound out of it.  The fiddle is made from a gourd.  The dobro is made from half a suitcase and a metal dessert plate.  The guitar and mandolin are made from boxes.

Oct 31 - Acorns

Galen got up on the roof of our RV to clean the solar panels and sweep off acorns because we leave Mountain View in the morning.   :-(    It has been a GREAT two months of time spent visiting and playing music with so many of our good friends.  We'll get to see some of our MV friends in south Texas this winter and others of us will stay in touch on Facebook until we meet again next September.

Oct 29 - Calico Rock Overlook

We finally made it to the overlook near Calico Rock today, stopping along the way to find a geocache.

Oct 25 - Dulcimer Shoppe

Karen, Jack, Mary Jane, and Galen jamming at the Dulcimer Shoppe

Thanks to Diane C. for these photos that she posted on FB.

Oct 27 - Long Ago String Band

This is the official 2010 photo for the Long Ago String band.  Lloyd and Jack are in the back row, Joyce and Mary are in the middle, and Galen is in front.

Oct 19 - Dentist

We are staying in a different part of San Antonio this year and because our new home is quite a distance from our San Antonio dentist, we decided to go to a dentist in Arkansas.  The office was not in a normal location for a dentist's office, but out in the boonies between Mountain View and Calico Rock.  In spite of being located in the middle of a hayfield, Dr. Dobbins has all the most up to date equipment and we were so pleased with the care received that we have already made our appointment for next year.  We'll try to remember to bring apples or carrots for the two horses that ran up to greet us. BTW, we both had good checkups - no cavities.

October 19 - Jammin'

I haven't been doing much blogging lately and these photos show the reason why.  The top two photos show us playing music in the park in downtown Mountain View and the bottom photo shows us jammin' in the Pickin' Shed in our RV park.  We have so many good friends here and so much to do that doesn't cost us a dime.  We even get in the State Park next door for free because Galen is a performer.  Since we walk most places we go we didn't buy fuel for our truck for over a month - quite a pleasant change from once or twice a day when we are on the move!  Gotta run.  We are walking to the Rainbow Cafe for breakfast.

September 17 - Kathy

My sister, Kathy, came to Mountain View for a two-day visit and we crammed in as much of the MV experience in those two days as we could: Hanging out in the office first thing in the morning, shows at the Folk Center, and lunch at JoJo's with the gang.  We enjoyed it and hope she visits again next year!

September 8 - Updated map

Here is our updated map.  All we added this year was Kentucky.

September 1-2: Iola, KS to Mountain View, AR

We arrived in Iola, KS to visit Valerie, Jason and Shep in the middle of the afternoon on 9/1.  I must have been too tired by then to even think of taking photos because I never took even one.  :-(  We had a short but good visit and it would have been nice to stay longer, but we had already postponed our arrival date in Mountain View once and didn't want to do that again.  Plus were anxious to get off the road after a long summer of moving around so much.  In the past six months we have traveled 11,070 miles and spent $2,276 on fuel.  Cost per mile was 21 cents and average MPG was 14.10.  I know this because I have an iPod App that keeps track of such things.   :-)

We arrived in Mountain View on September 2, and spent the first couple of days recovering from five long days on the road and reorganizing and cleaning the rig after six months of moving around quite a lot.  But we are settled in, friends have been arriving, more friends are on the way, and we are having so much fun playing music and hanging out with these people who are so much fun to be with.   Galen and I are scheduled to play music at church on Sunday.  We've been hanging out at the Folk Center for free this year since Galen is considered an employee.  We've gone with friends to JoJo's for grilled catfish, other friends to Joy's Cafe,  and will soon be going to Tommy's with the gang for pizza.  Got my dulcimer restrung and had the frets dressed.  So many simple pleasures and I wake up each morning happy to be "home" again.

August 29 - Missoula to Billings

On the road again, this time from Missoula to Billings where we visited Fran, Doug, and Bia.  They made us a wonderful dinner and let us spend the night parked in their driveway.  We saw the Galen, MT sign and the strange formation below and smelled the smoke of a forest fire on the way to Billings.  This was the first of five long days on the road to Mountain View, AR.

August 26 - Missoula Carousel

Our friend, Hoozie, from Butte, gave us a book about Montana which is how we found out about the Missoula Carousel.  I retyped the sign which told the heartwarming story about how the Carousel came to be.

There is no canned music at this Carousel.  A real man plays a real organ while people ride the Carousel and the dragons watch over them from above.

This playground is like nothing we've ever seen before and it is difficult to believe it was built in just nine days.  Not surprising was how many kids were enjoying this magical place. 

August 26 - Missoula

Jim and Mary's was home while we were in Missoula.  We didn't really expect the RV park to be busy this late in August but were glad we had reservations because it was full and they were turning people away.

The sites were pretty large and shady and the park is away from town so it was quiet except for a train that came through now and then at the top of a steep bluff at the back of the park.  No train whistle though so we barely noticed it.

There were flowers everywhere in the park.  The park had its own greenhouse and grew their own flowers - something we'd never run across before.  All those flowers and trees sure made this a lovely place to stay.

August 23 - Dillon, MT

This is Grace UMC in Dillon where we attended church and so enjoyed meeting the wonderful folks there.  Karen, the pastor, made cherry pies from cherries picked from the tree in their yard and shared them with all of us during the coffee hour following the service.  We just heard that her husband was pretty badly hurt in a fall and are keeping him in our prayers.

Dillon to Missoula - The road started out looking like this.

Got to looking like this after a while...

...and eventually turned into this.  We were glad to be going down these 20 mph curves instead of up them!

August 21 - Bannack

Bannack's history began in July 1862 when gold was discovered along the banks of what is now known as Grasshopper Creek but had previously been named Willard's Creek by Lewis and Clark.  The name of the mining town was supposed to be Bannock after the Bannock Indians, but someone in Washington D.C. spelled Bannock with an O instead of an A after the post office was created and the incorrect spelling stuck.  Bannack, once the capitol of the Territory of Montana, went from a population of 3000 in 1863 to nearly a ghost town by 1938.  Back in the 1940s a group of concerned citizens from Dillon and Bannack organized to preserve the town and today it is a state park and a place NOT to be missed if you are in the area.

See the little building in the back and on the right in the top photo?  Galen is standing in front of a closer view.  This was the first "Governor's Mansion of Montana.  When the Edgertons moved to Bannack they bought a store for $400 and turned it into a house.  Fire destroyed the building in the early 1900s and they used logs salvaged from the fire to built the little sod building.  This was home for governor Edgerton and his wife, Mary, the entire time they lived in Montana, which wasn't very long.  Mary did the best she could to adjust, but she missed her civilized home and friends in Ohio.  A quote from Martha Edgerton Plassman:  "The house was built of logs thrown together in the rudest manner and had a dirt roof that turned to mud in the rain, hail or snow, and trickled through on the occupants.  It was a poor excuse for a house but there was not a better house in town."

 This is the Bannack Historic Masonic Lodge.  It is still active and has members from around the world who help with the preservation of this and other buildings in Bannack.  In 1874 the need for a school was realized and the Masons built the combination Lodge and school.  The first floor of the building was used for a school for over 70 years for K-8 students.  It closed in the 1950s.  Students reported that snow sometimes blew in through cracks in the wall and schoolbooks were rare.

The old jail is on the right and the new and improved jail is on the left.  No one wanted to hang around and guard prisoners instead of out mining for gold so most bad guys went directly to the gallows without spending any time in jail.

Henry Plummer, was elected sheriff of Bannack in May 1863 and ordered the gallows built to hang convicted murderer, John Peter Horan.  Rumor has it that Henry, in addition to being sheriff, was also one of the "Innocents", a group of about 25 men, who over a period of eight months, committed countless robberies and 102 murders.  A Vigilante group was formed in December 1863, and Plummer was hanged by them on January 10, 1864.  At first Plummer pleaded for his life, but then said he was "too wicked to die" and requested a good drop.  He was only 27 years old when he got that good drop.  There is still much controversy over whether or not Henry was really guilty.

This is bachelor's row.  In the first few months after gold was discovered the miners who had rushed to Bannack just slept in bedrolls, tents, wagons, or whatever because they didn't want to take any time away from their mining activities.  But as the weather got colder, they knew they needed better housing so built these small cabins.

This is the Methodist Church of Bannack, built in 1877.  Circuit riders and traveling ministers were the norm for isolated mining towns like Bannack and one of the more famous of these was Brother Van (William Wesley VanOrsdel).  He arrived in Montana in 1872 and was assigned to the district that included Bannack and Virginia City.  When he arrived in Bannack, he found all the gambling houses and bars open on Sunday so he went to one of the bars and announced that he was a minister.  The bartender announced the bar would be closed for one hour giving Brother Van a chance to sing "A Diamond in the Ruff".  He had a wonderful voice and the people, who were starved for entertainment, asked for more.  He continued and the crowd got a good hour of religion.  It was Brother Van who talked the people into building the church.  Galen and I went to a bluegrass gospel concert in the church.  Good concert, but there is no electricity in the building and it was hard to hear the singers.

This is probably the most haunted building in Bannack.  This was the Bessette House and it was sometimes used as a quarantine house during outbreaks of influenza, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and whooping cough.  Some believe the building is haunted by the children who died there.  People have reported the sound of crying babies coming from the house causing it to be known as the "Crying Baby House."

The first time we visited Bannack it was quite early in the season and many of the buildings were locked.  This time we got to go inside quite a few of them.  It is quite moving to walk the streets and think about all the history here.