Most of the neighborhoods I drove through were in extremely poor condition. There didn't seem to be any type of civil code enforcement from the appearance of the homes and they had a total lack of any spirit at all. There were a few roses in the wilderness but they definitely were the minority. Everyone that worked there I spoke to didn't live in town and hadn't been there very long. I could see that the place reminded me of the isolated coal towns in Kentucky when I was there. The visual difference...

As I wrote yesterday we went to Iowa over the weekend and attended The Old Threshers Reunion. It is a show basically that lasts from for about 5 days and it starts before the actual Labor Day holiday and ends on Labor Day. The biggest day for attendance is the Saturday before Labor Day I think but I am not real sure.

Anyway, we were there Saturday all day as I mentioned and it was wonderful. You have to of course like all things old to enjoy yourself while being there. You also have...

Another weekend of traveling for Sneakers and I and the dog. We left Friday morning after the stitches were removed and got to Iowa about 5 hours later. We went to Muscatine and took care of a vehicle that we had there that needed to be taken to the junk yard. About 1.5 hours later we finally left there. Went to the local bank and cashed the check we got for junking the vehicle. Then to West Liberty to our friends home where we stay when we are in Iowa.

They were not home but the door...

I planned, I researched and I searched the net. Then I went and it was ten times better than I thought it would have. I spent two weeks moving up and down the coastal highway. The sights were to be loved and remembered, the videos to always look at, new details to find with each viewing. I met a man in Jenna who lived in Sacramento who hadn't been to the coast since he was a boy. We were about the same age and I thought of all the places I had been since I began to drive and I thought what could...

As we traveled, I studied a lot of Mindfulness writings by various authors. ALL of them advise to remain present in THIS everlasting moment and don't get entangled in the past or the future. Since I've usually had disappointments about my past (contributing greatly to each present moment's unhappiness), my difficulty was on NOT future-tripping. I constantly imagined how great (or not) the future was going to be when a point was reached. When the moment came, inevitably it wasn't the moment I expected,...