retirement activity

Feeding birds and umbrellas for social distancing

/ Roadtirementvintage / 16 Comments

The phone image isn’t the best, but you can see the cute (?) little English sparrow enjoying a meal at our recently installed bird feeder. You can also see the corn cob, now devoid of any corn kernels, sticking up from the tree. We put a nail in the tree, drilled a hole down the center of the cob, and voila! a squirrel feeding station.

This danged COVID-19 stay at home stuff is really, really getting old. We still miss going out to eat, going to a casino (we like the free play!) and being able to travel to see the kids and grand kids.

Oh, and we saw something different on a CNN internet report. There is a village in India named Thannermukkom that has given out 10,000 umbrellas. The idea is that if you walk around with an open umbrella, and others do the same, it forces you to not get close to each other. Not sure you are the 6 feet away, but definitely not shoulder to shoulder.

Stay calm,  remember the rules, and wash those hands and keep physical distance!

Our new bird feeder

/ Roadtirementvintage / 31 Comments

When we got the squirrel corn the other day we also bought a bird feeder. So far we have not actually seen any feathered friends at the feeder, but the drop in the seed level and loose seeds on the ground under the feeder do show that it has been used.

Speaking of birds, there is a Pileated Woodpecker living somewhere around our neighborhood. We have seen him a couple of times flying through. What a magnificent bird. We’re looking forward to more sightings.

Since we’re not traveling Sher and I have focused on getting our backyard into a more comfortable and enjoyable living space. BC (before coronavirus) we were traveling for much of the year. Thanks to COVID-19 that has changed drastically.

Got any bird feeders in your yard? What is your favorite bird?

Remember all that “stay healthy” advice! Don’t slip up!

Yes, the 1st Earth Day was 50 years ago

/ Roadtirementvintage / 8 Comments

Big 4 Mountain, Cascade Range

Wow, April 22, 1970. Where were you on the first Earth Day? I was a freshman at a small liberal arts college in Illinois. I knew several fellow students who were really activist minded about the environment, anti-war movement and other social issues. My geology professor was already a hard core environmentalist. The Nation wide and world wide Earth Day marches were quite something to see/read about.

Here we are in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic. There have been many reports documenting the effect that all of the stay at home orders have had on Earth. Have you seen the air quality/pollution studies showing the very dramatic decrease in smog due to few people driving?  How about the video of the kangaroo hopping across an Australian city and only seeing one car?  Geologists studying earthquakes are seeing subtle readings on seismographs that before have been hidden due to human activity.

I read somewhere that the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is Earth’s way of scolding humankind and sending us to our rooms until we learn how to behave. Makes sense to me. It is my hope that the “new normal”, what ever that turns out to be, will show much more respect for Earth. Our existence depends on it.

— stay safe, wash your hands,  stay healthy —

Souvenir from a Jellystone Park

/ Roadtirementvintage / 10 Comments

A while back Sher and I met a lot of our family members at an RV campground near Cleveland, Ohio. We stayed at a franchised campground with a Jellystone Park theme. Yes, right from the cartoon series with Yogi Bear, BooBoo, Cindy and the hapless Ranger.  We had a wonderful time as this was a perfect place for family activities.

Souvenir ornament

Souvenir photograph

 

 

 

 

 

 

The “Airstream” style ornament , while Christmas themed, is now permanently hanging from the window over our table in the RV. This souvenir is cute, lights up and reminds us of that fun time we all had at the Jellystone Park RV resort.

Do any of you collect souvenirs from your travel adventures?

Please Remember to  Stay Safe and Stay Healthy 

Roadtirement’s colorful companion

/ Roadtirementvintage / 11 Comments

Meet our good luck Joker

This Joker has been our good luck traveling companion for quite a while. He has seen three different RV’s we have used: Two travel trailers and our current Class C motor home. Joker quietly observes where we go, what we see and also what we eat, as he hangs above the kitchen sink!

Just curious, do any of you  have a good luck object in your RV, car, truck, house or whatever?

Remember to  Stay Safe and Stay Healthy 

 

DIY RV plumbing repair

/ Roadtirementvintage / 6 Comments

The cracked pump

While we were staying at the La Hacienda RV Resort in Austin this past winter we had a little plumbing issue in our RV. One evening Sher was sitting at the table and said “Maj, my feet just got wet.” Well, wet where it’s supposed to be dry is always a problem.

Long story short, there was a crack in the fresh water pump that supplies fresh water to the HWH, shower, toilet and sinks from the fresh water storage tank on board. After a check online and checking the leaking pump, I determined what replacement pump I needed. Ordered from Amazon, it arrived at the RV park 3 days later.

New pump ready to be connected

Installation finished. The white tank is the fresh water supply

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was not very difficult to remove the old pump and install the new one. The pump was in a compartment under the cushion for the table, easy removal. Two wires and two pipe connections were easy to hook up.  Fortunately the base plates on both had the same screw hole patterns. After about an hour I tested the newly installed water pump. It worked!

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema schedules Planet of the Apes

/ Roadtirementvintage / 10 Comments

Full size statue from the from the 1st movie

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is a nation wide chain of “dinner and a movie” entertainment. While they are closed due the COVID-19 restrictions, their website still shows a scheduled showing of the 1968 cult classic “Planet of the Apes” for August 30th this fall. Whether this showing happens remains to be seen.

Sher and I and our Austin family went to one of these theaters during our Winter Texan stay this past year. The seats are large and comfortable, and the table for your dinner is more than adequate. Food was good, too. We saw and enjoyed  Little Women.

Anyway,  I wanted to show you the huge statue in the lobby of the theater we went to

Ad for an Ape movie marathon

in Austin. The statue is from the actual movie Planet of the Apes. I asked one of the employees where it came from. Turns out the owner of the theater chain also owns the rights to the Planet of the Apes franchise. There were movie posters for all of the Ape movies displayed in the lobby as well as ads for an APE movie marathon of the original five movies.

Have you seen the Planet of the Apes movies? Can you name the original five titles? Might be a good topic for a “stay at home in isolation” set of trivia questions. Stay safe, dear readers. Don’t go ape!

 

Yellowstone bison owns the road

/ Roadtirementvintage / 28 Comments

Sher and I are not traveling now due to coronavirus, so we thought we’d share some of our BC pictures with you. (BC = before COVID-19)

We had just entered Yellowstone National Park from the East Entrance. As we saw Lake Yellowstone on the left we suddenly saw stopped traffic ahead. I thought maybe there was a crash. But no. Here came this magnificent bull bison just sauntering along, taking his time as if he owned the road. Wait! He did own the road.  Quite a start to our Yellowstone adventure.