Becoming Outdated

 Since family camping trips when I was a child I remember Dad firing up the Coleman 2-burner white gas stove and Mom, then, cooking up breakfast. The hissing, the fire, the smell. So when Wilma and I married, on our gift list was a stove for us. That one lasted 45 years and time to retire it. I've overhauled it but it's still getting temperamental. My quest begins to replace it, in kind. 

However, white gas is getting harder to find. Retail stores are phasing out these stoves, too, for the convenient green bottle stoves, which cost about a third as much. Finally was able to order one online for around $200. I tried to light it and it created a huge fireball. Got so hot that the paint on the stove caught fire. Enough pooled up gas to burn for a few minutes. 

Exchanged it for another and had the same result, which I sketched here. Raw gas spewed into the bottom of the stove. HUGE fireball 6' high. I've lit these for 55 years and know how to do it. The feed tube and shut-off valve do their job, so it's the manifold. Design or construction problem I don't know. Coleman is producing TRASH! I just created two crispy critters. 

I'll start looking on eBay for a used older one. White gas, Coleman 2-burner stoves and I are all becoming outdated.

Quilt Retreat

 Wilma taught me rudimentary sewing skills years ago. With her passing I've decided to try my hand at quilting. If I don't like it, I'll sell her sewing and quilting gear and fabric stash. A couple months ago I took my first quilting class and liked it! I have four long time friends that quilt and they heard of my exploration, so they invited me to an open quilt/craft retreat. I accepted gladly. Five of us with 20 others we don't know (yet). It's at a location near St. Joe, MO.  

I was guarded because I didn't want my gender to interfere with the group dynamics. However, everyone was great and accepting. Regardless of gender, if you took the initiative to talk with others, they were very open to return the engagement.

I got to see different set-ups: machines, rulers, templates, patterns, lights, chairs, organizers, etc. Many ways to spend money. The only regret was that many quilters brought junk food to share. I ate too much.

Fall Travel to Moab

Time to start a new journal. My first entry is a trip to Moab.

I find myself interested lately in traveling to Moab (i.e. Liz).  This time they have the Moab Folk Festival, community Day of the Dead celebration and Liz's studio hosts a Soup Bowl meal to raise funds for a local charity. Good enough reasons for me. This time I fly out. I didn't look close enough at the ticket options and selected one that required me to wake up at 2:30 a.m. 

I check out the two quilt supply shops and find they have a selection of outdoor-themed fabric I'll never find in Kansas. I have a quilt retreat coming up and need a quilt pattern. They had that, too. I chose a Rocky Mountain National Park 4-panel fabric.

Of course, we (I) need coffee time. After spending time helping in her ceramics studio we chill out at a local coffee shop.

I've purchased a second touring bicycle to keep in Moab for convenience. It arrives and I assemble it. Then we have the Moab Folk Festival. Headliner is Sam Bush, who I've followed for 45 years. The festival grounds is not that large so it's a more intimate feel that the Walnut Valley Festival back in Winfield, Kansas.

Tried a new (to me) espresso drink: affogato. That's a different way to spell heaven. 

This community really supports their soup bowl fundraiser. This year the money goes to a kids nutrition program administered through the schools. Liz volunteered me to help, so I washed pots and pans for my shift. All a good time. I got a bowl out of the effort. The day before Liz and I cooked up some broccoli and cheese soup for it in a commercial kitchen. I love cooking in a nice commercial kitchen. It's the right tool for the job, as my dad would say. 

While Liz prepared to teach a class tonight, I took my new (to me) bike for a test ride. I stopped at the Moab Springs Ranch for a coffee and a sketch. This view to the west is superb! A local told me this formation is called "The Portal". 

Time to go home. This time I found a really nice view at the first leg of the trip: Grand Junction, Colorado. This part of the country received some snow over the last two nights. A light powdering of snow stayed on the flanks of the cliffs here and by a fluke of good luck my terminal had a great view of it. This is my last sketch of this trip. 

Out for Coffee

 My grief support group still gets together socially, though a small group. Our class started with six but one washed out (it was too soon since his loss). Unfortunately two others passed away recently. That leaves three but sometimes one doesn't show up. That was the case today. Just Sherry and I.  She came ready to sketch and I just had my sketch journal and a pencil and ballpoint pen. We sketched anyway. It was a lesson for me that I'm not restricted to my favorite kit to sketch. I forgot how nice graphite is!

A happy accident in composition: the hippo seems concerned to have the Grim Reaper looking his way.

A Higher Calling

 I was in Ottawa the other day looking at bicycles at Ottawa Bike & Trail. This little town is at the junction of the Flint Hills Trail and the Prairie Spirit Trail, both rail-to-trails in the care of Kansas Dept.of Wildlife and Parks. This store is fueling a nice movement to trail riding, specializing in gravel bikes. Seems like a more nimble bike is in order for me as compared to my Surly Long Haul Trucker, which is designed as a beast of burden for loaded touring. Time for lunch. Next to the restaurant a local church is having some refurbishing done to a steeple. They are using a telescoping manlift to access it. Striking color and I love big equipment. So I had to set up my little chair and sketch a while. 

Lake Tour with Liz

 About 10 years ago I bought a touring bicycle and some panniers and tried some 'loaded touring'. At first it was 'bike overnight' stuff. I carried the tent, stove, food & water, clothes, etc. Then I tried two nights out. Still enjoyed it, so I planned a lake tour. We have five federal flood control lakes in this part of Kansas so I could create a loop route and hit them all, one day at a time. I could leave from home and return to home. I figured when I retire, I'll do that.

Then Wilma and I had health issues, I retired, she died and life was on hold for a while. Now I'm back in the saddle, literally. Love my bike. When I met Liz, she had similar interests. Her background in loaded touring far exceeded mine, but she was game to do this lake tour. Game on!

Five lakes, five nights in six days. That was the (flexible) plan. After four lakes, though, we just kinda ran out of gas. Our objective from the start was to have fun and see if we travelled well together, not to enter an endurance contest. We could have finished the tour but didn't feel the need to. So we bailed out at Clinton and pedaled home. We still ended up with 193.3 miles, which is almost like pedaling to Hays, Kansas. Looking back, we should have hit two lakes, then taken a rest day, then proceeded. We're both trying to figure out what our 68 year old bodies are capable of while being haunted with the memory of what they used to do.

Our average speed isn't worth noting. We had some rough days. No storms but some headwind. We didn't have extensive pre-trip training. I think we did just fine. We ate at some fine restaurants and the camp food was pretty good, too. And we found that we can travel well together and not kill each other.

Out With The Old

 I've probably had my smart phone for about 10 years. It's rough around the edges, the charge doesn't last as long and I'm running out of storage. AT&T has been sending me reminders that I qualify for an upgrade. So I finally succumb and replace it! I don't need a bigger screen so I opt to replace it with a similar phone. 

The monthly rate only goes up a few buck and I get more storage. The upgrade process only took about an hour yet I pushed it off for months. I donate my old phones to the Topeka YWCA for their women's shelter. I can feel good about that. I'm not real keen, though, on how our daily lives hinge on the availability of cell phone coverage and having this little computer with us at all times, and the need to replace it every few years.