Progress of Two Sorts

We’ve gotten some more work done on installing the lights in the casita. The ceiling fan and lights are in, but we’re doing some debating about the track lights above our desk. The big question is: which wallboards do we tear out?

The wall at my end of the desk is the eastern wall of the building. It’s going to have to be re-wallboarded at some time in the future because of the slapdash construction methods before we got here. So it makes sense to just tear out some of the old wallboard, knowing the whole wall has to be redone anyway.

The wall at Suzy’s end of the desk is the one we put in to build a storage room. That wall is in better shape and it would be a shame to put a hole in it. However, the backside of the wall is just in the storage room, and a much smaller hole could be made, to later be patched without having a mess in the “living” area for several months.

So what’s the question? The storage room is tiny and crowded. We’d have to move everything out in order to do any work on electricity, Secondly, I’d have to work virtually in the dark: the power has to be turned off before I start touching any bare wires. We’ve pretty much decided to work on the east wall. That will give us more impetus to get the new sheetrock work contracted out and the room finished.

The second area of progress: we’ve gone back to last year’s project of sorting through old photos and documents that have been stored for many years.

A lot of them are just being thrown out, but we’re also scanning some of the more precious or more important pictures. You saw a few of them in a recent post, and here are some more. When we put together our entertainment center, we stood it on a tile-topped table from my youth.

This first picture shows that same table with my brother Chuck and me sitting on it in January, 1940. Chuck was about 6 and I was almost 2 years old. (Remember, if you want to see a larger version of any picture, just left click on the picture. When you're ready to come back, click the "back" arrow at the top of your screen.)

We have some REALLY old pictures. Look at this 1909 photo of Suzy's father (the tall 12-year old) and the rest of his family.

Or this one of my grandparents (Grandpa Charlie is holding my baby mother) on their farm near Enterprise, Oregon.

There are more current pictures, of course.

Suzy and I had gone to a party with an empoyees' group in Oakland, CA, in 1974, two years after I had transferred to Sacramento. She had just lost a very large amount of weight, and no one recognized her. I got the cold shoulder from a lot of my friends ... until Suzy spoke to them and they recognized her voice!

And as we take a look at Suzy in 1974, also take a look at her in the mid-1940's:

These are Suzy's maternal grand-parents: Grandpa Joe Zickus farmed a small piece of land, but also ran a bronze foundry. He was particularly fond of this figure, but Grandma Marion wasn't too happy with it! The other fellow there is Uncle Eddie.

We return to my family: that's Grandpa Charlie with Aunt Peggy on the left and my mother on the right.

As we further our scanning project, we're going to set up a web album to display our history. We'll give you the link when it's set up.

In the meantime, we've still tried to be social. In the site next to ours we watched as an 80 year-old lady backed in and got set up. Helen Farnsworth, born in Europe, had been traveling on her own for 14 years after her husband died. She needed a little help with some of the physical hookups, but was quite independent for the most part. We spent time with her in our motorhome and in the casita.

Our other visitors were Howard and Linda Payne, whom we met through their blog. They are in their mid-40s, but are full-timing, They have done a lot of research and homework, and offer their own website with information for other RVers, and they supplement their income with product sales, blog ads and an annual rally they sponsor. We are learning a lot from Howard and Linda!

Thanks for taking this detour along ... Our Life on Wheels!