When I made the post this morning I commented that since it was Sunday morning our trip through Montreal would be a leisurely one. I was sooooo WRONG!!   We did get to the two sites on our agenda but it took almost four hours of driving to get there.  At first I decided to try to navigate using  just the atlas. I found Mont Royal on the map and after a few misdirected turns and about 45 minutes of bumper to bumper traffic we were at that location. The trouble was that it was not “Parc du” Mont Royal. So … Continue reading On The Road — Au revoir Montreal….

Here it is at the end of day seven and we are now fully immersed into the providence of Quebec.  It seems that everywhere we went in Ontario there was always an English sign followed by one in French.  Now that we are in Quebec the English signs seemed to have all but disappeared?  When we checked into the hotel for the night close to Montreal we did have English speaking front desk person. That was a relief since we spent almost 4 hours going the 100 or so miles we drove today. Half of that time was trying to … Continue reading On the Road — Parlez vous français?

We spent a good bit of today at the National Art Museum here in Canada’s capital Ottawa.  In some ways the building was more impressive than the art it contained. I would say about one-third of the exhibits were for modern art which is really not so much my taste.  I picked out my favorite one in that area and I called it “Big Black”.  It was about a 12 foot square mural of solid black; nothing else!  They seem to have pictures just like that in about every modern art exhibit I have been to. But they did have … Continue reading On The Road – Day 6 — Here's to the Arts

As expected today was an exciting time. We spent most of the day around the Parliament complex. Here are some pictures of that. We also toured much of the area around the complex and went to the Museum of Currency. It was also a very beautiful day here in Ottawa, sunny and in the 70s. I forgot to take a hat along with me so now I have a sun burned bald head! Gotta remember the hat for tomorrow or I can expect some peeling scalp later in the week. The brochure provided at the places we visited gave us a somewhat … Continue reading On The Road – Day 5 — My Canada Adventure

Here is another post on my experiences in our current trek through eastern Canada. I know I have only been in Canada for four days now but I am ready to come to at least one conclusion. That conclusion is that Canada is not famous for food.  Maybe they just take the “eat to live” mentality pretty seriously here. We went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner last night and that, along with most of my previous meals here, was the basis for this observation. When we sat down we were given the usual salsa and chips but the salsa was really … Continue reading On the Road — Some Initial Conclusions…

Last night since we were on the road most of the day we ended up staying at a small motel without internet. It was clean and cheap so I guess I should be grateful and I am. We made the last trek through the pine trees this morning and into Ottawa. My first impression was that there was a lot of traffic for 9:30 on a Wednesday morning.  After that soaked in I started noticing quite a few older building in the downtown area. Since this is the capital of Canada I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. We went to the … Continue reading On The Road – Hello Ottawa….

Here we are at the end of day two of our trek through Canada. Today was another road day for us. We made it from upper Michigan to Sudbury Ontario and are settled down in our hotel for the night.  I don’t know how many miles that is as I had to convert the car to metric when we got here so we would know how fast we were going. Don’t want to get a ticket for speeding. After we arrived we went out for dinner to a place called Hardrock 42. No, it is not one of those HardRock … Continue reading On The Road — Would you like gravy with that?

I am now sitting in a hotel room a few miles east of Ste St Marie Michigan. We will head through there and up into Canada in the morning. We drove across upper Wisconsin and Michigan today. It was as it has been for the many time I have been here, all pine trees with not much in between. In some ways that is an appropriate way to start this trip which is intended to be a relaxing one. Waiting for my dear wife to get ready to go across the way to the local Pizza Hut for dinner gives … Continue reading On The Road — A Couple of miles…

You know it takes nerve to be a Democrat. But it takes money to be a Republican.  Will Rogers -February 10, 1929 Continue reading Will Rogers Quote

America can carry herself and get along in pretty fair shape, but when she stops and picks up the whole world and puts it on her shoulders she just can’t “get it done.” – Will Rogers March 15, 1933 Wow, it is amazing that Will wrote these words almost eighty years ago. They couldn’t be more true today.  The Republicans want to continuously talk about wasteful government spending but they seldom talk about reducing our military budgets. We spend many many times more per citizen than any other country in the world on our war machine! Why is that? I’m just a simple … Continue reading Policemen of the World…

One of the rites of retirement is being able to take a vacation pretty much whenever you want.  Well, my wife and I want! We will soon be heading out for our Canada and New England trip. This one could take up to a month of our time. That is another privilege of retirement, we can take as long as needed.  We have a house sitter who will take care of our animals and such as long as we are gone. We plan on going into Canada via Wisconsin and then traveling the interior to Ottawa. Then up the St. Lawrence seaway to Nova Scotia … Continue reading The Rites of Retirement….

Do the best you can and don’t take life too serious  – Will Rogers  Continue reading Will Rogers Quote

It’s Done… (but it’s never really done) I finally completed the merging of five of my six blogs to this site! I hope you like what you find here. Don’t forget to bookmark this new blog and remove any of my old ones (I will not be closing them but they will no longer be updated).  This will make my life a little simpler and make it easier for you to see all of what I have to offer in the blog world. I have also purchased one of the premium themes (Tapestry) to make your browsing a little more … Continue reading It's Done

In the old days, I’m talking about pre-Reagan, a company’s workers were considered an asset but it seems like today they have turned into a liability.  I read an article recently (I don’t remember the source right now so I can’t give it to you here ;) ) that basically said that many companies can’t find adequately trained people to fill their jobs and won’t hire someone and then train them for that job. It seems they would rather complain about not having skilled workers than actually training someone to do the job. I can almost remember when I was … Continue reading Workers as Liabilities….

I thought I would look back at our homestead ten years ago and now. It is amazing how things have grown so much but still stayed pretty much the same. Continue reading Then and Now

A couple of posts ago I talked about how I chose to spend my fixed income in my senior years. One thing that has a huge effect on how I would spend my money was where I was going to live. When we chose to come back to Indiana for our final years this had a huge effect on our finances. Compared to California and many places within fifty mile of an ocean the hinterland is very affordable in deed. The house we have now is a renovated 1925 farm house that has been expanded to more than 2400 square … Continue reading Where To Live in My Senior Years…

I have been getting hit by some because I don’t quote the Bible often enough for them.  As I have stated many times before I am just not a “chapter and verse” Christian. I do read the Bible frequently but instead of memorizing the words I try to learn the lessons behind the words and then attempt to make those lessons a part of my daily life. As far as I am concerned there are just too many “bible thumpers” around today.  I will not be one of those.  When I was in my godless years the bible thumpers constantly … Continue reading Lessons Learned….

I must admit that during my semi-required down time each day I am a sucker for the TV show entitled House Hunters on HGTV. I’m also not one to shy away from technology so I have a digital video recorder (DVR to those of us who are tech savvy). So, I have House Hunters episodes just about any time I want to see them. The basic structure of each episode is as follows. For one reason or another a family (loosely defined) wants to get a new house We get a brief look at their backgrounds, occupations, etc. They look at three … Continue reading House Hunters??

The Old Testament has always been a struggle for me. I find far too many places where God’s wrath is brutally shown. This is in such a total contrast with Jesus Christ I know in the New Testament. It is almost like the good cop/bad cop scenarios that play out so much on the TV cop shows. I tend to refer to it as the all powerful God vs. the all loving God. Can the two really co-exist or did God basically change his management style between the Old Testament and the New Testament or you could say between the … Continue reading Contemplating the All Powerful God and the All Loving God…

I have been away from quotes by my hero Will Rogers for a while. I am bringing them back starting now. There ain’t any finer folks living than a Republican that votes the Democratic ticket. –Will Rogers — Continue reading Will Rogers Quote

A recent post about the post office got me to thinking about the Internet and how it is not available, at least at a reasonable speed, to those of us in more rural areas. I am the last person on our county road who is allowed to have a DSL connection from the phone company. And even my connection is spotty at best. My router deems it necessary to reset itself at least a dozen time a day. Even when it is working it frequently freezes. There are at least two hundred homes beyond me where even having the luxury of freezing … Continue reading Internet RFD….(Chasing the Web)