End of Year Highlights

We haven't been able to go anywhere for a few weeks so I looked through my photos to see what would stand out.
Here is one of the most unusual contraptions I've seen for awhile. Mr. Keith and I were in the local music store where I was selecting new piano music for my Christmas gift. This piano looks like a big clam! I wonder if they will find a buyer for it?

Since we've been having some freezing temperatures we wanted to see how frozen the Clark Fork River was getting. To our surprise as we stepped onto the overlook we saw that not only were there big banks of ice, there were actually swimmers in there braving the waves. And the cold! Brrr! Not me!

Climbing to the "M" above the University is popular at anytime. If you enlarge this photo you will see several hikers along the zigzag trail.

Fishing is such a sport in Montana. Mr. Keith is standing by a sculpture that attests to that fact. Caras Park is a great place to hike the trails, to view the river, and to watch other folks out on a good day.

I got to play piano (Here Comes the Bride!) at a wedding at the KOA Gathering Place. The bride is the daughter of one of our KOA employees. That's me behind the balloons, unseen, but not unheard.

I have a tiny Christmas tree for our 5th wheel, but this year, rather than try to find room to put it, I decorated my jade tree. Works just as well! Without family to entertain or to celebrate with we keep things very low key.

One of our favorite drives is up the Rattlesnake, a valley cut by a good sized creek that flows down into Missoula. It's fairly well populated with lots of houses, but the draw for us is that the deer love to come down from the hills and roam around the neighborhoods, unafraid. We can usually spot at least a dozen in people's yards or in the fields nearby. They didn't mind our rubber-necking.

Opening and closing with a piano — mine continues to give me great joy. Practicing old pieces and trying new compositions is one of my very favorite things to do, both at the end of the year and all through the next one!

Orchards and Pianos

 Our days here in East Wenatchee and Wenatchee are passing pleasantly. On a walk down to the river I snapped this photo and was thinking about how it will look in a few more weeks when the fruit trees burst into bloom. The buds are beginning to swell already. I think these are apple trees. The apricots are the first to bloom, so beautiful in their pink and lavender dress!

There are apple trees next to our rig. I always wondered who wrote the old song, "It's cherry pink and apple blossom white..."  He must not have known that cherry trees sport purely white blossoms, while the apple flowerets are pinkish white. I can't wait for these to bloom, but we may be gone by then.

A wonderful fact about the Wenatchee Valley is that there is a paved walking trail completely around the cities along the riverbanks, up one side, across the river, and down the other side, depending on where you begin. There are probably close to 12 miles of trail. Just up the road from where we are is the beginning of the trail on the East Wenatchee side. Or maybe it's the ending. Hmmm! We picked the wrong day to walk. The wind was fierce, raindrops began to pelt us, not to mention tumbleweeds zooming about. I caught this one with my cane as it tumbled by.

When we began full time RVing I knew I had to have a piano in our rig. I researched and found this Yamaha digital piano and I have been very happy with it. One slideout is my music room, complete with 3 file boxes of the music I also couldn't dispense with. Selling, giving away, donating almost all our possessions in order to move into our 5th wheel was not easy. The one thing I couldn't part with and also couldn't take with me was the Yamaha upright that I used to teach my students for many, many years in my home studio.

So... my solution was to ask the pastors of our home church if my piano could come live in the fellowship hall. They, both musicians themselves, gladly agreed, and I believe it does some service for recitals. Knowing we would be in the area for a couple of months, I obtained a key to the church so I can come practice whenever I have a chance. The other day, I let myself in, found the light switches, walked up to my beautiful instrument, lifted the lid, and got  teary and emotional as I sat down and tenderly began to press the keys. I've missed this lovely and very important part of my past life. I hope someday I might have my big Yamaha with me again. In the meantime, I will be happy with my little digital. It serves me faithfully and well and I am grateful to have it.

Ghost Town Reprise!

 We had traveled to Virginia City earlier this summer but wanted to make a second trip to go through Nevada City, just a few short miles away. My favorite building held a variety of very old musical displays. We could put a quarter or two in some of them and hear an old tune. I loved this player piano. It reminded me of the very first piano I learned to play, at my grandmother's home in Richmond, California.

This home must have been built and furnished by the richest of the town residents. 

 Nevada City was a real mining town, but many of the ancient buildings on the grounds have been moved from other locations in order to save and preserve them. We watched workmen in the process of building a foundation around yet another transported log cabin.

The yellow painted home also held a piano, one of the earliest "square" pianos. I don't know why they were called square, when they are actually rectangular. As a retired piano teacher I love to see the pianos that were used in the old days. I wish I could have tried this one out! That is quite fancy wallpaper, to go with the music room!

 Mr. Keith always wants his picture taken inside the creaky old outhouses we find in ghost towns. What is with that guy?

 The general mercantile store. We've been watching and loving the TV series "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" on Netflix and I tried to picture the characters in their similar environments, built by Hollywood, but very much like this era.

I've noticed that the doorways in ghost towns always seem shorter than our more modern doors, pointing out the fact that people didn't grow as tall then as they do now. I'd have fit in nicely, though, at 5 feet, 2 inches tall!

 A Saddler and a Barbershop, both important necessities. I believe that sometimes the barber did double duty as a dentist of sorts! I'm not sure I would have been comfortable with that, but in those days and in that part of our country there wasn't much choice! Just give me a good shot of whiskey first, please!

 I loved this building, with prickly pear cactus growing on the roof. That plant evidently survives the harsh, snowy, cold winters of Montana .

Back in Virginia City after lunch ... closing the door on yet another ghost town adventure.

A Trip to Fort Collins

 After church on Sunday Mr. Keith expressed a desire to go to Fort Collins, Colorado, a 45 mile drive from Cheyenne by the freeway. Of course, we never take a direct route on our sight-seeing trips, (how boring!) so to avoid the freeway, I-25, we took Hwy 85 and also got a quick look at Greeley and Loveland, both attractive towns, as well as driving through a few tiny farming communities. We saw lots of crops in fields, and we were happy to see that they all looked healthy. No drought here! We finally made it to Fort Collins, a beautiful university and tourist city. Both times we've been there the town was packed with cars and people on the streets. Finding a parking place is a challenge! We did, though, and on our walk to our chosen restaurant we saw this startling piano sitting in a courtyard. I was tempted to give it a try, but there were too many people around. Pretty, isn't it?

 I couldn't get a really good photo of the main street itself. The sidewalks are lined with huge flower pots and many benches and flower beds, not to mention crowds of people. These big pots in the photo are actually in the middle of the street, between the two lanes on each side. Fort Collins reminds me a little of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, only much bigger. At the beginning of our trip I posted on Facebook that we were going to Fort Collins for lunch. Our former employer at the Strasburg KOA responded that her favorite restaurant was the HoHut Mongolian BBQ right on the main street, so we decided to find it and go there. Yum, yum, was it ever good! Thanks, Tracy!

 There were street musicians here and there on the main drag, but these were the ones we decided to sit down to listen to. They were so good! In this photo they are playing some jazz. The saxophonist reminded me of my son playing the sax in the jazz band in school.

 The saxophonist, for the next number, changed to a clarinet, and they played an Irish Jig. Wow! I was impressed. It also reminded me of my days of playing the clarinet, though I couldn't hold a candle to this fellow! He must practice all the time.

On the way home we still avoided I-25 by going north of Fort Collins on back roads (there were lots of ritzy ditzy houses out there!) till we found a place to cross over the freeway and back over to Hwy 85. This shot is about halfway between Greeley and Cheyenne. I was intrigued by the old bridge out there without a road on either side. There are actually two bridges there. (Click to enlarge.) The sandstone bluff adds even more interest to the view. We were thinking it must have been the old road from many years ago. We made a decision to go back to Fort Collins soon, straight there on the freeway, and then spend several hours exploring just the town. It will be worth it! Maybe we'll even eat at the HoHut Mongolian BBQ again!