Jeff texted an interesting question today. He and Zack occasionally recommend songs to each other and, today, he sent a song recommendation to Zack to “cue it up on his playlist.” Zack responded that he would “be sure to queue it up.”

“Cue” refers to a signal or a prompt that triggers an action; “queue” refers to a line or sequence of people or things waiting for something. Jeff’s thought was that either could be correct in his exchange with Zack because Zack could “queue” the song in line to play later, or he could “cue” the song whenever he’s ready to listen to it. Jeff asked for my thoughts.

I checked with Grammarly and Google, and I have to fall in line with Jeff. If Zack has a string of songs to play, including the one suggested by Jeff, he could “cue” (prompt) the “queue” (line) when he wants to listen to the song.

Fun times with English. 🙂

Kari and I have attended the St. Charles City-County Library Book Fair regularly on our own. After the pandemic ended, we started going to the book fair together and have made it a tradition. The first weekend in August is the annual date for the three-day event (Friday-Sunday). It caught us by surprise this year with the first day of August on a Friday, but luckily, it was easy for us to make plans to fit it into our schedules. Last year, we went on Saturday and discovered that the books were already well picked over, so this year we went on Friday afternoon, when it opened to the general public. (Library members may shop on Friday morning.)

As usual, I did well and came home with 35 new-to-me books. Unfortunately, I needed a small loan from Kari because of inflation. I brought $100.00 in cash, assuming that would be enough, as it was unlikely I’d find more than 50 books to purchase at $2.00 per hardcover book. Well, this year the price went up to $3.00 per hardcover book, so my 35 books cost $105.00. Still a great bargain over the bookstore prices, but $5.00 more than I brought in cash. (Another good reason to go to the book fair with a partner. 🙂 ) Here’s my haul for this year, already on the closet shelves that I keep empty for my annual collection of book fair books.

In the years we’ve been going to the book fair together, Kari and I have made it a tradition to have ice cream and conversation at Kilwin’s on Main Street in St. Charles after we have all the books we want. Today was no exception. We spent about an hour at the book fair and another two hours at Kilwin’s. It’s a great tradition, and it’s already on our calendars for the next book fair on the first weekend of August in 2026.

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

–Cicero

Theo, Ted, and I saw Superman yesterday. In my opinion, it was a combination of any current adventure movies (lots of noise and action, and the hero won), Jurassic Park (dinosaur-like super-creatures), Star Wars (weird, robotic super-creatures), the original Superman, and updated Superman. (Lois Lane is no longer pining for Superman. The two now obviously have a G-rated relationship and she knows Superman and Clark Kent are the same person.)

Yes, Kelly Anne Conway, the word “immigrant” is mentioned, but the three of us agreed there was nothing preach-y about it, nor did we think the movie was woke–no matter how you define that word. It was just fictional fun. The surprise of the movie was the number of laugh lines.

It’s still hot outside, so the three of us headed to DQ for treats afterwards. It was an afternoon well spent with our grandson.

Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Look up in the sky! It’s bird! It’s a plane! It’s. . .Superman!

Eighty-seven years ago (1938), a baby arrived in America from a home in turmoil.  A family in Kansas raised him, and he struggled to balance two identities.  This was the beginning of Superman comics and has been the backstory ever since.  The first Superman story stated he was sent to Earth from Krypton, a fictional doomed planet.  His origin provided a convenient plot device:  it explained his superpowers.

The comic book Action Comics No. 1, published in June 1938. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Superman’s motto was to fight for “truth, justice, and the American way.” James Gunn, the director of Superman, told the Times of London, “For me, it (Superman) is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.”  The first page of the Superman story describes Superman as a “champion of the oppressed.” 

The image above was originally produced in 1949 and distributed to schools by the Institute for American Democracy, an offshoot of the Anti-Defamation League.  The art team at DC digitally restored the poster in 2017.

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, wrote Superman’s story as World War II loomed.  While fascism rolled through Europe and echoed in the United States, Superman’s early adventures show him fighting “for the little guys, for abused women, for exploited mine workers, and against corrupt politicians,” said Danny Fingeroth, author of Superman on the Couch:  What Comic Book Heroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society.  Throughout his adventures, Fingeroth tells us “Superman is the immigrant embodying the best of American qualities, even though he’s from somewhere else.”

Like Superman, the large majority of superheroes are outsiders.  That’s the common thread that gives them staying power for people from many walks of life.  Other immigrant superheroes include Green Lantern (beings from various planets), Wonder Woman (from a fictional island), Star Wars characters (from a galaxy far, far away), and even Deadpool (Canada).  Check Google for more.

Unfortunately, in these divisive times, everything seems to be political and, with immigration crackdowns ramping up, right-wing media is referring to the new Superman movie as “Superwoke.”  My CNN newsfeed today reported that Kelly Ann Conway, a former Trump adviser, said, “We don’t go to the movie theater to be lectured and to have somebody throw their ideology on to us.”  In contrast, Define American founder Jose Antonio Vargas and narrative strategist Andrew Slack wrote in The Hollywood Reporter, “You can’t politicize the truth.  Superman has been an ‘illegal alien’ for 87 years.” 

It’s not surprising that, last week, the White House’s social media accounts shared an AI-generated image of the movie poster depicting President Trump in the title role.  Sadly, however, that post was soon followed by one from the Department of Homeland Security, which shared the iconic image of ET’s bicycling silhouette with text superimposed over the moon saying, “GO HOME.”

Superman is a fictional and thus, an imaginary, character.  Does everything have to be political?  Still, Kelly Ann is partially right:  We don’t select movies based on our political ideologies and we don’t go to the movies to be lectured or to politically analyze them.  We go to the movies to have fun, to find adventure, to feel thrills, and to laugh—and maybe during this heat wave, to stay cool.

Dean Cain, now a conservative commentator, said the Superman director’s decision to invoke immigration while promoting the film could be a costly mistake.  So far, he’s wrong.  The movie finished in the Number One position on its opening weekend and continues to draw large audiences.  It topped the box office again in its second week.  It has now grossed $235 million in the United States and $406.8 million worldwide.  It looks like a lot of people just want to have fun.

The Superman comic books were my favorites when I was a child.  I remember buying them for 10 cents each and re-reading them over and over because I enjoyed them so much.  Ted and I are going to see Superman, and we’re going to have fun watching it for 2 hours and 9 minutes with no political commentary. 😊

Author’s note: To provide full disclosure, I based this post on an article in CNN. It incensed me to read that people are slamming an imaginary character, with a reputation as a champion of the underdog, as being woke (according to their definition of the word). Even worse, in my opinion, they are trying to take the fun out of a fictional movie by describing it as pro-immigration propaganda. Someone had to speak up for Superman, and because I’ve always liked him–fictional or not–I decided it should be me.

I recently had lunch with my friend, Cindy, whose sister was on the last plane that took off from the St. Louis airport just before the May 16 tornado struck. Cindy’s sister said the pilot used the gate microphone to say, “They’re closing the airport for storms. Get on the plane, stow your luggage, sit down, and buckle up. We’re taking off!” The photo below was taken by a reporter from Fox 2 TV, a local station. Cindy’s sister had a safe flight.

There’s a house near ours that Ted and I refer to as the “party house” of the neighborhood. Those folks have a swimming pool and a lot of friends and relatives. It’s not unusual to see a dozen or more cars parked on the street in that area on weekends. It’s never a problem–no vandalism, no kids running in the street interfering with traffic, no loud music, no late hours–just a lot of people having fun.

In the last few years, our neighbors across the street from our house have yielded their position of “Best Neighborhood Fireworks” to the folks in the party house. The party house fireworks show typically lasts about 30-40 minutes, and the fireworks are non-stop. Frankly, it’s as good a show (and longer) than any public displays (usually about 20 minutes) in the area, and we have no traffic or parking problems to watch it.

This year, several families gathered in one neighbor’s driveway to watch the fireworks, and one member of the group counted 60 cars parked on the street and more that she couldn’t see around the curve. When I say “party house,” I mean it! We non-party house folks assumed that all guests contributed to the cost of the fireworks, but that’s really not our problem–we just enjoy the show.

I took some videos of the fireworks this year, starting when the first one of a group was launched. The long series lasted a full two minutes, and there were at least 6-8 long series. Just like at the public displays, there’s a brief pause between series, while the group lines up the next display and sets it off. To stay within the space limitations of this blog, I took some 30-second videos. Here’s one–and remember, this is only one-fourth of how many fireworks went off in a two-minute display. There’s sound of you want to hear the bangs.

Here’s a shot in which my camera must have auto-corrected for the darkness, but I think it’s an interesting picture. The time stamp of the photo is 9:42 p.m., and it was dark at the time.

Several political scientists have outlined the process of democratic institutions declining, as witnessed by norms that can lead to autocracy. The following is a generalized outline of the ten potential steps that could contribute to a country becoming autocratic.

  • Exploiting crises and polarizing rhetoric. Leaders exploit economic or social insecurities to gain power, often using populist and nationalist appeals and blaming external forces or minority groups for societal problems.
  • Weakening of government institutions. This includes measures like extending executive power, abolishing term limits, or enacting regressive constitutional reforms to grant greater authority to the executive branch at the expense of legislative or judicial checks and balances.
  • Repressing dissent and controlling information. Restrictions are placed on civil society organizations, protests, and independent media. Surveillance and censorship technologies may be used to control the flow of information and to stifle criticism
  • Crippling the opposition. Opposition parties are weakened through infiltration, co-optation, and scare tactics to diminish their ability to challenge the ruling power.
  • Capturing elite support. Leaders secure the allegiance of influential figures in the military, business, or other sectors through patronage networks, financial incentives, or intimidation.
  • Manipulating elections and undermining the electoral process. While retaining the façade of democratic elections, leaders may engage in gerrymandering, change voter eligibility rules, or place allies on electoral commissions to ensure favorable results.
  • Undermining the rule of law and judicial independence. Courts are reshaped through ideological appointments or other means to ensure they align with the ruling party’s agenda and do not independently challenge executive actions.
  • Concentrating power in the hands of an individual or a small group. Authority becomes increasingly centralized, often bypassing constitutional constraints and reducing the accountability of the ruling power to the people.
  • Cultivating a cult of personality around the leader. Leaders promote an image of indispensability and charisma, often through propaganda and control over state media, reinforcing public allegiance to the ruling power.
  • Maintaining power through a combination of co-optation and repression. The regime balances distributing state resources and benefits to loyalists with the suppression of dissenting voices and opposition.

The word “recession” keeps appearing in the news these days. Will there be a recession or not? Here are some recession indicators to guide us.

Theo and I both like to bake. We’ve talked about baking something together for a long time and we finally set a date to do it during his summer vacation from school. Theo wanted to try baking something with a yeast dough, so we made caramel-pecan rolls. They rose beautifully and looked great going into the oven.

They looked even better when we took them out of the oven.

Kari and Ted were also at our house, and the four of us all thought it would be a good idea to have a warm caramel-pecan roll, fresh from the oven. It was a great idea, and they tasted delicious!

It was fun to do this with Theo, and we want to do it again. Next time, I’ll go to his house and Theo will teach me to bake something he likes that I’ve never tried. Yummy!

I ordered a birthday gift from Wal-Mart for Hadley’s birthday. As usual, I received shipping updates. I was surprised to see an update telling me that the package would arrive at 2:59 pm local time. I texted Thom to watch the porch and let me know what time it came. Thom and I were both impressed when it arrived at 2:59 pm!

The Pizza Hut near our home offered take-out pizzas during the COVID pandemic, but did not open for indoor dining until mid-2024. Business must be slow, if my photo of this sign, taken several months ago, is any indication.

Our across-the-street neighbor, Paul, has (now, had) two 75- to 80-foot tall oak trees in the front yard. There were a lot of galls on the trees, and he didn’t like all the wasps that were hanging around his yard. Galls form when gall wasps lay their eggs on the branches of the tree. The galls girdle the branch and are basically the tree’s reaction to the presence of insects. Here’s a picture of what the galls look like.

Paul decided to cut down both trees. He told us that he and his son were planning to take the first tree down last week. He said they’ve rented equipment and taken down trees in the past, and would do it again. After our conversation with Paul, Ted and I went home, figuratively scratching our heads. That was a mighty big tree to fell unless you’re a professional, so we hoped Paul knew what he was doing. He did. He called a professional tree service to do the job instead.

It took the four-man professional crew four days to do the work. On Day One, they roped one guy and sent him up the tree to cut off the limbs. Before cutting, each limb was roped to the other oak tree so it could be eased down, rather than dropped. The limbs were huge!! I’m not sure what they’ll rope the limbs of the second tree to when Paul takes that one down later this summer. The cutter guy and his chainsaw worked upward until only a few smaller limbs were left at the top. That took all day.

On Day Two, the guys took down the tree trunk in large chunks, beginning at the top. After felling the final piece of the trunk, the second day’s work ended. Ted and I were not at home to watch the process, but that evening, we met our next-door neighbors as they were leaving the restaurant we were entering. The first thing they said to us was, “Hi, neighbors!” The second thing was, “Did your house shake when that tree trunk came down?” Because we weren’t home when it happened, they described it to us. They said the last portion of that huge, heavy trunk fell so hard, it was like an earthquake, and shook all the walls and floors in their house!

The tall tree in the photo below is the other one Paul is going to remove. It’s smaller than the now missing tree. Look at the size of those trunk pieces! The stump doesn’t show in my photo, but it was more than three feet in diameter. And Paul thought he and his son could handle that??!! It’s a good thing they opted out of the do-it-yourself method.

On the next day, Day Three, the crew came back with a claw, a piece of heavy equipment with jaws, to pick up the chunks and put them into a dump truck.

Here’s a closer look at the pieces of the tree trunk. For scale, there’s a tree crew member cleaning up debris at the garage door.

On Day Four, a guy came with a stump grinder. It took him between two and three hours to grind the huge stump. Now, this is all that’s left of the over 40-year-old, tall, oak tree.

Kathy and Annette arrived at our house for lunch on Father’s Day, and Kari and Theo arrived a bit later to spend the afternoon with us. We had lots of fun and good conversation (with scotcheroos) until dinner time. Then we headed for pizza at Dewey’s. Because of the different arrival times, we traveled in a caravan of four cars–ours, Kari’s, Theo’s, and Kathy and Annette’s. I was the leader and managed to set a pace that allowed all of us to stay together on the roads, because not everyone knew the way to Dewey’s from our house. Dean met us at the restaurant, giving us seven people who came in five cars. Wow!

The girls’ families treated Ted and me to dinner and we enjoyed more group conversation as we ate. Too soon, it was time for Kathy and Annette to start their (roughly) three-hour drive home, but it was a good day with our family and a great way to celebrate our dads. Dean and Ted, you two guys are the best!

Ted and I celebrated our 56th wedding anniversary with a two-day event this year.

A number of years ago, when we didn’t know what to buy each other for birthday and anniversary gifts, we realized that we’ve reached a point in our lives that allows us to buy what we want when we want it, rather than waiting to receive it as a gift from each other. We decided to skip birthday and anniversary gifts and to treat ourselves three times a year to dinner at our favorite restaurant–Bentley’s, at the Lake of the Ozarks. It’s nearly a three-hour drive to Bentley’s and we drive, eat, and drive home on the same day (we’re night owls). It’s not fun to drive that far in crummy weather, so we check the forecast to see which day near our anniversary date will have the nicest weather. This year, it was Tuesday. We had our usual delicious meal and, as always, as we were driving home, we told each other that the meal and the staff (who we know well after all these years) are worth every minute of the drive.

Usually, that’s the extent of our anniversary celebration, but this year was different. Our anniversary fell on the same day as the “No Kings” nationwide protests, and we decided to attend our first protest. I never attended a protest in the 1960s because I am far less brave than those who did. I did not want to go to jail (do not pass go; do not collect $200), nor did I want to be beaten with a billy club, fired on with a fire hose, or corralled by a martial dog. The “No Kings” protest at our local mall looked much safer than the Vietnam and civil right protests, so we went. It was a large, happy crowd that stretched about a half-mile along the sidewalk, but the traffic was backed up farther than that. We picked a good protest for a starter. Nationally, an estimated 5 million people participated.

Later, I saw this protester in my news feed and, if I’d made a sign for the protest, it would have had a picture of Elvis with a caption that said “the only American king.” (Long-time Elvis fan here.)

The protest ended at 1:30, so Ted and I ran a few minor errands and then had hot fudge sundaes to celebrate our day.

Even though we’d had a fantastic anniversary dinner at Bentley’s earlier in the week, we didn’t think we should cook or do dishes on this special day, so we ordered a carry-out pizza, lit our anniversary candle (a wedding gift from our florist with instructions to burn it every year on our anniversary, which we’ve done), and watched the PBS movie of the week–Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much.”

We had a great anniversary and we’re looking forward to the next 56 years together. 🙂

My friend, Liz, and a friend of hers have season tickets to performances at Stages, the theater at the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center. Unfortunately, Liz’s friend was ill and could not attend the June performance. She generously told Liz to gift her ticket to someone else, and Liz asked me if I’d like to join her for lunch and the play. I said “yes.”

We started with lunch at Café Provencal. Liz promised me a “very European experience” with delicious food. I enjoyed it so much, I can’t wait to take Ted there so he can enjoy it too. The restaurant has lots of outdoor dining, and the weather was nice, but the restaurant sits at the side of a very busy street with lots of traffic noise, so we opted for indoor seating. The decor was very French. We each had a salad and (are you ready for it?) French onion soup. We agreed that it was the most delicious French onion soup either of us has ever had. The best word we could think of to describe it was “depth”–a depth of flavor that provided a taste of substance far beyond water plus the usual ingredients. (I should be a food critic.) I’m going to order the soup again when Ted and I go there, just to repeat that gastronomic experience.

Stages is only a few blocks from the restaurant and we had time to enjoy ourselves in one of the lounge-type seating areas before the doors opened for the performance. It’s an intimate theater (read “small”) with free adjacent parking and only 529 seats. (529? Really? One more seat would make a nice round number.) Our seats were in the first row, center, of the balcony.

The play was titled “Murder for Two.” The “two” refers to the fact that there are only two performers–and they were both outstanding. Together, they play 13 roles and the piano. The plot is a musical farce about a small-town police officer who dreams of becoming a detective. When a Great American Novelist is murdered, the officer jumps at the chance to prove he has the skills to be promoted to detective. He works with his partner (the other actor), and they discover who the killer is–more by accident than skill. It was fun. The two men played the piano throughout the performance–sometimes individually, sometimes together–and sang songs that provided plot exposition.

The restaurant was charming, lunch was delicious, the play was fun, and time with Liz?–priceless. That’s what friends are for.

Our family has five birthdays, plus Mother’s Day in a 23-day period, so we often celebrate our birthday “season” with group events. This time, we celebrated three birthdays at Kari’s house.

The custom is to open gifts in the calendar order of the birthdays, so Dean was first. One of his gifts was a bag of his favorite candy.

Theo received a sketch pad so that he can continue to amaze us with his artistic pencil drawings.

Kari has been wanting to make her own vanilla, so my gift to her was a jar, vanilla beans, and rum. She’s so happy, it looks like she’s already enjoying the rum instead of saving it to make vanilla!

Theo made the birthday dessert: a chocolate cake with mousse and ganache. “Delicious” doesn’t begin to describe it. It was a chocolate lovers’ dream–and Theo and his Grandpa Ted have always been choc-o-holics.

Don’t you love birthday parties?!

I love it when I accidentally run across photos and other things I’ve forgotten about. Those items give my spirits a lift with the memories they bring to my mind.

I recently found this photo of Kari and Dean, leaving to celebrate MORP–the opposite of PROM and, technically, an anti-prom culture activity. I don’t remember where they went that evening, but it wasn’t to the prom.

On another day, I found a picture of Jeff and La, taken at their wedding reception. They look so young! It’s hard to believe they are now expecting their second grandchild.

Author’s note: This is one of the few pictures in which Jeff resembles me. Face-on, he’s such an image of his dad that, at his son’s wedding, another wedding guest introduced himself to Ted and remarked, “You must be Jeff’s dad. He’s the spitting image of you.”

Finally, I found this object in the back of a drawer. My uncle Gibby was a typesetter. When I was a child, he set type and made print blocks for his children and his nieces and nephews. If I press mine onto an inkpad, it still “prints” my name.

My surprise finds are unpredictable. I wonder when and what the next one will be.

I think it’s been five years since Kathy and I spent a day together in Columbia. We’ve been together regularly during the intervening years, including some meetings in Columbia, but always with other family members. In May, Kathy invited me for a mother-daughter day in Columbia again, and it was wonderful to have nearly 11 hours of each other’s exclusive company. Including family members is a good thing, but so is one-on-one time.

Over the years of our “Columbia Days,” we’ve established a routine for our get-togethers. Columbia is a halfway point for each of us, and we meet at the intersection of our routes–US 63 and I-70. There’s a Bob Evans restaurant at the intersection, where we begin our time together with lunch. The restaurant is not usually crowded, so we eat and talk for about two hours before heading to downtown Columbia.

The next part of the routine is to walk Broadway, the main street through the downtown area, stopping at our three favorite stores: Blue Stem, Peace Nook, and The Candy Factory. Blue Stem offers a variety of unique and beautiful artistic creations made by Missouri artists. Peace Nook is an eclectic store that reminds me of the 1960s and 70s, describing itself as “a non-profit store . . . with all proceeds supporting our educational work to promote peace, social justice, sustainability, and a liveable climate.” The Candy Factory crafts gourmet chocolates and other candies. We sometimes buy something at Blue Stem; we always buy something at Peace Nook; and we always buy our specific chocolate favorites (and sometimes others) at The Candy Factory.

After our time downtown (usually late afternoon), we head for the mall food court where we purchase beverages and eat some of our chocolates while we talk for several hours. Then it’s time for a late dinner at Shakespeare’s Pizza, where we eat and talk for a few more hours before going home.

The real purpose (and my treasure) of our mother-daughter day is our personal conversations. It’s always hard to leave for home after our Columbia Day, knowing that this special day is over, but we each face a 90-minute drive, so we reluctantly go back to Bob Evans (where we’ve left one car for the day), get into our cars, and go home. Until next time, . . . .

Ted and I have greatly enjoyed the friendship that has developed over the past seven months with our friends, Mike and Mary Jane, and the feeling is mutual. It was bittersweet to share our last get-together in early May during the final days of their mission in St. Louis as they prepared to return to their home in Utah. As always, we had a great time together.

For our farewell evening, Ted and I invited Mike and Mary Jane to dinner at our house. On a previous visit, the four of us had talked about the wonderful things you can make with rhubarb: sauce, pie, jam, etc. I asked if they’d ever had rhubarb kuchen, and they said, “No, what is it?” I know a lot of people who don’t like rhubarb (or have never eaten it), but the four of us all admitted to growing up with and liking rhubarb. Early May is rhubarb season so, as long as I was freezing rhubarb, I set some aside to make a rhubarb kuchen for our final group dessert.

Mike’s reaction was totally unexpected. I can honestly say that I’ve never seen anyone’s eyes light up like Mike’s did when he saw the kuchen. “Is that rhubarb?!” he asked, in a tone of disbelief. It was extremely flattering to the person who baked it for Mike. (Ahem. Me.) Mike ate two pieces and smiled through every bite. Mary Jane asked for the recipe so she could make it in the future.

Our evening together stretched out a little longer than usual because none of us wanted to say good-bye. When it was finally time for Mike and Mary Jane to leave, there were hugs and then repeated hugs. We’ll keep in touch and we hope to see each other again in the future, but it won’t be regularly like it’s been over the past seven months. Bittersweet is real: wonderfully happy friendships with emotionally difficult partings.

P.S. My rhubarb kuchen recipe is from my grandmother. Our son, Thom, liked it so much, he always ordered it for his birthday cake. Luckily for him, his birthday falls in rhubarb season.

Fall 2024 was so warm that our daffodils sprouted in November. They grew to almost 4 inches tall before it became cold enough to discourage them from getting taller. At the time, I assumed they were a lost cause for spring blooms. “If the bulb has sprouted and then the weather becomes too cold for it to keep growing,” I reasoned, “it probably won’t re-sprout in the spring.” I resigned myself to missing our cheerful row of daffodils in Spring 2025. Happily, I was wrong. When the weather warmed up, the daffodil leaves started growing where they left off in November and produced full-sized plants with full-sized blooms. Conclusion: Daffodils are extremely hardy!

While we always look forward to the daffodil blooms, Ted and I are tired of deadheading and pruning the many roses a 2010 landscaper planted around our property. Last fall and this spring, Ted dug out all but four of those rose bushes, ran them through his wood chipper, and replaced most of them with annuals. The remaining roseless area was a large. empty bed at the garage corner of the house. We had curbing and landscape rock put into that bed several years ago, and we didn’t want to remove it, so we needed to replace those prickly roses with something big to fill that space. We chose a lilac bush. It won’t need nearly as much care as roses did, and the blooms smell wonderful when we walk near them. You can see in the photo that it has lots of room to grow before it will need pruning.

The redbud tree we planted a few years ago started dying late last summer and gave up the fight over the winter. The nursery folks were greatly surprised to hear that a redbud tree didn’t survive, since redbud trees are indigenous to Missouri. We like seeing the redbud blooms in the spring, so we decided to try another one. We had a few blooms from it this spring and we look forward to lots more in the coming years. The new redbud is the little one behind the landscaper on the right. It has some growing to do to catch up with its dead predecessor.

On May 16, I needed to do some shopping at the Galleria in the Central West End area of St. Louis. There were some weather watches posted, but the storms were not expected to reach our area for another two hours–more than enough time for me make the trip and to be home before the storms hit. When I finished shopping, I checked the radar again to see if I should run some errands in our home area or if I should go straight home. It looked iffy, so I decided to make the call when I was closer to home.

The skies were gray when I left the Galleria, indicating an impending storm, but the weather didn’t look dangerous. As I drove farther west, the sky became very dark for a while but then became lighter when my route turned to the north. About halfway home, the rain hit. It was pretty heavy, so my wipers were working rapidly. I made the call to go straight home and to finish my errands after the storm. When I was about two miles from home, the wind hit, blowing sheets of rain across the roads. About a half mile from home, the hail started falling. It was pretty small hail–about 1/4-1/2 inch in size–but I didn’t want hail damage on my new car. With no other cars in sight, I admit that I exceeded the speed limit for the half mile from that point to our garage, where I could put my car under a roof, safe from the hail. It was a good call to skip my home-area errands!

Here’s how the hail looked in our pool. It fell hard enough that some pieces of hail bounced when they hit the surface of the water, then fell back down into the water. It looked like white jumping beans. Our largest hail was 1.5 inches, in flat pieces. Hail covered our lawn, but not completely.

After the storm, I went to Target (I had a lot of errands to do that day) and I overheard a lady and her husband telling a salesperson that they lived only a few miles south of Target and had an 18 to 24-inch accumulation of hail on the ground! The lady said she had gardening buckets outside that were filled and then covered with hail! Their 5- or 6-year-old daughter piped up and said, “It was really deep!” Their largest hail was baseball-sized.

When the hail stopped falling, the wind became apparent. Fortunately, we live in a valley between two hills–one behind our house and one across the street from the front of our house, so we tend to be sheltered from wind. Today, however, the wind blew the pool water surface as if it were a lake (without the whitecaps).

Meanwhile, east of us, a tornado struck very close to the Galleria Mall, where I had been shopping 30 minutes earlier. Looking at the radar when I got home, I saw that I basically drove around the tornado development area (where the skies became very dark) and, thankfully, didn’t need to take cover during my drive home. These are photos of the wedge tornado that struck St. Louis, taken by a camera in the Gateway Arch. The lower photo is darker because the tornado is closer and the air is filled with more debris. The red arc-shaped structure in the lower left corner of the photo is Busch Stadium.

A wedge tornado has a width equal to its height. This one was an EF3 tornado a mile wide, moving at 55 mph, with winds of 152 mph. It traveled 8 miles through the Central West End of the St. Louis area, destroying a 20-block area and damaging roughly 5,000 buildings. It struck along the north side of Forest Park and caused extensive damage to the St. Louis Zoo, which is temporarily closed as a result. The tornado initially touched down in Clayton, then tracked 23 miles to the northeast into Illinois. Sadly, there were 5 fatalities in St. Louis due to the tornado.

An EF4 tornado struck Lambert Airport in April 2011, and the damage in that area was visible for years. This tornado struck a more densely populated area, so the recovery will, again, be a lengthy process. FEMA officials called the residential damage the largest-scale the organization surveyed since the 2011 F5 tornado in Joplin, MO. St. Louis city officials estimated the tornado damage at $1.6 billion, among the highest figures for an individual tornado on record. It was the first deadly tornado in St. Louis since 1959.

A few weeks ago, Jeff wrote a mission letter suggesting that we all look for the small miracles that occur in our lives each day. Today, my pretty big miracle was leaving the Galleria Mall when I did and arriving safely at home.

As I was talking my daily walk on May 5, I saw this pretty cloud. Someplace east of us, thunderstorms were forming.

On May 15, I was driving to the mall to do some shopping and saw this huge cloud. I stopped to take a picture of it and to call Ted, telling him it would be worth his time to go to the top of the hill behind our house (less than a half-mile away) to give his meteorological heart a thrill.

From near our house, the above cloud looked pretty amazing but when I got to the mall, which is on high ground with a big parking lot and no trees to block the view, I was awestruck. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! This cloud extended 180 degrees from north to south on the eastern horizon. I have never seen a cloud that covered half of the horizon! Obviously, a line of thunderstorms was developing–probably in Illinois.

About an hour later, when I finished shopping, the sun was setting and it cast a rosy glow on the same cloud formation. The cloud still covered 180 degrees of the horizon and the thunderstorms were still developing. When I got home, Ted and I checked the radar and saw a solid line of severe thunderstorms stretching from just southeast of St. Louis to Chicago. Wow!

Tonight, Ted and I went out for dinner. The restaurant parking lot had only a few empty parking spaces, so I picked one and pulled in between two pickup trucks. My Hot Mama car looked more like Baby Car.

I buy all of my spices from the Spice Shop where they are fresh and less than half the price of the grocery store offerings. The Spice Shop buys the fresh spices in bulk and puts them in clear plastic containers for sale to customers. When I switched from grocery store spices to Spice Shop spices, I saved my empty grocery store spice bottles and filled them with Spice Shop spices.

We updated our kitchen in 2023 and I ordered a built-in spice rack in the cabinet door over the countertop where I cook and bake. With my spice jars obviously displayed whenever I opened the cabinet door, I wanted some uniformity, so I bought new jars.

Those jars were a disappointment. They were plastic, and my labels didn’t stick very well. They also warped for no apparent reason and became oddly shaped, with large dents on the sides. I searched all over for the kind of jars I wanted (clear glass, square, spice-size, removable shaker caps under the lids) in the quantity I needed (25-30 jars) online and ordered them.

After washing the jars, I started transferring my spices to my new jars. That little blue funnel came with the jars. The containers of spices on the right are from the Spice Shop.

Now I have what I wanted when the spice rack was installed in 2023: an attractive and uniform array of spices.

One day in early March, Ted decided spring was coming, and he thought it was a good time for him to clean the solar lights that we put around the pool. It was a raw, cold, rainy day (see his puffy winter jacket and the wet driveway beneath his car). He backed his car into the driveway so that he could work in the relative comfort of the garage. If it had been up to me, I’d have waited for a warm, sunny day, but he’s a hard, dedicated worker, and he got the job done. That’s my man.

For my 60th birthday, Kyra made a special picture of her and me and she attached 60 Hershey’s Kisses around the edges to form a frame. I’m the one with the short hair. 😉 Note that, in the picture, she and I are holding hands, indicated by the single extended arm. ♥

Ever since Kyra gave me the picture, I’ve kept it on display on the top of the “grandchildren toy cabinet.” Kyra was surprised to learn that I still have the picture. I shared the candy kisses instead of saving them for posterity, but I treasure the picture.

When our two sons were little, they loved playing with Lego. In fact, Thom still does. Among other things, he builds Lego flowers and mini-figures and he and I still exchange a Christmas Lego set every year.

Lego has changed over the years. When our sons were little, Lego came in a variety of individual pieces–red, white, black, blue and yellow bricks in a variety of sizes. Now, it’s hard (impossible?) to find simple Lego pieces like that unless you order them online (order the exact number of pieces you want of each type/color) or have a nearby Lego store that sells pieces in bulk. Everything else is a set of Lego that builds an individual item or a small community of related items. Following directions has become more important than imagination.

We still had a box of Lego pieces in our basement. It’s bits and pieces of lots of things, but there are quite a few pieces. Ted and I have kept the Lego because our grandchildren always liked playing with it. One year, we bought a Lego box to store the pieces. When Jeff mentioned that our great-grandson, Ollie, loves Lego and that he (Jeff) was trying to think of some kind of Lego Ollie would like, Ted and I told him we could send our entire box of Lego to Ollie as our gift for his fourth birthday–after all, some of that Lego was originally Jeff’s (Ollie’s grandpa), making it what would now be called “heritage” Lego for Ollie.

That turned out to be a great idea. A four-year-old can swish piles of Lego pieces around with his hands, pick out what he likes, and stick some pieces together.

After Ollie’s birthday, Alex (his dad) texted the photo below to me. He said Ollie thanks us for the Lego and wants us to see the boat-plane he built. Lego. The perfect gift, filled with imagination.

Author’s note: Lego will probably never die. It’s plastic, so it won’t decompose and, even if you step on it, there’s more pain inflicted on your foot than on the Lego piece.

Tornado watches and warnings are normal in our area in the spring. Most of the time, we don’t get anything worse than a thunderstorm, possibly with some minor hail and/or strong wind. One time, we had tennis ball-sized hail, and one time an F1 tornado blew some shingles off several roofs less than three miles from our house. Every two or three years, the threat might be dangerous enough that Ted and I go to the basement to be close to our shelter and to watch the basement TV in order to stay aware of where the storms are.

So far, we’ve never gone into our shelter because of a storm, but we came very close to doing that on March 14 this year. On that evening, an unusually powerful storm system passed through our area with devastating severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, destructive winds, dust storms, and wildfires, causing 25 tornado-related deaths.

Prior to the storm, we moved our lawn furniture against the house to keep it from blowing around in the wind, and we weighted our hot tub cover with firewood because the wind was trying to lift it off the hot tub. An EF2 tornado moving southwest to northeast entered the Greater St. Louis area and crossed a runway at Lambert Airport, but we are were lucky. We are roughly 15 miles west of the airport and only had severe thunderstorms, nickel-sized hail, and high winds (60 mph gusts). Our only damage was a few 1.5-inch-thick tree branches that were blown off our trees and fell into our yard.

Our record stands: We’ve never actually huddled in our tornado shelter, but it’s always ready for us. Our go-to place for a tornado is the basement closet beneath the stairwell. The stairwell is in the center of the house (no nearby windows) and the basement walls are underground, so it’s our safest place. We keep that closet empty of storage items, except for our survival things. Survival items include some old quilts that we can put on the hard, cold, concrete floor, or cover ourselves with, or take to the community shelter if our house blows away.

Author’s note: My mom made this patchwork quilt for me when I was in college. I remember many of those fabric pieces from clothes she sewed for herself and for me. The orange/pink blanket she used for batting (look at the worn front edge of the quilt) was a wedding gift to her and my dad. The quilt is worn out from use, but I’ll never throw it away. Maybe it will even save my life someday if a tornado strikes our house.

Ted and I have a printed list on the bulletin board in the kitchen that tells us what to gather if a tornado is possible. The list includes things like our electronics and chargers, our glasses, cash, car keys, medications, my good jewelry, Ted’s hearing aid batteries, our bike helmets, etc. Everything else is already in the shelter.

The tote bag under the bottom closet shelf has clothing for both of us: a pair of jeans, two T-shirts, underwear, socks, and jackets. These are all clothes we don’t wear any more, but we might have to take shelter in our pajamas, and we’ll need something to wear when we start cleaning up the mess. We also store our hiking shoes in this closet because we’ll have to walk over a lot of broken stuff after the tornado passes. In addition, we have a weather radio, several battery-operated flashlights and lanterns (we check the batteries every spring), water bottles, and a first-aid kit. Our bike helmets will protect our heads, but we have old pillows in the shelter to cover the helmets and to (hopefully) break the impact of anything that falls on our heads.

Since we moved to the Midwest 47 years ago, we’ve never needed to make use of our shelter, and I’ll be happy if we never do, but we’re ready. Climate change is increasing the severity of storms around the world. This year, we came uncomfortably close to putting on our bike helmets and crouching in the shelter with the door closed.

Over the weekend, Kathy came from Kirksville, and Kari’s family members–including Sky, who was in town for a few days–came from nearby to spend some time with Kyra and Hannah. The “Secret Hitler” game produced so much raucous play for most of the afternoon that it seemed like a shame to break it up for dinner.

Theo brought along one of his sketch books and we all had a chance to ooh and aah at his many drawings and witticisms. I requested that the artist gift his grandmother with a drawing. I didn’t give him any specifics beyond that, but he seemed agreeable, so I’m looking forward to seeing what he draws for me.

Kathy’s birthday is coming up, making this weekend a good time to celebrate with her and to save the shipping costs for her gifts. Her favorite birthday cake is funfetti angel food with a Dream Whip / instant pudding frosting. It’s an easy dessert, so I made a birthday cake for her.

Everyone who wasn’t scheduled to work (we missed you, Dean and Dylan) joined us for a birthday dinner for Kathy, and we all had a piece of cake for dessert.

Kathy thought this piece (photo below) was a good size for her. The story behind that is years old, but it always makes Kathy and me laugh at the memory. Another time, in the long ago, Kathy was here for her birthday, and I made this cake for her. A few pieces were eaten, but most of the cake remained. We were both hungry for a snack, so we decided to have a piece of cake.

That piece was so good, we decided to have another piece. That piece was just as good, so we kept going–one piece at a time for each of us–until the entire cake was gone. We ate nearly a whole cake for an afternoon snack–and we enjoyed every bite! In our defense, it’s an angel food cake, and everyone knows you can squeeze an angel food cake into a tiny little ball, so we didn’t really eat as much as it sounds like. At least, that’s what Kathy and I choose to believe. We’ve never done that again, but the memory of it is still one of our favorite shared times.

After Kathy and Sky left to go back to their homes, we had one more day to spend with Kyra and Hannah before taking them to the airport for their flight back to Montana. The weather was nice, so we decided to go to Historic Downtown St. Charles for a walk through Kister and Frontier Parks along the Missouri River. After that, we walked through the downtown area with its boutique shops. Kari had the day off from work, so she joined us.

Spring is here and the redbud trees (background) and tulips are blooming.

Hannah asked Kyra to take a picture of her sitting in the park.

After that, I took a picture of the two girls sitting together, showing off their long hair. Kyra said her hair has been growing for eleven years! The FedEx truck kind of spoils the mood of the picture, but, in spite of that, the girls look like good friends–which they are.

After our time in the park and downtown, the girls needed to pack up their things, so we went home. When they were ready to travel, we had dinner at Dewey’s–Ted’s and my favorite pizza restaurant–on our way to the airport.

We had so much fun with Kyra and Hannah that we hated to see them leave. It was hard to say good-bye at the airport, but it makes us want to be together again soon for more good times.

Unfortunately, the adage “April showers bring May flowers” was true this week. The weather forecast for Kyra and Hannah’s visit to our area includes rain every day until they leave, when the weather will become warm and sunny. We lucked out with the rain today–most of the time. There was a pause in the light showers while we walked from the parking garage to the Gateway Arch grounds, so we had time to take a picture of Kyra and Hannah posing with the Arch in the background.

Then we took a group selfie, also with the Arch in the background.

We had extra time before our Tram Ride to the Top ticket reservations, so we walked past the Arch entrance to the Mississippi riverfront. Hannah’s interest in fashion design inspired her to pose for Kyra to take some pictures. I like the bright red umbrella and Kyra’s purple jacket against the green and gloomy background.

The Arch grounds were in bloom. and looked very spring-like. The blooming trees, shrubs, and flowers would have looked even better in spring sunshine, but after winter, everything about spring is beautiful, rain or shine, right?

Here we are in our Arch tram car on our way to the top of the Arch–600+ feet above our starting point.

On a clear day, the view from the top extends for miles; today, we could see downtown St. Louis. The red curved structure in the left of the photo below is Busch Stadium, the home field for the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team.

The green-domed building in the center of the photo is the Old Court House. This was the site of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision which held that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, were not and could never become citizens of the United States. If they were not citizens, they could not sue in federal court. The Court also ruled that Congress lacked the power to ban slavery in the U.S. territories, effectively invalidating the 1820 Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the 36o30′ parallel, except for Missouri–a decision that escalated political tensions leading to the Civil War.

All that green grass in the photo covers the Arch grounds. The 2018 update to the Arch included covering I-70 (the road running horizontally across the photo) and making it possible to easily walk from downtown St. Louis to the Arch. The light-colored semicircle around the fountain is the glass ceiling of the Arch entrance. The visitor center, museum, and tram access are all under the ground between the entrance and the Arch itself.

Two minutes after I took the photo above, the fog and the rain moved in.

Less than two minutes after that, the fog and the rain moved out again. Talk about quick weather changes!

There are countless varieties of Arch souvenirs in the gift shop. This Arch is made of, not Lego, but 1,930 pieces marketed as “Mini Building Blocks.” Note the smaller Arches sheltered by the large one (not included with the 1,930-piece building set).

Here’s a close-up of the Old Court House which is no longer used as a court house. It houses a museum with a large Dred Scott decision exhibit among other things, and also serves as the ticket and tourist information center for the Arch and the Tram Ride to the Top. (We bought reserved tickets online in advance.)

We lucked out again when we left the Arch and went back to the parking garage–it was still cloudy, but without even a drizzle of rain in the air! Our next stop was the Science Museum in Forest Park. Check the sign in the lower center of the photo below.

As we walked around the Science Center, we saw this chicken-and-egg riddle. The answer is at the bottom of this post, as calculated and agreed upon by eight of our family members the next afternoon.

When we left the Science Center, we had just enough time for a quick stop at the Art Museum in Forest Park. At that point, our dry weather luck ran out. The heavy rain competed with our umbrellas and jackets while we walked from the car to the museum entrance. I think all of us were wet almost to our ankles from the puddles and spattered by rain to our knees.

We had some time to dry out on our way to dinner–authentic Italian food at Mama’s on the Hill in South St. Louis. It’s too bad this selfie is a little blurry, but you can tell we were all happy with our delicious meal and another great day together.

Riddle answer: 36 eggs–assuming the hens work around the clock and that each hen lays 3 eggs in 3 days–1.5 eggs/1.5 days.

Ted and I were excited when Kyra told us she’d finally saved enough money to come to our home for a visit–something we’ve all been looking forward to for quite a while. The event became even better when we heard that her BFF, Hannah, was coming too. The girls met each other when they were two years old and have been friends ever since. Ted and I have seen Hannah with Kyra so many times over the years that we think of her as another granddaughter.

Given the girls’ arrival time in St. Louis, and given the quality of airline food, we knew the girls would be hungry when they arrived, so our first stop was at Blueberry Hill for lunch.

When Ted and I were at Blueberry Hill with the Bryans, we didn’t have time to look at all the displays in the restaurant. Today, we did.

Joe Edwards, the owner of Blueberry Hill, has his picture taken with every celebrity who visits or performs at his restaurant. The photos include four U. S. Presidents. The walls of the 10,000-square-foot building are covered with those photos and with Edwards’ collections. We saw photos of three Presidents: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. On this wall, you can see Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton, and Snap, Crackle, and Pop. It would have been fun to be there when the cereal trio showed up!

Edwards began collecting things when he was seven years old. He started with comic books, records (he has over 30,000 records in his collection and alternates them in the jukebox), and baseball cards. At 10, he started collecting toys, sheet music, and oak furniture. (Oak furniture?! At 10?!) At 12, he says, it was vintage lunch boxes; at 16, Wurlitzer juke boxes. Now he has collections of Star Wars, the Simpsons, Howdy Doody, Elvis, PacMan, Pez dispensers, etc., etc. and the largest collection of Chuck Berry artifacts and historic memorabilia on display in the world. The center boxes in this display are some of Edwards’ vintage Pez containers. (There were many, many more in other displays.)

These are some of Edwards’ Howdy Doody memorabilia.

There are two live performance venues within the restaurant. One is the Elvis room. Although every wall in the restaurant is covered with displays or photos, there may be fewer individual celebrity photos than you think. Throughout the restaurant, we saw duplicate photos of a number of people, and the left wall below has the same arrangement of photos as the wall in the photo above, with Obama, the Clintons, and Snap, Crackle, and Pop in the same positions with the same adjacent photos. Oops!

The Duck Room, named for Chuck Berry’s famous “duck walk,” is the other live performance venue at Blueberry Hill. Chuck Berry was the first pop music star to perform at Blueberry Hill, and he made 209 consecutive monthly appearances. Chuck’s home was in this area, and he has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame which passes in front of Blueberry Hill. Check out the chimeras near the ceiling on the right in this photo.

Remember this old video game? At Blueberry Hill, it’s a wall decoration.

I couldn’t tell if this giraffe lamp was carved out of oak and therefore qualified as oak furniture for Edwards’ collection; if not, maybe it was part of a “giraffe lamps” collection.

Kyra and Hannah sat on planes (two flights) for over three hours, plus a two-hour layover, and then in our car and at lunch. When we finished eating and looking at the restaurant displays, we were all ready to take a walk around the Delmar Loop, where Blueberry Hill is located. As we walked, we saw some outdoor murals. If you look closely at this photo, you can see that the gray blocks on the sidewalk have St. Louis Walk of Fame stars on them.

I especially like the Maya Angelou quotes in this mural. The quotation with the yellow background on the left is from Angelou’s book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. It says, “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.” The quotation on the right says, “If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you are.”

Kyra and Hannah needed to wake up very early to be at the airport for their flight(s) to St. Louis. Then they had hours of travel followed by a lengthy lunch and a restaurant tour so, after our walk, we went home where they could unpack and chill out before we had dinner together. You can tell by the outdoor photos that it was a gloomy day, but not for us. For us, being together made it as much fun as a sunny day!

Today, after Jeff and La returned from church, the four of us had a lengthy and interesting discussion related to solving several national and world problems. Jeff has a unique idea for getting rid of daylight saving time (in which no daylight is actually saved) as well as standard time. Ask him about it.

When we felt the world was in order, we had lunch and headed for Salvation Mountain.

According to the handy brochure, Leonard Knight began creating Salvation Mountain in 1989 in Niland, CA, near Slab City. His building materials included adobe clay, straw, tree limbs, tires, windows, and lots of colorful paint. All of these items were found lying in the desert or at the local dump. Leonard’s plan was to paint the mountain twice a year, hoping the thick layer of paint would keep the site in good condition so that many people could see it for many years. (That explains the plethora of paint cans around the displays.) Perhaps not surprisingly, Leonard’s first mountain collapsed. As he began rebuilding it, he proclaimed, “No, God, You build it.” Today, we saw the result.

In 1994, Imperial County attempted to have the mountain torn down, but members of the art community all over the United States and around the world united to save the monument. In 2001, Salvation Mountain was designated a National Folk Art Site; in 2002, it was named a National Treasure in the Congressional Record; and, in 2007, it was featured in the film Into the Wild. Leonard believed people need to start loving God more. He often said, “Love is universal. Love God, love one another, and just keep it simple!”

Salvation Mountain is a colorful sight in its brown desert surroundings. Notice the waterfalls, the rivers, and the Sea of Galilee.

I don’t know how much mail God gets, but here’s a mailbox for it. The lumpy multi-colored blob on the right is the museum.

This is a close-up of the museum entrance. It’s closed because there is a danger that the top is going to cave in. The arrow in the photo points to one of many cracks in the dirt structure. If you look, you’ll see several more cracks. There are plans to repair the museum and to re-open it, but Salvation Mountain is dependent on donations and volunteers and cannot be repaired at this time. A public charity, Salvation Mountain, Inc., was established to continue maintenance on the site. No government aid is accepted.

You can “follow the yellow brick road” to the top of the mountain. Jeff and La went all the way to the top via this route.

I made it across the first river before the edge of the yellow brick road came too close to the edge of the mountain for my comfort. I wasn’t in a Jack and Jill tumbling mood, so I chickened out and backtracked. I don’t like to be at the edge of high places unless there’s a large, firm platform under my feet with a protective railing around me. Luckily, on the other side of the mountain, there was a more gently ascending dirt trail to the top. Ted accompanied me to the top via that less scary route.

The Salton Sea was visible from the top of the mountain. It’s the flat, narrow light blue streak running across the upper center of this picture. The Salton Sea is a shallow, land-locked, highly saline lake that lies on the San Andreas Fault. In the 20th century, it was a resort destination, but contamination from fertilizers and clouds of toxic dust, plus evaporation, caused die-offs of fish and birds in the 1980s.

There are a number of vehicles–cars, trucks, farm machinery, a boat, etc.–on the grounds. All of them (except the boat) have flattened tires and all of them are colorfully painted with scriptural messages.

This is a view of Slab City, a community adjacent to and north of Salvation Mountain. Slab City took its name from the concrete slabs that remained after the World War II Marine Corps Camp Dunlap training camp was torn down. The community is known for attracting people who want to live outside of the mainstream society (i.e., off the grid).

The trailers and campers behind Leonard’s “flower garden” in this picture might be a southern suburb of Slab City. Some of the volunteers who maintain Salvation Mountain live here.

On our way back to El Centro, we stopped in Calipatria, a “low-down” town. At 184 feet below sea level, it is the lowest incorporated town in the Western Hemisphere. (Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park is lower at -282 feet, but no one lives there.) The local joke in Calipatria is that its residents have to pray harder because they are closer to hell.

Calipatria’s claim to fame is its freestanding flagpole, at one time, the World’s Tallest Flagpole. At 184 feet tall, its flag flies at sea level. It can be seen from as far as three miles away and, as the sign says, it’s “Dedicated to good neighborliness”–a kind and friendly ideal.

Note: Calipatria’s flagpole is no longer the tallest flagpole in the world. Currently, the world’s tallest flagpole is 662.57-ft. tall and was built in Cairo in 2021. The 400-ft. tall Acuity Insurance Flagpole in Sheboygan, WI is now the tallest flagpole in North America. It is also one of the world’s tallest free-standing flagpoles.

Calipatria’s flagpole has an interesting backstory. The flagpole was built to honor Takeo Harry Momita and his wife, Shizuko Helen Momita. The Momitas were a Japanese-American couple who lived in Calipatria. They and their three children had been incarcerated at the Poston War Relocation Center in western Arizona during World War II under Executive Order 9066 signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The order imprisoned 120,000 people of Japanese descent–two-thirds of whom were American citizens.

When Mrs. Momita was killed in a car accident and Mr. Momita was hospitalized for injuries he sustained in the accident, Calipatria residents operated his pharmacy for him and collected $500 for Mrs. Momita’s funeral. Mr. Momita said his wife would not want an elaborate funeral. Instead, he offered to donate an additional $500 of his own savings toward something the city wanted but could not afford: a flagpole reaching up to sea level.

The story made national news and donations poured in. President Richard Nixon sent a flag that had flown over the U.S. Capitol, and Pacific Southwest Pipe Co. of Los Angeles offered to erect the flagpole at cost (about $10,000).

What a nice way to end our visit with Jeff and La. In the past five days, they took us to all the interesting places I’ve been writing about and they were outstanding tour guides. We had lots of good times together, good food wherever we ate, good family time, and loving hospitality. It was great to spend this time with them.

It was exciting to arrive in El Centro and to see where Jeff and La are living for a year. The temperatures in San Diego were in the upper 60s and low 70s, but in El Centro–located in the Colorado Desert (part of the Sonoran Desert) in the Imperial Valley, and 42 feet below sea level–the temperatures were in the 80s. I loved it! The Imperial Valley is very flat because it used to be an inland sea. I guess that explains why the area is now below sea level. 🙂

We spent the morning playing games. Jeff and La introduced Ted and me to “Cover Your A$$ets,” which was a fun game. We plan to buy it for ourselves after we get home. We went out for a late lunch at one of Jeff and La’s favorite local restaurants, Burgers & Beer. It was a hopping place, even after the usual lunch hour. Our server was very nice, and the food was delicious. Fortified by our burgers and fries, we headed for Pioneers’ Museum, about an hour’s drive away.

An important factor in the permanent settlement of the Imperial Valley was the building of one of the most impressive irrigation systems anywhere in the world. This made the area one of the most productive farming regions in California, with an annual crop production of over $1 billion. Pioneers’ Museum celebrates the many ethnic communities that settled in this area and made it the community it is today.

We arrived at the museum only an hour before closing, so the ticket master (the only person on duty) allowed Jeff and La to enter for half-price, which was the same as the senior discount for Ted and me. It’s an interesting museum. We each went our own way to look at the things that interested us in the one hour remaining before we had to leave.

This is a player piano. You can see the music scrolls above the pedals. Wouldn’t it be nice to have decorated pianos like these today? (I’m not sure, but the second picture might be a spinet harpsicord with horizontal strings.)

This car was part of a display about the people who came to the Imperial Valley during the Dust Bowl years. The yellow object on the right is a gas pump from the 1930s.

Here is a beautiful piece of tapestry. I think I’d enjoy making something like this, although I’d choose a different design.

Compare this to the cash registers we see in stores today. Which to choose: cash register beauty or computer speed?

There were two cabinets filled with hatpins. This is one group of them in one of the cabinets. Women in the late 1800s and early 1900s carried hatpins for protection against men who harassed them. (That might still work, judging by these hatpins.) Using hatpins as weapons led some cities to pass laws limiting the length of hatpins. You probably can’t get any of these past security at the airport today.

When I entered the second floor of the museum, this cabinet was directly ahead of me. My first thought was, “I’ll bet it’s a sewing machine cabinet.”

I carefully opened the top and there it was–the drop-down sewing machine hidden in the cabinet when it’s not in use.

The first sewing machine I bought had a drop-down cabinet. I had the cabinet retrofitted for my new sewing machine, but the new model is too large to fit the cabinet if it’s dropped. I store the sewing machine in a closet and set it into the cabinet when I use it.

This antique sewing machine is like the one my mother had when I was a young child. Mom started teaching me to sew when I was nine years old. (I made a sleeveless yellow blouse). She must have replaced her treadle machine before that because I only remember sewing on her electric Singer sewing machine (exactly like the one I bought as shown in the link above), never on her treadle machine. Note the photographer, trying to get the perfect shot.

Holtville, CA, in the Imperial Valley, is known as the “Carrot Capital of the World” because of its annual Carrot Festival and its large carrot harvests. The multi-day festival is held in late January or early February and includes a parade, a carnival, cook-offs (of carrot-based foods, I assume), and other activities. Also included in the festival is the crowning of the Carrot Queen, the Princess, and the Junior Princess, as well as the crowning of the Citizen of the Year. Here are an historic photo of a carrot harvest and photos of festival memorabilia.

As we were driving home from the museum, we passed an open semi trailer truck nearly overflowing with a load of carrots. Really.

Another display that interested me was the picture brides. Most of the picture brides were Japanese, Okinawan, and Korean. Their pictures were paired with husbands selected by a matchmaker, similar to the concept of mail-order brides. Picture brides were often poor and hoped that marriage would provide economic prosperity for them, allowing them to send money back home to their families. It was not unusual for picture brides to be educated at the high school or college level, and thus more emboldened to seek out new opportunities abroad. By 1920, over 10,000 picture brides had arrived in the United States, and over 15,000 arrived in the then-territory of Hawai’i.

This photo shows a picture bride with her husband.

You can read the story about another couple below. They exchanged pictures of themselves with each other (corner pictures), and when the match was deemed satisfactory, they were married by proxy. The woman said that, at first, she was disappointed when she met her husband because he was much older than he looked in his picture. They settled in the Imperial Valley and were married for 50 years until the man died in 1964.

Coming around a corner in the museum and seeing a Holstein cow caught me by surprise. Even more surprising (and kind of funny) was the accompanying tribute to “The Cow” (below).

Before we left the museum, Jeff found himself in the Holtville Jail. He managed to escape and drove us home, where we took a late afternoon walk around the neighborhood.

Our last sightseeing stop today was the Desert View Tower on our way to Jeff and La’s apartment in El Centro. Jeff and La notice the tower when they drive back and forth to San Diego, and they’ve been curious about it.

The 70-foot tall tower was built in the 1920s and was dedicated to the pioneers and to the highway and railroad builders who opened up this area. At first, it served as a roadside advertisement for a restaurant and bar located on the old road across from the tower. It currently houses a museum, has a hurricane (aka observation) deck on its upper level, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The museum is described online as a “collection of unique trinkets that you can purchase.” That’s exactly what we saw on the first floor. There were two older men sitting inside the tower on the first floor. They were very talkative as we walked around the circular room looking at the trinkets. None of the trinkets appealed to any of us and neither did the $6.50 per person admission fee to climb to the hurricane deck, so we walked around outside a little bit. There was, indeed, a desert view.

The cacti around the building were pretty in the late afternoon sunshine.

Are these desert wind chimes?

Here we are, ready to leave the historic Desert View Tower to go to Jeff and La’s house where we made individual mini pizzas for dinner. It was another day of fun together.

Jeff and La have tried several times to stop at La Jolla (pronounced “la hoya”) Beach to see the sea lions, but have been unsuccessful. The problem is parking. Only street parking is available within a reasonable walking distance, and lots of people want to see the sea lions. As a result, Jeff and La have never found a parking place and have gone home disappointed. Until today. Maybe Ted and I were good luck charms because we found a parking spot very close to the beach and here we are, happily spending time at La Jolla Beach with the sea lions.

That’s Jeff standing at the sidewalk railing. It’s pupping season for the sea lions, so humans are not allowed on the actual beach at this time.

That lumpy dark line along the shore is a gathering of sea lions. When you watch the video, look at the right one-fourth of those sea lions. You’ll see a mama sea lion waddling out of the water with her pup behind her, then heading back into the water to follow her pup who wanted to play some more before sunbathing.

These sea lions have picked a prime spot for sunbathing. During the time we were here, you could see that the tide was going out because the rock in the photo below emerged from the water. As the water level dropped, more sea lions headed for this rock, but these had the best (i.e., highest, driest) spots for lying in the sun.

All those black things on this piece of rock are barnacles. The arrow points to a tern. He was pecking at and eating the barnacles.

It was interesting to see so many sea lions and pups go in and out of the water and roll around on the rocks, so we stayed to watch them for quite a while. Then it was lunchtime. Jeff and La pulled out their cell phones to search for a nearby restaurant. It looks like I’m hoping and praying that they find somewhere to eat soon.

When I realized Ted was taking a picture of us, I looked up and smiled.

My prayers (?) were answered. We headed for one of Jeff’s favorite sandwich places and a new restaurant for Ted and me: outdoor dining at Cheba Hut. I told Jeff I prefer warm sandwiches, and he assured me that Cheba Hut toasts their sandwiches. It was the first time I’d ever had a warm PBJ. Yes, even the PB and J were warm! Good food for good times!

Before leaving our San Diego hotel this morning, Jeff posed with the restaurant’s giant waffle.

Our first sightseeing destination today was Annie’s Canyon Trail, which includes a loop through a slot canyon. The trail has a sign warning hikers that some of the trail is very steep. As we set off to explore the canyon, we hoped the steep part was the steps at the highest point of the trail. The photos below might look as if we’re deciding which way to go, but there was only one way through the canyon. We were just looking around and taking some pictures before moving forward again.

Ah, now we’re getting to the “slot” part of the slot canyon.

Unfortunately, my injured ankle is not yet completely healed. Walking on the uneven rock on an increasingly steep upward slope was making my weakened ankle hurt. I was having fun and wanted to see the rest of the canyon and the view from the top, but as the pain became worse and the trail became steeper, I decided I’d rather turn around than aggravate my ankle and miss out on the fun for the rest of the day and maybe even the next day because of continued ankle pain.

Turning around might be the smart thing to do for me and for those who discover that the slots are too claustrophobic for them, but it isn’t easy. As you can see in the photos, much of the trail is only one person wide and is essentially a “no passing” zone. That meant that, as I went down, other people needed to find a wide space, plaster themselves against the canyon walls, and wait for me wriggle past them on my way downward before they could continue upward. I was grateful that they were all very nice about it. I apologized for their inconvenience and got lots of “No problem” and “Don’t worry about it” responses, accompanied by smiles. Ted and Jeff both chose to go back down with me, although I was fine with the idea of going by myself while they enjoyed the rest of the hike. That left La to complete the loop trail by herself and then tell us about it later.

At the end of the loop, the trail continues along a marshy area. We saw this pretty flowering tree.

As we were admiring the view from the trail, we noticed an osprey sitting on a dead tree branch. One of the other people looking at the osprey noticed that he’d caught a fish. It’s the silver strip under his feet on the branch. A man in the crowd mentioned that where there’s one osprey, there are always two and, sure enough, his mate came back, circled, and cawed back and forth with him a bit before she flew away. I think she was telling him she could do without the crowd of people watching and would be back later after we’d all gone away.

The fish wriggled under the osprey’s feet for a few minutes. When it was still, the osprey enjoyed his lunch. It was kind of sad to watch the fish die and then be eaten, but that’s how all animals survive, right?

After a pretty hike with a survival-of-the-fittest ending, we headed for a happier experience with nature. Coming up: La Jolla Cove.