Three Sisters on the Strip

Here we are in Las Vegas.  We took a shuttle to Harrah's and wandered through there and out the other side.  Where we saw Caesar's Palace across the street and went over there.  We wandered through there then turned around to go back to Harrah's.  We had to ask directions a couple of times to get out of Caesar's.  Some people were friendly and some weren't.  We had to assume the unfriendly ones had just lost a bundle at the slots or something.  Because they were REALLY unhappy!

Every morning, as many of you may imagine, I go to Starbucks.  Dorothy Ann always goes too.  The first morning Maxine and Jack, Dorothy Ann and I went, the second morning Maxine, Dorothy Ann, and me, and this morning... just Dorothy Ann and I went.  (Should I say I or me there?)  We go to Hard Rock Hotel and Casino where there is a Starbucks.  It's about three blocks away from our resort.  This picture of me standing next to Bill Haley's guitar is in the Hard Rock Casino.  I thought about taking a picture of the Starbucks we go to but Melodie complained about me taking too many pictures of Starbucks in Coconut Grove... so I think I won't take a picture of Starbucks here.  Anyway, this Hard Rock is really interesting.  It has all these guitars on display that belonged to famous guitarists.  In this picture, the red guitar on the left belonged to Bo Diddley, as well as the jacket.  I saw Johnny Cash's martin guitar.  There is an amazing collection of really nice guitars.  Several Les Pauls...  but I don't know what that square red guitar of Bo Diddley's is.
Tonight we are going out to Nancy's to eat

Here is a picture of us all standing with Nancy in the Smith's grocery store where she works.  We are leaving right away .

Grayling & the AuSable

Jay and Brit coming out of Gates' AuSable Fly Shop restaurant. That's the AuSable there behind the building.

We're back in lower Michigan after a couple days in the Upper Peninsula visiting Dave Loup, an old school friend of Jay's. I didn't have any access to wireless up there, (It's REALLY the back woods!! We kept looking out the window as we drove along and saying, "This is the NORTH WOODS!!). Dave has gotten so north woods he keeps punctuating every other thing he says with "A?" He told us about a really great deal a friend, who owns a bicycle shop, had in a new bike for half price. Only when we got there, it was sold. It wasn't what I wanted anyway. It was a Townie. After riding Rhonwyn's bike down there in Miami everywhere, I kind of thought I might like to get one of my own. Anyway, we went on over to Escanaba where Dave had another friend with a bike shop who had a sale on a girl's mountain bike, so I bought it. I didn't think to take a picture of it strapped to the top of our trailer. I'll do that later. Right now I'm sitting in the McDonalds in Grayling where there is wireless. Jay and Brit are fishing, of course. It rained last night... again. Thank heavens I thought to bring everything in before we went to bed. It was nice and sunny yesterday, but I saw clouds building up before dark. We're getting anxious to get home.

The Wreck of It All

You may recognize this windshield. It is the windshield of our Honda Odyssey, right in front of Jay's face minutes after a stupid deer barreled into it at about 30 miles an hour, while we were going 45 miles an hour. I don't know how much an hour that adds up to, but it was enough to wreck our car... and throw the deer clear back across the road where he came from... dead as a door nail!!!! We are at this moment stuck in a place called Petoskey in Michigan, waiting for a local windshield repair place to get in a windshield for a Honda Odyssey and put it in tomorrow so we can continue on our way up to the Upper Peninsula to visit Jay's old school friend, Dave Loup.
Here is the historic old hotel where we are staying in Petroskey. We keep looking suspiciously down the old long halls and into the sitting rooms and dining rooms for suspicious behavior because it is sooooo like old English Inns where Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot encountered murders and intrigue. It's great!!! We love it!!! We sat out there on that long veranda for a long time just being that way (Even tho nothing happened to us and it was actually pretty cold from the breeze blowing in off Lake Michigan that you can see there in the distance.) After awhile we gave up on something occurring and wandered down to the beach to try to find a famous Petroskey stone... but didn't.

Our poor car! I love this car!!!! I hate this!!!!!!! We are going to get the windshield fixed, but will wait till we get back to Laramie and our Honda mechanics there to fix the body damage. We just hope the tire doesn't scrape from the fender being bent in like that. What are people going to think seeing us driving around like some kind of junky hillbillies?

We had a good time tonight in the pub in the basement of this big old hotel. There was live entertainment and he was really good. Just one old guy with a really well micked acoustic guitar. Singing old time rock and roll and Beatles songs. ( He probably shouldn't have tried to sing that Elvis song tho.) They had a really interesting menu. Every entry had at least one item we couldn't figure out. I was waffling between 2 things, mainly because I wasn't sure what a couple of the ingredients were. One was a wrap with whole wheat lavash and we didn't know what lavash was. Jay asked the waiter if it was lifestyle. After he quit laughing he said it was a tortilla. I don't know why they couldn't have said that in the first place.

Mechanicsburg, PA ... Eckelsburg rather

This is a plaque put up by the DAR, honoring Revolutionary War soldiers from the Mechanicsburg area. Our ancestor, Nathaniel Eckels, is listed on here as a private in the war for independence. He was born on the boat over here in 1744 and since he died in 1830, was, apparently, not killed in the revolutionary war.
The Mechanicsburg, PA cemetery at Silver Springs. This cemetery is full of Eckels stones a few of which I recognized and two at least of which my family is directly descended from. The building in this cemetery picture was the site of the signing of the Declaration of Independence by three signers who Jay says were attorneys. I have a pamphlet that tells about it, but I don't know where it is offhand, so I can't say for sure. None of my relations though, I don't think. There were also Clendenons buried here and Hustons, which we are also related to. Mechanicsburg was pretty much where the first Eckels came to from the old country in about 1750, and all stayed until my (our for those of you related) great great whatever, James Starr Eckels, moved to Illinois in 1850.
This here is Jane Starr's grave stone. These stones aren't very clear and easy to make out, but I know she's buried here and this is next to William Eckels' stone, who was her husband. She was his second wife and her cousin, Hannah Starr, was his third. Hannah is buried here also. James Starr Eckels was Jane and William's son.
This is William Eckels' gravestone. He had three wives. His father was Nathanial, who, it's said, was born on the boat over from Ireland in 1744. My grandfather Herron Eckels, always said he was Scot, so I think the Eckels left Scotland because of religious persecution and went to Ireland then here.

Brit singing

I hope this comes out OK. I had a hard time getting it to download. I made a few videos last night with my camera and thought I would send one. We had our Edwards get together yesterday evening and had a lot of fun.

The old hometown

Edwardsville main street looking east toward Wilkes Barre and the Susquehanna river

The inside of the Welsh Congregational Church of Edwardsville, PA. The wood ceiling and balcony are especially beautiful, I think. It still has the same organ pipes it had back when the Edwards family lived there and Jay played on the organ once in awhile whether he was supposed to or not.
This is the Welsh First Congregational Church where the Reverend J. Edgar Edwards was the pastor for three years. On the right is the parsonage where they lived. Jay's room was on the back and had a balcony of his own but has been since closed in.

We went to Easter Services here. After the services, a couple people approached us to wish us happy Easter and talk to us. When we gave them our names and told them why we were in Edwardsville... and in that church in particular. They asked if Jay's dad was J. Edgar Edwards and said he had married them. They called another woman over and told her who Jay was and she said his dad had married HER. they were really excited about us being there.

It was pretty funny because they also remembered Jay and made some comment about what you always hear about preacher's sons. They asked Jay which son he was and wondered if he was the oldest. He admitted he was and they sort of dropped the subject. Which gave me a clue that they might be remembering him when he lived there. They couldn't have been too far off because the first thing he said when we were walking in past the cast iron picket fence he told me it was possible to climb over it and showed me exactly where to place your foot to get over it without being impaled on it.

It was really interesting walking around town with him because he had so many memories of the place from back when he was in 5th grade about 10 years old and moved there in 1954. They lived there for three years so he was in 7th grade and 12 or 13 when they moved away. He became pretty independent and adventurous while there, riding his bike everywhere and going around town freely with his friends.

He had a lot of memories he re-remembered as we walked and drove around town and the area. So much came back to him, the porch he hid under with a friend while his mother searched all over town for him, the bar he went into with another kid to sing for quarters so he could get money for some fund drive the church was having, the Baptist Church he went to vacation bible school at.

Gettysburg... What a tragic place!!!!

Day before yesterday we drove to Gettysburg, which is only 25 miles south of Carlisle,PA, where we've been camping. Well, actually, we've been camping in a state forest about 10 miles northwest of Carlisle called Doubling Gap. Gettysburg is an old town that was visited by a huge bunch of confederate soldiers and Union soldiers in July 1-4, 1863. Cemetery Hill is apparently where a lot of the action took place and 1000's of those visitors died. The Union soldiers that were killed there are now buried there. There are plaques and statues all over the cemetery and surrounding hills telling about the different groups from different states that fought there and the battles that were fought and how many died, were wounded and were captured. New York lost the most men, over 1000.
Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg one minute speech there in November 1863, in the cemetery, although, now that I think about it, it probably wasn't a cemetery at the time. Well, maybe it was... because they apparently buried all the dead soldiers right away. There was some confusion about what to do with so many dead men. Especially the confederate ones. I guess a lot of the soldiers pinned their name and address to their shirt. Not a happy place. Because all those plaques telling about the battles and the results made what happened there very real.
We are now in Ohio at Dan and Joan's house.

Camping in the Cumberland Valley

It poured rain on us all last night and all the rivers are running high and out of their banks. Maybe that will mean that Jay can take a day off from fishing and we can do some sightseeing!!! Anyway, we are headed for Gettysburg today... after we finish our espresso here in this nice coffee shop on the Carlisle town square across from the old court house where the confederate army shot a hole in one of the pillars on the front so it's a little pitted there still. It seems a little far north for the confederate army to be fighting, but I guess they were looking for one of their generals or something and got lost.

This is a picture of the court house and the battered pillar.

Sorry, sorry, sorry!

I know I haven't been writing and posting anything, even though we've been on the road... oh... I don't know... was it the 21st??? Anyway, we saw sandhill cranes.
I need to remember how to do this blog thing since it's been since Miami that I last blogged. I was going to put up a picture of the cranes we saw in Nebraska but then remembered that the first picture I put up is the last in the blog.
We are in Pennsylvania right now. What a place!!! It's so different!!! Their fields don't have fences for one thing. We can't figure that out. What is growing there. It just looks like grass. This place is OLD! Right now I'm sitting in a coffee house in a town called Carlisle. Have you ever heard of it? We hadn't. It's just where the interstate has the nearest exit to Mechanicsburg where the Eckels are all buried in Pennsylvania. This town is really a surprise. It's about the size of Laramie with a small college, which, by the way, is the FIRST college built in the United States. it seems like every other building had George Washington in it doing something. This building I'm sitting in, called Blaine House originally, was visited by George Washington in Oct. 4-11, 1794 while mustering an armed force to quell the whiskey rebellion in Western Pennsylvania.
The buildings all over the countryside are really old, big two story rectangular stone or brick. The barns are huge with 3 or 4 silos next to them. I'll try to remember to take a picture of some examples. It's very steep and hilly with deciduous forests covering the hills. We are camping in a state forest outside of Carlisle. today we will be going to Mechanicsburg to find the Silver Spring Cemetery where about 30 Eckels are buried, including 4 of our ancestors. The first Eckels to come to this country about 1744, Charles Eckels, is buried in a cemetery about 20 miles away but it's a really old cemetery and the headstones are too worn to read. His son Nathaniel, who was born on the boat coming over, in 1744, is buried at Silver Springs, or at least has a plaque there placed by the DAR because he was a revolutionary war soldier. His son William is buried at Silver Spring Cemetery, with his wife Jane Starr. So that is what we will be doing later today. Our ancestor, William and Jane's son, James Starr Eckels moved to Princton, Ill in 1857 so that's all the Eckels ancestors that were around here.
Jay just came back with a smug smile on his face so apparently he saw some pretty good stuff while he was exploring around town while I blogged. I'm going to download some pictures and take my camera to go see what there is to be so happy about. It has to be good since he's such a history buff and wouldn't get excited with just anything!

Here's Ken selling books at the counter. This view is from the front door. The first floor seating is there on the left with the book shelves extending to the back, with the door into the espresso bar at the back.
This is the upstairs seating. There is a couch facing two wing back chairs between windows looking out over the street. there are three tables up here, along with the mystery section, (my favorite) westerns, the children's section and several non-fiction sections.

The door through to another bookstore, a new bookstore, called The Second Story owned by the owners of the building, is at the back of this room and leads to the commercial kitchen where Ken and Melodie's baker bakes the pastries and soups they serve.

Here's Melodie, soooooooo happy, that they made some money after all their efforts and expense trying to get this espresso business up and running. Look at the wads of money she's clutching in her sweaty little paws! What a crazy girl! That's their new used commercial espresso machine sitting beside her, that she, or for that matter, none of us, knew how to run just yesterday! It didn't seem to matter to all the people who came in to get a latte and pastry. They did a really good business their first day so we can only hope it keeps up so they can pay their bills that they have piled up with this expansion.

A new espresso bar for Laramie, Wyoming!!!

So Melodie and Ken finally bit the bullet and went for it! They suffered weeks of disruption and mess in their bookstore to put in an espresso bar in the back of their bookstore, plus expanding said bookstore into the upstairs of the building. They have doubled the size of the bookstore (the space upstairs is the same size as the original space downstairs.), doubled the size of their employees, (EEEKKK!!! How are they going to pay them!!!) that's Ken, awake and worrying, in the middle of the night. And, now, they have no family life because they are open 7 days a week from 8 in the morning till 6 at night, theoretically. But they CAN'T close at 6, because people are just getting their second wind and want some more cappuccino so they're knocking on the door!!

I tried to get pictures of CocoWalk styles, but only got a few in the Starbucks that I've been going to there. Women wear tall boots, high, high heels, tight pants and carry big purses. The men, not so much.

Here's Rhonwyn's water exercise class. There are a few regulars that come every time, but different ones each time too. The pool isn't deep. These people are standing on the bottom. Rhonwyn doesn't get wet, unless inadvertently! Though no one TRIES to get her wet, at least, that I ever saw. She's not feeling too hot today. She had a bridge taken out and some kind of post put into her gums to attach future teeth onto. The dentist drilled right up into her sinuses, she said. It's hard to believe, I know. What was he thinking!!! That can't be good!

That's me in the first water picture in the blue suit with the pink tube.

I need to make a correction to my earlier blog about the Jersey Boys concert. It wasn't The Four Tops... it was The Four Seasons. Rhonwyn wanted to make sure I mentioned that SHE said it was Seasons... while STEVE said it was Tops. He knew better, he was just being obstructive.

Last night Rhonwyn and I went to a place called Prana Yoga. We took a class called Kundalini Yoga. A lot of the poses I had done before, but found that I couldn't do anymore. It was kind of upsetting. When did that happen?

Wednesday in Coconut Grove

This morning, Rhonwyn and I met Bryan at Starbucks down the street from where Rhonwyn and Steve live. It's the one that Jay and I always went to when we were down here a couple years ago. I didn't know how to get to it, but going there with Rhonwyn, I got it straight in my head. See Bryan's notepad and book under his hat? He writes a lot and has several journals. Hopefully, he can get his writing into a good organization and readable for others on his computer. That's what I thought when I saw all of them, anyway. He says he's thought of that too.

Rhonwyn and I went for a belly dancing lesson last night. The woman with the blue top and spangles on her bottom is the instructor. She was good at it. And it's not as easy to shake and shimmy various parts of your body as you'ld think. For instance, bending your knees a little, really fast. That was the hardest for me. It was all pretty crazy, but it was like my brain couldn't process what it wanted my body to do.

In about an hour we're going to see The Jersey Boys at the Arsht Center-Ziff Ballet Opera House. I'm excited about this because I liked The Four Tops back when, and I've seen them advertised and they sound pretty good. So that's what we're going to be doing in a little while.

warm weather

Rhonwyn had a REALLY large water yoga class yesterday afternoon. twenty people in the pool. they were a happy bunch... and Rhonwyn does a really good stand-up schtick. Like she was born to it... Oh right!!! She was!!! Since this blog goes out to mostly Edwardses, you all know what I mean. I never met an Edwards that wasn't an entertainer in some way or other, and being around some of them that are far away from the others it's not hard to figure out that it's innate. This goes for Bryan too. Bryan's last name may be Newman but he's as Edwards as any of them. Since I haven't taken any pictures lately, I downloaded a picture of some Adams. One of these children is Alice Adams' father. And the adults are her grandfather and grandmother Adams.

Well, Rhonwyn is picking me up to go get a belly-dancing lesson in about 10 minutes, so I need to go outside to waitl

my saturday

I'm trying to upload a picture and write under it, but I don't think that's happening here.

Anyway, here's one of Rhonwyn and Steve's outdoor cats. She's really old and getting scraggly looking. I don't think you can see it here, but her eyes are so intensely communicative through that back door. She's the only outdoor cat that seems to like human company. When I sit at the table there in the back yard, she lies under the table while I'm there. Rhonwyn said this cat was here when they bought the house.

They are having coon problems. They used to have really big fish in their outdoor fish pond, I can't remember what they were called, but the coons have eaten them all. Rhonwyn went outside and actually caught one coon with a big fish in its mouth, eating it. She has a big stick out the side door and tries to run them off but they just hiss at her and actually fight back. Not a good situation.

Here's a better picture of Rhonwyn's bike that I'm getting around on. I get a lot of comments and compliments on it. It's good for me for when I start wobbling I can, hopefully, just drop my feet and stand up. that's not necessarily what happens, but that's what I hope will happen. Yesterday I looked behind me once for traffic and went down, thankfully onto the grass, and today a woman jogging with a stroller stopped suddenly in front of me and I whacked my arm on a metal parking ticket machine stopping myself from hitting the sidewalk.

I met Bryan in downtown Coconut Grove for coffee at Starbucks this morning. He's so funny. We went to a Farmer's Market there and he wanted to lie down under a big old spreading Banyon, or whatever, tree for a nap. I asked him why he was so tired, it was only noon or thereabouts, and he told me he'd been worrying so about getting up in time to catch the two buses and the train to make it out to Coconut Grove to meet me at Starbucks at the agreed upon time of 10 am that he was awake at 4. I've got to figure out how to get to his house so I can go there to pick him up.

Rhonwyn and Steve are in Key West today. They left yesterday and will be back tomorrow.

Coconut Grove, Florida

I ate lunch here at Scotty's Landing. Jay and I ate here when we visited before. It was cool so close to the water and fun to look out and see all the boats. Crowded tho. REALLY crowded! I was hot from riding the bike all around so I kind of cooled out while I waited. I could have ordered conch soup, or a conch sandwich, or conch appetizers, or conch fritters; but, I don't know, I didn't.

I rode Rhonwyn's bike to this Starbucks in downtown Coconut Grove. People were lined up practically out the door to get their coffee, including me. It was cool in there, so I sat awhile and read my book, one of Lawrence Block's burglar books that I borrowed from Ken and Melodie for this trip.

Rhonwyn's bike is the silver low-rider there with the high back rest. It's really easy to ride without that high cross bar. It's been a long time since I've ridden a bike so I was kind of wobbly. There are bike racks all over the place so it was really convenient to go into the town part of Coconut Grove that way. Also, there are bike trails along the roads, and one across the hwy from Park Ave., Rhonwyn and Steve's street, clear into Coconut Grove main street so it's easy to do. I just got off the phone with Bryan and we're meeting at Starbucks tomorrow morning. I should go pick him up, but I'm still leary about driving around here too much if I don't know the roads. I need to get a map of Miami.

unreal incident in Taos, NM

I don't have any pictures for this post... unless I can get my medical records downloaded. Probably not. It has been a few days since I passed out in the parking lot of the hospital in Taos with Janelle standing over me screaming HELP! HELP! so, hopefully, I can remember, what little I remember, and write about it here.

It had been really cold in Walden, 35 or 40 below, on Wednesday, February 2nd, when I was supposed to go to Taos to pick up Jojo and Sol to drive them to Albuquerque, ready to leave for Amanda's brother's wedding in Palm Springs, CA on Friday. I was worried about the effect the cold would have on my car, which I had plugged in overnight, so I waited until about 10 AM to leave for Taos. It was still 20 below but I left anyway. I had several cups of espresso while I waited, and with one thing and another, no breakfast. In Dillon I stopped at Starbucks and got my usual 5 shot Americano then got back in my car and continued driving. I was worried that if I stopped someplace for a break it would be too cold for my car to start, so I kept on driving. By the time I reached Taos, I still had a quarter tank left and I had filled up in Walden. that little car gets really good gas mileage!

I planned to spend the night at Janelle's, and she had a pizza ready and James and the Giant Peach to watch for the evening entertainment. We were in the middle of the movie when my palms started to itch. I switched chairs because I thought maybe (Tho I have never been) I was allergic to something in that chair. Then I started to feel a little woozy, my eyesight started to get fuzzy around the edges with sort of sparkle things and I couldn't figure out what was going on. When I began to notice my heart beat, it seemed louder... or harder... I put my hand on it and I thought I could feel it beating through my shirt! That didn't seem right!

I sat there for a few minutes, distracted from James and his giant peach, wondering if I was having a heart attack! I went over the rest of myself, seeing if my arms were numb or if there was a problem with my throat, all the things I could remember from what I had heard went on in heart attacks, but I wasn't able to think. Not only was my eyesight getting fuzzier by the minute my thought processes were getting foggy too. It wasn't going away, which I couldn't imagine that it wouldn't. I kept thinking it was a temporary thing, that it was happening for some obscure reason that I would never know but I'd be OK in a minute. I went to ask Janelle for an aspirin and I found I couldn't walk right, so I stopped in the middle of the room and told her I needed to go to the hospital because I thought I was having a heart attack. That really freaked the boys out, but something was wrong with me and it wasn't going away.

Janelle and I got in her car and went the 3 or 4 blocks she lived from the hospital. By the time we got there, it must have been 7:30 PM, I couldn't see and my legs felt numb. Janelle said I was talking but nothing I said made sense. She parked in the lot beside the ER and came around to open my door but I couldn't move my legs to get out. She pulled my legs out one at a time, but when I stood up, I passed out and fell down in the snow, totally unconscious. Janelle ran into the ER asking for help. The woman at the desk said I didn't need help. I'd been in there before and she wasn't going to do any more for me. Janelle told her I hadn't been there, I had just gotten to town and was lying on the ground out in the parking lot, unconscious. The woman said, "well, doesn't she have a coat?"

Another patient in the ER asked if Janelle needed help and came out with her to try to get me in to the hospital. Then an employee finally came out with a wheel chair and they got me into the hospital. It sounds like I was throwing up almost non stop by then. I remember coming to at one point in the ER admitting room and apologizing and telling them, "This is embarrassing."

After that, I only remember snatches of things. Having all my clothes yanked off me crazily, it seemed like by a lot of people. (It was like in that movie "Galaxy Quest", with Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver, where those little cute alien babies go to the crippled alien baby like they're going to help it and then start tearing madly away at it. Like that.") They were all around the gurney I was on. I was never in pain, but during the time they were working on me and was going in and out of consciousness, I remember thinking, "I REALLY don't feel good". I began to believe I was dying then. Maybe I was. It was really a bad feeling. I thought how upset my family would be if I died. I knew it would be horrible for them and I thought that was what was happening to me. I've researched potassium deficiency, and it can be life threatening, and from all I've read, I was about as bad off as you can get and still be alive.

I don't know what all those people working on me did, but they managed to keep me alive. When I finally started to be more aware and clearer thinking, it must have been about 10 or 10:30 PM, a nurse told me I was on a potassium IV and a saline water IV. She said my potassium was down below 2, as if that meant something to me, and I had no blood pressure when I came in. Later, a nurse told me my pressure was 60 over nothing, which is SOME blood pressure, but not much. Janelle had stayed with me through all this, bless her heart, and I have to say, if I WAS dying, she saved my life. Finally, about 11 PM she was able to leave. The boys were at home with Bea but Bea would get upset if she woke up and her mom wasn't home.

I don't know how many and what kinds of tests I was given. I just know I am absolutely black and blue from all the stints and needles that were stuck in me. Plus all the different machines that looked me over from head to foot. I was still not altogether there so I don't remember everything, but I know now that my heart, head, lungs and blood vessels and arteries are all in perfect condition.

The final diagnosis was hipokalemia, potassium deficiency. As the doctor released me at 2 PM the next day, he said he would tell me what my mother would, eat right and stay healthy. After all that... that was it, no prescription or nothin'. Just eat right.