One Election Worker’s Perspective
For the past ten years, I have worked as an election worker in my precinct, checking in voters and handing them their ballots. But it is getting harder. We used to have at least six workers at every election, but as technology has improved, we are down to four in all but the Presidential election. […]
Our Alla Tour in Helsinki
As I mentioned recently, my sister did most of the planning for our Baltic Sea cruise. She decided to use Alla Tours for the St. Petersburg shore tour, rather than the cruise line (Celebrity). As she and I explored at the Alla Tour options described on their website, we found that they had options in […]
Random Photos: Our First House (and Our Son)
After thirty-four years in our current home, my husband and I have started looking for another house. The process is slow and time-consuming, and I probably won’t write much about it until we make a decision. But it is a topic that is much on my mind. Today’s random photos relate to the first house […]
My Life On Board Ship
My husband and I traveled for twelve days in July aboard the Celebrity Eclipse on a cruise through the Baltic Sea. I didn’t really know what to expect. I’d never been on a large cruise ship before, only the Viking River Cruise in 2014. Well, that’s not quite true. I had been on a smaller […]
Reflections on Past and Present (and Future) After a Visit to the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
One of the places that my husband, mother-in-law, and I visited in California in June was the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, where Nixon was born. None of us had been there before, and we spent a pleasant half-day going through the exhibits. The topics covered included Nixon’s childhood, his early […]
More Beaches to Write About
As I’ve written before, any year is a good year when I get to walk on the beach. This summer, I’ve walked along two beaches and seen several others. The first beach was in California—on Balboa Island in Newport Beach. My husband and I took his mother to visit in June. She had vacationed on […]
I’m Back!
The reason I took most of July off from blogging is that I’ve been traveling a lot in the last couple of months. First a trip to the Los Angeles area in June, and then a cruise on the Baltic Sea during the first half of July. I couldn’t write enough posts ahead to keep […]
ON HIATUS FOR JULY
I have been blogging regularly since early 2012. In over six years, I think I have only taken one short Christmas break. But this month I have too many obligations to post regularly. Therefore, I am putting the blog on hiatus until August. I am taking my own Independence Day (well, call it an “independence […]
Early Roads and Railroads in Oregon in the 1850s
As I write my fourth historical novel about the West, I’m finding more and more things I need to research. Researching travel along the Oregon Trail itself was easy by comparison—all I needed to do was to decide on a route, describe the landmarks and the difficulties of daily life, and let my characters react […]
A Not So Random Photo: My Parents’ 20th Anniversary
On June 25, 1975, for my parents’ twentieth anniversary, I gave them a photographer’s sitting to have a family portrait made. It was the first time we had had a formal family picture taken, and, except for later weddings, the only formal portrait I can recall. The sitting cost me twenty dollars. I remember going […]