Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

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Day of Rest and Dining

We’re still in the RV Park here in Canyon, TX doing as we said yesterday, that is relaxing and dining. We got up leisurely at around 9:30 AM local time (7:30 AZ time) and spent the day doing the routine with the dogs and getting in a shower for both of us.

The only real work effort was to get out the Grill and Propane bottle and set it up. The other work was done by Damsel to get the chicken ready to grill and prepare the salad.

Image: BBQ Chicken Roasting in the Grill Box

Image: Chicken and Dinner Salad, Served

After dinner, we took the dogs for a walk; when they had done their business, they went back in the motorhome and we continued our walk around the park. This evening, thanks to the on-board satellite TV system, we’re watching some baseball games; thanks to my new smartphone, we’re getting a 5G connection on our computers through the shared Wi-Fi feature. Life and retirement is good.

16 Oct 2023 by Food & Dining Notions Retirement Technobabble Travel Wanderlust

Fourteenth Retirement Anniversary

These various anniversaries seem to be coming faster and faster. Perhaps it’s just my imagination, but it seems like we just celebrated thirteen years of retirement! Tempus Fujit!

Our goals that we set a year ago never seemed to come to fruition; we were supposed to take the RV on a shakedown cruise and never got to it. We were too busy enjoying retirement I guess. Anyhow the plans for the cruise have changed and we’re going to head out soon. We had the Diesel shop inspect everything and got new tires for the trip. It should be fun. See our Eclipse Countdown Page for a preview of one planned destination.

During the next year, we have a loose plan to visit the homelands of some of our ancestors. We have traced our lineage back to the 6th great grandparents in some of our family trees and wish to see the places where they farmed, built homes and lived their lives as pioneers. It should be interesting and inspirational.

And now, as we head into our fifteenth year of retirement (25th for Damsel), we thank God for our good health and plan to ask His blessing on more of the same.

01 Oct 2023 by Notions Retirement Wanderlust

Blogiversary No. 18

Every year our Blogiversary falls on or around the Autumnal Equinox; in this year’s case, equinox is tomorrow, so happy fall y’all! Our weather has been like “second spring” for over a week now, and we’re expecting the same until near the end of October when the temperatures usually start cooling down.

As for the Cap’n Bob and Damsel Blog. we are now old enough to be considered an adult blog (however, not in the nasty or obscene sense). Our sporadic blogging still continues with a few offerings a month and when warranted, daily accounts of significant events such as traveling reports, etc.). We should be reporting on our Eclipse excursion next month.

Thank you all for watching over us these many years and hope to see you here whenever we post something.

22 Sep 2023 by Blogosphere Cyberspace Notions Retirement Wanderlust

RV Gas Run

Image: All done with fueling and getting ready to back up the RV drive

Blogging has been sparse as of late, mostly due to an ongoing problem with home repair since June. That problem, which is now completely resolved, will be discussed in detail and will be posted in a subsequent blog later in September.

Given that we’re going to be traveling to Albuquerque in October (only about six weeks from this post date) to witness the annular solar eclipse in October, we’re getting the big RV ready for the trip. It has been idle in its parking spot in the RV drive behind the house for too much time (I am embarrassed to say how much time). So, today was the day to fire it up and head to the gas pit to take on some fuel.

I say the RV has been “idle” which is not exactly the case since I have a weekly chore where I fire up the diesel engine once a week for fifteen minutes or so and I fire up the 6KVA generator once per month. We check the fluids, air pressure the satellite TV receiver and several other functions just to make sure all is well. We have had some maintenance done in place with Air Conditioning and Awning Repair, and one big electrical problem.

So, after running the engine for all this time, we have been getting Zero MPG, but the big guy was getting down to the red arc on the fuel gauge thus requiring a trip for Diesel. I went through the preflight checklist and got the RV ready to go to the station for some fuel. The price of diesel, of course thanks to Bidenomics, was upward of $4.68/gal today, so I used my reward points from Safeway/Chevron to get the first 25 gallons at a $1.00 discount. I only put 25 gallons in (the tank holds 90 gals) and when I get another ten reward points on my Safeway card I will put in another 25 gallons.

So the big guy is again on the RV drive where we will be getting it ready for the upcoming excursion to Northern AZ and Albuquerque. We also might be upgrading the tires, since they have had some hard time sitting in the Arizona Heat and Cold. Nothing lasts very long in the elements here. More on that when it’s time.

29 Aug 2023 by Notions Retirement Travel Wanderlust

Almost Cloudless
Plus an Irish Feast

The (clickable) satellite image above was taken the morning of August 4th showing the southwest and Arizona in particular having virtually no cloud cover. There are a few cumulus clouds forming over the mountains north of the Grand Canyon at the time this image was taken. We seem to be having a lack of our usual monsoon rains with a side effect of warmer than usual temperatures. Rest assured that there will eventually be a return to normal to come hopefully sooner than later. The global climate scammers are unnecessarily worrisome over normal weather deviations.

Now that we’re about halfway between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox it is again a Celtic Cross Quarter celebration of Lughnasadh which means (to us) that there must be a traditional Irish or Scottish meal to be consumed. So, Damsel is being creative and will offer a hybrid Western/Gaelic feast consisting of a Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado and Tomato Chicken Salad (western) served over Homemade Soda Bread (Irish). There may be a traditional Irish Cocktail involved.

We will be posting about our feast on our Food Website later this weekend. Meanwhile, everybody please enjoy your weekend with whatever you consider to be relaxing.

04 Aug 2023 by Arizona Environment Food & Dining Global Warming Notions

The Big “O”

The old and tired saying comes to mind: If I knew I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself. However, despite our reckless self-deprecation in our earlier years, we have managed to turn all the bad habits into less-worse habits and persevered this far down the road to eternity. We remain in good health and visit the specialists of the few ailments (now in remission) who monitor those functions and all gauges are in the green.

Our festivities for the day will consist of Steaks on the Barbie with a nice salad provided by the Damsel. There might even be a couple of adult beverages consumed as the day goes on.

We may get some rain and a possible Thunderstorm later today. As I look back on the years, I can remember quite a few times we had lightning shows in mid to late July. That would be nice if we have some of that today – we could use the cooler weather, but not so much the inevitable humidity that comes with it.

Here’s to another trip around Old Sol.

22 Jul 2023 by Medix Notions Retirement

Ancestry Anomalies – Part 2

This is the second of three posts about some of the anomalies we discovered while researching our ancestry and family tree. Part 1 covered a part of the family tree where one set of my great-great grandparents were first cousins twice removed.

In this part, we discuss the union between a pair of my third-great grandparents, William Burl “Squire Billy” Snodgrass and his wife Mary Joliffe Snodgrass. Her unmarried name and his were the same, since Billy’s father Francis, and Mary’s father John, were first cousins. Francis and John’s fathers were brothers, so Billy and Mary were second cousins. Brothers William and Charles Snodgrass (Billy’s and Mary’s grandfathers, respectively) appear in the third column in the (clickable) tree image below. Their parents were John Snodgrass and Hannah Vernon, appearing twice in the fourth column. Maybe that makes John and Hannah my double 6th great grandparents? I’m not sure how that works.

I can understand marriages between related people might have been common since the population in 18th century Virginia may have been limited to the pioneers and their offspring residing there at that time. These marriages took place just after the American Revolution and before the mass influx of more settlers from Europe and abroad.

“Squire Billy” and Mary Joliffe Snodgrass were the parents of Civil War Veteran (W. Virginia Infantry) Enos Snodgrass, who was my Dad’s Great Grandfather. Pictured below are four generations with Enos (seated), James (my great grandfather), Mary (my grandmother) and Jack (my Dad at about age six or so). Clickable Photo circa 1920.

Thanks to my cousin Erin, who provided the photo above a couple of months ago when she and her Dad (my first cousin Kim) met up with us here in town for the first time. We might have never been in touch except for the DNA results from a couple of on line sources, which showed us our close relationship and put us in touch with each other.

I am working on Ancestry Anomalies Part 3 which might be the final chapter in my anomalous genealogy.

08 Jul 2023 by Ancestors Family Nostalgia Notions

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