Scottsbluff, NE

And, well, sometimes I blog about other parts of life as well. Like today, when we...

...took a road trip today to Scottsbluff, Nebraska, to visit the National Monument. Very windy, especially the drive out and the time we spent up on the bluff. By the time we headed for home the front causing the wind had moved eastward. Otherwise the weather was perfect, very cloudy but with patches of warm sunshine. A very pleasant autumn day.

The drive to Scottsbluff was fabulous, we took CO 14 and CO/ NE 71 both ways, which took us through a nice part of the Pawnee Grasslands, which we always enjoy driving through. Such a nice day for a drive! And such a great surprise when we got here and saw the magnificent views!!

I wasn't quite sure what to expect at the National Monument. We've seen Scottsbluff (and the other bluffs) from a distance, and knew that the monument was focused mostly on the Oregon Trail, but for some reason I hadn't really thought about how dramatic the views from the top of the bluffs would be.
And they are: breathtaking!!
In all directions!
The natural beauty is stunning (eroded bluffs and prairie vegetation), added to the geometrical designs carved by man (roads, cultivated fields, rows of houses...) and the feeling of being able to absolutely see to the ends of the earth...it all results in the realization of how special a place it is. And until today, I had no idea.

many of the drop-offs are quite steep

We hiked both the north and south trails on the top of the bluff. Both trails were paved and easy. The bluffs are very crumbly and some of the distances to the bottom are incredible--the paved trails provided a nice touch of confidence.

a section of the south trail


view of the North Platte River valley


the towns of Gering and Scottsbluff in the distance


driving to the top of the bluff
The Visitor's Center for the Monument is at the bottom of the hill, to get to the top of the bluffs you take a 1.5 mile road built by the CCC in the 1930s, a really nice road. 3 great tunnels.


the tunnels and tight turns limit the size of vehicles that can use the road


this is the lowest tunnel, and there really is a tight little curve inside!


taken from the top of the bluff, showing the road from the Visitor's Center to the first tunnel


just had to include these pictures of a plant we encountered on our hike on the south bluff trail. An opportunist which broke through the asphalt barrier, somehow, the only one we saw that did.



There weren't a lot of other people visiting the Monument today, but there were a few other vehicles full. Just happened to hit a lull as we were finishing up our north bluff trail hike and I took this picture, with our car the sole occupant of the parking area.


taken near the Monument entrance


view from just inside the Monument


taken from an overlook behind the Monument entrance sign


Just a few miles south of the Monument on 71 is this very nice Nature Center/ Rec area. We stopped in for a visit on our way home.


We drove around the rec area and checked out the camping and day use areas and took a general look around. Looks like a very nice place.


The Nature Center is obviously set up for school kids, with all kinds of fascinating exhibits. I especially enjoyed the living honeybee hive (wow!) and a display of mounted owls they had. I'd never seen anything like the diversity of the owls I saw today, don't think I've seen many together for a comparison before. And of course a rattlesnake skeleton, pictured above, and its skin:



The tree behind Joe is 2-stories tall and fake, it is in the center of the Nature Center. Very well done!
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close-up of an exhibit in the tree

Too Much Stuff?

"Big house, big car, back seat, full bar.
Houseboat won't float. Bank won't tote the note.
Too much stuff. There's just too much stuff.
It'll hang you up, dealing with too much stuff."

  --(from a song by) Delbert McClinton

Last week the NYT ran an article titled When Possessions Lead to Paralysis, which was about the problems some older people have with managing what they've accumulated over a lifetime as their needs change. The article's tagline is "Can the sheer volume of an elder's possessions prevent him from making necessary transitions?"

One issue the article addressed hit home with me, and it is a dilemma many people face: what to do with their treasures when they must give them up? Often there is no one who will appreciate the value of the things they see as important, there is no one suitable to pass their stuff on to. This dilemma is particularly painful when combined with a forced disposing of cherished possessions in order to downsize into a lifestyle of increasing deterioration and dependency. Very difficult transitions, and primarily what the article was discussing. 

It is a worthwhile read, full of things to think about in any stage of life. As far as my personal situation goes,  the problem of suitable heirs for our collection is one that hasn't been satisfactorily resolved despite years of mulling the problem over. Decades of careful treasure collecting in jeopardy of auction or yardsale liquidation, or (shudder!) a trip to the landfill...

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My mother died a year ago and I inherited all her possessions, so the issue hasn't been just an abstract one for me. My mother was a collector, and her stuff included an incredible array of things I can use and appreciate, and in many cases, treasure. On the other hand, dealing with the sheer volume of this stuff has been overwhelming and lifestyle-altering. My mother had several rooms full of things--and that's a whole lot of volume. Since her death our house has been filled with slowly shrinking stacks of boxes and piles lining the walls, several stacks deep. The going through, sorting, weeding out, and assimilating what we want into our stuff, has been slow going.

The first few months were especially sluggish, because the grief I felt when confronted with my mother's things was so raw that discarding anything was painful. So a few piles got sorted into smaller piles, but overall there wasn't much progress.

trying to sort through some of the cookbooks last Fall...thankfully the doors they covered are rarely used

After a few months, my perspective shifted to a calmer and more realistic way of seeing her things, and I was able to make some decisions about what should stay and what should go. The pace increased substantially and we can see the progress, but at present there is still much work to be done. After adding her things to ours, we often then need to find a different, larger storage area for that category, and all that figuring where to put it and then shifting things around takes time. But we are on a roll, we are making steady progress toward regaining our living space and having my mother's stuff either stored or integrated into daily life, where it can be used and appreciated.

And "used and appreciated" is exactly the outcome my mother wanted, and I think she was always confident I would be able to provide that when the time came. My mother was the sixth of nine children, born in the early '30s in rural Indiana to a childhood without much in the way of resources or possessions. She was a very thrifty and practical person, and she didn't discard things that were important or seemed potentially useful to her. The result of this trait, expanded out over a lifetime, is that she amassed some amazing collections of all kinds of things. 

In the time spent dealing with my mother's stuff, especially when I dig out the similar items of my own for repacking with hers, I can't help but think of the future prospects for all of it. My/ our stuff now. This was an issue long before I became the "custodian of much more," but not one that seemed particularly pressing. However it was impossible for me to spend hours working with inherited things and not give some thought to the next person who will be faced with the task. I knew my mother well, we were best friends with lots of interests in common, and much of what she left was the detritus of my childhood and came accompanied by background and memories. Much of the rest of it is stuff I want, can use, and will give a good home to. What we don't want is being sold, recycled or donated to charity. 

Had someone not been available to deal with my mother's things, my father would have disposed of them as quickly and as expediently as possible, I've no doubt of that. He sees no value in any of it, and just wanted it gone to allow him to transition to his new life. He is a minimalist who learned to live with my mother's possessions out of love, and I'm sure, to keep the peace. Once she was gone it was all just a painful irritant to him, a reminder of his loss and an impediment to his future. 

Thankfully, I don't foresee this problem with my spouse, we have a similar outlook on collecting and appreciate the value of each other's possessions. Neither of us would keep inherited stuff that we have no interest in or use for, but either through selling or giving away, we would do our best to find good homes for it all. With new owners capable of appreciating the value of the item(s). But beyond that situation...lots of time thinking and reflecting and few answers, to a dilemma that has only increased with the increased volume of our possessions in the past year. A problem still in search of a solution.

As to the question posed in the title (Too Much Stuff?), of course it is possible to have too much stuff. A whole lot of stuff arriving suddenly can certainly seem like too much stuff when it results in gridlock that essentially makes finding or getting to anything difficult. But of course, that is "stuff" viewed in the abstract ("so much crap" to quote my father); unpack the box and take a close look at its contents, that allows an actual assessment of value to be made. At this point, yes, we still have too much stuff, however we are working on liquidating that excess to get ourselves to the point where the answer to the question is an easy "no." 

For Your Viewing Pleasure

I enjoy playing with an old computer art program I've worked in for many years, Painter 5. I keep an older computer with Win98 around and running mostly to support Painter (and all the files and customizations I've added over the years), and that set up works just fine. I did upgrade my graphics tablet (used to draw and paint) a couple of years ago, which is a big improvement.

I haven't done anything with Painter in awhile, but last winter I did a couple manipulations of a picture I took of a building in Ft Laramie, Wyoming. I shared them with a couple of friends at the time, then came across them today while searching for something else, and thought I would post the small collection of designs here. For your viewing pleasure.


the original photo

manipulations of the photo into abstract designs, using Painter and Terrazzo (a Painter plug-in)

Mr Lukas' Interesting Collection

Yesterday's NYT ran an article titled "From School Files of an Earlier Era, Faces Looking to the Future," about a collector who grabbed a few handfuls of documents that were to be discarded in 1996. The papers that the collector saved from destruction were mundane enough, report card folders from a woman's vocational school in NYC from the 1910s to the 1930s. Very interesting to see the amount of detail and candid, often judgmental comments that were entered into these dossiers. An interesting article in many respects.

The saved folders offer an interesting glimpse into the world of the past. A world of everything analog, and so many technologies barely evolved, if at all. A much more personal world, as evidenced by the copious amounts of information these folders contained: comments about the womans' appearance, personal hygiene, and stickers indicating race. Analog information, type- or handwritten, and accessible to anyone holding the folder. Also information that has for the most part, fallen out of favor (at the minimum) in the time that has passed.

Today, information collection is mostly about numbers, focused less on personal hygiene and more on a subject's bank account and credit rating. The collecting and dissemination of personal information today is behind-the-scenes and often relayed in cryptic codes. Any sane commenter today would be concerned with liability issues. And, of course, laws have been passed making the collection of some of this information illegal.

Growing up in the last vestiges of the analog age, it was often pointed out to me during my school days, that any trouble or problems I might create would swiftly be added to my "permanent record" which would be following me around the rest of my life. I remember as a kid that was a serious concern. And what I imagined that permanent record looking like is a lot like the folders in this article...

There are advantages in my mind to being the age whose lifetime spans the analog/ digital transition, in that remarkably little from the past made the transition to digital. Life prior to 1985 is pretty hazy, detail-wise, and likely to get hazier as the old files and papers are sent to the landfill.

Kudos to Mr Lukas, "the journalist, blogger, collector, and generally curious New Yorker," as he was described in the article, for his collecting and sharing of this marvelous find and reminder of how some things used to be.

German Beer Coasters

I started picking up these beer coasters when I first moved to Germany many years ago. They just seemed so, well, collectible...After I moved away, my mother continued to pick them up and save them for me, so the collection continued. And I always managed to bring a few back from every visit.  Many were lost or given away over the years, but somehow I managed to hang on to quite a few of them. Here is a small sample of the collection:

Zum Wohl! Prost!

Painting Shoes

It started with a a pair of tan brushed leather shoes, a bargain at the thrift store. Sadly, they just didn't fit my feet very well, so they languished in the closet for quite a while. I'd heard /read/ thought about enhancing shoes with a little paint and inspiration, and always thought it sounded like an interesting idea. Fast forward to about a month or so ago, when I pulled these shoes from the back of the closet while on a quick trip through trying to cull a little of the clutter. Looking at the shoe's design it struck me that it was the perfect candidate for experimentation with a little enhancement. I didn't take any before pictures, but all the painted areas were either tan (leather) or black (textured rubber). I am very pleased with the results, the shoes are drab no more!!!

The next pair I tackled were some shoes that fit fine and I like, except for the fact that they were mostly white. I don't care much for white shoes, so I applied some paint and changed them to blue, taking a cue from the shoe's light blue cloth interior.



Continuing in the experimental vein, I used a dimensional paint for the dk blue circle centers, which turned out to be a poor choice as they are peeling off. Oh well, the rest of the paint all seems to be holding up fine. And I sure like the blue better than all that white.

My most recent foray into the shoe enhancement realm was with this pair of originally all-black, lightly brushed leather shoes with the rocking-toning type soles. Here is what I came up with:






These shoes are guaranteed to channel attention to your feet. Simple doodling designs, drawn with a pen rather than painted with a brush like the others. Again, I am quite pleased with the results.

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You may not have noticed (obviously I didn't when I took the picture), but one photo of the "blue" shoes included a seed pod clinging to the laces. Here's an enlargement (which also highlights a sloppy glue job nearby):

And here are the seeds that remained after I brushed the pod away:

(Zooming in doesn't make the glue issue look any better, though...)

Aquiring the Mother Ship: Our Home's Epic Journey

15 years ago today, on Sept 5th 1995, our house was moved about a mile and a half, to its present location.

The house, originally built in 1957 on a lot on the eastern shore of Lake Loveland (with its view of sunsets over the Rockies and boating rights on the lake), was deemed not modern enough by its owner, who decided to build a much grander palace on the site. A local house mover put together a deal at the last minute to salvage and move the house if he could find a buyer with a suitable lot.

We wound up being that buyer, we had the lot, and as far as the house went, it was love at first sight for both of us. The lot, located in the downtown area, happens to have an alley running along one side and behind it, which is perfect for maneuvering a house into place, something we certainly hadn't considered when we bought the property. And the route seemed doable. At that time, there was an old house in rough shape on the lot which was slated for demolition once we had a replacement lined up. And no trees, another real plus in the logistics of moving a house onto a relatively small lot.

the "old house". It looked ok from the outside, the inside was a mess

doorway in the old house (it was unoccupied during the time we owned it)

The new house was perfect, that was really the only word for it. 2 BR 2 BA ranch style, encased in 3/4" diagonal sheathing covered with painted cedar siding. Oak hardwood floors throughout, plasterboard walls with a coved ceiling in the open living/dining room, beautiful '50s style tiling in both bathrooms, and a magnificent floor-to-ceiling flagstone fireplace in one corner of the living room. We learned it had been designed and built as a retirement home by an engineer who paid a lot of attention to details and favored lots of closets. Amazingly enough, the original drawings were still with the house when we bought it, which turned out to be fortunate for us, as we were able to resubmit them to the city when applying for permits for the move and subsequent construction to build the house in. Generating new drawings would undoubtedly have been expensive.

the new house on its old lot, waiting to be moved up to the road

Although we saw "perfect" in the new house, what we were really looking at was "potential." On its original lot, our new house was actually the upper level of a two-story walkout, the lower level built into a hill. So we were only moving half of the original house, which had to be separated from its foundation (front) and lower level (back) before being raised into place on giant beams for moving. The house had an attached single car garage which gave the building an "L" configuration that was way too wide, so that needed to be cut off. All this cutting and separating meant the house would need extensive reworking or replacement of things like plumbing pipes and electrical lines. In order to satisfy zoning/code requirements, we had to replace the furnaces (the house had two, original to the house, one was a smaller version installed as a back-up which looked unused) with a more energy-efficient model. And the house, which had been a rental for about a decade, was pretty run down and needed things like paint inside and out, floors sanded and refinished, new roof as well as many, many smaller repairs and retouches. The condition was understandable, the plan had been to demolish the house, so it was reasonable to let it run down. And as well built as the house was, its condition at selling helped keep the price down, which meant we could afford it. Sweat equity was our most logical path to of home ownership.

Amazingly enough, we contracted for the move quickly (with financial involvement from my parents), which was essential because we had only a month until the house had to be moved. There was a lot of paperwork involved, meetings with city engineers and planners, engineering plans for the foundation were needed....a lot of time consuming and stressful work. Joe was working full time, so I handled most of that. We also had to arrange to have the old house knocked down and hauled to the landfill, and the lot excavated into a giant pit to accommodate moving in the house and then pouring concrete foundation walls under it. There was an old washhouse on the property that a friend wanted, so we had that moved out. Meanwhile, we wanted to spend as much time as we could watching the house movers work on readying the new house for its move, which was fascinating. We had salvage rights to everything left behind, which included all kinds of replacements for doors, hardware, lumber, flagstone, siding, etc, useful as replacements in the part of the house we were moving. We also wanted to remove as much of the ceiling (plaster board) from the ceiling of the lower level as possible, as access to the studs under the house would be necessary for plumbing and electrical work, and the best place to leave all that mess and dust was at the original site. I remember that August as a blur, long, very hot days and cool nights, never enough time to get everything done and very little sleep.

Our house mover was a very capable and personable man who had learned the business from his father and was assisted by his two twenty-something sons. What hard, physical work house moving is!! They cut most of the house itself apart using chain saws, although they used reciprocal, circular, and other such saws when necessary as well. They chopped huge holes in two sides of the lower level to accommodate the two giant beams that would support the house until it was lowered onto its new foundation. Once these were in place, running the length of the house, they added several smaller beams, primarily to support the weight of the stone fireplace and chimney, which was about mid-building. Then several (amazingly small, in my opinion) hydraulic jacks were placed at strategic points under the beams, and our new house slowly, ever so slowly, began its journey into its new incarnation. The first sight of daylight under the house as it was lifted an inch or so from it foundation is one I will never forget. The inches became feet, the jacks were repositioned one by one onto massive chunks of wood, and eventually the house was high enough to have the axles rolled underneath and into position for the move. At that point, the house felt vulnerable to us, so we spent the last several nights before the move in sleeping bags on the floor, so exhausted at that point that we could sleep anywhere.

The plan was to move the house very early on the morning of the 5th, which was the Tues after Labor Day that year. No parking signs had been placed along the route, and all kinds of measuring and figuring done in advance by both the house mover and the city. Early on Labor Day the house mover hooked his truck up to the house and pulled it up to the road, and everything was finally ready.

The house was scheduled to depart at 1 AM, and there was plenty of prep activity underway by midnight. The house needed pilot trucks front and back, and city utility trucks that were responsible for lifting lines and traffic signals as the house passed underneath. I seem to remember cop cars showing up for brief check-ins before and during the trip, adding red and blue to all the flashing amber of the pilot and utility trucks.

The house mover fired up his truck, slid it into gear and pulled the house off of its old lot and onto Garfield Ave. And that was as far as we were got! The truck had broken an axle at some point in the process of getting the house onto the street (completely blocking it), and wasn't going any further. Frantic phone calls (those were the days of the old analog "bag" phones which relatively few people had) located a replacement truck and driver, and by 3 AM we were once again under way.

Most of the trip went pretty smoothly, notably the long run down Garfield Ave. There was a car parked (had actually run over the temporary No Parking sign and it was wedged under the car) blocking passage at one point, so one of the house movers knocked on the door of the nearby house and told the man who answered to move the car now or it would be towed. The man looked up and saw the house looming over his car and raced out to move it as fast as he could. Don't believe he ever saw the No Parking sign.

The difficult part of the move came after the house turned off Garfield and onto the smaller neighborhood streets. We had some real problems at one corner, the trees just weren't going to allow passage. By this time it was about 5 AM, and most houses were still full of sleeping people. Everyone involved in the move put their heads together to come up with a solution that would get us past the impeding branches. A couple of the trees were young and still pretty pliable, they were pulled out of the way with ratcheting straps. The activity had awakened nearby residents, and a couple of the homeowners were upset and issuing ultimatums about none of their branches to be cut, etc etc. to anyone who would listen. The trees were all planted in the hell strips and are controlled by the city, but that was irrelevant at that point. The house had to proceed, there was no going back... Eventually the decision was made to trim some high overhanging branches from two trees and also trim back part of the roof where the garage had been cut away. Chain saws accomplished both tasks quickly, but of course chain saws roaring to life at 5:15 AM also brought people pouring out of their houses in robes and slippers, clutching coffee cups. It was quite a "Welcome to the Neighborhood."

Eventually we got around that corner, and the next, and then the final corner, a turn which required more shaving of branches, luckily in this case the homeowner didn't mind at all. Finally, about 7AM, the house was pulled into the massive pit dug to accommodate it, maneuvered into position, and the truck that had hauled it was able to unhook and drive away. That too was a very special moment that I will likely remember forever.

positioning the house before the truck unhooks

the house in position, street view

Joe and I stuck around that morning until everyone had left, which took a couple of hours. We met and talked to many of our neighbors, naturally there was a lot of curiosity about our project. We really needed to get a construction fence up at that point, but we were just too beat to attempt it. We went home and took a long nap, and the fence went up that evening. It all worked out.

Not surprisingly, the move was just the beginning of the adventure. We spent the following 22 months working on the house in every spare minute we had available. We hired out the concrete work of the foundation, which includes a fully floored 4 foot crawl space, but added the wooden base plates and kneewalls ourselves. Joe and his dad built a floor for the sunroom; he rebuilt and resided the wall and roof where the garage had been, and installed posts to support porch roofs. We had a man with a backhoe and a dump truck bring in the dirt necessary to fill in our pit around the foundation. We hired a roofing contractor to tear off and then put on new shingles. We increased the electrical service and rewired the entire house pulling wires through the walls with fishtape. Joe replaced all of the supply side plumbing pipes and rebuilt what remained of the sewage pipes. We had an HVAC company install a new furnace and new duct work, and hired a stone mason to rebuild the chimney inside (down to the crawl space using concrete blocks) and outside (to the ground /foundation, using salvaged flagstone). I sanded, scraped and painted the place inside and out (took several years to do) and we both spent an incredible amount of time reconditioning the oak floors, sanding and then carefully applying 5 coats of polyurethane. I remember we were both frustrated at the time by the seemingly slow pace of progress, now I look back and marvel at all we managed to get done, all while working other jobs of course.

15 years after the epic move, I am very glad that it happened. That we made it happen. With much help from our family and friends, we certainly could not have pulled off the project without their help and support. Also, a competent and reasonable house mover, along with the competent contractors we hired, those folks all made their part of the project successful. There were a couple of instances where the contractors' work did not fulfill expectations, but for the most part the jobs were done well. And today we are living in a fabulous house to which we feel strongly bonded. We have much history with this house! A green solution and a much, much nicer house than we could have otherwise afforded.

the house, pretty much as it looks today (picture taken May 2008)