Friday, November 26, 2021
Letter "V" -- -- Weekend Roundup and Reflections
THE TWENTYSECOND LETTER FOR THIS SERIES - The Letter "V" Prompts are: (A) Starts with the Letter "V"; (B) "Valley" (Tom's Choice); (C) A Favorite; and (D) A Lagniappe.
- - - -
(A) Starts with the Letter "V": "Visitors" will be my word.
Beware inviting Visitors that you don't know very well. One or a few Visitors may invite their friends and you will end up with many Visitors.
- - - -
(B) "Valley" (Tom's Choice): Taken from a Van Ride in southern South Africa on our way to the south tip of Africa.
(D) Reflection: Look below the dock with the Visitors for the sea gulls' Reflections.
- - - -
(C) A Favorite: Blue Bell Light Vanilla Ice Cream is our Favorite ice cream. It was our Adi Beagle Dog's also.
(E) A Lagniappe: Vatican City is the only Country that I've visited that begins with the letter "V".
- [Click on any picture for larger, click it again for extra large]
- I am linked with Tom of "Backwoods Travel" (Link here to click for Tom's Weekend Reviews)
- I am also linking again this week with James of "Weekend Reflections/Street Photos" (click here for his Street Folk and Reflections Photos).
- The pictures mostly are all mine and rights are reserved to me under Copyright Law.
.
Labels: 2019-20 Dubai to Cape Town, Birds, Friday's Weekend Roundup 07, Reflect'ions
Friday, October 08, 2021
Letter "O" -- -- Weekend Roundup and Street/Reflections
THE FIFTEENTH LETTER FOR THIS SERIES - The Letter "O" Prompts are: (A) Starts with the Letter "O"; (B) "Ornate" (Tom's Choice); (C) A Favorite; (D) Street/Reflections; and (E) A Lagniappe.
- - - -
(A) Starts with the Letter "O": "Old" starts with the letter "O". This is an Old truck, my friend Charles is fairly Old, and I will be pretty Old at the end of October.
Old for us was admitted when we reached 80, OBE, I am a little older than Charles. Charles is one of my two Sunday Morning Bible Class teachers at our church, Second Baptist Church, 1463 Campus. Charles is a retired pastor and teaches really good lessons, as does our other teacher, Nan.
The truck? It was made meant to be a 1910's to late twenties truck. I'm making it to be 1926, or age 97, my dad died when he was 97.
(B) "Ornate" (Tom's Choice): If you don't think my Man Bag is Ornate then would you please admit that it is very Practical. I packed it for my doctor visit, the following I wrote then, on this Wednesday.
Also eye catching and pretty. Inside I carry a bottle of water, my cell phone, two Soduku puzzles from old news papers, a granola bar and four peanut buttered soda cracker bars, and today's newspaper.
Taking up space too are three library books, two are mine and one is Mrs. Jim's. We are at our cardiologist for checkups, I go every six months so I needed it to carry stuff to keep me busy in between tests. Today I had my usual Doppler probing scan of my legs and uppers, a PET heart scan, a chest Xray, and a CBC+ blood test.
I do this of sorts every six months, always the Doppler to check out my
(C) A Favorite: My mother's words, quite often she said to me, "You won't find a nice girl at the bars." Like I was hanging out at the bars, I always thought she was joking.
(D) Street/Reflections (more): The scene, taken from our Oceania Cruise Ship, Nautica, is of a distant lighted highway along the coast of Oman near Muscat. (Previously posted here December 13, 2019 [link].)
(E) A Lagniappe: The "O" country I've visited is Oman. The city of Muscat is in Oman, lower right on the map above. We cruised to starting at Dubai and first went to the left to visit Abu Dhabi on the way. Abu Dhabi is the capital city of the United Arab Emirates. From Muscat we headed to India. [click on the map for larger viewing, click it again for extra large size] For more, click on the Label, below, "2019-20 Dubai to Cape Town"
- - - -
Fine print stuff
- [Click on any picture for larger, click it again for extra large]
- I am linked with Tom of "Backwoods Travel" (Link here to click for Tom's Weekend Reviews)
- I am also linking again this week with James of "Weekend Reflections/Street Photos" (click here for his Street Folk and Reflections Photos).
- The pictures mostly are all mine and rights are reserved to me under Copyright Law.
.
Labels: 2019-20 Dubai to Cape Town, Friday's Weekend Roundup 07, Reflections
Friday, September 24, 2021
Letter "M" -- -- Weekend Roundup and Street/Reflections
THE THIRTEENTH LETTER FOR THIS SERIES - The Letter "M" Prompts are: (A) Starts with the Letter "M"; (B) "Metal" (Tom's Choice); (C) A Favorite; (D) Street/Reflections; and (E) A Lagniappe.
- - - -
(A) Starts with the Letter "M": Maruchan Instant Lunch is my favorite go-to meal when Mrs. Jim and I differ on evening meal choices. For instance she might decide to have oatmeal which makes me gag.
Those times I generally make a soup of it instead of a lunch. Making it a soup merely involves adding more hot water. The ingredients are dried, Ramen Noodles, a few vegetables, a few shrimp, dried beef or other, and then a dash of flavor. It can be spicy or natural.
- For Shrimp soup to Most times a Shrimp flavored base I add 1/3 to 1/2 cup of frozen peas, slightly cooked, in the heating water along with about three shrimp cut up into five or six little pieces.
Then I add a dash of Creole Seasoning powder to suit my slightly hot taste. I generally have another nine or ten shrimp, depending on size, to eat with Shrimp Sauce or Sweet and Sour Sauce and some saltine crackers with Cheddar cheese.
- For Beef soup I will hopefully (I don't always buy any of the beef lunch), add the same stuff except that for the beef I substitute one large sized frozen Meat ball, thawed and cut into 8-16 pieces, and heated with the slightly cooking frozen peas.
- I like the latter because I can mush chew this without having to put in my top dentures.
(B) "Metal" (Tom's Choice): This is my left knee, it has a Titanium Metal joint that "we" exchanged for the old knee joint in 2011. You can see it protruding, but not through my skin, like a door hinge. Its bottom is above the short dark line about a fourth of the way up in the picture.
(C) A Favorite: "M" and "L" countries I've visited (I missed posting the "L's" last week):
Latvia
Liechtenstein (2 times visited)
Lithuania
Maldives
Mauritius
Mexico (lots and lots of times visited)*
Monaco
Mozambique
*Note: most Mexico visits were entered from El Paso when I was in the Army stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas.
(D) Street/Reflections: Dubai classroom taken through the window. Note the teacher's "Magic Behavior Wand".
(E.1) A Lagniappe: Mountain Range in South Africa near Capetown. Sorry, the area is filled with Mountain Ranges and I couldn't figure out which one this is as there are several in the area. It was across the Freeway that we took from Capetown getting to the wild life refuge where we had our "Safari".
(E.2) Another Lagniappe: My two Ford Mustangs, a 1974 Mustang II Ghia and a 1998 Mustang GT Convertible.
- - - - -
Fine print stuff
- [Click on any picture for larger, click it again for extra large]
- I am linked with Tom of "Backwoods Travel" (Link here to click for Tom's Weekend Reviews)
- I am also linking again this week with James of "Weekend Reflections/Street Photos" (click here for his Street Folk and Reflections Photos).
- The pictures mostly are all mine and rights are reserved to me under Copyright Law.
.
Labels: 2019-20 Dubai to Cape Town, Food, Friday's Weekend Roundup 07, Jim Does, Kneecap, Reflections, School
Friday, August 27, 2021
Letter "I" -- -- Weekend Roundup and Street/Reflections
THE NINTH LETTER FOR THIS SERIES - The Letter "I" Prompts are: (A) Starts with the Letter "I"; (B) "Insect" (Tom's Choice); (C) A Favorite; (D) Street/Reflections; and (E) A Lagniappe.
- - - -
(A) Starts with the Letter "I": Iris starts with "I". The was our first blooming Iris last spring in our Iris bed. The Iris blossoms don't last very long but they are pretty while they last.
(B) "Insect" (Tom's Choice): More than several Insect Eaters. How many Birds on the Wire here?
(C) A Favorite: Taken from The Backwaters off the coast of Southeast India, near Co Chin. There we had a houseboat for our group of ten for a morning cruise on the lakes.
(D) Street/Reflections: Intense?
(E) A Lagniappe: Here will be a copied Letter "I" post that I made showing places where we have been that start with the Letter "I" Over all we have visited all 50 of the U.S.A. states and 74 to 78 countries in our world, that series I showed a few pictures from those places we were that started with the Letter "I".
Here goes: [from Wednesday, January 14, 2015, Link]
""I" is for some places, countries and cities starting with the letter "I" where I have traveled:
- Countries: (I've been to between 74 and 78 countries) (Here is a list of those 78 which participated in the 2020-21 Olympics in Japan this year, 2021. Link )
Iceland (not in the original version, since then we have visited) India (not in the original version, since then we have visited)
Israel
Italy
- States: (I've been to all 50)
Idaho
Illinois
- U.S. Cities over 100,000 population where I've been:
Independence, Missouri
Irving, Texas
- International Cities:
Innsbruck, Austria
Lets start with the countries. I liked them all, not really a favorite. So, Ireland gets the nod, we've been there a couple of times. Both times we had a rental car (drive on the left side of the road). It is a pretty country, not overpopulated, and they speak English. Currency is the Euro which has a better U.S. exchange rate than the British Pound. A favorite thing to do is to visit the Blarney Castle outside of Kilarney. And you will just have to kiss the Blarney Stone while you are there.
Mrs. Jim went up there also but she didn't want to kiss the stone. I've kissed it twice. To read and see more please check the original 2007 post, found here.
The Isle of Man isn't a country so I can't put it on the list above. It is a self-governing British 'Crown dependency,' not a country. (Wikipedia link) It is located off the coast of Britain. Though there is a ferry that goes there, we flew. My grandfather's family came from the Isle of Man. We visited it in 2007 (prior blog posts).
The main thing we did in the Isle of Man was to go from Douglas, the capital city in the middle, where we stayed up to the north by train and then go to the south end via bus. Lots of site seeing. We did see evidence of the Corkhill family having been there. One lady at the information center (above, right) informed us that her maiden name was Corkhill.
[click picture for full screen]
For Italy we took a Grand Circle (travel company) tour of the island of Sicily for two weeks (link). Since it was by bus, we could explore each part for about a week.
First we stayed at Palermo for a week, then Argrigento (Greek ruins there) one night, and six more nights at Taormina, a small (population 11,000) hillside town on the east coast of Sicily with a nice view of Mt. Etna. We did go onto the slopes of Mt. Etna.
.
.
.
.
..
.
.
Then we took a Grand Circle excursion on the Amalfi Coast for another week.
After that we flew from Naples over to Milan where we rented a car and toured Provence (France) and Tuscany a week each to finish our five week vacation.
Above, to the left is looking out our hotel window to the north to the sea. Next, Mrs. Jim and I took a walk up our hill in Sorento (Amalfi coast) and could look over to the Isle of Capri.
I took a lot of motor scooter pictures when I could. A lot of women ride them in Italy. To the right we see Mrs. Jim sampling the goodies at the Market in Palermo, Sicily.
Iceland was a part of a New York City to Dover, England cruise aboard the Pacific Princess ship in 2016. You can search my blog for Iceland, this post has our itinerary (link) and another in the Labels at the bottom of the post.
India was a fun trip too. This one was aboard the Oceania Nautica ship in 2019-2020 with several posts using this link, 2019-20 Dubai to Cape Town . At the end we stayed in Cape Town, South Africa to spend a few days. The highlight there was a safari.
Independence, Missouri, is the home of the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum (link). It is a wonderful presidential library. I have visited slightly more than half of them, seven (7) of the thirteen (13). The libraries make a nice goal for seeing places in the U.S as surely if you go by car you will not only explore the state of the library you pick, but also the states along the way (List of all 13 links on left sidebar). We love to make a sweeping tour and try to not come back the same way we went. We have been to ALL 50 of the states.
- Jenny is starting in now on her tenth series of Alphabe Thursday. With 52 weeks in a year and 26 letters in the alphabet she is now in her fifth year. I am linked to her blog, GO HERE for more participants and their offerings. Labels: Alphabe-Thursday [5th], Jim Does, Travel 2
# posted by Jim : 1/14/2015 11:21:00 PM " (end of copied prior post)
- - - - Fine print stuff
- [Click on any picture for larger, click it again for extra large]
- I am linked with Tom of "Backwoods Travel" (Link here to click for Tom's Weekend Reviews)
- I am also linking again this week with James of "Weekend Reflections/Street Photos" (click here for his Street Folk and Reflections Photos).
- The pictures mostly are all mine and rights are reserved to me under Copyright Law
Labels: 2019-20 Dubai to Cape Town, Birds, Driving Pictures, Flowers-buds-plants, Friday's Weekend Roundup 07, Iceland, India, NYC to Dover Cruise, Reflections
Friday, July 30, 2021
Letter "E" -- -- Weekend Roundup and Street/Reflections
THE FIFTH LETTER FOR THIS SERIES - The Letter "E" Prompts are: (A) Starts with the Letter "E"; (B) "Evening" (Tom's Choice); (C) A Favorite; (D) Street/Reflections; and (E) A Lagniappe.
- - - -
(A) Starts with the Letter "E": My Elephant shot (one of them) taken on our South African desert safari, January 8, 2020.
(B) "Evening" (Tom's Choice): My Evening Meal, Egg Biscuit with sausage and cheese. I cooked the egg in the microwave, baked a biscuit out of a can, and added a slice of American cheese.
My cardiac dietitian said I could Eat anything that I wanted in moderation. I have three stents in my left descending arteries, the only heart arteries I have as the right side of my heart did not develop. I also have a stent in my left kidney artery and a stent graft in my abdominal artery aneurysm.
(C) A Favorite: Birthday card showing Envious spots of getting old.
(D) Street/(Reflections): I had thought that this could be an Egret but I found out it is a Black- bellied Whistling duck. I think it is looking for it's Reflection but the water is pretty rough from the fountain for one to be down there.
(E.1) A Lagniappe: Show of the plank in ones. Eye versus the speck in anothers eye. (Jesus' words on criticism, Matthew 7:3-5: 3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.) https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/19493062/8934898026342190265#
(E.2) A Lagniappe: SkyEye view of the Galveston Bay nearing the Houston Ship Channel. The city of Houston is in the background, various pleasant towns are between.We live out west off Interstate Highway I-10 about 60 or 65 miles from this part of the bay.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Ship_Channel
(E.3) A Lagniappe: Eye Candy. My favorite Jelly Bean candy is the Red Hot Cinnamon ones.
(E.4) A Lagniappe: End of the Rainbow. It sits down tonight, this Evening, in our neighbor's front yard.
- - - - -
Fine print stuff:
- [Click on any picture for larger, click it again for extra large]
- I am linked with Tom of "Backwoods Travel" (Link here to click for Tom's Weekend Reviews)
- I am also linking again this week with James of "Weekend Reflections/Street Photos" (click here for his Street Folk and Reflections Photos).
- The pictures mostly are all mine and rights are reserved to me under Copyright Law
.
Labels: 2019-20 Dubai to Cape Town, Animals, Birds, Birthdays, Food, Friday's Weekend Roundup 07, Reflections
For Italy we took a Grand Circle (travel company) tour of the island of Sicily for two weeks (link). Since it was by bus, we could explore each part for about a week.
I took a lot of motor scooter pictures when I could. A lot of women ride them in Italy. To the right we see Mrs. Jim sampling the goodies at the Market in Palermo, Sicily.
