Yesterday morning I saw an episode of “The Joy of Painting”, the PBS show you can’t stop watching. Bob Ross made paintings so fast you cannot imagine painting a scene so quickly that it’s done in less than 25 minutes. This one was pretty cool as he started with a very dark blue painted canvas that looked almost black.

He always was a gentle soul and was always a nice calm escape for an episode or two. He set the bar for those shows. He lived an interesting life, spent several years living in Alaska and some time in Florida amongst other places. He talked about his time in Florida in this episode, where he had a pet alligator who “bit me every time I fed him and bit me one last tine when I turned him loose.”.

He painted on and then said something that was so damn funny. He was explaining making little ripples along the water’s edge where it lapped up against the shore, using a knife and a “little roll of paint” while erratically scraping the knife along the shoreline. He said that (paraphrasing) if your hands are shaking it’s okay and if your hands shake you have a head start over the rest of us!

That caught me completely by surprise and I thought it was hilarious.

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Winter is not going quietly into the night. Single digits here a few nights ago, but the days are warming up. I’ve started to see some green patches here and there as I’ve driven around and walked around the yard playing with the dogs. Spring is waiting in the shadows. Guess I need to get the mower fixed and the blade sharpened.

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It’s almost, but not quite, warm enough to unwinterize the trailer. I usually wait until the first trip to do that. I think this year I will open the water system back up not long after it stops freezing as often so that will probably be a few weeks yet. That way I will be ready for any last-minute trip – as I am prone to do.

I was talking to Dave yesterday and he’s quite ready to get out and use their trailer. We got out for a few trips last year together and I have been out a few times solo.

He’s been doing a few things to their trailer, making some minor repairs and a few modifications to make life easier. It’s best to start out your camping season with everything fixed & working and your personal schedule of “off-season” is the time to take care of these things if you have not already done so.

I tend to fix things as soon as I find any issues; that way it’s done and off my list as soon as possible. Even the smallest of things that need done I take care of right away. Some things can wait but it’s always a matter of making sure it won’t get worse if not fixed immediately.

I got the rear camera for the trailer installed and it will be so nice to have that for backing into a parking spot or a campsite if it’s not a pull-through. It will also be handy on the highway as a “rear-view mirror” for passing and driving in heavier traffic.

Along with the camera and monitor, included in the package was a camera to go on the back of my truck for rear-view. This camera will be a huge help for backing up and hitching up a trailer. The monitor has room for four different cameras but I probably don’t need more than the two.

The monitor is rather large and that makes it hard to find a good location for mounting without interfering with my line of sight while driving. I also have a smaller monitor for my tire pressure monitoring system. I think I can put together some sort of removable way to mount them but I can easily remove or install it as necessary. I just do not have the extra room to mount things like that permanently plus they would constantly be in the way.

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As I start typing this post there is a show on PBS about Hawaii. They were talking about the food and the topic of Spam expectedly came up. It took me back to my trip there and all the new & different foods and experiences I had while there. Spam musubi was delicious and is definitely worth a try – you will be surprised. There was Leonard’s Bakery and the fresh, made-to-order malasadas, the Vietnamese restaurant, the unique & tasty burger at the Rainbow Drive-In, the North Shore, Pearl Harbor, and all the other cool stuff I posted about in January of 2014.

After that was a show about San Francisco, and they started in Chinatown. It reminded me of the all-too-brief time I spent walking around Seattle’s International District and the Chinatown area of Victoria, BC in Canada.

I came across an article today about people from other countries deciding to not coming to the US due to the crime. I have even seen travel advisories other countries issue about coming here. I’m not going to get into the politics of the issue, but I agree 100%. I live here and don’t think it’s very safe for many reasons.

I felt perfectly safe stumbling around Seattle the many times I have been there solo, but the first time I was there a street person who was apparently high on something more than weed started stalking me. It got to the point I had to dash down an alley to get away. I got back around to Pike Place Market in time to see him get arrested. I went to Seattle many times after that. Except for a short time around 2020, I felt safe and I would go back again. It’s a great city to walk around in and find cool to things to eat and see.

There are just a handful of major US cities I’d like to visit but I don’t know if it will ever happen because of the way people are. I have walked around many cities in Europe and have never felt too scared, or even intimidated to do so even at night, yet something as innocent as a Super Bowl celebration in the middle of the day in the Midwest can be deadly. I don’t really feel too safe in American cities. It just should not be that way.

I finally caught a Rick Steves episode where he went on a cruise. I have deliberately avoided the cruise shows as it is nothing that really interests me as far as travel. I don’t want to be stuck on a boat with thousands of people, I don’t want to visit a port city with thousands of people, and I don’t want to eat with thousands of people. I DO want solitude. However, I thought I would watch this episode to see what he thought.

He pointed out a practical thing about cruising. Days anchored in port and sightseeing. The overnights you are traveling while asleep – much like a night train in Europe. He pointed out that you not only have a mobile hotel, but your meals and everything are all-inclusive and it can be an efficient way to get places. It does sound tempting but I still don’t want to be onboard a ship with no escape from the crowds.

Not to mention, that style of travel is just not my style. I want to stay in a city, not on a ship, wandering around at night to see the city and grabbing some late-night street food – just immersing myself in the moment. I have enjoyed walking around the Kóln Cathedral at night, along with Amsterdam, Brussels, Luxembourg, Dublin, Galway and many others (and I felt safe doing it). I would miss that being on a cruise ship.

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That’s a wrap. Thanks for reading my blog.

Shawn