Chaos Leaves Town

I graduated from Walla Walla high school back in 1964 so basically I grew up in this area. They say that 80% of people either stay or eventually return to the place where they graduated HS. I don’t know about that in my case, I’ve always had the wanderlust thing going on so when I stay somewhere, especially now that I’m a full time RV’er, I’m looking over the place as a potential ‘settling down’ area to plant my ass permanently. Same thing with Walla Walla.

And Walla Walla definitely has it’s charm. At one time it had more millionaires per capita then any other town in the country. So when you drive around the older residential areas, you can’t help but notice these older palatial homes…sort of like today’s McMansions only from early last century. Most of them very handsome. Some already refurbished and modernized attaining their former glory.

Back when I was the Montgomery Wards Service Manager here in town, I was lucky to be a field TV tech and got to visit many of these older homes. Even though at that time in the ’70’s many of them were beginning to look run down, they still retained that elegance they were built with. Since I was always in my car, never really got any pictures, I’ll try to do that the next time I’m in town. I did visit Pioneer park, a very large park just to the east of downtown about 10 blocks into an older residential area…where you can find many of those palatial older homes I mentioned. At this park is an aviary. Lots of exotic birds. Big open cages with bird netting over the tops so they can’t escape. Many smaller brooding cages too.

And here’s the duck pond. Used to come here with the baby daughter shortly after we moved back or when we visited the parents. Generally there’s lots of wild ducks here that people use to feed bread too. But now we know that bread isn’t very good for them so people have sort of stopped doing that. Bringing bird feed instead. You can see a cluster of the tame ducks in the picture. They stay the winter because they get fed enough here they don’t feel any need to fly south any more.

And here’s another look at the aviary. Pretty big affair. The birds probably enjoy it…free from predators, lots of quality food, some friends to hang with. What’s not to like?

And here’s the bandstand. Every spring summer and fall there are concerts here under the trees with thousands milling around and sitting on the ground enjoying the music.

And then the son, daughter and Scott came to another ball game with me. This time, I’d bought the expensive tickets at $17 each. Better view.

My son  James. And the Sweets won this game too. Big scores at these AAA games so that’s always fun.

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Now that I was staying right at the edge of Ely, I could bike ride to this cluster of homes built back in the early 1900’s for miners. It was a steep climb up the road from the flat where the town is and where I’m staying. The area is situated just below the railroad tracks and back then the train would stop and pick up the miners in the mornings. There is a rebuilt boarding platform there now I’ll show a picture of later in the article.

Somehow the homes survived all those years of just sitting empty or with just a few of them partially occupied. Much of the stuff inside them is period items used to showcase the ethnicity of the owners of the homes. Note that the diversity of the culture here in Ely has more to do with the act of mining then any feelings of altruism by the citizens. Although townspeople are proud of that ‘get along, get the job done’ type of togetherness here, there was a lot of friction between the groups.

The Renaissance Village attempts to show the diversity that was here in the area by showcasing homes segregated by the owners ethic origins but I’m more interested in the antiques so I won’t go into any detail about which house is whose or what ethnic group they belonged too.

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Sometimes I wonder why I don’t want to party like I use to. Age I suppose has a lot to do with it. The attraction of just hanging out in my comfortable RV space is another. At the risk of boring my readers, I have sort of become a homebody, preferring to enjoy the quiet company of friends, my cat, and RV park neighbors to the boorish types in bars.

With all that said, I had noticed an old bar on main street several times that from the signage appeared to be an interesting train themed bar. But it was only open 3 nights a week starting at 6 pm. Which is dinner hour for me so I’d considered going several times as I passed the place on my bike but kept forgetting as I prepared for dinner.  That link shows the building before it was converted to a bar. The bar owner just opened last year and the google map is older than that. Anyway, one night, I remembered that bar and headed on down there. Just a short bike ride. Got to talking to the people there and turned out one of the guys actually is a train engineer for the special train rides I posted about before. The bar owner is an EMT and does the bar on the side. There was another older guy in there who of course is a character so enjoyed talking to him too. Nice evening. After the other guys left, the owner and I were talking and he asks me if I’d like to taste a very special beer. Sure! So he pulls out this special looking bottle that looks like a cognac bottle and pours me 2 fingers. Dark, rich, with a complex nose. Tasted it and WOW, what a beer. It’s something special by the Sam Adams brewery owner made by him and a crew over in Germany. About 40 proof I understand. Anyway, it’s spectacular so I bought a bottle. Guess how much…$180. Whoa. But, I wanted it, it’s that good. Tried to talk the price down but didn’t succeed.

And here’s a google street view of downtown Ely with the historic Nevada Hotel centered. This is the general area where I’d ride my bike 3-4 times a day for exercise. Beyond this a short distance is the city park which with all the trees is comfortably cool on most sunny days. Behind the park is the county courthouse where I visited and took several pictures of that old building…

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A few days after my train ride…went back down to near the train station and tried out the ol’ timey cafe that’s been there for over 100 years. It has a B&B attached. Off a ways down the street is the train station. Food was really good. And there was enough of it that I took half of it home for the next morning.

Nice little B&B. All nicely remodeled too. If you’re looking for a place to stay in Ely, this place is kind of nice. Restaurant has great food too.

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Had a great time and accomplished much during my stay in Pahrump, but by the 2nd week of June it was becoming unbearably hot! Even with the shade from the trees I had at my new site in row D much of the day, being cooped up in the RV was getting old fast. The heat pump A/C dual compressors did well but the front of the RV was difficult to keep cool, even with the window shades in place.

If I wanted to enjoy halfway decent working conditions, had to complete by noon everything needed that required leaving the RV. Did get my cardboard box of wires, cords, adapter cables, and clip leads all untangled, the wire holders mounted inside my bedroom closet and all those wires stored. Took from 8 am to 11 am over two days to get that all done. It only took me 15 years to get ’round2it. Not bad. Also did several other small jobs that I haven’t found time for over the last few years of having fun on the road. Like straightening out the living room slide basement compartments. Even hand washed all my shop rags.

Well, anyway, it was time to head north to avoid the heat and my destination was to be Hagerman, Idaho because I wanted to be close to the auto shop where I wanted to have my A/C filled so I could get that working again. Remember that a few weeks ago the RV’s A/C compressor on the engine seized up the idler pulley and broke the serpentine belt. Here’s the story: Engine Work… 

The travel plan was to head east over to Las Vegas, turn north and take US 93 north to Ely. Stick around Ely for a week or so and then continue on up to Twin Falls, turning west to continue on to Hagerman.

In the hills southeast of Pahrump, before reaching Las Vegas…they’ve been working on this road blocking traffic for several years now.

Over there is Las Vegas… Continue reading →

I visited Los Algodones several times during the week. And I’d dropped the basement door off at the body shop for repainting, (see last article here: Hanging around Yuma…). When Saturday rolled around, I knew the door was finished and I was excited to see it. So to me it was time to pick up the door. It was not very bright of me to head over the border after having been warned a couple times about traffic on weekends but I was excited to see the basement door all freshly painted. I should have waited until the following Monday. But…on with the story.

As I mentioned last time, while I was there dropping off the basement door, I asked the mechanic to reattach my right front quarter panel and bumper to the frame. I’d pulled them away from their mounts on the car’s frame by parking over a low curb over in Yuma. When I backed up to leave, the bottom edge of the bumper caught the curb and tore my body panels away from their attachments in a couple places. The plastic bumper section mainly. The mounting plasticware was broken so the quarter panel was loose too. Not enough for any pieces to fall off but it was loose enough that I wanted it reattached. Check the picture. Took him around an hour to fix, and cost me $30.

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