A WEE COUNTRY DRIVE, A FEW THOUGHTS ON MY 3 FAVORITE HOBBIES, & WISHING SHERRY & DAVID ALL THE BEST IN THESE TROUBLED TIMES

Two days in a row hanging around the house was enough for Pheebs & I so we had to get ourselves out for a couple hours & blow off a little house dust.  Figured replacing that dust with some good old road dust was just about the right thing to do.  Jeep's rear view mirror thermometer said 56F so it was another drive with the windows down & heater going.  More cloud than sun this morning but intermittent rays of sunshine made for some nice lighting at times.  Seeings how I seem to be taking more & more photos from the driver's seat these days I prefer to travel with the windows down much to the liking of a certain little doggy I know:))

PHEEBS LOVES HEADING OVER TO THE HULLETT MARSH & SHE LIKES LOOKING AT HERSELF IN THE MIRROR TOO:))

Driving along through our rolling countryside this morning I was thinking about how fortunate I am to have the hobbies I do.  I know I complain at times about boredom but that's just a sporadic quirk in my restless personality that occasionally rises to the surface on those sometimes slow blue moody days.  If I didn't have the 3 enjoyable hobbies I do then for sure I would have something to complain about.  I have written about these 3 interconnected hobbies before & how important they are to me in my daily life.

 

A LONE CANADA GOOSE LIFTS OFF FROM A HEAVILY LILY PADDED POND

My favorite pastimes are not just every once & awhile hobbies, they are every day leisure activities that have to do with my love of traveling being the longest passion.  Whether it's driving around the back roads of South-Western Ontario or driving the long scenic distances through Provinces or States it all adds up to a favorite activity for me & I consider it to be one of my longest running sources of adventuress entertainment.  Driving as a rule is not a chore for me, it's simply a pleasant hobby.  But it wasn't the first of my three current enjoyable pastimes. 

ARE YOU GONNA CUT THIS GRASS SOON DAD??

My first hobby began in about Grade 6 when my teacher at the time, a man by the name of John Douglas noticed me scribbling away in my  dog eared & worn brown notebook.  Asking what I was doing I told him I was writing a story & would he like to read it.  He was interested & after that I would occasionally be called upon to read one of my stories in front of the class.  I didn't know it at the time but it was the beginning of an elusive hobby for me.  It vanished for years & re-surfaced for a short while in the late 60's when I would put my thoughts down in the way of poetry.  I still have some of that stuff hanging around but thankfully it's in a plastic bin out in our shed somewhere.  My writing interests lay dormant for the next 35 years only to be rekindled when we bought our very first computer…..with a keyboard.  Having learned how to type in high school everything just began falling in place.  Having had 2 of my very own old typewriters years ago I still just love sitting down at a keyboard.

My third hobby of course is my love of photography.  That took hold in the Fall of 1965 when I bought a 35mm camera (Hanimex) while in Naval boot camp in Nova Scotia.  Other things took precedence over my photography interests a couple years after that, the camera broke & my interest never returned until 1974 when I came into possession of another 35mm camera. (Olympus Trip 35)  I soon acquired a couple Pentax cameras & my photography hobby soon took on a few commercial tones.  However I was never comfortable with that.  Stress!!  Had to deal with people!!  One day I just took all my equipment & shoved it into a closet & that was the end of that!!  Well until the digital age came along about 10 years later that is.  When I saw what could be done with a digital camera & a computer my hobby interests began to stir again.  I cautiously started out with a Hewlett-Packard point & shoot & it wasn't long before I was hooked on photography all over again.  Also wasn’t long before I had my hands on a couple Canon point & shoots plus 3 Nikon DSLR’s.  Yep I was hooked alright and the biggest thing that hooked me was now the ability to edit my own photos using an free & easy to learn Picasa photo editing program.  No more sending colored negatives & slides away for others to screw up.  Now I could screw them up all by my very self.  For the first time ever (with the exception of black & white) the whole photo process was all under my control from start to finish.  And for me that just re-instated my enjoyable photography hobby all over again:)) 

By the time 2006 rolled around & we embraced the RV lifestyle my 3 yet unrelated hobbies began to circle about each other gathering steam & taking shape.  With the advent of blogging a most enjoyable light bulb went off in my head.  Traveling, writing, & photography.  What a perfect hand in hand combination.   Could I combine my three hobbies together somehow & do something with the end result.  Something useful.  Something helpful.  And could I make it all work.  Maybe so but one thing was clear & extremely important to me.   If I was going to enjoy my 3 favorite pastimes I had to keep them stress free as best I could.  In other words no monetary gains.  Nothing commercial.  Just an enjoyable all round hobby for myself & hopefully others.  Plain & simple. 

Been doing this for the best part of 8 years now so yes I am a very extremely fortunate fellow.  Fortunate to have been able to bring together & combine 3 enjoyments of mine into something that is I hope interesting & entertaining for others.  If one person out there likes a photo I have taken or a paragraph or two I have written, learns something or is able to help someone else because of a link I have posted then yes that makes my day.  Makes it all worthwhile for me.  And I like that…………………….:)       

Having just recently arrived in the beautiful Capitol Reef area of Utah & looking forward to many happy days & weeks exploring the region Sherry & David from IN THE DIRECTION OF OUR DREAMS have suffered a medical set-back.  David's latest tests were not favorable & they have had to cut their travels short & head back to Florida as soon as possible.  Our concerned thoughts as well as those of others out here in Blogland go with them & we wish Sherry & David all the best in their coming days, weeks, & months………………………….

GROANER'S CORNER:(( Learning that several of his employees were tanking up on no-trace vodka martinis during lunch hours, a wise company president issued the following memo:  To All Employees:  If you must drink during lunch, please drink whiskey. It is much better for our customers to know you're drunk than to think you're stupid.