FROM THE ISLE OF WIGHT SHORES TO ALGIERS, MALTA, VENICE, POSTSMOUTH ENGLAND AND BACK TO THE ISLE OF WIGHT I DID GO

 BAYFIELD'S CLAN GREGOR SQUARE

It was a chilly 48F damp, windy, and rainy wet morning that greeted us today.  Pheebs and I took a drive into Bayfield following our usual route down around the beach and harbor area, main street, and a swing by Clan Gregor Square.  

FIVE FISHING BOATS DOCKED IN THE BAYFIELD RIVER

 THERE ARE ONLY ABOUT A DOZEN OR SO BOATS LEFT IN THE WATER WAITING TO BE LIFTED OUT AND PUT INTO STORAGE FOR THE WINTER

SOON WILL BE THE DISMANTLING OF ALL THESE EMPTY DOCKS

Clan Gregor Square's old Maple Trees are showing off their Autumn finery so I drove around the Square's perimeter snapping a few pics of the colors.

With all the water that has fallen out of the sky lately combined with the late season, it is no wonder that the local bean and corn harvest this year is late and on hold.  When the ground finally dries up enough to support heavy farm machinery again, farmers are going to have to go fast like Jack The Bear to get the harvest in before the fields are covered in snow.  Being a farmer has got to be a very stressful life, and especially so when unpredictable weather determines almost every farm-related decision they make.  

Monica, our good neighbor across the road, leaves today for her place in Florida to spend the winter months in sunshine and warm temperatures.  Kelly and I slipped over to wish her a good Winter.

With the cloud cover spritzing rain, any outside activities were curtailed so it was a stay inside day again.  Oh well, at least I have my latest adventure-packed book to read.  With the book's main character Tom, I have so far excitedly and suspensefully traveled under sail from the shores along the Isle Of Wight in the middle of the night, across the English Channel into the Atlantic Ocean, through the Bay Of Biscay, down around the Straits of Gibraltar, and into the Mediterranian Sea to the packed streets of sweaty Algiers on Africa's northern coast.  From Algiers to the secretive Island of Malta, then North around the boot of Italy to the teeming waterways of Venice.  With the book's main character, I have just under the cloak of secrecy this afternoon boarded a three-masted cannon-ladened merchant ship awaiting dawn's early tide to hurriedly set sail for England.  Suspense and intrigue every step of the way have made this book a real page-turner for me.  I am enjoying it immensely.  This award-winning book has been described as 'Full of historical facts, and a little fiction as well'.  Slave To Fortune  Update:: I wrote the preceding paragraph earlier today not knowing I would go on to finish the book late this afternoon.  I consider this to be one of the best books I have ever read and it wasn't until after the climactic ending when I read the Epilogue that the icing was truly put on the cake for me.  All the way through the book I thought I was reading a fictionalized story based on historical fact.  I was only half right.  I assumed the characters were fictional when in fact they were not.  A tremendous amount of detailed research has gone into this book by the author, DJ Munroe.  In the epilogue, he explains his research and ties all the loose factual strings together and that was what put the true icing on the cake:)))))

And ten years ago tonight we were pulling an overnighter in Concordia Kansas parked not too far away from army tanks and buzzing airplanes.  Des Moines Iowa to Concordia Kansas    

Al's Music Box:)) Crying , a duet by Roy Orbison and kd Lang from Roy Orbison's 1992 album, 'King Of Hearts'.  This version of CRYING is a little slower than the original and had a "country" harmonica feel to match kd lang's early country music career. Roy personally chose kd for this song.

GROANER'S CORNER:(( I once spent ten years marooned on a tropical shore...I lived on nothing but coconuts and seafood. I fashioned sandals out of leaves, a hut out of grass and sticks, and I kept myself healthy with wild plants.  One day I was scouring the beach for copper wire to build the radio I was working on, and I came across a small white spheroid about 2" in diameter that I had difficulty biting.  The mystery was solved when a man stepped out of the trees and said, "That's mine." Astonished, I asked him, "Where did you come from?"  He said, "From the golf resort just the other side of those trees."

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- I waited and stayed up all night and tried to figure out where the sun was.  Then it dawned on me.

- I bought some shoes from a drug dealer.
I don’t know what he laced them with, but I’ve been tripping all day.

- I’ve decided to sell my Hoover – it was just collecting dust.

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The stoplight on the corner buzzes when it is safe to cross the street. I was crossing with an intellectually challenged coworker of mine when she asked if I knew what the buzzer was for. I explained that it signals to blind people when the light is red.  She responded, appalled, 'What on earth are blind people doing driving?'

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