A TIME FOR MUSIC, A TIME FOR MEMORIES

SUNRISE OVER THE SWISSHELM MOUNTAINS


It was a cloudy & quiet Sunday on the ranch to-day. One of those rare days when it was necessary to kind of just sit & do nothing. Time to heal some minor sprains, strains, & tired old brains. It was a good day for reflection too. And it was a good day for music & old memories.

I have a habit of leaving the same station on the satellite radio all the time & earlier this morning while puttering around outside, Kelly decided to switch channels & put on some good old 60's music. It's been awhile since I've taken the time to listen to an age of music that was so influential to so many people. I am a person who loves music & has grown up surrounded by it for most of my life. I was born in 1944 right into the big band era. What a great beginning it was & what a great age for music. The 40's gave way to the be-boppin 50's & the great music machine just kept right on a rockin & rollin right through to the late 80's & early 90's. It was an era of music like no other, & we are not likely to ever see that wide range of superb talent, creativity, & simply feeling good music ever happen again.......ever!! The great music has truly died.

SAND HILL CRANES FILING THROUGH THE SUNRISE

To-day as I put my head back & relaxed in my chair I let the 60's music take me back to a decade of tumultuous changes, a time of good & a time of bad. A time of happy & a time of sad. The 60's meant The Beatles , The Stones, The Beach Boys. Memories of friends who are gone now. Special friends, best friends, girlfriends. With each song on the radio to-day came faint whispers out of the mists so long ago. Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Duane Eddy. The many cars, the many jobs, & the many moves. The relationships & break-ups. It was a decade of excitement, & unlike to-day, the music was the driving force for a generation of us trying to catch onto the coat tails of something moving so fast, none of us understood which way it was moving in the first place. Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, Jim Reeves. It was a time of growing up, making mistakes, & occasionally getting something right. The music was happier, people were kinder, cars went slower. AND ANOTHER DAY BEGINS IN THE MULE MOUNTAINS

Songs on the radio to-day like Homeward Bound by Simon & Garfunkel & Spooky by the Classics 4 take me back to a time I lived in Toronto for a short time. Johnny Rivers, The Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison. Jimi Hendrix, The Moody Blues, & Santana take me to a another place & another time, & another relationship. "What A Day for a Daydream" by the Lovin Spoonful take me back to my Navy days & "The Mountains High" by Dick & Deedee take me even further back to my high school days. And so it goes as the tunes pour out of the radio. Another car, another job, another town, another era. Another set of memories to file away in the recesses of the mind. SUNRISE ON THE RANCH

Best friends have come & gone. The Bob Dylans are gone. Best high school buddies have long been lost over the years and in the RV world, new friends become memories before you even get to know their last names. Sing to me, Stevie Wonder, Dianna Ross, & Ray Charles. Memories flood in & fill me with many regrets, a few chuckles, some embarrassment, & an overall sadness. There is no turning the clock back at this stage. To late to make the apologies, to soon to make the promises, & just to crazy to say the hell with it all & let the Troggs sing "Wild Thing" one more time . And the songs keep coming. Crystal Blue Persuasion, Wolverton Mountain, Sea of Heartbreak, All Along the Watchtower, Dock of the Bay, A Whiter Shade of Pale, House of the Rising Sun, The Sounds of Silence, Honky Tonk Man, California Dreamin, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Yesterday, El Paso, & Skeeter Davis singing, The End of the World.

And the end of the world it is for the decade of wondrous music, imagination & timeless energy. The days of feeling alive & being inspired by the music are gone & there is no new music out there good enough or great enough to take it's place. But, all is not lost. We have our memories. Sing "Crazy" to me Patsy Cline, play "Black Magic Woman" for me Santana, & "Light My Fire" Jim Morrison........................... No photos for the web album to-day.

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TO-DAY WE RAMBLED AROUND IN THE GHOST TOWN OF GLEESON ARIZONA

GLEESON'S SALOON WHERE TOMBSTONE'S JOHNNY RINGO WAS LAST SEEN ALIVE

I think it had to be one of the coldest nights we've had so far. Left a hose nozzle & sponge in a bucket overnight by mistake & this morning they were froze solid in the ice. Strangely enough the plastic nozzle didn't break & has survived to squirt another day. Cloudy to-night so maybe we'll get a little break from the frosty temperatures.

Rene & Jim rolled out this morning around 9 a.m. headed for New Mexico & Texas. They are booked into an RV park to-morrow somewhere near the Arizona & New Mexico border. They don't travel with a television in their rig so they wanted to be at the park to watch their appearance on television Sunday night Feb. 15th. The program will air on PBS & is called, Why We Love Our Cats & Dogs. Their dog Jerry, who they lost to cancer last year will be part of that show. Rene & Jim's website is http://www.liveworkdream.com/

INSIDE THE CRUMBLING SALOON

We had some DVD's to take back to the Elfrida Library this morning so we figured we would do that & head out northwest of Elfrida to the old mining & ghost town of Gleeson. It's one of those places that you could drive through & never know it was there if you weren't specifically looking for it. Spotted a few old tumbledown houses first & then the cemetery. No ghost town is complete without it's past inhabitants buried somewhere near by. The cemetery is on a slight hill at Gleeson's west end & overlooks what was once a bustling mining town of 500 people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleeson,_Arizona
The cemetery is mainly overgrown now but part of it is still being used. Small piles of rocks mark some of the gravesites while others have old iron gates surrounding them. The weather has worn names off some stones while some have crumbled into the dust. I'm sure there are many more people buried here than time remembers.

GLEESON'S CEMETERY

From the cemetery we stopped at the ruins of an old house where I took more photos. If only those old crumbling walls could talk. We saw a long white building on the north side of the road with some people standing behind it so headed over that way. It was a Jeep tour guide giving a couple of people a driving tour of the area. He was very friendly & gave us some history on Gleeson. Not sure if the gun & holster he was wearing was real or just a prop. We don't see things like that in Canada!! The long white & deteriorating building we were standing beside was once Gleeson's lively saloon. It was here that Tombstone's Johnny Ringo was last seen alive.
The building is locked up because it is crumbling & not safe to enter but we did find a small space in a front window that I was able to get my camera up against & take some photos of the interior. It wasn't until we got home & I could look at the photos that we knew what the inside looked like. Appears to have been a stage at the far end & there is a large mural clearly visible on the north wall. I'm sure this was probably a very lively & rowdy old west place in it's heyday. Afterall, it was a mining town. Part of the roof has caved in & I think the building is beyond repair which seems too bad because I'm sure it probably has some historical significance to the late 1800's. I did manage to scramble my way through the brush & have a peek into the rear of the basement but it was pretty deteriorated in there with parts of the floor coming down. If there are such things as ghosts, I think this old crumbling saloon probably has it's fair share of them.

ONLY THIS OLD JAIL HAS BEEN RESTORED

From the saloon we went a short distance up the road to the old jail which is in the process of being restored by a private party. Managed to take a few pictures of the interior through a small window in the door. All these photos I'm mentioning will be in to-days web album. http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/ Across the road & up a bit is the ruins of a large building that once housed Gleeson's school in the basement & a large dance hall upstairs. This was a very solidly built building with a lot of concrete in it. Probably the center of a lot of Saturday night dances years ago. One can only imagine the outcome of those nights where guns & alcohol to-gether were commonplace. FORMER SCHOOL & DANCE HALL

Our last stop before leaving Gleeson was the old adobe ruins of the hospital. Just some sections of walls standing with long gaunt windows in them. Couldn't help but think of all the pain & suffering that must have taken place inside these walls many years ago. There appeared to be a large round well on the south side of the hospital as well. In the distance I could see where the mining operations had taken place & wondered how many mine accident victims would have been brought down out of those hills by cart or horseback to this very hospital. GLEESON'S HOSPITAL

It is so hard to comprehend how people lived & died years ago in these small mining towns scattered throughout the southwest. But, at least some of that history is still here for people to see if they are interested. And it is what's left of these small towns that is the true history of the west. A lot of people come to see Tombstone Arizona thinking that is the original old west but Tombstone has become so commercialized that it is nearly impossible to separate fact from fiction there. If there is any originality left, it is lost in all the glitz & Hollywood glamour. If you want to see the true old west as it once was you have to get out & hunt down these little ghost towns scattered over the desert sands. But, be prepared to be disappointed if your expecting to see what you have so long been watching in Hollywood movies. You will come face to face with the reality of time & it's effects on man's history. So, bottom line......if you want to see a Hollywood ghost town, go to Tombstone. If you want to see the real McCoys, get your driving map out, get your hiking boots on & search out places like, Gleeson, Pearce, Fairbanks, Charleston, Millville, & countless others in this area. Last year in New Mexico we found places like Chloride & Hillsboro just to mention a couple. In California last December it was the mining town of Tumco.
http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/83THELITTLEWESTERNTOWNATTHEENDOFTHEROAD
http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/82THROWINGSNOWBALLSINTHEEMORYPASS
http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/THEOLDTUMCOMININGSITE

We were back to the ranch by 1 & spent the rest of the afternoon resting up from our ghost town venture in the morning. Next week we'll go have us a look at what's left of the town of Pearce. More old ruins, more old cemeteries & more old ghosts.......................

THEY SAY THERE ARE MANY GHOSTS HERE

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TO-DAY WE MET RENE & JIM.....FROM, LIVEWORKDREAM.COM

VISITING WITH JIM & RENE

Heavy frost on the car this morning as we started our first full day by ourselves on the ranch. Morning chores went off without a hitch & it was nice to see all 5 dogs running around playing. Even Gleason the shy one was bouncing around me like a little puppy dog. It always gives me a warm feeling to be accepted........especially by animals:))

Worked away on a little garden project before lunch over at the house & it felt good to be on the end of my old shovel & rake again. I have always found gardening very relaxing & a great way to get some good old exercise & dirt under the fingernails. While I was working away I became aware of cars going by slowly out on the road. At one point 5 vehicles were stopped out in front of the driveway. Wasn't sure what they were looking at but Jeanie had said sometimes people stop to look at the donkeys.....but the donkeys were out of sight back behind the hay barn. I still don't know what they were all looking at but I did walk over to the rig & trade my baseball hat for my cowboy hat. Figured maybe they were all from back east somewhere & wanted to see a western ranch & if that was the case, they would get a bigger bang for their buck if they could see a real live person with a cowboy hat on. Well, that's how I figured it anyway. ME & BANSHI ARE BIG PALS NOW

SHE LIKES WHEN I TICKLE HER NOSE WITH MY BEARD

Yesterday we received an email from fellow RV blog travelers Rene & Jim. http://www.liveworkdream.com/. We had corresponded with Rene & Jim over the past year ever since they had met Kelly's sister & husband, Becky & Norm, over in Truth or Consequences New Mexico at the Riverbend Hot Springs Spa. Rene & Jim are on their way from California over to Rodeo New Mexico & Terilingua Texas to have a look at some property. Because we have 3 dogs & are animal lovers, we were first attracted to Rene & Jim's site because of their 3 legged dog Jerry. Jerry had lost his leg to cancer & unfortunately he later lost his life to the same disease last year. This coming Sunday night Feb 15th, Rene, Jim, & Jerry are going to be on the PBS channel in a show entitled, Why We Love Our Cats & Dogs. The show will be on at different times across the country so check your local listings for the correct time. RENE & I HAD A SHOOT OUT WITH OUR DUELING CANONS

Rene & Jim are here at the ranch to-night. They had spent last night in a noisy parking lot area in Benson so we suggested they slip down to the ranch for the night. Ray had put in two extra RV sites here so there were extra RV hook-ups. Kelly phoned Jeanie this morning to OK the deal & Jeanie being a true animal lover herself said yes, by all means, have them come & stay. So, this afternoon we met Rene & Jim. It's not often in this lifestyle that we meet people younger than ourselves but Rene & Jim are two vibrant younger people full of life with a zest & zeal for adventure. They are fulltimers & have been on the road for about a year & a half working here & there & enjoying life. Check out their website. http://www.liveworkdream.com/. These are two very genuinely nice people with many interests. They came with us on our chores this afternoon & we all later got to-gether for supper in our rig. Chatted away until well after sundown. We have met so many really nice people in our travels & we're happy to say that to-day we have just met two more.................................

KELLY'S CONDUCTING A RANCH TOUR

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