Another Sandpoint Icon closes?

The parking lot is empty..... but that is normal for this time of the year... but during the summer the parking lot is full from side to side... and even some out back...

You have travelled by it on your way to and from Sandpoint..... some daily, some during the summer...

The trailers wait for their owners to open up and have them busy from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon during the summer.

But as you can see, there is a FOR SALE sign next the the name of this area...

And the Daily Bee reports that it has been sold... and the new owner probably won't

open it up for business that has come out of here for over 30 years.. that I know of.

For those of us, with out much cash in our pockets, we come to see what products are

being sold this weekend... maybe that item you need, but don't have the bucks for a new

one.

There was a little bit of something for everyone... some times guns, all kinds of knives,

old books, records, tools, even some antiques, games, plants, sunglasses and all of us remember

the place that use to be here... and is now across the street... Sam's Produce.

For some it was a routine for a Saturday morning... breakfast and then a cup of coffee,

in hand, as you strolled down the aisles to see the wares of those who put down $15 (was

3 years ago) each stall.... to sell what they no longer wanted, or what they thought would

earn them some money. Sometimes there were trades. Always things of interest.

Some vendors who showed up year after year.. selling kitchen towels, wood signs and

furniture, plants, and other things...

I don't know what the King is going to do for his Saturday morning ritual...

As the FLEA MARKET is reportedly CLOSED for business...

Do your children know?

I was visiting a friend and her daughter this past weekend.
We go back about 40 years.

As we were sitting around the table, the daughter said,
“do you know my kids don’t know what a Encyclopedia is?”
They are in low teens. My friend and I looked at her, and
said wow… but I guess you are right… after all their
Generation looks up everything on the internet.

I know myself, I have maybe 10 cook books, of which there is
about 4 hardback, and the rest are soft cover from different
organizations I bought them from (school district, nursing home,
churches and alike) I keep out of sentimental reasons.
I use to have a book case from floor to ceiling,
6 feet wide, 18” deep. Full of cook books. One count was 276 of
them. And I don’t buy anymore, because all I have to do is google
a recipe and I will come up with thousands of them. Some sites
even have where you type in 3 ingredients and give you a dozen
recipes.

There were a few other things we thought of.. Edsel cars, Nash,
clip on roller skates, stick ball, wringer washers, Howdy Doody,
telegrams, and other things of our days.

So what is it that you have said or mention and your kids look at
you not having a clue of what you are talking about and laugh when
you try to explain it.

If it wasn't so sad, it would be funny....

Another week with the Republicans, of back biting, why don’t you
quit Newt, fake Southern talk and the numbers are in for this week..

Don’t know what Hawaii numbers are, as it will be
past my bed time before they come in. And their numbers aren’t
quite as important as Mississippi and Alabama.

But Santorum left Rommey in the dust with Newt coming in second.
Surely coming in third could not make the Romney crew very happy.
Guess all that fake You’all this past week didn’t fool the Southern voters.

So as they all head back to the blackboard, all the Democrats have to
be laughing, and a lot of Republicans are shaking their hung heads.
Kind of looks as if it is a Northern and Southern type of thing.

You know from the view of an independent thinking voter.. this all would
be funny, but we are talking about the prospects of a candidate to vote
for in the fall… and the pickings are sure slim.

WOO....WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO....

Nothing sounds so lonely as a old train whistle…
And the sound of a steam engine just sounds so fine.
The chaka chaka of the wheels.. and that whistle of the
steam engine. I love it.

About 9 years ago, there was a steam engine that went thru
our town, going to Montana. It stopped in Ponderay to load
some of the people who made reservations. It think the lady
said it cost $499 for a round trip.

If I had that kind of money,I sure would have loved to gone..
It went to Montana, I want to say Helena, and you stayed over
at the hotel, and it headed back 2 days later.

I was at the gas station in Kootenai, when I heard the whistle
blowing for the Whiskey Jack Road, so I grabbed my camera
from the car and waited. Sure enough, she went down the
tracks heading for Ponderay, looking so fine, with the steam
clouds following behind…

WOO… WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO .. WOO… WOOOOOOOOOO
Just love it.

Daylight Saving Time

I do not like the changing of the clocks..

Actually it isn’t the changes of the clocks themselves. That
Is no big deal. I do it the night before..

But it is the changing of my body clock. And if I can pick
one, I want the daylight savings time. As I love to wake to
sunlight. Well, when it is sunny out that is.. But waking to
daylight.. you know what I mean.

I wake about 7am. now. Use to do 5 am in the summer and 6 am
In the winter, but the past year, has worked out an hour later. So
It is 6am summer and 7 winter. Maybe when it gets to be warm
and I can do more outside, I will be more ambitious about getting
up.

I hate getting up and it is still dark, and by dinner time it is dark. So
looking forward to daylight at 9pm. Which just took another hour to
catch up to, with this pushing forward business.

Also it changes how we call Hawaii, because now we are 3 hours
away. Guess they don’t believe in daylight savings time. There are
several others who don’t either. Wonder why we haven’t all got on
the same page. After all they played around with changing the days
we change the hour.. Use to be the last week of April and Oct.
Now it is March and November.
Oh, well, hopefully my body clock catches up soon.

Did someone ring the dinner bell?

OPPS, I got busy...

It is Spring time, this I know… for my catalogs tell me so.

I have been getting the tomato seed catalog, and several
others. And then yesterday, went to a free class of how to
make sure you seeds actually do grow.. How to start the
and when it best.. Next week is house plants..but the following
week is raised garden beds. Which we are really interested in.
As we put in raised garden about 3 years ago. Sure is so nice
not to get on our knees to weed.

I was up early, I seem to be a sun riser. When the sun comes in thru
the window, I am up and ready … but on cloudy days, I drag my
butt out of bed. And only a cup of coffee gets me doing.

I even have half of my paper sitting on the table, unread. I have
been around the yard, as I can now, with the snow gone in over
half of it. Now is how much water will be there. With the melting
snow, and this is Kootenai.. land of a thousand wet lands. The
King gets anxious for fishing ,but can’t get the boat out of the shed
near the alley, due to flooding alleys. I checked the buds on the
bushes and roses and they are still there. After all, at the end of
January, they were coming out like crazy, and the February snow
storms came.

The stores are trying to tell us it is Spring too… they have their
killer plants in, to tempt us. Or maybe I should call them the sacrifice
plants. Those are the beautiful pansies, and etc. that the grocery
stores and Home Depot puts at the entry of the store, looking so
beautiful, and tempting… calling to us with gardens in our souls…
only to be taken home and die. Because unless you have a good
size greenhouse, there is not enough windows in your house to
keep them going until June. So they sacrifice their little souls for
those who think they can have summer come faster if purchased
in March.

Well, got to go do something, this sunlight is too great to waste.
And tomorrow is promise of more and even Saturday we might
break 50 degrees.. Sunshine recharges my soul’s batteries.

Don’t forget to put your clocks forward on Sunday morning.
Or if you are like me, Saturday night before you go to bed.
Don’t know why we can’t be on daylight savings time 12 months
of the year.

You have come a long way, NOT..

After having an antenna television for 6 years, and enjoying it, the
reception has been lousy lately, so we bit the bullet and got Direct TV.

Now I don’t waste time watching shows like Bachelor or Bachelette.
To me it isn’t any better than a pimp show. The host gets 25 dumb
women (or men if it is Bachelette) and the play survivor over the
weeks.. These people who are so desperate they will go on television,
And are snarly to each other, all to be able to win the opposite gender.
Biggest waste of time of watching. To watch human’s in their lowest of
behavior.

But Direct TV has open the door to some ever far worse than that.
Real housewives.. now granted I have only seen about 5 minutes of
these different ones( that is all I could stand) There is the Mob wives, and etc. Real housewives of different cities. All I can say is, I am so glad I don’t know
people like that.. At least not in my circle of friends.

Then there is a show called Hoarders. Now that one I only lasted one minute.
It made my skin crawl.. My God!! I know, this is a sickness. And very sad. And
I have known over the years a couple like these.. But I am sorry my gag reflex
isn’t good with these shows.

Now the King has found his own share of wonderful shows..
There is one where it is in the South.. they dive for logs. There is a father, son
combo, who fight worse than the two motorcycle family. Well, at least as much.
And I got to say, I know a lot of Southern people.. but none like these. This is
dueling banjo type people. And then there are the Axe Men.. loggers of Oregon,
Washington and Alaska. I have a son who was and still does some logging. I
tell you, it scares the daylights to see some of these guys work. It is one dangerous job. Their coping skills aren’t much better. Then there is Gold Rush, and Storage Wars, Star Pawn, and Pickers. Some of those are interesting ..but they are on, one after the other, meaning you could sit there for 3 hours watching the same show but different ones. The King is wild with the remote as he runs thru them, back and forth, hitting the hunting, fishing channels as well.. I just shake my head as I walk thru. Some times stopping to watch a few minutes. I have been reading a lot of books lately. Lol..

The thing that amazes me.. is …. These programs are sent all over the
Earth. I am so surprised that people from other countries want to come here.
If that was a sample of what America is about, I am not so sure I would want
to come. But I do live here, and know that what you see on television is not
what we are about. Thank God.
One thing I have learned, is ...never work for your father.... every father/son
combo, fight like cats and dogs.

Presidential ..contacts..

Monday at Noon, RON PAUL arrived at our fairgrounds.

I went because, how often does a Presidential candidate show up in Bonner County? This is my first one anyway.. heck we are luck if we get a state candidate to show up here.. So when Ron Paul decided to show up here and let the Bonner County voters have a look at what he is made up of.. well, be it you
vote for him or not, it is worth a look.. So I went.
There was a full house crowd… I would say at least 1000+, which is quite
a bit for Bonner County. Voters rarely get that excited about anything
to do with voting.. Unless it is a school levy. Something that will effect
their pockets.
The crowd was what is said about a Ron Paul crowd.. I would say the
average age was 30’s… There were a lot of families with small children.
I left probably about half way thru or 2/3 way thru.. as I didn’t want to
get caught up in the traffic mess. I was parked on the outside fringe, and was able to get my car out and had free roads.. As I can imagine what it was like when that place let loose.




My other encounter with a Presidential person, was with a actual President.
It was President Eisenhower. He came to spend a week at the Navy base in Newport, Rhode Island. I happen to work at the Naval Exchange on that base.
So I got to see him hitting golf balls out on the lawn there, when I walked to work at that time. That was before security was a big thing, so we were able to do that.
He waved, and I waved back. His security guys were there. But that was it.
That is before we started trying to kill our Presidents. (well, not for a hundred
years or so)

In fact, when he arrived, he causes a walk out in our office. The first of any protest groups that I ever heard of. Our main office had sent a menu out, that no one was to leave the building to go see the President arrive. So we decided, that
we would all take our lunch half hour, at the time of the arrival of the President. We were told we could not do that and if we went, we would be written up and it would be in our employment record. The buzz went thru the office in no time.
Who ever wanted to go, we would go.. and if we all went, how could he write up the whole office. So at the time he was suppose to arrive, we all grabbed our coats and ran for the area he was suppose to go by. And sure enough he did. I had a wonder picture of…………….the little flag on the front of the bumper of the car. Lol.. little nervous, I guess. We all headed back to the office.. went back to
our desk and worked thru what was suppose to be our lunch time. No one got written up. We learn later, that the Office Manager, figured if he couldn’t beat us, he would join us, and head down too.

The other President who came often to Newport, was President Kennedy, as
Jackie’s mother own a mansion there. But I had moved away a few years before.

Things I have learned and Anniversary #7

A Candle maker I am not…everyone who reads my blog knows
I am not a craft person. I rarely try because I know I don’t do well.
But every so often I give it a try, in case some of my father rubbed
off on me. My mother could draw, knit, sew, cook, and etc. she
made up her mind to do, none which I inherited. My father’s talents
came out later when he retired. I have a several wood pieces he made..
but me.. well, I think I am a lost cause..

I tried candle making over the weekend. I didn’t take a picture because
It looks like a 3 year old did it.. and the more I think of it.. I think the 3
year old could have done better. One of my biggest faults, (among
many others) is no patience. And I think you might need lots of patience.
I tried doing a layer type candle.. it sounded good in theory. But waiting
for the bottom to harden up, before you put more on, isn’t as easy as
it sounds. Yea, I did try to hurry it along with cold water dips for the holder.
Any way, I might try again some day. Or maybe I will leave the crafts to the
King to do .. he does great in anything he tries.

Today, it dawns on me, is the anniversary of this Blog.. 7 years of throwing
out words, tossing them around with a few pictures.. 52,237 visits is what my
Meter says, and that is after 8 months of non meter.. so we will level it off to, what, 52,250…. Low by what ever means one uses, compared to other blogs. But that is ok as this was never a competition for me.. it was and still is a fun thing. A place where I can spout off about different things, or report about some things.. and no one can tell me I am doing it wrong. After all, my blog.. It sure isn’t an ego thing, because if it was, I would have a deflated on by now.

So those of you who have stopped by over the years, (some have come and gone, others are new) thank you for stopping by.
I hope I have made you laugh and not cry much (some were sad ones) as
to me that is what life is about.. LAUGHTER… if I had a tombstone, (I will
be having my ashes spread across the earth) I would have on it…
“I LEAVE YOU LAUGHING”… the words, I say at the end of a lot of conversations.
And the last words my Aunt heard from me before she passed away.. I leave
you laughing (as we had said many things that we were laughing about) and
I love you..

So hope this is a good day for you all.. and thanks for stopping by, to read
my tossed words.