It's A Man's World - - I Mean Purse

This post was triggered by one from Teresa Evangeline on purses. Her place can be found in the link list as well. While writing a smart ass comment I realized I  had worked myself into a corner because what I had used years ago and now are purses plain and simple. Now Teresa has more than I but here are mine and the old ones are still around too.

This is a shoulder bag made out of Kente cloth from the Keta region of Ghana,West Africa. There are different types of this cloth but this type is Ewe which is also a tribe and a very difficult language. Peace Corps types wore these very practical and functional bags every day. This is close to 35 years old and still has life. Of course it's not used everyday anymore.

This was a hand made leather maybe goat bag I picked up as well. It's still in great shape. If you had business to do this was so handy because there's a lot of paper work that goes on over there and make no mistake this purse comes in handy for that and you put your hand through the loop for the obvious reasons.

 
There's some things in there yet one is a immunization document and boy did you ever get a lot of shots. The worst was the quarterly 5cc of gamma globulin in a cheek of your butt. You walked around for two days with a huge lump and it hurt. I don't think it's like that now. The other is a 100 CFA note pronounced seefa. Back then it was like 230 CFA to $1. Not sure but I don't think it's change drastically over the years unlike Ghana's cedi which I have none of. I always thought these notes were good looking money

From 35 years ago to present day I'm still carrying and packing. This is actually a fishing device that I use to carry all kinds of things and camera stuff is the big item. I do hike with this but anymore if going very far will take a small back pack and transfer to it. This doesn't carry enough liquids when it's warm and it's starting to get heavy as well. See the rock - picked it up out in Dinosaur last weekend. Just the corner was sticking out in this gray crappy dirt. It's very smooth/heavy and who knows maybe it's a dinosaur belly stone. It would hurt bad if this thing ever turned up missing.

These all are tools and no matter what design they make life easier. Of course girls use these for fashion purposes as well. I have not crossed that threshold.

Dinosaur National Championships

Drove up to the launch site for hang gliders and found this. There must have been 150 acres up on top of Blue Mountain that accommodated this event so long ago. You can go here to view some pictures from that era.

This is one of the many camp sites on the mountain and where I was spending the night. It was real nice. Was looking forward to taking some morning pictures.

There were some clouds way out in the distance all day long and about 6:30 the wind came up and I crawled into the Element to not venture out again till around till about 9:30 when I left. There was lightning all over coming straight towards me and here I was sitting at the highest point around. Should have rode it out but bailed instead. It only takes a couple minutes to load up sloppily.

Knew there was an overlook not far down the road and that's where I went.

It was a good view as well. No one drove in.It was a beautiful morning and the wind shook the car for a long time and it rained. Couldn't really tell that in the morning. Slept real good.  

This is Blue Mountain. The pictures above were taken quite a bit to the right. 

This is inside Dinosaur National Monument. I am so impressed with this park and the area around it. There are several weeks worth of adventure here.

Josie Morris Not Wales

Originally posted @OTC on 5/20/11 it needs to be here as well.

You had to be tough to live out here by yourself for years miles from nowhere and this women was just that. Use your imagination. She used two box canyons to corral her animals one which had a spring. This is also where these grow only.

You are looking at one of the box canyons above this building. The other is a ways to the right (east) of this one.

The exact location of this site is lower center right.

The Wayback Machine

This weekend at my aunt's in Casper some new pictures showed up. Below are some of them with a lot of unknowns except pretty much everyone here is a relative.  There are some short explanations.

This picture is not a new one but is my grandfather and his twin brother who immigrated from Switzerland when they were 14 after their mother died. Several others came afterwards and not all at the same time and that included their father as well. My great grandfather never learned to speak English and was loved by the kids at school because he always had candy. He was also known to have the best garden in town and my grandpa's were huge producers as I remember. My grandfather is on the left and his name was John.

We were also looking at old documents including ship manifestos and the like. This stuff is getting old and a lot of it is in German. 

On his wedding day.

I never got to know my grandmother as she died of cancer when I was two. These kids do not look like my dad and his brother and sister but it's almost has to be. The aunt I visited was not yet born.

Take a look at this crew. That's grandpa top left as he's a dead giveaway with his pipe. We were hardly sure of any of these kids but this is quite a picture.

I already forgot who this was but included it because I like it.

We're not sure who this was and they may or may not be related. Interesting though.

This is my Aunt Bernie and she still smiles as well and as often as she did back then.

We think this may be Grandpa's oldest brother. He died in Winnemucca, Nevada but was not buried there. I'm trying to find out more about him.

Take Your Choice - Dugout/Soddy/Mudhut

Mr. Jarvie himself built and lived in this at his ranch in Utah very close to the NW boundary of Dinosaur National Monument. The pictures of this came out pretty good and you can actually get a sense of what is was like inside. It's cool to be able to enter all the buildings at this site and handle any thing you see and there's a bunch and I like that.

This was also used by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The last three pictures are of a soddy replica in Iowa. I understand that over the years this structure has required a lot of work. I don't think that is the case with the dugout. I did not ask but chances are good many of the items at Jarvie's ranch were his.

I'll end by saying this and I mean it and it's an observation only. While working on the south side of Chicago in the middle 80's around the projects that I would take a mud hut out in the bush in West Africa over what I saw there. I've been in some pretty snazzy ones. Nicer than the above.

If there was a choice to be made it would be something like this -
1. Mud hut in West Africa
2. Dugout because it's less work than a soddy.
3. Soddy
4. Anywhere but the Projects