VOLKSWAGEN NOSTALGIA.

Downtown Murphys was host to a Volkswagen show. I had not read the local newspaper and it caught me by surprise. Our only city lot was filled row upon row with Volkswagens.

Some of them are pretty strange critters I'd never seen before.

What?

See what I mean?

I'm pretty clueless when it comes to car talk, but wisps of conversations came my way, the guys, talkin' engines and restoration tips.

The parts guys were all lined up in one corner, showing what extra "stuff" they are willing to part with.

I was more attracted to folks with camper vans since I travel a good deal myself and they looked like they were having fun.

A lift up gives a person some stand-up room.

And, inside, a bed, and sink and stove. A small version of a motor home.

In this similar camper van, a guy and his son had their bed in the couch position and were enjoying music and had a pot of water heating on the stove.

He took out the old vinyl and replaced it with bamboo. Cool!

Just about everybody of my generation either owned a Volks or knew someone who did. And, most had a ride in someone's "Bug" if you didn't own one. My husband and I owned two Volkswagen's for a very short time each. I found this Karmin Ghia, and older model than ours was.  We owned it for about three weeks, a brand new Ghia, beautiful bright yellow, and it was t-boned on the way to work in Pleasanton. We never replaced the Ghia. I don't remember what we bought after that.

The second one we owned, looked just like this without the brows over the eyes. It was as cute as the bug, like a miniature van. We bought it second-hand and the thing blew-up on the road late at night returning from a big dinner at Castlewood Country Club, out Niles Canyon, also near Pleasanton. We had to hitch a ride home. I think it was called a "Fastback."  It was pretty small for a big guy like my husband anyway, and we got rid of it soon after.
I enjoyed boppin' around looking at Volkswagens. If you click on the picture below, it will take you to the 34 pictures I took. Maybe you can find your favorite Volks in the mix.

2014-3-9-Volkswagen Show

THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA.

We take a bus to visit one of the seven wonders of the world, the Great Wall of China. I’m so excited, I can hardly believe I’m going to actually walk on the Great Wall of China. On the way, Vicki gives us a history while we look at the passing scene out the windows. We see the Beijing Romance Club, a matchmaking club, which seemed strange in 2006. Now, don’t we all know about on-line matchmaking?  We see farms, fruit orchards, vendors along the highway lay out their produce on blankets. Highway workers in droves sweep the edges of the roads with straw brooms. I mean straw brooms that look like “witches” brooms. China doesn’t buy machinery to do a task that can be accomplished by human labor, though, that is changing. But what then do you do with a huge population of workers without work asks Vicki?  People don’t drive as fast here and the highway is teeming with people on foot.

The walk up to one of the Great Wall’s entrance places is lined with vendors, since the Great Wall is the biggest tourist attraction in all of Asia.

I took a picture of this camel and was shushed away by the owner. Vicki explained that this man makes his living by charging for pictures taken of his camel, usually with mom and the kids standing near it. I felt bad for my “sin”, but I couldn’t read the sign nor undo the picture. Vicki explained that most of these vendors have been licensed to sell here because they were once farmers displaced by the flooding of the Yangtze River.

We enter near one of the towers built to house the soldiers and their families who lived  there and manned the towers all day and night.  I was stunned to learn that. It isn’t as though the Great wall could be driven to from a nearby city during the 1200′s. Somehow, I thought the wall was its own defense, a deterrent. Vicki took us to an entrance that is the farthest from Beijing and not as busy as others. Notice the dip on the right to take rain water away from the steps.

This gives you an idea of the height of the walls at the top, just over five feet tall.  From magazine pictures and travel ads I’d seen, I  thought of the wall as this smooth brick roadway for miles. It is smooth here.  This section has been restored and looks quite new.

I guess I expected an even structure built in a ring at the Chinese borders, never giving much thought to the undulating terrain of the mountain passes it guarded. It is mind-boggling just trying to see in the distance as it traces the tops of the mountains in every direction you look.

It’s uphill, jagged, stairs both straight and crooked; weathered and broken.

You can hike the wall for days, or weeks. We met a family that backpacked in for miles and found vistas, and wild animals, and broken, crumbling sections of the wall where they could climb down and explore the woods and meadows.

When you look over the edge, you realize that the wall is much taller than it looks on the “inside”.  Here Vicki pointed out the remnants of an old fruit orchard the soldiers and their families depended on when they guarded the border. They had to grow their own food and carry or pipe water to farm on the Chinese side of the wall.  On the opposite side, it was part of their job to cut away all vegetation within 30 feet of the enemy side of the wall. Ascending and descending the wall many times a day, to toilet, haul water, tend gardens, and other tasks,  tests the sense of believability.

This is a spot where soldiers could get out to their work detail off the wall.

In inclement weather, you can imagine how treacherous it would be to patrol this wall. It drains one way and then another. Like castle walls, cut outs were built for the soldiers to fire their arrows.  The towers and exits are located I’m guessing about every 300 to 400 feet, or so. Inside those towers, all open to the air above, the families kept warm by body heat and a charcoal brazier, also used for cooking. The feat of building the wall is hard to put your mind around. It at one time stretched 13,171 miles. And, while we were in China, news came that archeologists had uncovered another 400 kilometer section of earthen and stone wall from ancient times. The original wall was started in 200 B.C.  Each section has a distinct character, an individuality, as one worker differed slightly in his method than another. Hauling and mixing the cement in a remote area, hauling the water, again, it tests the sense of believability. I expect they used horses and donkeys to help with the work. Even so, a monumental achievement.

You can see this section of the wall is  shorter, warmer and sunnier.

This was an emotional experience for me. I felt it was worth the whole trip’s expense just to see the wall. I cast one last look at this impossible place, straining my eyes through the mist to see, as far as I could, this amazing wall etched like a painting  on the mountain tops. I hated to leave.
The website below gives some history, facts and pictures of this one of seven of the greatest world wonders.
http://www.chinahighlights.com/greatwall/fact/

SOUTHWEST, A GOOD CORPORATE CITIZEN

I knew there was a reason I like to use Southwest Airlines when I fly. In fact, I always attempt to put my money where I sense corporate responsibility. Many companies, especially small companies encourage their employees to do community service, often giving them company time to do it.  But how does a huge corporation that does business in so many communities involve itself with people projects?
Several months ago, the Student Conservation Association, which coordinates young adult volunteers on conservation projects across the country, approached Southwest about a collaboration tied to Southwest’s 40th anniversary. Southwest was enthusiastic about the idea and both groups met and came up with  “Conservation in Action Tour: 40 Projects for 40 Years.”
On the ground, that translates as  a circuitous nationwide trip in a painted Southwest RV, moving from city to city  to work on conservation projects.
Prior to each stop, Southwest organizes a group of its employees to participate in the day’s project and the Student Conservation Association mobilizes its own volunteers. They were spotted in Las Vegas last week at McCarran Airport.
The Las Vegas conservation project was scheduled for the Springs Preserve, a 180-acre center-of-town cultural center dedicated to the desert ecosystem. Organizers at the preserve and the SCA planned a morning of tree planting, mulching, weeding and general garden cleanup. But the night before the event, Mother Nature intervened with a flash flood.  The clean-up became a recovery project that included replacing some downed trees.
The 60 volunteers worked through the heat to get the place back in order in one day, a project that probably would’ve taken the area Springs Preserve volunteers many days to complete.
“They didn’t even want to take water breaks,” claimed Tyler Lau, an SCA project leader for the Tour 40 team.
A  midsummer outdoor project in the sizzling heat of Las Vegas probably had as much appeal as skunk grease, but  the  volunteers pitched right in. They have done invasive plant removals, habitat restorations and wetland and riverbed cleanups, but fixing up a desert garden after a storm was something new.
Southwest spokeswoman Michelle Agnew said the Tour 40 project was something new for the airline, but giving back to communities is something it has done for years. Last week, VEGAS INC chronicled the importance of corporate philanthropy, but imagine how tough that is for an airline that flies into 72 cities?
The company initiated a program called Tickets for Time in which for every 40 hours a Southwest employee volunteers for a nonprofit organization, the benefiting organization is eligible for a complimentary roundtrip flight for fund-raising or transportation needs. Southwest employees logged 45,000 hours of volunteer work in 2009, according to the company website.
On last week’s visit, the SCA crew got a day off from RV living to spend a free night at Bally’s on the Strip.
“I never thought  I’d ever spend a night in Las Vegas,” Lau says.
I’ve  blogged a number of times about bad corporate citizens so it gives me great pleasure to illuminate what happens when tourism, business and conservation work together for the benefit of all.

OSO BUCO, HUMANE SOCIETY, AND AUTO CLUBS

My cousin Terri Cardoza is the hostess extraordinaire. Here she dishes up oso buco with her neighbor Millie Freitas watching, who is pushing 90 very hard, and a genuine character in her own right. Richard Cardoza hungrily watches. Countless times I've sat at their table and enjoyed bountiful meals and wonderful evenings of cards and/or dice. Millie inspires me to Dare-to-be-100, as she stays actively involved with her garden and neighbors. Terri has adopted the philosophy of the American Humane Society which basically postulates that if you take animals to the pound that are active in your neighborhood, others will soon move in to claim their territory. You never rid yourself of strays. Instead, you have neighborhood strays "fixed", thus keeping them actively hunting mice, gophers, etc. and preventing a cat population from exploding. She has trapped 25 cats and had them fixed with cooperative vets and help from the Humane Society. Richard, an excellent mechanic, belongs to a car club and has restored many interesting vehicles over the years. His current favorite is a 1969 Camaro. Besides cars, he has an unbelieveable electric train set-up that takes up a whole room; he barbeques in the summer and you couldn't ask for a better friend than Richard. His current ride of choice is a 1969 Camaro. Jim met them for the first time and, of course, they made him feel right at home. I feel so lucky that we are family.