On the Road Again
We're travelling from Arizona to Los Angeles now. We've spent the past few days in Casa Grande, AZ where my parents live. It's a nice area but HOT. It's been about 115 degrees during the day. Thank God for air conditioning.
We spent a day and a half with our friend Tim the Indian up in Phoenix, and we had a really great time. We met his lovely wife Veronica and their two small children Kylie and Nakota. Tim's a Lakota Indian and is teaching his kids his native ways... the language, dancing, history, etc. Linda and I are very interested in that stuff so we've been trying to absorb as much from him as we can. Linda especially feels a great kinship with Native Americans ever since she visited Canada when she was a girl...
Tim had visited us in Scotland a few years ago... He's interested in Scotland as he has Scottish ancestry on his father's side. Whwn he was there, we went up to Barr Castle near Lochwinnoch where his ancestral home is. Tim scattered his father's ashes there.
On Tuesday this week, we visited the Heard Museum with Tim and his friend Rance, who's a part Hopi, part Pima Indian. Rance is an artist and he very generously gave us one of his paintings and a few drawings. The painting is a representation of one of the oldest Kachinas. It's a fairly big painting, with wonderful color... We'll definitely hang it up in our house somewhere. Probably in the hall. We spent part of yesterday going around to get it packaged up and posted to the UK... The drawings Rance gave us were great too, a few faceless horses and a mesa, which is where he came from on the Hopi Reservation.
After the museum on Tuesday, we had some native fry bread for lunch and later on we wnt to Rawhide, a wild west town where they had a gunfight and stunt show. We also put Linda on a camel and she went for a ride around the place. After that, Tim treated us to a nice meal at a Mexican restaurant.
We stayed overnight at Tim's and learned some Indian dances (Linda did) Wednesday morning. Had a nice breakfast at the IHOP. Played with the kids and their dogs, Steak and Buddy.
My father picked us up in the afternoon and we drove back to Casa Grande. We stopped at Ira Hayes' memorial on the way... He was a Pima Indian who was one of the ones who planted the flag on Iwo Jima, and who died of alcoholism later on... Johnny Cash sang a song about him.... We also made a stop at the Casa Grande ancient Indian ruins, which is where Casa Grande gets its name.
So right now we're driving thru the Arizona desert. Jenny and Andy are touring around the U.S. Independently of us and are staying in Venice Beach tonight, so we're going to try to meet up somehow.
Tomorrow we'll be visiting Hollywood, take a tour of the stars' homes, see the footprints at the Chinese Theatre, maybe go to Universal Studios, visit Marilyn Monroe's grave (and others) at a memorial park in Westwood... And also on the agenda is to go to Hawthorne to see where the Beach Boys started. The state of California have a plaque there to mark where the Wilson family home used to be.
We spent a day and a half with our friend Tim the Indian up in Phoenix, and we had a really great time. We met his lovely wife Veronica and their two small children Kylie and Nakota. Tim's a Lakota Indian and is teaching his kids his native ways... the language, dancing, history, etc. Linda and I are very interested in that stuff so we've been trying to absorb as much from him as we can. Linda especially feels a great kinship with Native Americans ever since she visited Canada when she was a girl...
Tim had visited us in Scotland a few years ago... He's interested in Scotland as he has Scottish ancestry on his father's side. Whwn he was there, we went up to Barr Castle near Lochwinnoch where his ancestral home is. Tim scattered his father's ashes there.
On Tuesday this week, we visited the Heard Museum with Tim and his friend Rance, who's a part Hopi, part Pima Indian. Rance is an artist and he very generously gave us one of his paintings and a few drawings. The painting is a representation of one of the oldest Kachinas. It's a fairly big painting, with wonderful color... We'll definitely hang it up in our house somewhere. Probably in the hall. We spent part of yesterday going around to get it packaged up and posted to the UK... The drawings Rance gave us were great too, a few faceless horses and a mesa, which is where he came from on the Hopi Reservation.
After the museum on Tuesday, we had some native fry bread for lunch and later on we wnt to Rawhide, a wild west town where they had a gunfight and stunt show. We also put Linda on a camel and she went for a ride around the place. After that, Tim treated us to a nice meal at a Mexican restaurant.
We stayed overnight at Tim's and learned some Indian dances (Linda did) Wednesday morning. Had a nice breakfast at the IHOP. Played with the kids and their dogs, Steak and Buddy.
My father picked us up in the afternoon and we drove back to Casa Grande. We stopped at Ira Hayes' memorial on the way... He was a Pima Indian who was one of the ones who planted the flag on Iwo Jima, and who died of alcoholism later on... Johnny Cash sang a song about him.... We also made a stop at the Casa Grande ancient Indian ruins, which is where Casa Grande gets its name.
So right now we're driving thru the Arizona desert. Jenny and Andy are touring around the U.S. Independently of us and are staying in Venice Beach tonight, so we're going to try to meet up somehow.
Tomorrow we'll be visiting Hollywood, take a tour of the stars' homes, see the footprints at the Chinese Theatre, maybe go to Universal Studios, visit Marilyn Monroe's grave (and others) at a memorial park in Westwood... And also on the agenda is to go to Hawthorne to see where the Beach Boys started. The state of California have a plaque there to mark where the Wilson family home used to be.