leh – Page 65 – While Busy Making Other Plans …

Here’s What Humans Might Look Like If We Had Evolved to Survive Car Crashes

rDay Four-Hundred-Eighty-Six/Seven

Smoke Over Venice

Dennis sends this image of smoke over Venice this morning, blown in from the Santa Clarita fire.

Party Affiliation and TV Viewing

You may have noticed some differences between Democrat and Republican points of view. Seems that TV viewing preferences differ, too.

Brother Dennis turns our attention to this video published on July 18, 2016 by The New Yorker contrasting the long-disappeared Bunker Hill area of downtown Los Angeles of today with that of seventy years ago.

Kim and I often used to bicycle this area early on Sunday mornings in the 80s and early 90s. When I first arrived in Los Angeles in 1964, the “improvements” and “renovations” were pretty much complete.

rDay Four-Hundred-Eighty-Four

Research and planning in anticipation of the August backpacking adventure.

rDay Four-Hundred-Eighty-Two

An afternoon of driving around, running errands, shopping at Farmers Market, and so on. Saw that the huge tree on the corner of Fourth and I is being trimmed; branches were hanging out into the street. Nearly got caught in rain again while walking home from 103. And so it goes.

Iowa – Fall 1974: Upper & Lower Magnolia Farms

About midway through high school, the family moved to a different county, acquiring a farm in the hills near the tiny community of Magnolia. Then a second farm two or three miles away was added to the holdings, this one located near a creek that flowed through a valley. I drove to Iowa in the fall of 1974 from Los Angeles, slowly meandering along off-interstate, secondary roads the whole way (the Land Rover was capable of almost 55 mph downhill, sometimes) and I wanted to photograph as I went (haven’t found those negatives yet). Then I left the Land Rover parked in an Iowa shed after a few days and flew off to other easterly destinations for a time.

Magnolia? More here and here, but not much. Be skeptical of statements like that from epodunk.com, describing Magnolia as “a city in Harrison County, in the Omaha-Council Bluffs metro area.” Magnolia is a tiny village in a strikingly and absolutely rural area, at least 40 or 50 miles from Omaha or Council Bluffs. The nearest “city” is Logan, county seat with population of about 1500.

Bonus photograph: I found this lo-res snapshot from about 1961 or ’62 of my 1939 Ford Deluxe Coupe (then equipped with Oldsmobile V8 and running gear, tuck & roll upholstery, and oversize BFGoodrichs on the rear), parked in front of the lower Magnolia farm house garage. Note that the tree on the right side of the photo is the same tree that appears at the left hand of the frame in the “Lower Farm” photo above which shows resting cattle with the Land Rover at right foreground.