SharivilleLife stories from Shari

Well Whoop de Do, what a day this was.  Good thing we rested up yesterday from all the wonderful things we did in Tucson.  Cause today was  a day to remember.  We started out here in the RV with bacon, cheese, onion and avocado omelettes.  That  I was  Jerry’s request.  Then we loaded up Teddy and took about a 3 hour drive all around the Laughlin area.  It’s really a lovely area.  Of course it sits right on one of my favorite Rivers in the USA. The mighty Colorado. I got some fair pictures, but, Judy Lou, not to many of the wild flowers.  I may have  better luck tomorrow on the way to Vegas.  I think we were here a couple of yrs ago and this place has grown so much in that time.

Tonight, being Friday night we had to hit the sea food buffet.  Since Jerry had gotten tickets for the Tribute to Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper and Richie Valens, at the Riverside Casino, we just went to the buffet there.  Got a seat by the window right on the river.  We watched the river taxi’s.  One was crisscrossing the river to pick up people from the Arizona side,  Bullhead City, and bringing them over to the Nevada side to eat, see the shows and spend their money.  The other one was running up and down the river from casino to casino so people wouldn’t have to walk so far.  A great idea, as this place thrives on seniors. Jerry, bless his sweet heart, loves shrimp.  They had peel and eat shrimp and those who have spent time with us eating where they have these critters know that I always peel them for him, which I ordinarily dont’ mind, but tonight he put blue cheese dressing all over everything and I was up to finger licking blue cheese all the while.  Thank goodness he only wanted to do that once.  They had my favorite, crab, but it never tastes like it does on the Oregon coast, does it Judy Lou?  But it was very relaxing to sit and eat and watch the beautiful blue Colorado flow by and the ducks enjoying their life.

Then we wanted to walk off some of that great food, so we took in the antique auto show on the 3nd floor of the Riverside.  Jerry always likes those old car shows, me I really enjoy the gift shops.  In fact I found a hat I liked  and ended up buying 5 of them in different colors.  That helps with the traveling to cover up my hair. I always have that wind blown look, even if the wind isn’t blowing.

Then the peace de resistance, the tribute show.  It was sooo good.  The Big Bopper is actually the real Boppers son, who was born 3 months after the accident.  The Richie Valens singer was excellent and of course the Buddy Holly singer looked and sounded just like the real one.  The show was one and a half hours long, they did all the songs that these 3 ever did.   They all 3 died way to young.  I was 16 and a junior in high school when the plane went down in Feb, 1959.  I remember how broken hearted I was.  For us Rock n Rollers its marked as the day the” Music Died.”  And in lots of respects it did.  The singer who did Richie Valens was really a mover up there on the stage and kind of made the show, lets say he had all the right moves, just him and his electric guitar,  but I was so crazy about buddy Holly when I was 16 it was, for me,  that time all over again.  One thing Jerry and I share is our love of entertainment.  Guess that’s why we’ve been to Branson, Mo 6 times.  Jerry  has a couple of yrs on me, in fact a whole generation, but you would never know it.  He gets into that “ Old Rock n Roll ”  feeling right along with me.  It was a wonderful show, brought back many memories and we left with a happy feeling.  I didn’t know that The Big Bopper wrote the song,”White Lightening,” the song that launched George Jones career.  Now that’s the one person that I still have to see to make it 100% of my favorites.   It has been a good few days here in Laughlin, but it’s time to move along , and along to a great favorite  of ours Las Vegas.

Hey an amazing thing happened this morning, we got an early start.  It
was pretty terrific.  We drove east for awhile and then cut south mid
center of Iowa.  Immediately the terrain changed.  Gone are the plains
and prairies, and on to the rolling hills, rivers and lots of green
trees. We have encountered two nice rivers, one small, the Winnebago
and the larger Iowa River.  The trees are changing colors, but very
slowly and not noteworthy for pictures yet.  I’m disappointed with
that so far.

We did drive by Clear Lake, Iowa, and I did not fail to remember, THE
DAY THE MUSIC DIED, when Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper and Richie
Valens all died in that terrible plane crash while on a gig here.
Those of of us of the ’59 era won’t likely forget.  I remember being
so totally crushed, such wonderful talent gone now forever.  Several of
you on my BIG TRIP list are from that era, REMEMBER.

Yesterday, on the local Iowa news and last nite on Fox News, they made
mention of a small town in central Iowa, Ackley Iowa, regarding a very
talented local city visionary who decided to dress up the little town
with life like mannequins. There are now about 30 of them.  Sitting on
benches and standing by their business’.  There’s even a Maytag man.
So I got Jerry off the interstate, so we could do the tourist thing,
and hunt them down.  And so we wandered around and through the small
little towns, and cornfields, delighting me, not so much for the
person next to me pulling this sled.  But the caveat was that in this
little town was also a  nice little soda fountain type place, and
Jerry loooves Chocolate milkshakes. So, frothing at the mouth and
fantasizing about an old tyme fountain chocolate milkshake, he pressed
on. Well first of all the entrance to the town was completely blocked
off with road work, so with much patience Jerry found another way into
town, now visualize this, here we are pulling this 32 ft monster thru
these narrow streets, trying to find the newsworthy mannequins, when
we did, of course,  we found nowhere to park this thing and would you
believe it, no soda fountain shop. After several trips thru and
around the town I finally got my pictures. Jerry did not get his
milkshake and was not a happy trailer hauler. I can only hope he will
be happy with the completed scrapbook of these adventures. They were
terribly cute and so artistic, what a neat idea to promote your town.
To bad the town wasn’t ready for the publicity. Now I have to come up
with a really great chocolate milkshake.

This evening we pulled into The Amana Colonies RV Park and are here
for a couple of days.  There looks like there will be a lot to see and
a lot of history here and that will make me very happy.  More of my
beautiful America.             Hugs to all,    S and J.