A Slice of Life
Bill Lites
The scenery was beautiful as we continued north on CA-1 to our next stop in San Francisco, CA where we wanted to show our kids some of the sights and sounds of that fabulous city. First we took them to Ghirardelli Square, where we checked out the shops and bought some chocolates for DiVoran. Then we took the famous Powell & Hyde cable-car to Fisherman’s Wharf for some really wonderful seafood. After that delightful experience, we went back to our car and drove down the famous winding Lombard Street with our camper! I wasn’t sure we were going to make it around some of those curves.
Photo: https://www.queenanne.com/things-to-do/fisherman-s-wharf
Leaving San Francisco, we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, and took U.S. 101 north to our halfway point for this trip, which was to visit Ivan & Dora in Ft. Bragg, CA. See there, I told you we would eventually get to them, if you were patient with me for the first half of this road trip. We had a great visit with Ivan and Dora. They were a little isolated from their family, and loved seeing us and their grandchildren. They showed us around their small fishing village of Fort Bragg (pop ~4737), and introduced us to some of their friends there. One day Ivan took us all out in the woods, close to their house, to collect mushrooms for our dinner. He showed us how to tell the eatable ones from the poison ones. Dora grew a lot of the fresh vegetables they ate in her small garden. The fresh vegetables and mushrooms sure were good with the charcoal grilled steaks we had that evening.
Photo: https://www.phinneycenter.org/calendar/edible-and-medicinal-mushrooms-of-the-pnw/
Now for the fishing story you’ve been waiting for. One day while we were there, in Fort Bragg, Ivan took me out on the Pacific Ocean (just the two of us) in his commercial salmon fishing boat, Husky, to show me how he fished for Chinook Salmon. What an experience that was! I mostly just watched, helped when I could, and steered the boat once he started letting out his fishing line. Ivan did all the work, and had his one-man system worked out well. You couldn’t pay me enough to do that kind of work, but Ivan seemed to love it.
Photo by Dora Bowers – Ivan’s new fishing boat (Husky)
Ivan told me that he fished alone most of the time, and used the trout line method. He would use his Lowrance Fish Finder to locate the schools of fish, and then he would put the boat on auto-pilot and let out his baited hooks and line. Once the line was all the way out, he would make a very large turning circle, and head back, reeling in the line and fish with the aid of a small electric powered winch. He would ice down the fish, and if the catch was good, he would repeat the procedure all over again. It was a difficult task, but he seemed to manage without any problem, as long as the seas didn’t get too rough.
Photo: https://www.asupervip.top/products.aspx?cid=36&cname=trotlines
—–To Be Continued—–
Bill is a retired Mechanical engineer living with his wonderful artist/writer wife, DiVoran, of 63 years in Titusville, Florida. He was born and raised in the Southwest, did a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy, attended Northrop University in Southern California and ended up working on America’s Manned Space Program for 35 years. He currently is retired and spends most of his time building and flying R/C model airplanes, traveling, writing blogs about his travels for Word Press and supporting his wife’s hobbies with framing, editing and marketing. He also volunteers with a local church Car Care Ministry and as a tour guide at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum there in Titusville. Bill has two wonderful children, two outstanding grandchildren, and a loving sister and her husband, all of whom also live in Central Florida, so he and DiVoran are rewarded by having family close to spend lots of quality time with.
One of Bill’s favorite Scriptures is: John 10:10
After my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother but hadn’t practiced for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience. Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites, Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix
cautious. As it turned out, it was a mama Raccoon and her three little ones looking for a handout. We tried to discourage the children from feeding them, but you know how kids love furry creatures, and they don’t realize how dangerous wild animals can be. We shooed them off, knowing they would surely be back to try their luck again. It was a fretful night for me since it was a strange place (many of the night sounds were different from those we were used to in our woods at home) and I kept waking up, worrying about the raccoons coming back and trying to get into our food.
Old Things R New 