National “Feed Charlene” Day–June 9, 2012

What a funny or fun day this was.  I’ve been on the job high in the Rocky Mountains now for three weeks.  No one has fed me.  But today, for some reason, everyone was feeding me???

My campsite is near the open place in the trees,
where you can see the road.

First, two campers were walking the mile back to their camp from the Lake,  had caught four rainbow trout fish.  I’ve never eaten that before… and to my surprise they invited me to lunch.  That was really really good.

Second, a young couple and their two kids were picnicking. I was busy doing something at my van and heard a small wee voice say “Do you want some corn?”  and this little girl handed up an ear of roasted corn. They had roasted corn in the husk over the fire.  Boy was that good.  I went about my work and later stopped to thank them for the corn and they offered me more, and then watermelon, then oranges (quartered), and then small Snicker candy bars.  Wow… guess it pays to be nice to people.  We chatted and joked and I asked it they needed to adopt a grandma.  They joked back, SURE!

And finally, a couple of gals camped at the other campground… with their families, came over to see my rock collection. We sat and looked at the three trays of polished rocks I finished last winter in Quartzsite, and joked and laughed… and then they invited me over for dinner.  Wow!  This day has got to end… I could gain weight here.  And what did they have??? Shrimp cocktail, one of my favorite things on earth.  And Black Eyed peas and bratwurst.  And fresh salad with most of the ingredients straight from Terri’s garden.  Terri is a very interesting gal and she even invited me to come down and stay over with them on my days off… and have a hot shower. They offered me a bedroom but I explained that I never sleep inside anymore, but then they offered me their driveway.  Perfect. 

I was so full by the time the day ended.  And I laughed to myself that this was the day of my 50th High School Class reunion back in Indiana… and I thought, NOPE, this day has been WAY BETTER than if I had gone to Indiana.  Just WAY BETTER!  (O.K., I admit it, I’m curious as to how the reunion went.)

The other day I baked delicious cornbread in my Griswold Cast Iron skillet in my Solar Sun Oven.   Yummm.

Recent Art Work…. sketches for gasoline money!

Here is the recent work I have gotten… and I want to share it here in hopes of getting more jobs.  I can’t make the kayaking adventure work otherwise.

If you would like to order a sketch as a Christmas gift, please email me a high resolution photo of the subject and I will give you a quote.  Prices begin at $40 plus $7 shipping and handling (or one or more sketches-one price for shipping).  I prefer to do portraits only, but will consider other subjects.  Charlene.Swankie@gmail.com . 

Whose There? In Hoosierville (Carmel, IN)

Below is an email I just sent out to my high school classmates, asking for help.  Thought I might as well share it here as well.

Sept. 2, 2011

Classmates,
 
My computer hard drive has crashed.  Updates that were in progress to this page - http://www.1962arsenaltechtitans.com/index_page2_20110804.htm - might have been lost.  About 10 hrs of very intense updating.
 
I am trying to get someone in Carmel Indiana (I'm passing through the area and spending a few days visiting cousins, nephews, great-this and great-thats...)  to fix the computer so I can save all the massive work I was doing on the class website.  I am unable to local my disks for the Macromedia program Dreamweaver which I use to edit the website.  All the travelling and downsizing, who knows what became of the disk.  If I have to repeat all that work, I won't be doing it in html code alone and will need that program or one that works like it does, allowing me to edit while in a WYSIWYG view.  If you have the Dreamweaver program and will allow me to load it to my new hard drive, I would be appreciative. 
 
I am also hoping to find a copy of Photoshop 6 to load, I have ALL my other Adobe programs and disks, but where is the Photoshop disk?  I have Photoshop Elements and it isn’t adequate to do the photo editing and retouching I do (which does bring in a little gas money). I don't care about anything else on that hard drive except the copy of the web page with all our photos and all the new updated information I was in the process of adding.
 
Also if anyone is in the Carmel area and you want to "do coffee" or visit a bit, let me know as soon as possible.  I will be continuing on my Kayaking adventure as soon as I resolve the computer issue, one way or the other, and as soon as funds come in for more gas.  I have kayaked 35 states now and need to be in AZ by Oct. for classes I will be taking this winter.  I need to keep moving and want to kayak four or five more states on the way to AZ.
 
One thing I am doing to come up with income is doing sketches for people.  Have a look.
 
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.163916167012061.37025.100001810370863&l=29ed04a793&type=1
 
These make great xmas gifts.  If you want a sketch, just think, you can be part of making this Adventure become reality.
 
If you find this email offensive, let me know and I will remove your email address from any future notifications.
 
Charlene Beaty Swankie
http://swankiewheels.blogspot.com/

Also, I went by and found my mother’s old house today and then up the road and found her grave.

35 5th Ave, Carmel

 

I drove around a bit and found my mothers old house at 35 5th Ave and her grave up the road on Rangeline at a little Cemetery on the left side of the road right before Rt.31. This time there was no poison ivy all over it, which I was grateful for. Hot/heat index is very high. Anyone in the Carmel, IN area???