First leg of the journey

Tampa, Florida to Guthrie, Oklahoma

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Guthrie, Oklahoma is a very cool place, it became a town of 10,000 people overnight in the land run of 1889.

Wonderful 19th and early 20th century architecture.

Guthrie was the territorial capital and the first state capital of Oklahoma.

Guthrie, Oklahoma has the largest historic district in the United States.

If you ever go to Guthrie make sure to take the trolley tour, you get the scoop on some of the interesting prior inhabitants here.

The Pollard Theater boasts a year-round resident theater company. Very enjoyable experience.

Guthrie also has one of the largest masonic centers, it is home to the great Temple of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.

It is a grand building. They do have tours but I have not had the opportunity to engage in any.

Guthrie, Oklahoma is also home to ... my house. Now you may have thought I don't have a "permanent address" down here but I do.

We moved to Guthrie from Sumner, Washington because Oklahoma has 2 schools of pharmacy (for Big Kahuna) and 2 colleges Steve was interested in. Big Kahuna decided not to pursue pharmacy school after all, but Steve is attending college at a very fine school there.

Our house was built in 1909.

My former office.

The plan had been to sell the house and Big Kahuna move to Minot but plans changed and for the moment Big Kahuna and Steve are here in Guthrie.

Stairway from the front door.

Hallway upstairs. There are 4 total bedrooms upstairs.

Other direction.

At one time we thought one of my daughters and her family would be living next door, so this would have been Little Companion's room when staying with us. Alas, plans change.

Steve's room.

The color choice was his. Thanks for letting me show your room, Steve!

Bathroom with original clawfoot tub.

Since the plan now is for Big Kahuna to stay in Guthrie doing what he enjoys work-wise, all the big furniture was moved back in and all the rest of the gear stowed here until plans are firmed up for after Alaska. We arrived in Guthrie late Wednesday night and were on the plane for Alaska Saturday morning. No time to visit with dear friends in Oklahoma, hope to be able to do so upon our return.

Books to take...

Okay this is the reading material I had decided on this afternoon. Now though after visiting Liz, over at Rose Vignettes, I may also take Persuasion by Jane Austin.

I have had all these books for awhile but have been so busy I have not had much time to read. We have our Old and New Testaments combined bible in the front along with the New Testament only on top. The new Tea Companion I started but got distracted along the way and did not finish it. I'll start over. Then a couple of little pocket books for fun.

This also gave me the opportunity to play with my camera. Copy mode, black and white.

Copy zoom, how cool is this!

Food mode. Can turn it more blue or more red, hehe.

All this, the tea, plus the previously mentioned items, pretty much fills up my carry on. I'll have the psaltery and my purse and then everything else gets checked or if necessary shipped later.

We're getting there!

New camera

Felt the need to update cameras before we take off for northern climes. My little Kodak was years old and not as reliable as it used to be. I am hoping to able to capture some of the beauty that is Alaska.

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Having said that, felt the need to get some practice in with my new Nikon.

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Little Companion.

One of the stunning pictures she brought home in her art portfolio today, free hand. Pretty impressive, huh.

Up close and personal with the flowers...

So far I'm loving the new camera. Would have like to have practiced more but, face it, no one is really interested in seeing a bunch of moving boxes!

More important stuff

So in the quest for the all important can't-do-without stuff to take on our journey into the frozen arctic, we (meaning me) decided we needed one of these little devices.

This little device is a recorder/player. It will record live and you can then upload it to your computer or play back through headphones or computer. You can also download music or other audio from your computer.

Can use it for your easy listening pleasure or tape preacher's sermon (to check all those scriptures later). Then you never know when the song lyrics to the next #1 might just pop into your mind and you might need to belt out a song right then and there and where would you be without your teeny, tiny recorder!

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Now what's amazing about this all so far is that everything (Go Bible, teeny-tiny recorder) fits into my noise-cancelling headphones case nice and tidy as you please!

The next must-have item for our journey is this notebook computer. It is a lot smaller than a lap top. I have been using this for the past couple of weeks for blogging, email, etc., and it has worked just fine so far.

We got this at Wal-Mart and daughter and I will share this while in Alaska. So here's my story on this...

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I told daughter dear I would like to buy this little treasure since I was not too confident in its ability to perform the tasks we wanted and if it didn't work I didn't want her to be out any money.

You want to hear what she said?

She said she wanted to buy it because if it didn't work SHE WOULD RETURN IT!

Hum, well ... she won.

Ain't she a sweety!

Things we must take on our journey...

Okay, so we have established that we will be traveling from Florida to Alaska and staying there for approx 3-4 months.

We will be storing most of our gear in the house in Oklahoma and basically taking a couple of suitcases each and carry-ons.

Now the big question is what would we have trouble living without during this 3-month journey, and I don't mean things like clothes, boots, etc., I mean the really important things like a musical instrument you can fit in a carry-on, like a psaltery,



and..

A Go Bible, how cool is this!

This is basically a dedicated MP3-type player with the Bible loaded and you can scroll through by old and new testament, chapter, and verse. It also has favorite stories. I chose the King James Version read by Alexander Scourby. Now, I have the CD set but it is much larger than this little thing and we are trying to think small. It came with ear buds but I will be using a headset that sits on the ears and not in the ears. I love hearing the bible read as I follow along.


I also added the accessory pack so the little thing can be attached to the speakers or play through an FM radio, for instance in your car. I don't think I'll take the speakers or the FM radio thing but they will be nice to have later on down the road.


So there you have it, the first two things I will be taking on my journey.

I have been very busy trying to copy the thousands of glossary entries I had into another glossary since I have quit my job and may want this information later. It is very time consuming and BORING! I am hoping to be through sometime Saturday. That will be such a relief!!

Happy Saturday!!!!!!

Bowed Psaltery

Look, Look!

We are welcoming another member to our folk instrument family.

This is my new bowed psaltery. It is relatively small, standing only about 18 inches tall. This particular psaltery is made by TK O'Brien's Folk Instruments right here in the US of A. This is a 24 string walnut psaltery with walnut back. I believe I shall call this my "psaltery."
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This would be a very good instrument to take with you if you were to say, go on a journey for about 3 months, and had a limited amount of space available, but wanted to be able to play an instrument while you were on your journey.