RonniesPictureJournal - 1943-000

Introduction - December 1, 1943

RonieAdventures have been occurring for over 80 years, some of which were photographed and recorded by his mother. Once Ronnie was old enough to hold a camera, he helped his mother take pictures; then, when he left home, he started taking pictures on his own. 

Ronnie has always enjoyed taking pictures, so he now has boxes of old photographs, numerous trays of slides, and a hard drive full of digital pictures. Very few people have ever seen most of the pictures, so Ronnie's Picture Journal has been created to share pictures with others and to create a picture history of Ronnie's life's adventures. 

After receiving a digital camera for Christmas in 2002, Ronnie was so thrilled with the cost of taking digital pictures that the quantity of pictures taken increased substantially. As a side benefit, all of the pictures taken with a digital camera contain the picture date taken, so pictures taken after December 25, 2002, are well organized. The dates of older pictures are generally approximated. 

Ronnie's pictures were not organized or recorded on a consistent basis until April 22, 2012, when the first RonnieAdvenure was published on the web. Since that time, RonnieAdventures have generally been published once a week, on Friday. As space permitted, some historical pictures were included in RonnieAdventures, but the older pictures did not fit well with the more recent adventures. Therefore, there was a need for a separate blog to post just historical pictures; thus, Ronnie's Picture Journal was started.  

Starting in 2023, historic pictures will be posted as time permits, but the frequency of postings will increase as older pictures are scanned into a digital format. Dates of pictures posted will be included when available. Some historic pictures that contain a travel adventure may still be posted as part of RonnieAdventures.

RonniesPictureJournal 2003-012 December Pictures

2003 December Pictures

December 01, 2003. Still working with Jackass Aeropark to arrive at an annual lease rent for the airstrip.  

December 05, 2003. Fall leaves were covering the ground in our backyard and some flowers were still in bloom. 

December 13, 2003. Santa came to our church Christmas dinner and was well received by the young children.

December 17, 2003. Our December Cub Scout Pack meeting was a Space Derby, where the Cubs built rockets that raced along wires. The rocket  propulsion system was a tightly wound rubber band connected to a propeller. Special hangers attached to the rockets and suspended them below the wires.  

December 20, 2003. It had been a mild winter and the yard flowers were still blooming.

December 25, 2003. We spent Christmas with family in Utah. The boys received new bikes from Santa and then we went out in the front yard and made a snowman..

December 30, 2003. We did not have to go all of the way to Utah to see snow - IT SNOWED IN LAS VEGAS! It was such an unusual event, even an alien came to see the snow. 

RonniesPictureJournal 2003-011 November Pictures

2003 November Pictures

(Note: My digital camera was not working correctly, so some of my November 2003 pictures were of very poor quality.) 

November 01, 2003. Laurie and Kathryn were visiting for a few days, so we hiked in Sloan Canyon to see the petroglyphs. We also hiked up through Anniversary Narrows. 

November 02, 2003. On the way to Death Valley we stopped by the ghost town of Rhyolite and the Bottle House.

My favorite way into Death Valley is on the four-wheel-drive trail down Titus Canyon. The unimproved road passes by the ghost town of Leadville. While everyone was posing for the picture, I looked down and a large tarantula was on the ground right next to Laurie' shoe. Fortunately, she moved away before it crawled onto her shoe.

After exiting Titus Canyon, it is only a short distance to Harmony Borax Works where a twenty-mule-team wagon was on display. The wagon was used to haul Borax to the nearest railroad, which was near Mojave, 165 miles away. The Borax Works is located near what is now known as Furnace Creek (called Greenland in 1881).

On the last evening of Laurie's visit, we went out to eat and met a famous Las Vegs chef that prepared our dinner. (Sorry, I do not remember the chef's name.)

November 14, 2003. Our yard flowers were still doing well in November. 

November 28, 2003. Some of the Grandkids were here for Thanksgiving, so we shot model rockets and went to the Natural History Museum. As part of the space exhibit, they had an alien on display that was on loan from from Area 51. The Alien was recovered from a flying saucer wreck in New Mexico.