SEARCH Travels With LD

Sunday, February 10, 2008 - Pancho Villa State Park, Columbus NM

LD's new bathroom curtain rod, February 12, 2008
LD's new bathroom curtain rod, February 12, 2008

My new bathroom curtain rod

Today I'm going to take a break from the series of images of my walk up the Dog Canyon Trail at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park to show you a picture of the new bathroom curtain rod I made for this old Lazy Daze RV. Big deal eh - a silly little curtain rod? Such is the scale of life around here these days.

This is the latest in the series of curtain rods I've installed in LD. The first and most important were the ones in the dinette and livingroom I put up in place of the light robbing and ugly valances and dilapidated roller shades that came with this old buggy. Those just had to go before I set out on this trip but the mini blinds Lazy Daze used on the kitchen and bath windows I felt I could suffer along with for a while. At least until I found the time and inclination to do something. Kate Klein finally got my inclination up by asking me to make her some curtain rods for the bath and kitchen of their rig, Cholula Red. We needed to get hold of some aluminum rods for her project so I ordered a couple of extra rods for mine.

Like on my other rods, I made leather hangers for the them but in this case I'm using towels for curtains, an idea I borrowed from Andy Baird. Thanks Andy. Extending the rod into the shower gives me more towel bar to which I attached some of those little plastic spring clips that came on some coat hangers I found at Wal-Mart. These are the greatest little clips. Throw away the silly hangers - it's the clips we're after here. Not only do they fit my new rods but they work great as bag seals in the kitchen as well.

Now to find some nice new towels...

Night camp

Site 29 - Pancho Villa State Park, Columbus NM

Over Fifty

Some of this has been painful for me, but it's all been wildly instructive. And it convinced me that nearly every person over fifty should try to find a time to sit down and engage in the same exercise, even if you never intend to publish anything. You need to think about what really meant something to you. Who did you really love. Who really made you what you are. What the seminal events did. And also it's an incredible discipline. Because I found it shocking to me what I remember and what I don't. It's shocking to me what I can remember factually and how hard it is for me to be absolutely sure about how I felt at the time. You know, how did I feel when I was 16? I don't really know.

Bill Clinton, on writing his memoir, in an interview with James Fallows, the Atlantic Monthly

more...