Travels, Life in Albany, 2009

Click here to see the next page of this series.

Click on click here to see the prior page of this series.

Click on any of the little pictures to see it at normal size. Click on the '=0=' after the picture to see it in giant size (about 2 minutes to download on dialup connection and larger than screen size). This could be useful if you wanted to really look at one part of the picture or to make a print.

Herb and Ruby's house. =0= Herb and Ruby's back yard. =0=
Next up was a trip to visit with my cousin Herb and his wife Ruby. The drive was an hour longer than usual as a section of I40 was washed out by the recent rains. Google maps advised me to take alternate routes (it showed that I40 did not connect which was surprising), but I didn't write down the cities I would be passing through and my GPS did not know that I40 was closed. It kept sending me there until I took a later detour recommended by the closure notices. That later detour cost me about half an hour more than the earlier one would have likely taken. Then as I was headed up to Signal Mountain (a suburb of Chattanooga) on US Rt 127, there was a delay for the flagmen on a section which was reduced to one lane by another washed out section of road. I took pictures, but lost them when my camera didn't record the last one correctly (it hung, doh!). Oh well, you can see that on my departure. Above is their house. If you notice, their front deck was also washed out (replaced with a ramp) and in their back yard (above) is the old deck as cut up for fire wood and the new lumber for the replacement decks. Here is stream that cuts through their front yard as seen from the driveway. Herb and Ruby's stream. =0=
Herb and Ruby's living room. =0= Herb and Ruby's living room. =0=
Above are pictures of their living room with the wood stove that they use to mostly heat their house. Here is a picture of Ruby as she was cleaning up in the kitchen. Below are pictures of the guest room where I stayed as well as the computer room where Herb does his computing. Next to that is a picture of their dining area between the living room and kitchen. There is an upstairs to the left of the living room with the master bedroom, a bathroom and an alcove where Ruby does her computing. Ruby in kitchen. =0=
Herb and Ruby's guest room. =0= Herb and Ruby's dining room. =0=
Here is a picture of Ruby. She was born in Taiwan. Her father was Taiwanese while her mother is Japanese. They met while her father was going to school in Japan. I left an elephant ear philodendron with Amy and Jack and another with Herb and Ruby. You can see them on the dining room table above. Ruby recognized the plant as a Taro plant which is a highly edible plant. The leaves can be eaten like salad, the stems can be cooked like bamboo, and the roots can be cooked like potatoes. That is so cool to learn as I have given away so many of these plants in my travels. Herb and I were able to spend some time talking about how to replace his deck, we made a trip to Lowes to get some hardware for the deck pilings, and dug the holes for the pilings. That was fun. Then Herb and Ruby took me to visit north Chattanooga which has been renovated, much in the style of Portland, OR with a river walk and such. On the way down we got to see the view from Signal Mountain which was quite impressive as one can imagine. If you look closely at the picture below you can see the Komatsu backhoe plant (with rows and rows of yellow backhoes). Ruby. =0=
Herb. =0= View from Signal Mtn, TN. =0=
View from Signal Mtn, TN. =0= View from Signal Mtn, TN. =0=
Above and here are more pictures from Signal Mountain. Below are pictures of Ruby and Herbert and me with Herb. View from Signal Mtn, TN. =0=
Ruby and Herb. =0= Brian and Herb. =0=
Click here to see the next page in this series.

This page was last updated on December 21, 2009.