Whiskey River… revisit

Jim Walters atop Kilimanjaro

Seems I’ve been posting about everything except travel recently… so, thought it’d be good to get “on the road again.” First & foremost, kudos to former National Park Service (NPS) colleague Jim Walters, as he was made it from his formative years in SoCal (Catalina Island) to being the NPS Wilderness Coordinator to being atop a large roadless track called Mt. Kilimanjaro: way-to-go Jim!

Hal's Series: Four Seasons (El Paso)

Meme & I took a much less adventurous excursion this past weekend to “the west Texas town of El Paso.” Had we ventured across the Rio Grande into J-town it might have been more harrowing. Instead we spent our time with Meme’s sister Pat and her husband Hal Marcus. It was a pre-Pat’s B-day sojourn that primarily included lots of art, food & music. Some of you may recall that Hal is an artist of some notoriety in EP and his 4 paintings “The Four Seasons” has been on temporary display at the art museum there; Sunday was its last day. His work is still viewable at the Chamizal National Memorial, the Children’s Hospital (El Mercado Juarez) and of course at his gallery: http://www.halmarcus.com/



El Mercado Juearez

As the fates dictated, Willie Nelson was also in town on 3/3; making his inaugural performance for a tour that is scheduled until mid-June. When we went to the art museum we saw his buses parked adjacent to the historic & refurbished Plaza Theatre where 2,100+ of us would sing and sway with him later that evening. The first song was his ol’ opening standard:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J_CmSi6CVI 

It was a bit rough, but considering the time he’d had off, that this was his 1^st concert since the death of his long-time bass player, and that he turns 79 the end of next month the hour and a half of tunes came together OK. Most of the ballads were familiar ones, but he did three knew ones he’d written while recuperating from throat surgery and getting ready for this next jaunt. They were good ones, entitled: I’m Not Superman, You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore, and Roll Me Up & Smoke Me When I Die. Worth the admittance price (of course, I have to confess we got our front-row balcony seats for free [thanks Hal] and the following morning the El Paso Times has a photo of Hal watching from same).