Trippin' with Susan Straley

Mary didn't have a book about mushrooms, but she brought out a book she had about lichen.  I read the first few pages and learned that lichens are a mixture of fungus and a...   shoot, I forgot the word! Moments like these get scarier and scarier.  Most of my friends are older, and I am seeing some memory loss in a few of them.  Besides that, I watched my Mom and George and friends live and die with dementia.  It is SCARY! Ok, thanks to Google, I am reminded that fungus and algae are in a symbiotic relationship that creates lichen.  " Rather, it is a symbiosis between different organisms - a fungus and an alga or cyanobacterium." When taking pictures of mushrooms I found myself wondering if something was a lichen or a mushroom, or just a mold. I think we saw all three in the woods.   My sister Mary and I had fun going on two more mushroom walks while I was visiting in Rhinelander, WI. I love that I took the pic...

Greetings from Wisconsin I have been having a great time at my sister's in Rhinelander. I went to Anytime Fitness to join Mary in an exercise class. When I pulled my trike up next to the building to lock it, I saw a wide variety of moths. There is a light on that side of the building that must have been on all night. And in the morning, the cool fog descended and the moths found a place to park on the side of the building. There were big ones and little ones and tubular looking ones.  There were ones that looked like leaves and ones that blended in with the brick.  I loved it! Mary had invited her friend Bettina over for lunch one day. This woman drove herself over to Mary's home, climbed the stairs to Mary's back door, and after lunch walked around the yard admiring Mary's wildflower plantings. Bettina has traveled to Boston and California this year. She turned 100 years old this year.  She attends Learning In Retirement classes and Silve...

Hello, Book Publishing Takes Time Before I left Florida I got a bit ambitious.  I hired a great voice actress to read Alzheimer's Trippin' with George and create an audio book from it. She had found a few mistakes in my writing (surprise, surprise).  I had to remove all the pictures from the book (over 1200!) to make the audio version.  Where the picture added to the story, I had to describe the picture or what was going on.  Anyway, she was kind enough to make notes of the errors and I will be able to go back and fix the paperback and Kindle versions when I get the time.  After that I decided to pay someone to professionally edit The Journey Continues .  Only they are editing the audio book version of that also.  That book is already up on Amazon in paperback but will officially launch in Kindle and Large Print on December 4th, 2019.   I hope to have the audio book version ready at the same time. Well, guess what?  F...

Greetings! On September 16, 2019, Frankie, Dennis and I drove over to the Pumpkin Vine Trail to ride our bikes.  We started riding and Frankie pointed out the Amish farms.  There were quite a few with washing hanging out on the line.  Frankie loved this quilt. There were lots of horses in pastures and Amish black carriages in driveways and under carport-like shelters. We saw a composite bench that had been chewed up quite a bit by squirrels. The trail was lovely with lots of shade.  We rode by cows and buffalo and bulls, lots of clusters of white farm buildings and houses with long clotheslines filled with dresses and overhauls and white shirts.  On some of the buildings were solar collectors. This area of Indiana is the manufacturing hub for camper trailers.  We passed lots full of campers and biked past the Winnebago manufacturing plant that smelled like plywood. We arrived at the end of the tra...