Meteor Crater

Tomorrow should be interesting.

After leaving Williams, Arizona, I plan to stop at Meteor Crater, which is about 70 miles away. I've always wanted to visit it and now's my chance.

According to their website:

The world’s best preserved meteorite impact site on Earth. Located just minutes from Interstate 40 in Northern Arizona near Winslow, Meteor Crater is the breath-taking result of a collision between an asteroid traveling 26,000 miles per hour and planet Earth approximately 50,000 years ago. 

Meteor Crater is nearly one mile across, 2.4 miles in circumference and more than 550 feet deep. It is an international tourist venue with outdoor observation trails, air conditioned indoor viewing, wide screen movie theater, Interactive Discovery Center, unique gift and rock shop, and Astronaut Memorial Park at the Visitor Center located on the crater rim.

 For more information, go here.

Japan Tops 20 Million Visitors

Above, the Kinkaku-ji Golden Pavilion in Kyoto. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

For the first time ever, Japan has topped 20 million in foreign visitors.

The Japan Times reported:

The estimated number of foreign visitors to Japan this year has already surpassed last year’s record 19.74 million, topping 20 million in only 10 months, the Japan Tourism Agency said Monday. 

The number of visitors in the first nine months of this year was up 24.1 percent from the same period the previous year to 17.98 million and the figure is estimated to have topped the 20 million line as of Sunday, the agency said.

To read more, go here. 

First Leg: Williams, Arizona

Above, on Interstate 40 in Arizona. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

The first leg of many legs (this trip will have so many legs to it that it'll seem like a centipede by the time it's done) is completed.

I reached Williams, Arizona around 4:15 this afternoon. I am currently at the Grand Canyon/Williams KOA Kampground. They have a sign in front: "Why did the mummy come here to relax? He needed to unwind!" (Sounds like a bad joke by Don Glut.)

Above, The Beast at the Grand Canyon/Williams KOA. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

It has been cloudy during the whole drive with very sparse rainfall. Just as well.

It seems that people who still own micro-mini Class C motorhomes (on Toyota chassis) are out this weekend as I've noticed several.

One interesting place I saw was a sign as I was about to enter Kingman, Arizona for Holy Moses Wash. Who comes up with these names?

Sierra stayed on my lap during the drive on the Pearblossom Highway until I stopped for breakfast at the Flying J truck stop in Barstow.

Above, the Camp Clipper plaque. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

While en route, I did stop for a break at a rest stop near Fenner, California and took a picture of a Clamper plaque (Billy Holcomb Chapter) that was dedicated in 1991 for Camp Clipper, part of General George S. Patton's Desert Training Center. I think I attended that plaque dedication.

Above, a Russian church photo sent by Asya.

I received some pictures from Asya, who is currently in Russia. She is in Tver and Dmitrov visiting relatives. Sounds like she's having a good time. They already have snow there.

After overnighting here in Williams, I will be heading to Albuquerque tomorrow morning. On the way, I will be stopping at Meteor Crater.

Trekking To Metropolis

Above, Noel Neill and Armand at the TV Land Convention in Burbank.

Tomorrow morning, I'll be heading out for the trek to Metropolis, Illinois for the celebration of life memorial service for the original Lois Lane, Noel Neill.

I'll be driving there in The Beast along with Sierra.

It will be a leisurely trip with stops along the way (and the way back home). I will be posting the trip's progress (campground Wi-Fi permitting as they are notoriously poor).

I will be meeting up with many friends in Metropolis, including:

* Brad Shey.

* Jim Nolt of Lancaster, PA, editor of The Adventures Continue.
Website: jimnolt.com

* Jim Bowers of Las Vegas, Nevada: editor of the website CapedWonder.com.

* Steve Younis, Sydney, Australia, (video contribution), editor of the website: supermanhomepage.com.

* Larry Blankley of Granite City, Illinois.

* John Field of San Diego, CA (video contribution).

* Lisa Gower & Karla Ogle of the Metropolis, Illinois Chamber of Commerce.

* Terry Ryan of Sydney, Australia.

* Stephanie Perrin of Romeo, Michigan.

* Angie Sivori of Lake Charles, Louisiana.

* Larry Thomas Ward of Tucson, AZ, author of Truth, Justice, & The American Way: The Life & Times of Noel Neill, and Beyond Lois Lane.

Of course, while in Metropolis, I will be touring Jim Hambrick's Super Museum.

I don't know when I will be departing Metropolis for Memphis. That depends if there's anything planned for Sunday or not. 

Clinton Campaign: Anger and Disbelief

Above, caught in the headlights. No, Bill, it was Hillary's Weiner.

Yesterday's announcement by FBI Director James Comey has turned the Hillary Clinton campaign into an angry, panicked frenzy.

The Hill reported:

Hillary Clinton’s allies were cast into a state of anger and disbelief over the FBI’s stunning announcement that it is reviewing new emails “pertinent” to Clinton’s use of a private email server. 

That shocking development — revealed in a letter to Congress by FBI Director James Comey — pushed some of Clinton’s allies past the boiling point. 

They said they were “dumbfounded” by the revelation that the new FBI review may have been spurred by a separate investigation into Anthony Weiner sending lewd texts to a minor. Weiner is separated from wife Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s closest aides.
And they worried that Clinton’s unconventional email arrangement had finally caught up to her and might imperil her presidential bid less than two weeks before Election Day.
 

A friend said that it would be "poetic justice" if Clinton's campaign were brought down by Anthony Weiner. Still, Clinton brought all this upon herself due to her dishonesty.

This could cause a constitutional crisis if she is elected president and is indicted before inauguration day. It is no more imperative that Donald Trump wins the election. Before this bombshell, Trump was trending upwards anyway.

To read more, go here. 

"Hot Bench" Promo

Above, Denise Santos and I on Hot Bench.

The promo video is up at YouTube on our appearance on Hot Bench. A screen capture is above.

There is one part in the promo that is edited in such a way that makes it seem I answered "yes" to the judge's statement that unless Denise Santos married me, I would want all my money back, implying I was trying to bribe her.

"You're a golddiggah!"

No, that wasn't what I answered "yes" to. That was never the case. While I helped her out with many other things, the only things I sued for were the rings (which I am entitled to under California Civil Code 1590), the cost of the boob job (at my daughter's insistence) and a loan for child support legal expenses. That was it. If it were for everything as the judge said, my claims would have been far beyond the $10,000 limits of California Small Claims Court and I would have filed in Limited Civil Court.

I never tried to "buy" her. Instead, I was subjected to a narcissistic manipulation job and she used me as an ATM.

In hindsight, I probably would have been better off had I kept this in Small Claims Court. There, I would have been able to walk the judge through everything. I was mostly annoyed by the constant interruptions by the panel.

By the way, I received the verdict payment yesterday. That will come in handy on my trek to Metropolis, Illinois next week.

The episode of Hot Bench airs Tuesday, November 1. Check your local listings.

Now It's "DickiLeaks"

Carl Bernstein of Woodward & Bernstein fame said that the FBI would not have reopened the emails investigation of Hillary Clinton unless they came upon a "real bombshell".

We shall see.

Already the term DikiLeaks or DickiLeaks is beginning to catch on (thanks to Anthony Weiner):

Somehow, even before this, I had the strange feeling that Anthony Weiner would come into play in this campaign. I guess my gut feeling was right!

Hillary FBI Investigation Reopened, Anuses Are Puckering

The spincter muscles of the Hillary Clinton campaign have to puckering fiercely right now after FBI Director James Comey announced the reopening of investigation into Clinton's email server.

The Washington Post reported:

Newly discovered emails found on a computer seized during an investigation of disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner have prompted the FBI to make new inquiries related to Hillary Clinton’s private email server, according to three people familiar with the deliberations. 

FBI Director James B. Comey informed congressional leaders Friday that the agency would take “appropriate investigative steps” to determine whether the newly discovered emails contain classified information and to assess their importance to the Clinton server probe. 

The emails were found on a computer used jointly by both Weiner and his wife, top Clinton aide Huma Adebin, according to a person with knowledge of the inquiry. Federal officials have been examining Weiner’s alleged sexually suggestive online messages with a teenage girl. The link to the Weiner probe was first reported by the New York Times.

Besides that, the FBI has Clinton's backup device that is sought in a FOIA request by Judicial Watch. The device is called a "Datto device", according to Breitbart.com in an October 13 article. If there are classified materials (or other evidence of wrongdoing) on that device on top of what may be found in Weiner's computer, this could torpedo the Clinton campaign.

FBI Director Comey has been under intense fire for his mishandling of the investigation. This may be an effort to salvage his career. A "Hail Mary!" pass, perhaps?

Here's Breitbart's story on today's news.

To read the full Washington Post story, go here.

WSJ: Where Our Monsters Come From

Above, a Universal publicity photo for Son of Frankenstein featuring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff.

Halloween is only days away and it is the perfect time to see where our monsters came from.

The Wall Street Journal has an article that does just that.

They begin with:

The Halloween season is upon us again and, with it, all the lurid paraphernalia of
assorted ghosts, ghouls and goblins. It’s all in good fun, but our favorite seasonal terrors
also say something deeper about what scares us and why. Halloween itself we owe to the
ancient Celts, whose festival of Samhain marked the beginning of the dark part of the
year, when the souls of the dead revisited the earth, but many of our current monsters
reflect more recent anxieties. 

Most anthropologists date the beginning of civilization to the institution of funerary
rituals and designated cemeteries, and it is hardly surprising that our imaginations,
even now, dwell on the disquieting line that separates the living from the dead. In many
cultures, too, ghosts are often angry because they represent, in guilty consciences, those
who been murdered, forgotten or somehow improperly laid to rest 

Religion also played a part. When the Protestant Reformation did away with the concept
of purgatory as a transit point to paradise, it opened the doors still further for unsettled
ghosts to roam the earth. Disputes between Protestants and Catholics over who could
best invoke angels and keep demons at bay ensured that those emissaries from the
invisible world would continue to be vivid realities for many believers.

Can you believe that 15 years from now the Universal Pictures horror classics Dracula and Frankenstein will be 100 years old?

To read more, go here. 

Now It Starts Raining

Above, from a year ago. It hasn't gotten to this point. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

It looks like there may be a series of smallish rain fronts coming into Los Angeles for the next several days. It is currently raining now in Tarzana. So far, it is a light rain.

I may miss another rainstorm this coming Sunday when I head out to Metropolis, Illinois.

Driving in rain on the open highway doesn't bother me as much as cross-winds (and passing speeding big rigs) while driving The Beast through the desert. Hopefully, there will be no cross-winds on this trip. Thank goodness that Accuweather is available for me to check the conditions ahead.

I am giving myself plenty of time to reach Metropolis, so I am not going to rush over there. 

The Clintons: A Bunch of Grifters

The Wall Street Journal has a hard-hitting opinion piece by Kimberley A. Strassel on Bill and Hillary Clinton, "Grifters-In-Chief".

First off, what's a "grifter"?

According to The Free Dictionary:

grift  (grĭft) Slang 

n. 

1. Money made dishonestly, as in a swindle.
2. A swindle or confidence game. 

v. grift·ed, grift·ing, grifts 

v.intr. 

To engage in swindling or cheating. 

v.tr. 

To obtain by swindling or cheating.

In her opinion piece, Strassel begins:

In an election season that has been full of surprises, let’s hope the electorate understands that there is at least one thing of which it can be certain: A Hillary Clinton presidency will be built, from the ground up, on self-dealing, crony favors, and an utter disregard for the law. 

This isn’t a guess. It is spelled out, in black and white, in the latest bombshell revelation from WikiLeaks. It comes in the form of a memo written in 2011 by longtime Clinton errand boy Doug Band, who for years worked simultaneously at the Clinton Foundation and at the head of his lucrative consulting business, Teneo. 

It is astonishingly detailed proof that the Clintons do not draw any lines between their “charitable” work, their political activity, their government jobs or (and most important) their personal enrichment. Every other American is expected to keep these pursuits separate, as required by tax law, anticorruption law and campaign-finance law. For the Clintons, it is all one and the same—the rules be damned.

Strassel concludes with:

This is how the Clintons operate. They don’t change. Any one who pulls the lever for Mrs. Clinton takes responsibility for setting up the nation for all the blatant corruption that will follow.

She is right. Anyone who votes for Hillary Clinton on Election Day, and if she wins, bears the responsibility for the corruption that is sure to follow. Already, the Clintons (with plenty of help from President Obama, FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch) for ruining the once-solid reputations of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice. As I said before, anyone who votes for Hillary Clinton after all of the revelations put out by WikiLeaks and Project Veritas Action has to be either a moron, an idiot or dishonest.

Pure and simple, the Clintons are crooks!

To read the full article, go here.

Dollar Inching Up In Tokyo

Things are continuing to look a little bit better for the U.S. dollar in Tokyo currency exchange trading. This will help Americans traveling to Japan.

According to Jiji Press:

Tokyo, Oct. 27 (Jiji Press)--The dollar gained ground to change hands around 104.60 yen in late Tokyo trading on Thursday.

To read more, go here. 

Bill O'Reilly Expodes!

"He’s the FBI director! No politics! He’s the investigator! He didn’t blanking mention it! That is so damning!" - Bill O'Reilly on Fox News.

Say what you want about WikiLeaks, but in the matters concerning Hillary Clinton, they have done the American people a great service.

Anyone who supports Hillary Clinton after all the WikiLeaks (and Project Veritas Action) revelations has to be either a moron, an idiot, or just plain dishonest. Watergate was Child's Play in comparison.

Commentator Bill O'Reilly has had enough:




Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against Comey now!

Lens Fixed

Above, the lens is back on. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

There's one thing (possibly others) that analog camera lenses have over today's digital lenses, they don't give you error messages or fail to focus. With analog lenses, with a twist of the wrist, what you see is what you get! Since digital lenses have electronics in them, they can and do sometimes go haywire.

I finally had the 50mm lens for my Canon T5i Rebel camera fixed after it started giving me error messages and wouldn't correctly focus.

The good folks at Woodland Hills Camera had it all repaired and ready for me within 2 weeks. Not too shabby! Plus, they threw in a new lens cap strap at no charge!

Before leaving the store, I tested it out with my camera and it works as good as new.

The Tamron 18 - 270mm lens I bought (as a replacement) before the Hawaii trip worked great, but I did notice that it is not as sharp as the Canon 55mm lens.

Everything is ready to go, camera-wise, for the Metropolis trip.

Driving Directions and Weather At Accuweather.com

Above, rain at the Spring Platrix clamp-out. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Thanks to fellow RVers at iRV2, I was directed to a website that provides weather information on the route(s) I'm taking to Metropolis, Illinois. It is at Accuweather.com.

All one needs to do is to add their starting and ending points along with the time of departure and it will provide driving directions and the weather along the route.

Here is what the map looks like for Los Angeles to Metropolis:

Thankfully, we had a couple of rainstorms in Los Angeles this past week, which gave me the opportunity to check for any leaks. Since The Beast is still relatively new, there shouldn't be any and there were none. I did have a small leak from the roof air conditioner during a rainstorm last April at a clamp-out. But that was easily fixed. All I had to do was to tighten the air conditioner's mounting bolts. The recent rains told me that the tightening did the trick. Two weeks prior to the clamp-out, there were heavier rains at Yosemite National Park while I was there and there were no leaks.

To go to their Driving Directions and Weather page, go here.

Bob Hoover, One Hell of A Pilot, Dies At 94

Above, Bob Hoover and his yellow Rockwell P-51.

Back in the 1960s through the 1980s, one of the annual events I made it a point to attend was the Point Mugu Air Show.

There, aircraft of all kinds, including military and civilian aircraft, were flown to the delight of the crowds. There were two men whose names stood out for me every year at the Point Mugu Air Show: Art Scholl and Bob Hoover.

Scholl was killed in the 1980s while flying over the Pacific Ocean near San Diego for the movie Top Gun.

I just read in the Japan Times that Bob Hoover just passed away at age 94.

They wrote:

LOS ANGELES – Robert A. “Bob” Hoover, a World War II fighter pilot who became an aviation legend for his flying skills in testing aircraft and demonstrating their capabilities in air shows, has died at age 94. 

Hoover, who lived in Palos Verdes Estates, California, died early Tuesday, said Bill Fanning, a close family friend for many years and fellow pilot. 

“He was every pilot’s icon,” Fanning said, recalling his friend as one of the premier test pilots of the 1950s and ’60s. “Bob tested everything. He flew them all.” 

When the National Air and Space Museum conferred its highest honor on Hoover in 2007, the museum noted that Jimmy Doolittle, leader of the famed 1942 bomber raid on Japan, had once described Hoover as “the greatest stick-and-rudder man that ever lived.”

Hoover provided those who attended any air show he flew at with some great memories. He also had "the right stuff".

To read more, go here.

Days Away To Metropolis

It looks like I'll be heading off to Metropolis, Illinois for Noel Neill's celebration of life memorial this coming Sunday or Monday. I'm leaning towards a Sunday departure.

This will give me plenty of time to get there for the November 5 memorial and, also, to makes some tourist stops along the way. I have a preliminary list of stops here. I'll probably stop at other places along the way, if they look interesting.

This looks to be the longest solo (along with my cat Sierra) trip since I drove around the Four Corners area of Southwest United States back in the 1980s. This time, I'll be a lot more comfortable with The Beast.

The weather along the route (mainly Interstate 40) looks to be on the warm side, but that can always change. I will monitor my Weather Channel app on my cell phone and the U.S. weather channels on my citizens band radio. That will also come in hand for traffic and road condition reports.

I am looking to arriving in Metropolis on November 3 or 4 so I can visit the Super Museum and visit with other early arrival friends. Thanks goodness there is a state park with campground in Metropolis, so I'll be staying there. Jim Hambrick of the Super Museum in Metropolis gave me the tip on that.

WikiLeaks Exposes Obama Lie On Hillary Emails

Remember when President Barack Obama told the country that he first learned that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was using her own server for emails when the rest of the country did?

He lied.

WikiLeaks just exposed Obama's lie:

Looks like a criminal cover-up.

To read more, go here.

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