My Birthday Week

February 23rd, another year older, with hopefully, many more years ahead of me.........

As a kid, birthdays in my house were not celebrated with much fanfare. Mom always made a cake, and after supper, we received our present. I never really thought much about it ~ that's the way we did it. I always knew that some families went all out ~ and that is OK. Some don't ~ and that is OK too.

This year must be very special, because this year, I was treated to a Birthday week (not just a day). Candy started my birthday week with a Pineapple Upside-down Cake (my favorite). The next day I got hot cinnamon rolls and hot coffee for breakfast in bed. Day three, I received a gift certificate for a pedicure from Candy, Sarah, Katie, and families. I had never had a pedicure, but gotta tell you ~ it feels pretty darn nice to have someone bathe, massage, and moisturize your feet. It is evident to me now why the Pharoahs liked to be pampered.... Katie and Sarah also gave me a James Taylor CD and DVD.

Throughout the rest of the week, Candy made the days special with gifts, including a long-sleeved shirt and HD Baseball cap from Buddy Stubbs Harley Davidson in Phoenix, and a great HD Ring. I also got a HD Mouse pad, and Melissa and family gave me a gift certificate to Red Lobster. We had friends over for a birthday dinner and they brought me a bottle of Captain Morgan's Private Reserve.....WOW!!!! Is it ever good.

1969

In the summer of 1969, the United States was still drafting young men into the military and the US was fully engaged in Vietnam. Knowing I would be drafted, and wanting to make the best out of the situation, I joined the US Navy with my only stipulation being that I would go to bootcamp in San Diego, California versus Great Lakes, Michigan.

When I graduated from Bootcamp, my parents drove from Ohio to San Diego to witness the graduation ceremony. Dad was really into taking slides with his *35MM camera which was cool back then ~ but made it difficult to get actual photographs unless you sent the slides to Kodak, waited about 2 weeks, and paid a fortune.

*Heather Morton now owns the camera and I think it still works

I have had a slide of Mom and me, taken by Dad, for about 10 years now and have never had a way to conveniently convert it until recently. I now have a cool device in which I can insert the slide and capture the image, then save it in a .jpg format. I hope to work with my brother Bob to start converting slides from our racing days ~ and get some of the archived slides from Mom and try to capture some of the family photographs from years long past.

Enjoy!

How Many of Me?

• There are 282,337 people in the U.S. with the first name Stanley.
• There are 75,897 people in the U.S. with the last name Morton.
• There are 71 people in the U.S. named Stanley Morton.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 71 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

The Morton Family Drag Racing ~ Days Remembered

First, I would like to give credit where it is due. Most of these pictures were saved because Annette (Morton) Gabbard took the time to maintain a scrapbook when this was all going on. If it weren't for the scrapbooking efforts of Annette, these days would be fondly remembered in all of our minds ~ but, from an archived point of view ~ forever lost.
Thanks Annette ~ if you happen to see this.

On another note, I want to acknowledge the efforts of my brother Bob for converting the scrapbook to a digital format then transferring it to a CD so I (hopefully) will never be far away from this extraordinary time in my life during the late 60's and early 70's.
Thanks to you also Bob!

Miss Molly Marie ~ The Early Years

2007 Wrap-up....

WOW ~ 2007, what a year
Kaneke and I had a wonderful travel year which took us to many exciting locations in many different states. We were fortunate to be able to visit the following cities and places:

* Albuquerque NM
* Santa Fe NM
* Taos NM
* Red River NM
* Eagles Nest NM
* Bisbee AZ
* Benson AZ (Kartchner Caverns)
* The "Big Island" Hawaii
* Kilauea Volcano
* Akaka Falls
* Various Camping Trips to National Forest locations in Arizona
* Roadtrip to Cincinnati OH (Flagstaff to Cincinnati)

Our adventures for 2007 wrapped up with our Roadtrip to Cincinnati OH. We spent the first weekend at my brother's house (Bob and Alice) where we met my Mom and and other brother from Florida (Marie and Dave) and nieces and nephews Bekkie Fink (and her kids), Cindy Morton (+ kids), Daniel & Dar (+ son), Sarah & Kevin Whitman, Katie Hulme (+son), and Jim Jeffery. Oh ~ I forgot to add a couple of dogs, Molly and Dozer.

The remainder of time we spent with our daughters Sarah and Katie and our new Grandson Casey Lee. Unfortunately Matt (Katie's husband) couldn't join the fun because he is currently in Iraq on assignment. During it all, Candy was able to bake some of her world famous holiday cutout cookies and babysit Casey Lee while I helped Katie with some winterization projects.

During our last night (Halloween) we were joined by Art and Pam Hulme. Pam, Candy, Katie, and Casey Lee sat on the front porch and handed out candy to the kids while Art, Sarah and I sat inside and ate pizza, cookies, and caught up on current events.

Our Cocker Spaniel (Molly) is a well seasoned traveler now and accompanied us to most (if not all) of these activities.

I think we will wind down the rest of the year here in Flagstaff. Maybe I can put a few miles on my new Harley Davidson Sportster, put up holiday lights, and prepare for the eventual winter blast.

Summer Highlights........

Recently, I have received gentle reminders that my blog is pathetically outdated ~ sad to say, it's true. I will do my best to provide a recap of our summer activities.

In southern Arizona, south of Tucson, there is this recently discovered limestone cave called Karchner Caverns. Candy & I (along with our faithful traveling Cocker Spaniel Molly) pulled our 5th wheel RV to Benson Arizona for an early Saturday morning Cave Tour. Still considered to be a "live" cave, extraordinary efforts have been made to protect the caves ecosystem, including 3 air locks to keep outside air and CO2 out, misters to wash the oils, lint, and dust off your body, etc. Our visit to the cave was a wonderful experience. (no cameras allowed = no pictures)

We left Benson around Saturday at noon and headed for Bisbee Arizona and stayed at the Shady Dell RV Park, http://www.theshadydell.com/ where a sleek lineup of vintage aluminum travel trailers is available for overnight or weekly rental. This collection includes a 1949 Airstream, 1950 Spartanette, 1950 Spartan Manor, 1954 Crown, and 1951 Royal Mansion among others. Sadly, this piece of Americana is for sale and will probably disappear within the next decade.

Prior to departure on Sunday morning, Candy & I were first-in-line to enjoy an authentic retro-style breakfast at Dot's Diner. Dot's Diner is an authentic diner built by the Valentine Manufacturing Co. in Wichita, Kansas. Valentine had been manufacturing diners since the 1930's without much change in design, which explains the deco style.

The town of Bisbee is located approximately 5 miles from the Arizona/Mexico border and is on the map because it literally sits on top of one of the richest copper deposits in the world. During its glory days, the mine produced $1,000,000 / day of revenue for the town of Bisbee. When copper prices hit rock-bottom, the town reinvented itself as an antique and arts paradise. Recently, due to the increase in copper price ~ the copper mine owner's have indicated that they will re-open the mines.

On the final leg of our Southern Arizona excursion, we stopped at Tombstone. I didn't expect much here, thinking it was probably just another cheap old cowboy town tourist attraction, but was pleasantly surprised to see that the town was authentic. Here we were at Tombstone on an early Sunday morning, and the locals were walking the streets, shops were open, and the town folks ~ including the children, were living the western town lifestyle. Horses were being ridden around town, and the folks were wearing western style clothing.

Next up? Our trip to the Big Island of Hawaii.....