We will be celebrating Ansel's 95th birthday Aug 1st

When any one inquires of me how is Ansel doing? I always respond by saying, "He's still going, he's the energizer bunny in 4-low (4-low, referring to a how slow a 4x4 pick up goes in 4-low) He doesn't go very far very fast, but he keeps going".




When I saw this trailer parked at the Shilo Inn up the street, I turned around, drove back and made Ansel get out of the car to let me take this picture. The trailer was in town for the Hot Air Balloon Festival that was going on that weekend. One of the balloons was the "Energizer Bunny".


What keeps him going is feeding his horses every morning and every night. We have an elec golf cart with a utility bed on the back, I load the hay for him, and he drives around and feeds every day. For the horses in the barn, I wrestle the hay bales around, and put the hay in front of the stalls and then he feeds each one. He's been using a cane since Christmas, and takes that with him on the cart to feed the horses. I do the watering and take care of the fencing (such as it is) but he still feeds his babies every morning and every night.

In this picture Ansel is giving long time friend Judy Moorehouse a tour of the horses. Note the Mercedes emblem on the front of the cart. :0) When it's muddy or snowy the cart never misses a beat with the rear chains on.

A Nice Visit at Buckeye Ranch

This is the main gate into the ranch, it's 5 miles from the end of the county road. The pic was actually taken on a previous May visit. The hills are all green right now.

Larryann was trying to bond with one of her pups, and the cats wouldn't hear of it. They raise McNab cattle dogs. My Lucy is one of theirs. If you are interested, their contact information is on their website. http://www.pwlivestock.com/

Averyel Willis and Ansel enjoyed sharing some stories. Averyel was widowed last summer. She and her former husband, Porter A, live on the Buckeye in their own house, just down the hill from Port and Larryann's house.

Averyel fixed us a lovely dinner down at her house. It was a great Italian chicken dish that I can't pronounce. Ansel is there too, my self timer camera missed him.

There is a pig inside the dog house... Actually she is "Oink" Larryann's pet pig.

Ansel meets Greg Kent, who owns the Buckeye Ranch. Greg invests lots of thought into restoration projects and water development on the ranch.

Mutt and Jeff... Greg was a professional NFL football player for the Raiders, and as you know Ansel was a jockey.

Driving from San Ysidro, north to the Buckeye

When we left San Ysidro, Ca which is the US/Mexican border, we headed north to spend the night with friends at the Buckeye Ranch, which is west of Modesto and south of Tracy. It was about a 6 hour drive. I took this next picture, when I realized that we were almost the only vehicle on the highway north. It was a little uncanny, I was wondering if something was wrong. It didn't take very long though as we got closer to LA, before the traffic looked like this. I think it took longer to go through the LA area as it did to drive from there to the Buckeye.

Here's another one of those clever cell phone towers. This one looked more like fir tree.

Here's a truck load of Lemon's headed for the Northwest.

After a long climb up a mountain pass, when we came down the other side, the San Joaquin valley opened up for as far as you could see. All irrigated farmland. It was beautiful, well except for the wind. The wind was insane. The picture below is of a corrugated flood irrigated field.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd we had lunch at my newest favorite place. mmmmmmmmm In N Out. What I love about an In N Out, is you only go there to eat hamburgers and fries. Three choices on the menu; single, double or triple with fries. The fries are made literally fresh at each one. You can see them, washing the taters, peeling, them and putting them in the slicer and then carrying them to the fryer. mmmm they are so good. I feel that they have above average help than other fast food places.

Then it was on to the Buckeye. Once you get to the gate, then it's a 30 minute drive to go the 5 miles into the ranch.

San Ysidro, CA my first look at the MEX border

Found these pictures on the internet. Thank you to who's ever they are. The first pic is of the US/Mex border from the Mex side in 1925. The pic below is present day, from the Mex side but appears to be from the opposite direction. It went from 4 lanes to 24 lanes. eeeshhhh, talk about a parking lot ?!

I told you in an earlier post about going to the San Diego Courthouse and researching the deeds and finding the location of his parents property. We also got a photo copy of a plat map with lot sizes etc on it. From that and with the existance of a few roads that still exist, I was able to determine a pretty close proximinty where the house was. The Google Earth image below marks the spot. In 1959 Ansel's mother sold the property to Vivian and Maurice, (Ansel's older sister). Don't know the year, but at some point after that the property was purchased to widen I-5 and the approaches to the border.

The yellow line is the US/Mexican border. To the north of the border (US side) there is a very large factory outlet store complex. Front St is now an alley behind a strip mall. It doesn't exist on the GPS, but it was still here on Google Earth for now any way. On the death certificates, Mother Marshall's listed the address as 241 National, and on Papa's it was listed as Front and Louisiana. On the plat map the south boundary was Front St, the west boundary was National, and the east boundary was Louisiana. On a larger image of Google Earth we can see traces of National and Louisiana on the north side of I-5 and you can see where they tied into Front St. Ansel remembers that there wasn't anything between there property and the Mexican border except a simple barb wire fence.

Here we are parked on what is left of Front St., which is now an alley facing east. One hundred feet NE of the utility pole you see is where the house would be.



The Border behind the shopping complex. It's actually a triple fence. One fence is below the pickup, and has barbed wire on top of it. Then the fence on the other side of the pick up is two fences. There is a series of mega flood lights along the fence too.

As soon as I got out of my car and started to take pictures... these two officers showed up on bicycles to see what I was doing. I asked if I could take their pictures and they said no...

This picture is looking at Mexico on the other side of the fence, there is a very majestic flag blowing in the breeze.

And for my girlfriends who do their nails... this looked pretty cheap?

Bay Shore Park, Chula Vista

Our accomodations in Chula Vista were very nice for $50.00 a night. I was shocked at the price, that included taxes too. They had a common continental breakfast, anad a very nice hot tub which I used every night. Didn't have it in me to try the pool though.

Early every morning I would walk the 1.5 miles down to the Bay Shore Park and out the other side and make a loop back to the room, it would end up being at least 3 miles. My walk took me down past the a Marina Dry Dock business, which is in the left side of the pic, the vacant land in this picture is part of a wildlife sancuary between the hotel and the bay.

The waters there are sooooo blue, the colors are vibrant. The land in the back is Coronado. I was hoping to take a drive across it before we left, but didn't end up with enough time. The pic below is my attempt at a picture with the self timer on my camera sitting on top of a trash receptical.

Ansel and I each have Nextel Direct Connect (cell phone technology walkie talkies) and he can call me anytime there is a cell signal, which I check often. If there is no cell signal I can change them to Direct Talk which gives us a 1-2 mile radius. While his hearing is still a challenge, we have a system of him asking yes and no questions so he can disern my answers. Also if he just chirps, me and doesn't talk, then I check on him. It's our answer to "life alert", which only works with in 100' of your home phone. I also carried the little can of mace with me. It was a very nice area, a snow bird RV park provided lots of walkers in the same area.

Back to Glen Abbey Memorial Park

These palms in the park were exceptionally beautiful. They are surrounding a beautiful water feature. I told you in a earlier post that we had found Ansel's parents graves had been unmarked for 60 years. Ansel was visiting the Memorial Park for the first time, at the time of both of their deaths, the weather and the roads were really bad and he couldn't make the trip down from Burns, OR. After visiting with the park staff, they told us that they would put some temporary markers on the graves, and gave us information on purchasing stones. Ansel wanted to think about the purchase some. The last morning we were in San Diego we went by to see the markers.

Ansel, 94 years old, leaning on his cane (which he just started to use at Christmas time) reflecting on his parents, while looking at their final resting place in the Glen Abbey Memorial Park, Chula Vista, CA.

One more piece of Ansel's facinating life story is put together. It had troubled him that he couldn't remember when his Dad had died or where he was buried.

Finding Ansel's parents

I had done alot of research on the internet last spring on Ansel's genalogy and knew for sure that his mom was buried in the Glen Abbey Memorial Park at Chula Vista, CA. I was a little uncertain about his dad. There were conflicting birth dates and over the years his dad had changed his name from Hirum Walter Marshall to E.M. Marshall. and Ansel could not remember when his dad had died or where he was buried. I did find that there was an Edward Marshall buried at the Chula Vista cemetary, but the birth dates did not match. In order to confirm that the Edward that was buried at Glen Abbey was his dad, I needed to find the death certificate and see who had filed it. First we went to the cemetary office and got a copy of the index cards with the recorded DOB, and DOD. Then we went to the satellite County Court office in Chula Vista to get the death certificates. There was quite a line to wait in. Ansel was a good sport and came in with me. He needed to sign the application as next of kin. These folks were ahead of us in line... what do you suppose they were there for????

It took an hour, but we did finally get the death certificates for both Edward M. Marshall and Eva Marshall. Both of them had been filed by Vivian Breshnen, Ansel's older sister. Viola... it was in fact his dad. The cemetary records had them buried in different sections. It didn't appear that they were buried near each other.

The main entrance with the administrative offices. The staff was very pleasant and helpful.

This is the west entrance to the cemetary, it was probably the original main entrance, and original main office. Now it serves as the ....

Made me chuckle, in fact I had to go in and ask if it was part of the cemetary, and in fact it is and they said they have many weddings at the cemetary chapel.

This is the Glen Abbey Chapel, which was built in the 1920's after the infamous one in England. It sits up the hill from where Ansel's parents are buried.

I had the "addresses" from the front office telling me that they were in block "6" where I would find Eva and Edward Marshll. Unfortunately that was all they could tell me. She was in section 76 and he was in section 65. I started out in the 80 degree sunshine doing a systematic grid search for their plots. After 20 minutes and no luck, the head grounds keeper pulled up in his Gator and asked if I needed any help? I showed him the addresses I was trying to find, and he pulled out his book. I was very impressed. It turned out that, their graves were actually side by side. She being in the most right of section 76 and he being in the most left of section 65 of the same row. All these years Ansel did not know they were side by side. His dad died Feb 5, 1956 and his mom died December 30, 1964. When Eva died, Ansel was in Burns, and his sister was in San Ysidro taking care of his mom. He remembered that it was the worst snow storm he had endured in his years in Harney County... the airports and highways were shut down, and he couldn't safely get to San Diego and was not able to get to San Diego for her funeral. He had never been to their graves. Ironically every year he and Martina place flowers on her parents graves, but they had never been to the Chula Vista Cemetary where his parents were.

Sadly when the sexton identified the graves, they were unmarked, just grass. He took the time to show me and explain to me how the plot, row, section system worked. It all made sense and I was confident in his identification of the location of their graves. Then I brought Ansel over and explained. He was very sad, and very emotional about the fact that they had laid there all these years without any indentification. He had assumed that his sister Vivian had taken care of the headstones.

Ansel looking at the unmarked graves of his parents; Eva Mae Marshall and Edward M. Marshall aka Hirum Walter Marshall in the Glen Abbey Memorial Park, Chula Vista, CA.

Ansel with tears brimming, reflecting on his parents lives.

The next project was to research the deeds of the property that they lived on in San Ysidro. I found out that I needed to go to the main County Courthouse in downtown San Diego. It is located at 1600 Pacific Hwy. A very beautiful building, that in an abstract way reminds me of the Oregon State Capitol in Salem, Oregon. It is much bigger than the OR capital building. Ansel came with me on his electric horse (the scooter) We had to pass through and intensive xray security scanner like the airports. I forgot about Ansel's pocket knife... geezzzzzzzzz (it was in his checked baggage on the way down)

Finally we got in, and made our way to the Assessors office. Fortunately I had a little experience with deed research, searching the indirect and direct recordings in Harney and Crook counties, which made digging through the micro fische (sp) records a little easier. and I was able to find the deeds. I have to commend the staff, for being so patient and helpful. If you know me, I don't easily take "no" for an answer. Which is what I received over and over again, making the deed find and lot id a sweet victory for me.

The San Diego County Courthouse sits on the edge of the harbor. What a beautiful setting. The pic below is of a yacht docked in front of the courthouse. It has it's own helicopter in a bag, as well as an out board motor boat tucked in the side. S'pose this is Arnold's??? To the south of this impressive vessel is a "Maritime Museum", of which the sailing vessel and submarine behind it are part of.

I guess you can't see the submarine in this photo. Just the cruise ship that is pulling out of port.

These sunset pictures are taken at the very nice little Bay Park near the Chula Vista motel we are staying at.

Yuma to San Diego, well actually Chula Vista

Not very far out of Yuma we drove through several miles of sand dunes. Made think of some old westerns, and the cowboy killing his horse and crawling on his belly with the scorpions. I wondered if I had enough water in my couple of bottles of Dansi water I had bought the day before. These sand dunes also reminded me of Provincetown, Mass. There is a place on the Cape that you drive through between Truro and Ptown that has dunes like this. Only when you are on the Cape - you know it's only 1/2 mile to the ocean. Here it is probably miles and miles in either direction.

Where ever these GPS coordinates are, the highway was 61 feet BELOW sea level, well technically the GPS unit was 61' below sea level. I left it on this screen for awhile, my clue was- while I was driving by a silo or water tank in a farm field, I noticed it had a mark painted 2/3 of the way up the side of it that said "sea level". So I changed the GPS screen so I could see the elevation and the lowest I saw it go was 85' below sea level, but I didn't feel like stopping again.

We were driving through the Imperial Valley which appeared to be a very rich farming community. Saw lots and lots of ice berg lettuce and broccoli. and lots and lots of irrigated fields being farmed.

As we were driving I could see mountains up ahead, and was surprised when we got to them they were huge rock piles, rocks and rocks and rocks. I don't ever remember seeing terrain like this. There were many road side assistance phones along the way, and as we started to climb, I started to notice pull outs with signs for radiator water every so often. Not sure what was in the cement tanks pictured below. When I pulled over to take the picture below, a car load of Mexicans pulled over ahead of us beyond the pull out and were backing down the highway. So I decided not to get out of the car and go look inside the cement tank... It took a long minute to pull back on the highway because of the number of cars in the right lane. As soon as I pulled back on the highway the car that was backing up, pulled out behind us and followed me for quite aways. I'd like to think that they were good Samaritans, that wanted to be sure we were safe... but you never know. It sort of spooked me, and I didn't pull over for anymore pictures. Before the day was over, I stopped and bought a couple of canisters of pepper spray.

After we got out of the rock pile mountain pass, we came to a border patrol stop...

He was not very impressed that I was taking his picture.

We decided to stay in Chula Vista, half way between San Ysidro and San Diego. We got a motel room in Chula Vista, CA. Was very shocked that the price with breakfast was only $50.00 a night and it has a pool and hot tub too. The $50.00 was taxes and all.

View looking east from the third level. Our room is on the ground floor though.

Sunset looking west from our motel. On the other side of the bay is Coronado.