Red Adobe Design, LLC

06/19/2026

The Man with the Backward Feet

Ken and I have spent a lot of years traveling America's back roads, especially Route 66, and along the way we've met some unforgettable people. One encounter remained a mystery for years—until recently.

We were traveling through Kansas in our old yellow Essex coupe, exploring the eleven-mile stretch of historic Route 66. At one point we pulled off beside a large cornfield because of a sign that caught our attention. The sign said, "Field of Dreams."

There wasn't much else there. Just a cornfield, a little dirt pull-off, and the sign. We sat for a few minutes looking across the corn, talking about the movie and wondering whether there was any connection at all, or whether someone had simply decided that every cornfield deserved its own Field of Dreams sign.

As we sat there talking, a man suddenly appeared beside Ken's window.

Neither of us had seen him approach.

He introduced himself, Dean Walker, and told us he was Vice-Pesident of lthe general store down the road. We chatted for a few minutes, and then he asked, "I bet you've never seen anyone do this."

Before either of us knew what was happening, he

explained that he could turn his feet around backwards.

Naturally, we were skeptical. Then he asked Ken to get out of the car and help him.

The man put one hand onto the car for support and instructed Ken to kick one foot around. Ken was reluctant—most people don't spend their vacations kicking strangers—but he finally obliged. Sure enough, the foot rotated around until it pointed backward. Then the man had him do the same thing with the other foot.

There he stood, perfectly calm, both feet facing backward.I wish I had taken a photograph.

We talked for a few more minutes, and then he announced matter-of-factly, "Well, I can't go anywhere until I get my feet turned around again."

So Ken helped him reverse the process. By the time Ken had gotten back into the car, Dean Walker was nowhere to be seen. The incident felt pretty surreal.i

A short while later, we stopped at the general store the man had mentioned. There he was again, talking with visitors as though nothing unusual had happened.

For years afterward, Ken and I would occasionally tell the story of "the man with the backward feet." Then one day we were watching television and suddenly there he was—our mysterious roadside acquaintance—performing the same backward-feet demonstration.

Years later, while reminiscing about our Route 66 adventures, we finally pieced together the mystery. The man was almost certainly Dean "Crazy Legs" Walker, a well-known Route 66 personality in Kansas who became famous for his unusual flexibility and his friendly conversations with travelers passing through the area.

The mystery was solved, but the memory remained just as delightful.

Looking back, I suspect the "Field of Dreams" sign was simply one of those whimsical Route 66 attractions—a sign beside a cornfield placed there to make travelers smile and stop for a moment. It certainly worked on us.

And if we hadn't stopped to look at that cornfield, we might never have met Dean Walker.

That's Route 66 for you.

Sometimes the road gives you exactly the adventure you didn't know you were looking for.

05/08/2026

400,000 of them.
And the adventure still continues.
More to come.

05/08/2026

Mary and Ken’s 400,000 Mile Rideabout
Part 1 — The Beginning
Our 400,000-mile rideabout in a 1927 Essex street rod really began back in the early 1990s in Vermont.
Ken and I were out wandering the back roads one afternoon when we spotted an old car body sitting out in a pasture among the cows, propped up on rocks and slowly returning to the earth. Ken had been dreaming about building a street rod for years, so we stopped and talked with the farmer.
By the end of the conversation, we owned it.
What came home was mostly just the cab and trunk of an old 1927 Essex coupe. Ken built the frame himself and spent the next couple of years working on it whenever he could find spare time. Finally, in 1993, we got it on the road and headed to our first car show about 70 miles away.
And we never really stopped.
Over the years we drove that little yellow coupe to every contiguous state in the United States and through parts of Canada including Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.
We crossed the country multiple times, camped in Yellowstone with gear strapped to the roof, and followed the weather wherever it seemed happiest.
Sometimes we left our 36-foot motorhome sitting in the yard and traveled with nothing more than tents, sleeping bags, a camp stove, and curiosity.
The car slowly evolved over the years. Eventually it gained roll-up windows, an odometer, and a gas gauge.
But in the beginning, it was just us, the road, and a willingness to figure things out as we went along.
One thing we learned quickly:
A bright yellow 1927 Essex coupe attracts conversations everywhere it goes. Over the years we drove that little yellow coupe to every contiguous state in the United States and through parts of Canada including Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. We crossed the country multiple times, camped in Yellowstone with gear strapped to the roof, and followed the weather wherever it seemed happiest.
Sometimes we left our 36-foot motorhome sitting in the yard and traveled with nothing more than tents, sleeping bags, a camp stove, and curiosity.
The car slowly evolved over the years. Eventually it gained roll-up windows, an odometer, and a gas gauge. But in the beginning, it was just us, the road, and a willingness to figure things out as we went along.
One thing we learned quickly:
A bright yellow 1927 Essex coupe attracts conversations everywhere it goes.
Gas station stops became half-hour visits. Restaurant parking lots turned into storytelling sessions. Small towns waved us into parades. Car shows appeared unexpectedly along the road, and suddenly we were participants instead of travelers.
The car introduced us to America in a way few things could.
We discovered hidden towns, forgotten roads, and extraordinary people. One of those discoveries was Creede, Colorado, an old silver mining town we first visited around 1995 that still seemed frozen in another era.
Over time, the miles added up.
400,000 of them.
And the adventure still continues.
More to come.

05/03/2026

This video clip made me think of you, Steph Ball Wojtyna

04/25/2026

Original 5"×7" Alcohol Ink paintings by G.G. Chicky
Text by https://chatgpt.com/s/m_69ed1870c504819199b837d15a8bedae

03/23/2026

Record early heat wave hits the West, with 112°F readings
Source: MorningOverview

A record-breaking heat wave swept across the western United States in mid-March 2026, pushing temperatures to levels never before recorded so early in the

02/20/2026

Rapture 14"x16" Acrylic

GiGi Chicke

01/12/2026

The Moment I Didn’t Expect: What Decline Taught Me About Our Politics
What shocked me most wasn’t what I suddenly saw.
It was how long it took me to see it.
I recently lost someone very dear to me to a slow loss of mental clarity. Even though I loved this person deeply and was close to them, I didn’t understand what was happening right away. Not at all. I was confused. So confused that I eventually went to classes and sought help just to make sense of what I was seeing.
And even then, understanding came slowly.
I’ve since learned that many people who live through something like this never fully understand it. Not because they don’t care. Not because they aren’t smart. But because this kind of decline doesn’t show up in obvious ways at first. It comes and goes. Some days feel normal. Some moments feel sharp and present. Other moments don’t.
It can look like stress. Or stubbornness. Or aging. Or personality.
It doesn’t announce itself clearly.
Looking back, I realize that others around me—people who loved this person as much as I did—were just as confused. Some never came to understand what was happening at all. That isn’t a failure. It’s just life. We are not taught how to recognize these things, and we’re not taught how to talk about them.
That’s why a moment I had recently took me by surprise.
I was reading a comment from a very loyal political supporter, and what I felt wasn’t anger. It was recognition. What I saw was loyalty so strong it felt familiar. The kind of loyalty that shows up when someone you care about is slipping, and you’re trying—almost desperately—to keep them steady, to keep them grounded, to keep them themselves.
People who have lived through this kind of loss know that feeling.
There is sadness even while the person is still here.
There is hope mixed with denial.
There is fierce protectiveness.
And very often, there is resistance to understanding what’s really happening—because understanding feels like giving up.
As I get older, this is not an abstract idea to me. I question myself. I pay attention. I want to know early if I’m slipping. Many of the people around me are in the same stage of life. This isn’t about “other people.” It’s about all of us.
That’s why it startled me so deeply to realize that if I—someone who has lived through this, someone who has tried to understand it—could miss what was unfolding around us for so long, then many others must be missing it too.
This isn’t about blame.
It isn’t about politics first.
And it certainly isn’t about mocking or condemning anyone.
It’s about the fact that we don’t talk honestly enough about what it looks like when someone begins to lose their footing mentally. How it can affect judgment. How it can affect emotional control. How it can make a person more vulnerable to influence—especially when power, money, or identity are involved.
When we don’t talk about this calmly and kindly, the space gets filled with cruelty, denial, and people taking advantage of the situation.
In private life, most families eventually learn that stepping in can be an act of love. It’s painful. It’s confusing. It often feels wrong at first. But it’s meant to protect the person and the people around them.
In public life, we don’t seem to know how to do this at all.
Empathy doesn’t mean pretending nothing is wrong.
Understanding doesn’t mean standing back and doing nothing.
In fact, when the stakes are high, honesty becomes more important—not less.
This is a hard conversation because it reminds us of our own future. None of us are exempt. Decline is not rare. It is not shameful. And it is not a sign of moral failure.
It is part of being human.
If we could talk about this more openly—with less fear, less anger, and more care—we might handle moments like this better. We might treat one another with more patience. And we might protect both people and institutions more wisely.
This is written with love.
Not rivalry.
Not rage.
Just the hope that understanding, shared gently, can help us find our way through something that touches every life sooner or later.

01/07/2026

Pursuing the Wild Chrysocolla, Alcohol Inks, 11"X15"
G.G. Chicky
"Chasing a rock? What?"
Chrysocolla is my all time favorite stone. Born of the copper family, chrysocolla tends to be blue-green, blue and golden copper. It's my favorite stone. While I collect rocks and stone artifacts, I have no Chrysocolla. I simply cannot hang on to Chrysocolla jewelry. The raw and beautiful stones that I had found in our travels are gone, vanished. They are not meant for me to own. They speak softly to me while I may keep a piece, briefly, then they are gone.

01/03/2026

Low Tide, Down East Maine
11"×15" Alcohol Ink
G.G. Chicky