Not bad!

All that traveling last month and I come home to sunsets like this:

 maybe I should just stay here and take my camera out more often!

I read a very interesting post over at another boomer's site that talked about the idea that things are getting worse for the poor in this country.  He quoted someone else who suggested that things had gone downhill during the Obama years and then continued to go down during the Trump years.  That person suggested that it was the fault of "Wall Street".  Hmmm, I'm not sure I go along with that but I certainly agree with the boomer that there is plenty of fault to go around.  I'm not a socialist but I do feel that people ought to be able to support a family without having three jobs.  

I just read where Target is paying a minimum wage of $15 an hour.  That means that a new person is making $600 a week if they are working full time.  In Las Vegas, our closest city, a three bedroom apartment can cost $1,600 a month.  So a guy with a wife and small child can be working for over two weeks to pay for the apartment.  That leaves only $800 for everything else.  He's got to be hoping that his wife will be able to get a job at Target as well but then we are talking about child care expenses.  Not good.  Minimum wage in Nevada is $9.75 which is higher than the Federal  minimum of $7.25 BUT it hasn't been changed since 2008.  I'm thinking prices have risen more than a bit in 12 years.  

LIke I said, I don't know the answers but I sure see the problem.  Maybe the Biden years will be golden.  I sure hope so.  Take care & keep washing those hands.

Learning things...

 We got Ollie, our dog, almost a year ago.  In March we took him to Las Vegas with us in the trailer just for a couple of days.  In fact, the govenor declared a shut-down during the three days we were there!  So, he hasn't been in the trailer much; hell, neither have we!  So we decided we wanted to take him on a trailer trip just to see how he would act.  

My wife found a park she liked in Morro Bay, CA and called to ask about a reservation.  She was told that making a reservation a year in advance would be normal.  Well, that isn't our style for sure!  So we decided we'd just go over to the Las Vegas RV Resort, our go-to place in Sin City, and spend a few days.  It is a nice park and we had some nice sunsets.

 

 Hmmm.  Well, we did learn one thing.  When we are gone the dog howls!

We went out to breakfast at Blueberry Hill, our go-to breakfast restaurant, and about 3/4ths of the way through our meal my wife's phone rang.  Yep, someone had complained to the management that our dog was howling.  I can't blame them.  The park is an adult-only place and all those old folks seem to have dogs.  Actually the dog area is GREAT.  There are four separate fenced areas and one that is unfenced plus another unfenced area on the far side of the park.  It is really unusual to have so many places for the 4 legged ones.  

The park is basically paved with little graveled areas for the trees.  This was our site.

It was kind of funny.  It was a triangle with roads on all three sides.  There was noise from rigs going to and fro but the view out our windows was clear of other rigs.  We were at least 50 feet from any other rig and that is unusual!  Anyway, we really liked it. 

So, our dreams of wandering around and seeing some sights in Las Vegas were cancelled:  we'd be either at home with the dog or taking him with us.  So, we drove around Vegas seeing some new things & some old with the dog.  Hmm, a new definition of life in the fast lane!  Anyway, we ended up driving 145 miles around in the town.  We did stop a couple times and leave him alone in the truck & he seemed ok with that.  I'm not sure why but maybe it is just someplace he is more comfortable.  Or, there isn't anyone to complain about a howling dog in a store parking lot.  

Then, just to make our visit more memorable, there was a spike in corona virus cases and the govenor asked that everyone stay home as much as possible for the next couple of weeks.  Is there a curse about us visiting Las Vegas?  We did manage another breakfast out but mostly stayed in the rig and Saturday we came home.  

Since then my wife, who has had some minor lung issues, has stayed home while I do the shopping, etc.  The local VFW has a food bank that we like to contribute to so yesterday I went out and bought a few turkeys & stuff for them to distribute.  I even managed a couple of hams for those who can't manage a turkey.  We ordinarily get there when the distribution is almost over so we don't see many people; yesterday there were easily 7 or 8 times as many people there as I've ever seen.  I guess there are more people in need that I'd been thinking.  

So that's what is going on around here.  Staying home and washing hands a lot; now that is exciting!  Take care!

Oops!

 There are a couple things I forgot to mention.  First of all, we were taking our walk the other day and saw this poor witch.

I was hoping that the bottle next to her had contained vodka!

Then we visited Vegas a couple days ago.  I saw this vehicle with a life story pasted on the back window.  I liked it though I suppose it is a little off-color.

Well, pretty realistic anyway.  Take care!

Just a beautiful day....

 Daylight Savings Time ended this a.m. so everything is kind of weird BUT the sun is shining on the mountains and making them look so good!  That makes everything ok.  

Well, I sure wish the election was over and way beyond anything close.  I'm tired of being represented at the 'world level' by a pussy grabbing a**hole!  Where we live there are SO MANY Trump flags; I cannot understand how anyone can support such a fool.  But, I guess I don't understand a lot of things:  chemistry for example.  Anyway, I sure hope we get a new President.

I imagine I've said it before but I sure wish that we weren't choosing between two guys in their 70's.  I'm 72 and I think I'm slowing down.  I think the "Leader of the Free World" should be younger.  Not like really young but maybe in the 50's.  And I'd like them to have some experience in government at the national level; like Congress.  I believe that being in the government is different from being in the corporate world or anywhere else.  Knowing how to talk with the people you are working with; or who are working for you, is important.  Having someone from 'millionaire row' being President means that he or she doesn't have a clue about what really happens in the government (have you noticed that lately?).  It would be like me becoming the mayor of our town; I don't have a clue about how much the Roads department needs or the Police or the Parks.  

Someone sent me a PDF about how the Chinese are doing so much better than we in the US.  It talked about Chinese railroads, dams, bridges, roads, etc.  First of all, they do have a country that needs lots of upgrading and they can finally afford it however, it is certainly true that the infrastructure in the US needs upgrading.  Anyone who has driven I-70 in Colorado knows that!  Not to mention things like the dam in Michigan that washed away.  I'm sure there are plenty more that could use upgrading.  Then there is the whole sustainable energy problem.  Sticking our collective heads in the sand and saying global warming is a 'lie' won't work for us in the long term.  It's about as true as saying the coronavirus isn't anything to worry about.

My wife and I are planning our next trailer trip.  It's going to be a biggie - 3 or 4 nights in Las Vegas!  Yeah, well, we go to Vegas every week or ten days but we never take the time to see the sights.  There are actually some interesting places and we just never take the time to visit them; this time we will.  And it will give the dog some time in the trailer which he needs.  He won't learn about it if we don't take him.  Anyway, I should have a few Vegas photos next time.  

Gotta go.  This 1st day of November is zooming away.  Take care & keep washing those hands!

More hanging around....

I'm pretty good at staying home but I have to admit that this Coronavirus self-isolation is a bit of a strain.  We are going out every two or three days mostly to visit the grocery store.  That's always a hoot.  We have two major grocery chains represented in town plus Walmart.  What we are finding is that one store will be out of something, like eggs, and the other will have every kind of egg you could desire.  The one universal trait is that meat seems in short supply. 

No, they aren't cleaning the shelves.  No, they don't have a refrigeration problem.  They just don't have product.  I've no idea WHY but there it is. 

Sorry about the blur but that is the papergoods aisle.  They have signs about you can only buy x number but since there aren't any at all, it's kind of a moot point. 

And only a couple weeks ago things were kinda normal.

These folks used to do balloon flights in Las Vegas but the local authorities changed the rules making it more difficult for them to do business.  I mean McCarran International is a very busy airport and Nellis Air Force Base is up in the north part of town so the areas where you could do balloon flying were getting smaller and smaller.  Here we don't have any of that.  There is a small private airport but we are talking 2 private planes a day rather than the over 4,000,000 people who went through McCarran in January of this year. 

Speaking of Las Vegas, this story has some great photos of the city as it is today!

We should get back to normal one of these days.  So just keep on washing your hands and keeping a good distance from others.  Oh, and don't listen to President Trump; listen to Dr. Fauci!

Puzzling stuff

Our son and his wife visited us last week and the talk turned to home technical stuff since he runs a computer support group at work.  He highly recommended the Google wifi router so I ordered a two pack for our home.  When it arrived we installed it which was quite easy and internet speeds to my office which is way across the house from the base router increased nicely.  Then we figured out that it doesn't like our Wyze security cameras!  They are 2.4ghz and the Google really only likes 5ghz speeds.  It claims to do both but we sure haven't figured out how to make it so.  It's not a big deal, we only use the cameras to keep an eye on our dog when we are gone, but it's a pain in the......  Maybe we'll get them to work together or maybe we'll just pitch the cameras.  We'll see.

In other exciting news, Nevada and Pahrump got mentioned in a Yahoo Lifestyle article.  Of course, it was pretty screwed up but heck we'll take what we can get!  It highlighted a drive from Las Vegas through Pahrump to Death Valley and up through Beatty, Nevada and back down to Vegas.  It would be a really long day's drive but do-able if you didn't stop too long to admire what you were seeing.   Amazingly they didn't bother to mention that Death Valley is in California or that you pass by Yucca Mountain and the Test Site where all the atomic testing was done from the 50's to the 90's.  Of course you can't visit the latter two without LOTS of pre-planning.

Otherwise things are pretty quiet around here.  The dog is growing hair in VERY select places and not growing hair on most of his body.  We'll see.  My wife is already worrying about him getting sunburn next summer.  We are still getting freezing temps at night but 60-something during the day is pretty nice.

We do need to get some work done around the house.  We have a concrete block wall that needs some repair.  The people who built it didn't provide a sufficient base so it shifted and cracked.  We'll just see if someone can 'do it right'.  Anyway, it should be 'fun'

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a good one.

Coming on home!

Once we'd visited the UP it was time to head back south and west.  On the last day of September we made the fairly long trek down to a campground near Grand Rapids, MI.  My wife almost always picks our campground from the various clubs we belong to:  Good Sam, Escapees or Passport America.  I don't know what was going on but we kept finding these places that were intended for locals rather than visitors.  This one was on a beautiful river and it was a nice enough site but there were no other visitors and most of the rigs were permanent.  Even though the park was closing on October 15; the rigs would just spend the winter there.  Interesting.

Anyway, the next day (a Sunday) we hopped up and drove down to Grand Rapids to see the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum.  It turns out that we were in the middle of a Art Prize celebration and traffic downtown was AWFUL!  Of course the fact that we are driving a 4x4 extended cab pickup with an 8 foot bed doesn't make things easier.  The Art Prize thing had taken over all parking for the museum.  We found a parking garage a couple blocks away that claimed to have empty spaces and headed into it.  At the last possible moment I decided we wouldn't fit and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.  I was afraid that there wasn't enough headroom for us.  I get out of the cab and sure enough, we were at least 4 inches too tall.  So my wife grabbed her walkie talkie and walked out into the street and stopped the two lanes of traffic so I could back out.  Now that is something!  She managed it and I backed into the street, she hopped in and we took off.  Now all we wanted to do was to get out of Grand Rapids!

In the end we found an excellent pizza place called Mitten Pizza and Brewing Co.  Had a lovely pizza for lunch (and beer!) and went back to the rig.  I found someone from the office and told them we would be staying another night.  We met a local guy and he suggested we might also like to visit the Maijer Gardens so we added that to the itinary for the next day. The next morning we hopped up and flipped on the tv to learn that the previous night a very strange man had opened fire on a bunch of concert goers in Las Vegas.  My God!  It is beyond strange.  I want to talk about all that in another post so for now I'll only say we were just shocked.

We went into the city and this time found some off street parking that was at least tall enough for our truck.  We were sticking out in front of all the cars but there was room enough.  The Ford museum was interesting as they all are.  I'm getting the distinct impression that we don't know much about the people we elect President.  For example, Ford is the name of his mother's second husband; the President's real father was named King.  Part of the Art show was inside the museum so there was no charge to visit the museum on this day.  A certain number of people were there simply for the art but the museum was more crowded than many that we have visited.

After the museum we headed off for the Maijer Gardens and were very happy that we did.  It turns out there are several conservatories full of plants and a huge outdoor area in which larger sculptures are shown.  We took a tram tour of the outside which we later decided was kind of a waste.  They wanted to tell us way more about some of the pieces that we wanted to know!  We did enjoy the experience however. 

This horse was tall enough that I could walk under his belly!

They also have a large Japanese garden which we enjoyed touring.


Having sampled Grand Rapids we were intent on heading south.  Since we were thinking of driving home on I-40 we had decided to go almost directly south and stop in Little Rock, AR to see the Clinton Museum!  We'd been finding places claiming wifi but then they either didn't have it or it wasn't working.  We are both addicts so not having internet was putting a dent in our fun!  I talked my wife into trying a KOA.  At least they had wifi!  We were happy enough with the KOA experience to go to another one in Little Rock.

The Clinton Museum is part of a complex that includes the library, museum and educational activities that are of interest to the Clintons.  They claim there are more exhibits than in any other Presidential library.  I wouldn't be surprised because there was a huge amount of detail:  like the President's plan for every day!  I mean you could look up what the President was supposed to be doing at 10:00 on July 29, 1995.  There was a reasonable discussion of his impeachment proceedings but oddly Monica Lewinski was pretty much invisible.  My wife used the word 'slick' to describe the museum and I cannot think of a better one.  About a third of the floor-space was devoted to a biography of Nelson Mandela.  Apparently he and the President became quite good friends.  The displays showed quite a lot about his younger days; his long years in jail and finally his freedom.  It was pretty good if totally unexpected. 

As an aside, the Clinton Museum was the only place we've seen since the Las Vegas tragedy that wasn't flying the flag at half staff. 

Downtown Little Rock has quite a bit of park area on both sides of the river.  They converted this old railway bridge into a pedestrian bridge.  As an aside, on the day of our visit there was an Autism Walk so all the parking was taken just as in Grand Rapids!  Happily we were able to find a place to park just a few blocks away.


After leaving Little Rock we were headed for Oklahoma City.  My wife had never set foot in Oklahoma so it was kind of fun that driving across on I-40 is actually very pretty.  Once we get well started on our way home sometimes we get in a state where all we want to do is get home.  For example, when returning from Florida in 2016 we didn't unhook the trailer from the truck for 6 days.  That's our record; I'm not proud of it but we have been known to take off home like that. 

After Oklahoma City we headed for Amarillo.  It was nice country but this was one of the windy days.  The wind came out of the north at 28 mph (45 kph) with gusts to 40 mph (65 kph).  That makes for a tough day of driving.  And in both Oklahoma and Texas there were road repairs; mostly to bridges.  Traffic was funneled into one lane and slowed to 55 mph (88 kph) which still seemed awfully fast to me.  Still, it worked.  It was going to be cold so we didn't deploy the slideout.  Keeping it in reduces our square footage by probably 40 sq ft (9 sq. m) so the rig is much easier to heat. 

After Amarillo the large city is Albuquerque however the Balloon Fiesta is on so places to park are non-existent - not just expensive but not there!  So we went on to the small town of Grants, New Mexico.  We found a park called Lavaland in Grants.  It had received some poor ratings but sounded like it might be ok.   As a matter of fact, it was just fine.  The office and common rooms are being re-modeled but is seems to be in turn-around mode.  There were people living in their rigs there but everyone was friendly and helpful.  The site wasn't quite level but we can deal with that.  As a bonus, the wifi was excellent! 

We needed one more stop and decided to check out Meteor Crater, AZ.  The crater is on privately owned land and these folks opened an RV park right next to I-40.  So you are renting from the owners of the crater; to see the crater you have to pay more.  But, what the heck, we went to check it out.  There were actually quite a few people there.  It is just one of those things.  If you want to see it, you have to pay.  If you don't care, well, it is just a big hole in the desert floor.  We liked it but it is BIG!  My 18mm lens on my DSLR doesn't open enough to get the entire crater in one photo. 

Down in the bottom there are remains from early explorations.  People thought there was a meteor down there somewhere so dug down looking for it.  Now we know the meteor just turned into tiny fragments that rained all over the place. 

So after that excitement, all that was left was to go along I-40 to Kingman and cut up US 93 to Las Vegas.  It is funny country, you see a bunch of ramshackle buildings off in the distance then come to a road with half a dozen mailboxes for those buildings.  I've no idea how those folks live.  We stopped for a night in Las Vegas to see our daughter and empty the tanks.  It was a good stop but we were sure glad to get home. 

Thanks for stopping by.  I'll be working on my rant about Charlottesville, Las Vegas, Weinstein and, of course, our Twitter-in-Chief.  Fair warning; you may want to avoid it!  Have a good one.

Final thoughts

We've been home about a month and a half now and things are returning to whatever normal is.  Well, except for the election.  That was disappointing!  But that's another story.  I do have faith that this country can survive even The Donald.

Italy was really great.  It was horribly crowded but if that's my worst problem it's just another thing to 'get over'.  It occurred to me that I haven't posted any photos of our hotel rooms.  My wife is a great supporter of Trip Advisor because of that we would ordinarily find a hotel and make a reservation for the next day.  She mostly used the phone app but used the tablet on occasion.  This room in Siena is typical for us.

She ordinarily looked for free wifi and free parking.  That got us into the $120-$150 range room.  We did have smaller rooms a couple times but this is quite representative.  The parking usually kept us out of the city center which is both good and bad.  In Siena we drove to public parking so we could walk in the city.  In larger cities, we planned it so as to not have the car.

The bathroom is also quite typical:  sink, shower, toilet and bidet.  We had a couple showers that had a problem; most notably the one in Venice where the hot water would disappear for a few moments in the middle of the shower.  However Venice was it's own special place.

It was an old apartment and probably typical of Venice.  U.S. building codes definitely weren't in effect.  There was an inset in the hall floor that said 1863 F B; perhaps that is the year it was built.  The bed was a queen size but it worked and we enjoyed the apartment aspect of the place.  It was about 400 sq. ft. comprising living room, kitchen, bath and two bedrooms.  I posted a picture earlier of the 'street' which was certainly less that six feet wide.

Much of the furniture was old.  That's not bad just different.

The eat-in kitchen was certainly adequate and had a basic selection of pots, pans, etc.  The white cabinet on the upper right contains the instant-on water heater that also went instant-off during our showers.  We did make a traditional meal here once.  Otherwise it was used for breakfasts mostly.

For two weeks we rented a car drove about in the country and in smaller cities.  We had a Renault Captur.

Frankly we thought it was rather odd looking with it's two-tone look.  In this country I'd expect it to be a used police car but, no, it was nice and new.  We did see two or three other cars with the same paint scheme but I guess it's an acquired taste.  It was a six speed manual with a rather small, frugal engine.  We found it quite comfortable.  On the back roads we mostly used we would seldom exceed 90 kph.  Once we found the Italian version of Gas Buddy life got better.  Not just because we found cheaper gas but also we could find the station which was a problem once or twice. 

So that's the odds-n-ends of the Italy trip.  Since then life has slowed to it's usual pace.  We did go spend the night in Las Vegas a few days ago.  We stayed at one of the smaller strip hotels, Casino Royale, but I got a kick out of the view from our window.  

It seemed appropriate to be where we could see the Las Vegas version of the Rialto Bridge at the Venetian next door.  Thanks for stopping by.  Take care.

WOW!

Holy guacamole Bat Man!  Really, it's almost a month since I posted.  Who the heck wants to read something like that?  Well, sorry but I am a lousy correspondent via snail-mail so I guess expecting me to be a better blogger might be kind of wishful thinking.  So has anything been happening?

In a word, yes.  Most importantly my wife had some dental surgery planned IF this one blood test came back right.  As it turned out, the test suggested that the surgery should be put off so that got canceled.  Of course, having that sort of thing going on still involves trips to the lab, the dentist (in Vegas) and plenty of phone calls to the insurance people, etc.  It's not a minor deal even though the surgery was canceled.

So then there is the great bed purchase investigation.  We have had our bed for eight years and it is increasingly annoying.  It's not a standard size (2 inches too narrow er, 5 cm?) anyway that means sheets don't fit; it is foam so it is hot; it weighs a ton so can't be moved.  Ask my wife, I'm sure she has four or five other reasons to get rid of it.  Of course, shopping here is limited so after checking the local options, it's off to Vegas.  Off to Vegas five or six times that is!  Every bed place wants to sell you a Tempur-Pedic since they are two or three times the price of a regular mattress.  Happily for me, my wife really liked this one mattress that we saw early in our search.  Unhappily (in this case), she believes in investigating the market place so we had to hit six or eight other sales rooms.  FINALLY we got back to the first place and bought the darned thing!  Then, of course, it takes an act of Congress to the it delivered.  I love living out here but the once every 2 or 3 week delivery schedules are kind of 1870's.

Also on our list was our trailer.  Last time we used it we has a couple things that bothered us.  The big thing was that the linoleum in the main room was lifting up around the edges.  We loved the stuff when we had animals because it was so easy to clean.  But you've gotta agree that having it lift up is a bad thing.  Plus we had half a dozen other minor problems.  We scheduled a stop at the dealer so went over to Vegas a day early to get there at a reasonalble hour.  That was a happy thought.  We stayed, as usual, at the Las Vegas RV Resort on Nellis ave.  The spaces are kind of tight but it's all paved (level!), clean, 24 hour security, kind of every thing you would like in a city RV park and it was $30.  Can't beat it. We didn't have anything to eat so went out to a local place Aces and Ales.  It is a nice little sports bar-pub that has a huge selection of different beers and some not-bad food.  We each found a different porter to drink and some pub-grub to eat.  What's not to like?  To make it even better when my wife texted our daughter our whereabouts she responded "I'm on my way".  Well, I guess the way to the girl's heart is via a pub.  Who knew!  So we had a nice little visit with her.  Dropped off the rig then off home.

Of course we had to go get it a couple days later.  Back to the Resort for another night.  This time off to dinner at Casa Di Amore for an interesting experience.  The good:  the decor is 'classic Vegas' done well, the food is respectable.  The not good:  there was a huge birthday party of about 20 people making the place both really crowded and really loud.  We were lucky and got a booth on the edge of the room but it was still really loud.  And, of course, the service wasn't great since almost all the servers had some part of that huge party.  It's a place we might go back to but the clam linguine was kind of short on clams and whatever I had was forgetable since I've forgotten what it was! 

The good news about all this back and forth is that we got two breakfasts at Blueberry Hill.  We hit on this place years ago when we were visiting Vegas and it's still pretty good.  My wife loves the crepes and they have lots of other stuff.  Not cheap but it is Vegas!  There are several locations and I'm not enough of an expert to prefer one to the others.  Still, if you want breakfast that is good food and not on the strip; it would be my go-to place.

Having had the RV in the shop there are, of course, things we needed to do as well.  Highly technical stuff like putting Protect-All on the roof, replacing burned out light bulbs, replacing the anode in the water heater:  stuff like that.  It all takes time.  How did we do all this crap when we were working?  Oh yeah, we didn't have an RV.  Replacing the anode did have it's high point.  Ok, it's not tough, socket on the anode and unscrew, right?  Well, I kind of forgot that we'd used the trailer and there might be some pressure buildup in the water heater.  Result?

Yeah, I'm pretty covered in the crap that was in the water heater.  The impressive thing is that I'd taken the old anode out a few days earlier and had rinsed the heater.  Apparently I'd not done a very good job!  LOL  Anyway, it's cleaner now! 

On a less dramatic note I spent a day wandering around Nye County (here!) with some folks learning about testing our ground water for nuclear particles.  The Fed's had been doing it but now the county has taken it over so they wanted to show us all what a great job they are doing.  Actually it was kind of interesting.  The water testing itself is totally dull; it's the wells that are interesting. 

The photo is of our group checking out one of the wells supplying water to the town of Beatty, NV.  That little well house is really well insulated and from the parka in the foreground you can tell why.  It was darned cold up there!  That was a public well that is always in use so the water is always 'fresh' from the ground.  In other wells, it required hundreds of gallons of water to be pumped out before you could be sure that you were getting water from the groundwater source.  Apparently water in the pipe gets contaminated FROM the pipe so you have to pump it clear.  One of the wells being tested is in a place called Oasis Valley.  There is a spring nearby so it's relatively 'green'.  The unusual thing about that well is that some scientist from UNLV checked the water and there are elements in the water whose DNA is unknown.  Who knew water had DNA?  But apparently most water has stuff in it whose DNA is common; not like yours or mine but common for water.  Anyway, this place has DNA that just doesn't fit in with regular water.  The guy who noticed it will probably spend his career working on that little unknown thing.  Who knows what it might be!

Also on the naturalist side of things, our annual cowbird invasion has come and mostly gone.  I've no idea where they live in the winter or the summer but in the fall they come through here and pretty much take over!  They are late this year but there were plenty of them.

They are much more aggressive about the bird bath than our normal pigeons.  There would be a dozen standing on the lip of the bath and three or four more bathing.  They are the only birds other than pigeons that we've seen actually bathing.  Don't know what the deal is but if it works for them, ok.

Well, that's enough for this post.  I'll do another soon (I hope!) so until then, thanks for stopping by.  Take care.

More catching up....

So we made it back from the latest Pacific Northwest trip on July 14th.  On the 15th I had a meeting of that advisory board  of the old Test Site.  These days it is called the Nevada National Security Site but all but a few sticklers call it the Test Site.  (Please note that the famous Area 51 is NOT part of the site so don't expect to see any little green men if you choose to visit!)  Like any governmental unit they love acromyms which drive the rest of us crazy but we all try to get along.  The meetings are in the late afternoon-evening starting about 4 p.m. and ending around 9 p.m.  This one was mostly about transportation of contaminated waste.  I got to learn all kinds of wonderfulness about the required signage and good stuff like that.  Of course I already knew that this stuff is radioactive but that the packaging is sufficient to make it safe to handle.

On the 19th we celebrated Number One Daughter's birthday.  I won't offer the number but it's getting up there!  Then on the 20th-22nd my wife and I attended a three day class driving to and from Las Vegas every day to learn about the Community Monitoring program.  This is a bunch of volunteers who oversee weather stations planted around the Test Site.  I wanted to learn more about them and the Desert Research Institute which oversees the program and does a lot of the physical work at the Test Site - taking measurements and that sort of thing.  When we hear that radioactivity in the groundwater is nearing the edge of the Test Site; they are the ones making the measurements.    It turns out they do a lot of environmental research and are part of the state higher education system. 

That gets me to the last week of July and by this time I was ready for some time off!  Of course that means I have time for stuff like smoking some pork, making a couple more trips to Las Vegas for normal 'shopping' and the like.  In addition, in August my wife will turn 65.  This means she is eligible for Medicare; there are quite a few hoops you need to jump through especially if you aren't taking Social Security and she isn't.  I'm wanting to spend some time at home!  We'll see how that works out.  Don't hold your breath!  In fact we are off to Vegas yet again today. 

I can't make this post a total whine so I'll include a photo I took back in June.  When you go to Las Vegas from Pahrump you leave our valley and go up over a 5400 foot pass (1,650 m for the rest of the world).  Then you come back down into the Las Vegas valley.  If the weather is nice and it isn't too windy you can get a balloon ride across the valley.  Here the balloons are coming back to earth just before the mountain gets pretty steep.  This was taken about 07:00 on one of my commutes into the city.

Take care.

Jeez, I'm getting worse!

Ok, I haven't updated the blog in over three weeks.  In my defense, it's been pretty dull around here!  This is our 'monsoon' season so we've had several storms blow through leaving their usual .002 inch of rain.  That ain't much even in millimeters.  The mountains between here and Vegas catch all the rain and they have had some flooding.  We got a little mud on the roadway but not a lot.  We did have one really cool storm in the night with a lot of lightning hitting the desert floor.  Pretty unusual and totally beyond my ability as a photographer but it was cool.  You'll just have to take my word for it.

These days excitement is defined by stuff like having a guy come and powerwash our tile.  Well, at least it is expensive if not exciting.  He suggested we should be sure the gap between the tile and the baseboard is sealed so I spent two wonderful days crawling around with the caulking gun and a tube of silicone.  Then there were the two days laying around groaning about the crawling around.  Gotta tell you 65+ year old guys who are overweight just really don't like crawling very much especially on a hard surface like tile.  I used a pad but couldn't stay on it the whole time and my knees knew.

My wife had a birthday recently and we celebrated by going into Las Vegas for Dim Sum.  We went to a place called Ping Pang Pong in the Gold Coast Casino.  It is pretty well rated and got a good mention in some national magazine (like Travel and Leisure but don't quote me on that).  Two of the other Dim Sum restaurants in Vegas have been closed by the health department within the last two months so we just kind of knocked them out of consideration without hesitation.  Anyway, I was pretty surprised because the place was really quite small.    I've never had Dim Sum before but thought the food was pretty good.  Carts are brought around with various little plates on them.  You get like three dumplings on a plate.  Plates are between $2.50 and $7 at this place and there are a few things that are more.  We got some bbq pork that was a quite large serving for $9.  There were a few things that I didn't like.  First it was so noisy that I couldn't hear the cart ladies nor could my wife so we ended up with a few things we wouldn't have ordered.  (There was way too much shrimp for someone like me with a shellfish allergy.)  Secondly, the cart ladies all circled around at once so we ended up getting lots of food on the table whereas had we gone a little slower it would have been a better experience and the food would have been warmer.  I suppose that is our fault though; they didn't twist our arms to take food!  Finally, and perhaps the largest complaint is that we were standing in line outside the place for a full 30 minutes.  We had read in reviews about the wait but we were hoping that mid-week at 1 p.m. it wouldn't be quite so bad.  It was.  I think next time I might try someplace less popular.

This morning I'm waiting for a guy from DIGIS, our internet provider.  They use some kind of radio signal to get to our house so we have an antenna, much like a DirectTV dish, for the internet.  They put a new one on a couple weeks ago so we have quite good service. (Ping is 61ms; download speed 10.94 mbps, upload is 1.98 mbps for those who know about such numbers.  They are claiming that when the installation is right and their tower gets upgraded next week we should see 15 mbps download.  We'll see.)  Unfortunately they used 4 lag screws to hold the dish on and two have already fallen out.  Not exactly a wonderful installation so they have to come back and fix it.  Not something that's worth taking photos of either! 

Our staghorn cactus is trying to have a flower.  It's not quite open yet but I need to get a photo when I can.  The flower doesn't stay around very long.

If it sticks around and I can get better photos I'll do so. 

Anyway, that's life in the slow lane.  We'll do something crazy soon, I promise.  Until then, thanks for stopping by.

Jeez, 10 days! Really?

Ok my mind has been on other things but now I've got to remember what I've been up to lately.  Not too much actually.  We are getting out by 06:00 so we can walk in the morning.  If I wake in the night I open the windows to let in a bit of fresh air.  It gets down to about 70F (21C) about 02:00 in the morning.  By 09:00 we have closed up the house because it will be 85F (29C) headed for 102F (39C) or so by late afternoon.  Next day we go through the whole thing again.

My wife has been complaining about the dinette seats in the RV; the foam is too soft and the cloth is wearing in places.  There is an upholstry shop in town so we took the seats over to the guy.  He is in his 70's and is letting his business kind of wind down but we were able to find some fabric that we liked so had him replace the foam and then cover them using the new fabric.  It took him a couple days but he did a really nice job and from just trying them out we think it's a great improvement.  We'll get to test them out later this summer when we go for a little trip.  I'd take a picture but they just look like they belong.

Last Thursday we drove over to Death Valley Natl. Park just for something different.  We didn't actually go to the valley though, we took a side road to a point called Dante's View.  You are on a cliff overlooking the park.  The cliff is at elevation 5,475 ft (1,668 m) and you are looking down into the valley which is, of course, below sea level at -280 (-85m) right below you.  It's really a pretty cool view.  Didn't bother to go down into the valley since it was already warm!

Then on Saturday my wife and I went into Las Vegas for some general shopping.  There are just plenty of things you can't get in our small town so if you want, for example, some nice cheese, you've got to travel.  Likewise if you want clothing that doesn't come from Walmart, you've got to travel.  We wanted both.

I also needed to find my way to Harbor Freight.  I did something fairly dumb a few days ago and decided I really need a little mobile tool cart.  What was the dumb thing I know you want to know....  I'm embarrassed but I was checking the fluid in the battery in the truck.  I used a screwdriver to pry the caps off - then left the screwdriver in the engine compartment!  Next day I took the truck into town for something or other and was fortunate that screwdriver didn't find it's way into the fan or even short out the battery and cause a fire.  Now I've got a cart that I can put stuff on rather than balance things on top of things in the engine compartment.  Well, I will have a cart when I get the thing put together. 

Sunday was a fairly do-nothing day.  When we went to China it was to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary.  Sunday was the actual day.  So we talked, had a special meal and watched a couple of old movies.  Very quiet but after all, we'd gone to China to celebrate already! 

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a good one.

Quiet times but warming up

We have been having some quiet times but it is warming up to the point where we can sometimes have the windows open.  Really that time is limited to a couple hours in the afternoon and only if the wind isn't blowing too hard.  The wind really picks up the dust and that's bad for the sinuses as well as just dirty.  I do like hearing the outdoor sounds especially the birds.  I am also reminded that we are near two Air Force bases, a bombing range and a busy commercial airport - all within 75 miles (120km) or so.  There is a surprising amount of air traffic for so quiet a little town.  I'm also convinced that were is some sort of mountain training facility around here; there are just too many flights of military helicopters around.

I did go to Las Vegas again last week.  Just buying a few things that aren't available here (or are too expensive).  It was a nice trip.  I took this photo of the Spring Mountains north of the highway.  These would probably be at the 5-6,000 foot level (1,500-1,800m).

Once we get over the pass I make a turn and go towards Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.  Apparently it is renowned as a climbing venue.  Personally I like nice flat areas, the view of a vertical section of rock does not call to me.  It is however very beautiful.

These are identified as 'bluffs'; looks like a mountain to me but I'm no geologist.  The valley is a mile or two wide at this point.  You are driving along the east side of the valley looking across at these 'bluffs' and suddenly you come to a sign that identifies this as a Nevada Scenic Highway.  What?  What about the past couple miles?  I mean the whole thing is only 12-15 miles.  But I guess Nevada Dept. of Transportation has some weird rule.  They do the same thing with bike lanes.  All of a sudden, out in the middle of nowhere you find a sign saying 'Bike Lane'.  How the hell are you supposed to get out there with the bike?  Jeez. 

Anyway, now that I've had my little rant, I finally come to the conservation area itself.  This is from the overlook; taking the loop road gets you up close to the cliffs but I wasn't really there to do the tourist thing so settled for the overlook.  The cliffs are 3-4 miles (4-6km) away from this point.

It really is quite striking and for scenery when you are just going into town for a few items it is quite lovely.  It makes the drive quite pleasant. 

That was the big trip of the month so far.  More to come later.  Thanks for stopping by.

Another week...

Well, I haven't been gone for multiple weeks anyway!  We had a nice time in San Diego.  Number One Son & his SO have bought a house and we got to help them move in .  They are pretty private, even with us, so we just got to move some of the larger pieces.  Still, it was fun.  I think they were kind of surprised that a couple old fogies like us could actually lift furniture.  I remember helping move friends back in the 1980's; we did sometimes find 'marital secrets' like sex toys & lubes.  Nothing really all that nasty, just a bit embarrassing for the couple. 

Got back home last Sunday and have been cooling it since then.  Went into Las Vegas for our usual liquor and Sam's Club run on Thursday.  Got a free lunch at Number One Daughter's house.  She is actually learning to cook!  We had a nice lunch of chicken and roasted vegies.  I think I had three helpings of the vegies!  Then we managed to find the only rude employee of Total Wine and the world's slowest checkout person but otherwise it was ok.  She even managed to use the PLU codes from my phone to get us a couple of discounts.  Coming home it was pretty windy and I was getting sleepy but we managed it.

Now we are getting the Nevada version of a rain storm; a few drops on the concrete and plenty of wind.  It's not very exciting but what can I say?  Maybe we'll get some real rain next year.  Snow, nah, it's for the East Coast and the Canadian's out there.  LOL  Do you know, we actually have to have federal flood insurance here?  Yep, another instance of our wonderful government taking care of us - or at least making us pay to take care of ourselves!  This is considered to be part of the Mohave Desert after all.  Maybe there is something kind of screwy logic there but that's for the really 'smart' people to discover.  On the other side of the coin, I will say that since I've gone onto Medicare we are saving $600 a MONTH from what we were paying for my wife's company supported health insurance policy.  Hmmm, nothing wrong with that!

Gotta go.  Thanks for stopping by & hope you have a great day.

Dull, dull, dull!

I seem to be in a very quiet place in my life.  The only exciting thing right now is that I keep driving to Vegas and I've noted how exciting that usually is.

Of course once you get there things are a bit more exciting:  like all the idiots doing 80mph in a 65mph zone zig-zagging through all the rest of us normal folks.  It's not like California where everyone is doing 80, here 95% of the folks are around the speed limit. We made the trip on January 2; we made the trip yesterday and we'll be going back next week.  Maybe I need to get a life?

I was reading the Las Vegas Sun the other day; there was a great article by a guy named Glenn Garvin about 2013 and what a sterling year it was.  He reminded us of the 7 year old suspended from school for chewing his Pop Tart into the shape of a gun and saying 'bang bang'.  Then there was the teacher who was fired for telling her Spanish class that 'negro' is the Spanish word for 'black'.  (My dictionary agrees, BTW.)  There was some deaf 3 year old named Hunter who actually knows how use sign language to sign his name.  The school district ordered him to change the way he signs his name because the sign for H looks like a gun!  Really?  I mean political correctness does have some value; I really believe that.  But that's where we are talking about that other 'n' word that caused Paula Deen all her trouble.  Have I ever used it?  Hell, yes!  30, 40 years ago it was a lot more commonly used and anyone who says they didn't use it, usually in anger, is full of xxxx.  Some black guy cuts me off in traffic, it will still be a word that comes to mind.  But I'll probably just call him a stupid asshole.  Times change and so does our language.  Who would have thought 'twerking' would be a word?

So, let's all have a great 2014!  2013 can't have all the fun.  Take care!

Interesting days....

Tuesday was the day when the carpets were to be cleaned.  It actually come to be but not in the normal way.  First we have to get up early and pull/carry all the furniture off the rug and onto the tile.  We can kind of squirm around to get from here to there.  The guy who does the cleaning showed up about 09:45.  He has kids to get off to school before starting.  That works for us though because of all the funiture moving!  So he starts work.  He is just going to town:  done with the master bedroom, living room and has started the dining room when things get quiet.  He explains that the machine he is using runs on gasoline and it has just run out.  Not only that, he left his debit card at home so he has to go home, get the card then go buy gas.  Sounds like he's having a good day already.  This is about 11:30.

We had a little lunch then decided I'd go into town.  I'm wandering around in the grocery store when my phone rings.  It's my wife.  She wondered what happened to carpet guy so called him.  She got his wife who said he had been home, got the debit card but now was on the side of the road having been pulled over by the state highway patrol.  Hmmm.  The wife actually used the words 'he is being harrassed' by the officer.  I go on with shopping and come home; still no carpet guy.  It was 15:15 by the time he got back to our place and finished the job.  That's almost 4 hours!  I don't know what he was doing but I really can't see the highway patrol officer keeping this guy on the side of the road for more than 15-20 minutes.  Anyway, I hope had fun.  He only had about 20 minutes more work to do the two small bedrooms. 

Wednesday we went into Las Vegas so my wife could go to a movie with our daughter.  They insist on going to this theatre that serves alcohol so I get to do the chauffeur bit.  Good thing I did, my wife slept most of the way home.  While they were at the movie, I got to hit the liquor store and Sam's Club.  Exciting times, huh. 

Then we had to make our annual trip to buy stuff for Toys for Tots.  We usually go for the little kid stuff since we feel the presents are more important for them.  Then Saturday was the Christmas food drive.  We have lots of homeless around here so did two carts:  one for vets and one for familes.  The one for the vets is all single serving stuff with pop-tops if we can get it so a guy doesn't even need a can opener.  Some of them live in tents out on the BLM land and who knows what kind of cooking facilities they might have. 

We have a couple tomato plants that we've been raising in buckets.  It is getting pretty chilly in the night so I carry them out in the morning & bring them in at night.  Believe it or not but the darn things are finally coming up with ripe tomatoes.  Who would have expected tomatoes at Christmas?  We were thinking like maybe a month ago!

It is getting chilly; ice on the birdbath almost every day.  Here I was breaking the ice this morning & having a little fun with it.  I've poked several holes in the ice then when I tap the center I get a fountain.  Doesn't take much for me sometimes!  LOL

So the house is clean; the charities taken care of and the Christmas tree set up.  Sounds like we are in good shape.  Please have a happy and safe holiday.  Take care.

Vegas again???

Yep, had to make another trip.  I could almost get a job over there for as much as I'm burning up the road.  Anyway, our excuse this time was twofold:  booze and paint.  The booze thing; well it's just a hell of a lot cheaper in Sin City.  The paint is trickier.  When we bought the house there were some Dunn Edwards paint cans in the garage.  The paint in the house is really standing up well so we thought we'd check into that brand.  We found the store and while they will sell to individuals it's not user friendly.  They are more into selling 5 or 50 gallons than 1.  It's also about twice what other stores ask for paint.  Maybe it is worth it but I'm having trouble thinking that.  Anyway, all we came home with was the booze. 

The pass between Vegas & Pahrump is 5,600 feet (1,700m); there was snow on the sides of the road and it was coming down but not sticking to the roadway.  It was not dangerous but did call for caution.  First snow of the season folks!  This is the view from our house today; kind of a gray day.  I love the snow on the mountain with the clouds below it.

Later in the afternoon we went over to our local Home Depot and picked up some Glidden.  We want to paint the closet before we install the new system.  Bought the paint & all the crap you need to clean & prep the wall.  Fun!  Today we unpacked all the stuff from the closet and took the old stuff down.  Let me tell you, whoever invented the pneumatic nailer has a lot to answer for!  One piece of wood, a foot long, had 7 nails!  Here is a photo of the closet as it was.  It's about 10 x 10 feet (3m) almost square. 

It just had a simple bar going all the way around the room with a shelf on top.  I must say though; I was surprised by the material used to support the shelf. 

100% recovered and recycled fiber.  What the heck is that?   It did the job though and was rather tough to take down!  Something to do with all those nails I guess.  Anyway, now we have all that removed and lots of holes to fill.  The closet set isn't supposed to be delivered until Tuesday but we are sure going to be ready for it. 

Gotta go.  Have a good one & thanks for checking in.

Another trip to Vegas!

Yesterday we made yet another trip to Las Vegas; this time for lunch with our daughter.  She gave me a gift card for my birthday that was good at several chains; we decided to go for Maggiano's in the Fashion Show mall.  It is actually on the strip just across from the Wynn.  We got there early so we could stroll around the mall before lunch.  That was pretty cool.  There are tons of high end shops so there are lots of opportunities for leaving behind a small fortune.  Dillards, Macys, Nieman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom, even some place called Forever 21; if you have a dollar they would love to relieve you of it!  Of course there are probably 100 smaller stores; I think there were three from Victoria's Secret!  We had a good time looking at all the stuff and as good a time people watching.  There were some amazing folks wandering around and I mean that is both a good way and a bad way.  The Eastern Europeans are especially obvious; guys just don't wear lime green jeans in this country.  But everyone likes the tourist dollar so Welcome to Las Vegas!  One gal was wearing some kind of lycra pants that were at least a size too small and her hip measurement had to be well over 40".  It was just wrong.

There is an art gallery, Centaur Galleries that is the only place I've ever seen work by Dali, Picasso and the like for sale.  They seem to specialize in LeRoy Neiman having paintings from $3000 to close to $1 million.  They were running a special on some small Dali's; usually $2,500 each you could select three for $6,000.  Not my kind of place but they had a big space so someone is buying that stuff. 

Anyway we made it to the restaurant; the bar first.  It is a U-shaped bar with one side where the floor is two steps higher than the other two.  As a result the people on side A have lounge chairs while the people on sides B and C have high chairs that aren't high enough.  Really a weird design and uncomfortable for all of us.  So we had lunch; $15 entrees and $14 a glass wine.  The food and wine was ok but really not special.  So we blew through $110 for lunch making it a "definitely a won't go there again" place.  To ice the cake, our waiter seems to have taken a break during service, he was just gone.  My wife and daughter eventually went back to the bar to get another drink; I was hoping he might notice his diners leaving and come to see about us.  It still took him a while to bring the check.  Lousy service is putting it mildly! The wine in the bar, now that it was happy hour, were only $5 each but it is still an uncomfortable place to sit.

So we came home.  We had a lovely sunset with great color but by the time we made it into Pahrump it was dark.  We were driving past one of the local watering holes and nearly got T-boned by someone leaving the place.  What happened I think was this.  We have two lanes going each direction and a turn lane in the middle.  I was in the left lane; there was someone in the right lane signaling to go into the parking lot.  I think this guy just didn't see me coming because of the car that was turning it.  As it was I jerked the car into the turn lane and I think the other guy must have turned away from us but we sure didn't escape by more than a foot or so.  It was all over in a second.  There was no honking or squealing brakes or anything; I was just glad there wasn't a big 'CRUNCH' when the guy took the back end off the car.  My wife was happy that she didn't have a truck sitting in her lap!  Anyway, it was exciting in all the wrong ways.  It did make the last 4 miles home rather quiet by comparison. 

Today we made up for all the excitement yesterday by ordering a new closet arrangement for our master bedroom closet from EasyCloset.  The closet is a walk-in design.  The existing 'design' is just a hanging bar with a shelf above it going around all three sides of the room. We have light colored wook throughout our house and they have something that looks pretty much like a match.  One thing we like about their system is that it hangs from a bracket attached to the wall and doesn't touch the floor.  This way we can vacuum under everything without any hassle.  We'll have drawers, a clothes hamper and lots of hanging space.  They claim they will ship it tomorrow so we'll have it pretty soon.  Looks like we'd better get busy taking the old stuff down, filling holes and painting.  Now I just need to remember to take some before and after photos! 

Gotta go.  Thanks for checking in.  Have a good one!

Really!

Is it really 41 days until Christmas???  WTF, where did the year go?  Jeez.  I know my folks said the years sped by more quickly every year but now I'm getting to see it for myself.  Wow; it's time to start thinking of ideas for Christmas gifts.  Amazing.

My wife made a little pork roast last night and while I was cleaning the roaster I was thinking of lunch today.  Cheese, pork roast, crackers and a bottle of wine.  Sounds pretty good doesn't it.  Even kind of decadent.  And then I thought of the perfect bottle of wine.

Unless I'm confused a week from tomorrow is the reveal for the 2013 version of Beaujolais Nouveau.  We might get some on that day or maybe later but it won't be too long before we try it.  I remember one year, perhaps 2006, that we liked the wine so much I bought an entire case!  It is light and fruity usually, just a very nice wine if you like that sort of thing.

Our owl is still around.  He is taking cover in the culvert that runs beneath one side of our drive so I've been trying to remember to use the other side!  Believe me, it's tough.  I'm at the age when I walk from the den to the kitchen and don't remember why I'm there.  Grrrr!  I know it happens to others but that really doesn't do much to relieve that feeling that you are an idiot.  Or that you are one step away from Alzheimers. 

We took the Toyota in to Vegas for servicing yesterday.  They had a deal where if you bought 4 oil changes you got a better price; we have one left.  They usually manage to find something else though; this time it was a new air filter.  Ok, I could do stuff like that but sometimes I'm just too lazy.  The last time we were there they said our battery didn't pass their test but I resisted the $125 or so they wanted for a new battery.  When we got home I checked and it was low on water.  So I added water then put the battery charger on it for a couple hours.  This time the battery passed their test without a problem.  Jees, I wonder how many extra batteries they sell from just people not checking the fluid level. 

We stopped at a parking lot where a guy was setting up an RV show for this weekend.  We spent some time wandering through the lot.  They were all locked of course but there were no sales people to bother you - worked for us!  They did all have either a description, if used, or a manufacturers sheet if new.  Wow, $225K for a motorhome?  It was certainly fancy but really I just don't think I could do that even if I could afford it.  Especially since the thing loses so much value the minute you drive it off the lot.  Somehow I think we'll be towing our rig for quite a while.   

Gotta go.  Thanks for checking in.  Have a good one.

The Las Vegas Springs Preserve

We went over to visit the Springs Preserve yesterday and I took a few photos that I wanted to share.  First a little background.  For the last few thousand years people have lived in the Las Vegas valley because there were some natural springs out here in the middle of the Mojave Desert.  Makes sense, doesn't it.  It started out as not too many people; now it is way too many but that's what people seem to be good at.  Anyway the Springs Preserve has some really interesting interactive displays in the Origen Museum (that's how they spell it!) about how this all came about geologically and about the people who first moved here.  They also have the Nevada State Museum on the grounds; unfortunately, no one mentioned to us that it is closed Tuesday and Wednesday each week!  So I guess we'll have to go back.  There are lots of conference rooms around; lots of displays for kids even a little cafe that was pretty good.  For residents it is pretty affordable:  $10 for adults, $9 for seniors and $5 for kids.  Unfortunately for visitors it is almost twice that. 

A huge majority of the Preserve is devoted to gardening.  They have many, many different styles shown all of which work here.  Some are pretty drought tolerant; others not so much.  They also point out that a yard can contain different area:  an herb garden; a flower garden; an outdoor living space.  They do a good job illustrating these different areas.  We spent 4 hours wandering around in the garden and the Origen Museum.

One of the parts of the gardens that surprised me most was the sculpture interspersed here and there.  A man named David Thompson did some animals from 'found objects' that I really liked.  I thought the roadrunner was pretty cool!

He also did a ram that I liked.  Wouldn't it be cool to have something like that in your yard!

In the early days a derrick would be built to drill a well in the valley.  There are four of them on the Preserve property. 

Most of the trees and plants are nicely named; not this guy!  We were puzzled and there was no one to ask.  The small fruit had sort of a skin on it. 

It is getting to be Halloween and they have special decorations for the holiday.  This is only one of the MANY decorations.

There was another sculptor whose work I rather liked.  His name is Mark White.  The day was absolutely still so these didn't move but they are designed to do so. 

So that was our day at the Springs Preserve.  This is a great time to be in the Las Vegas area:  sunny, warm days and cool nights.  Hope you had as good a day!