China Part 2

This is a continuation of my story about our trip to China last April.  It was a good trip; a bit expensive but we really wanted the hand-holding.  The ship portion was just like any other cruise except it was on a river.  Food was interesting; a combination of Chinese, North American and European.  For example there would be Chinese noodle dishes to which the diner could add various meats and vegies.  For the Europeans, the breakfast bar would have sliced meats, cheeses and various rolls.  For the rest of us, about 95% from Canada and the US, we could get eggs over easy, bacon & all that stuff.  The ship had a large buffet bar with two cooks doing immediate things.  The buffet was surrounded by tables for the diners.  You would help yourself or have them cook something.  It was used for all meals.  Wine and beer were served at lunch and dinner.

To touch on a slightly sensitive subject; did you ever hear of an "Asian Toilet"?  On the ship and in the hotels we  had western toilets; nicer than most here.  Men get urinals.  Handicaped stalls are mostly western toilets as well.  However, most other public places have the Asian variety.  Please note, there is no seat and there  are no hand holds or rails to help one rise.

We got off the boat at Chongquin.  It was a long walk to the bus then we got on a plane for Xian.  It was in Chongquin that I first started noticing the polution.  There was good reason for that; the river is pretty wild and the city is really crowded.  The flight was fine as were all the flights within China.  Xian was just as smoggy though as Chongquin and now my wife started feeling ill as well.  I was coughing a lot so my wife went to the hotel desk to try and get assistance to get some cough medicine.  The young woman at the desk actually took her across the street to buy the stuff.  Amazing service!

We were off by 08:30 to see the Terra Cotta Army.  It is amazing place.  There are three sites where discoveries have been made.  The first was uncovered rather quickly; they are moving more slowly with the other two since premature contact with the air damaged the figures.  It's still just blows your mind.  There are thousands of figures; all different!  Apparently the craftsmen who made them would use each other as a model then make minor changes.  There are foot soldiers, generals, horses - an entire army.  The scale of the place is mind-boggling.  Mostly all you can do is walk around and take pictures so we were ready to leave by lunch.

This is a good time to talk about the meals off the ship.  We typically went to a lazy-susan place for lunch.  Our tour, all seven buses worth, would troop in.  Often there would be several hundred kids there already and even with all them it wouldn't be crowded.  We would seat ourselves at circular tables for eight with a lazy-susan in the center.  Servers would bring four or five appetizers; then they would bring a few entres.  By the time you got food it was kind of cool.  Again beer and wine would be served; large bottles for the whole table to share.  

We had the afternoon off then went to see a Tang dynasty show.  Dinner in Xian was a fixed menu:  shrimp, fish, a packet of steak with vegies; served at the show.  That was nice for a change.  It was just music and dancing; lots of dancing!  Got to the hotel, put our bags out in the hall and went to sleep. 

By the next morning my wife was more ill than I.  Happily the cough medicine worked for her too.  We were taken to the airport and given a box lunch!  LOL  Weird stuff but it worked.  Again the flight, China Eastern Airways, was fine.  This time we were staying at the Regent Biejing Hotel; we got there at 15:00 and were out for a tour of the old district by 15:30.  Part of the tour was via bus; there was a 10 minute rickshaw ride then we got to visit a private home.  This part of town 500-600 years old.  This house is built in two pieces:  a living room and bedroom on one side of a courtyard the kitchen on the other side.  The owners clearly are paid for showing their home but it was still interesting.  These homes don't have bathrooms; there is a public bath down the street.  They are still valued for their history.

Later we went to a place that sells tea; and they take it VERY seriously!  There were little kits of tea and a teapot that were on sale for $100US.  Granted we were in Tourist Central; we managed to not buy it!  LOL  Dinner was the most local place we've seen with actual Chinese people in the place.

Saturday morning breakfast was at 06:00 and we were on the bus at 07:00 headed for the Great Wall.  Traffic is lousy in Beijing and Saturday is especially bad because anyone with a car can drive.  During the week there are rules about only certain license plates can drive on certain days; the weekends are free game.  I took these photo of the corner just outside our hotel; there are lights and lines on the roads; it's just that no one pays any attention!

It took a while to get to the Wall but once there; I guess it was worth the hassle.  Building that thing was certainly an amazing feat and the Chinese people know it; there were visitors all over the place.  Mostly they were civilian but the Chinese Army was around to help out the police should they be needed.  The people from our tour were definitely in the minority.  There was one couple where she was blonde and about 6'2" (1.88 M); quite a few Chinese asked for photo-op with her!

One thing that surprised me was how steep the wall is.  Walking around was anything but easy.  We were is a place where there were no steps which made it either easier or more difficult; I'm not sure which.  There was a handrail but because of the steepness of the wall it was only about 18 inches (.5 M) above the ground.  There were plenty of people enjoying the day. 

We returned to the hotel for a bit of a rest before our "Peking Duck" dinner.  It was frankly disappointing.  Maybe I'd just heard about a 'real' dinner but this was just another lazy susan production with duck.  It was an add-on to the tour and next time we'd skip it.

Sunday is the tour of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.  This was quite interesting.  First getting into Tiananmen Square.  We foreigners were lead by our Chinese guide through a door and there we were.  The Chinese people had to stand in line and be searched!  Really?  Well, whatever works for them.  The Square is really huge; you might think so from the tank photos from back in the day.  It is.  Had a huge multi-story tv screen showing I don't know what. 

 Mao's tomb is there.  He didn't want it but when you are dead....  There were tons of people visiting.

Below is a photo of some building on the side of the square.  

This is the same building across the square:  did I say it was big?

There were plenty of cops and police around but they weren't hassling anyone, just standing around.  We had several people from our bus who didn't walk too well and they were falling behind.  We ended up in a line maybe a couple hundred feet long.  Then we got bunched up again when we got to the Forbidden City entrance.

Here there were no gates but there were three pedestrian bridges you had to cross.  Each bridge was being watched by two guys in Army uniforms.  There were also six or eight guys just standing in line on the side of the bridge behind the uniformed men.  In addition there were six or eight more guys just hanging around on the other side of the bridge.  Apparently you want plenty of security but don't want it to look to military.

The Forbidden City was packed.  The buildings in front were all nice and restored; the ones farther back were looking pretty tired.  There really wasn't a lot to see; just the buildings.  We were out and back on the bus by lunch time.  It was still a day when we walked over five miles (8 km)  We had the afternoon off then went to another dinner.  After dinner we attended the Peking Opera at 18:30.  It is kind of a 'people's opera' that wasn't terribly serious but lots of singing and dancing.  We saw scenes from three different operas.  One was a young woman asking a boatman to help her go up the river.  That was pretty funny with the two dodging up and down pretending to be on the river.  They also had tv screens on the walls offering a small translation of what they were singing.  The last was a big battle scene with swords, dancing and all that fun.  We liked it.

Monday was pretty much devoted to leaving China.  Luggage was collected at 09:00 then we hung around the hotel until noon.  The plane left at 16:00 making for a very long day!  We were flying Air Canada and boy is that lousy!  Getting seats together was a major problem.  The cabin attendants were working hard and did everything they could but when you can't get to sit with your spouse for a 10 hour flight; it stinks!  We made it to Vancouver about 15:00 local time; it was already a long day!  However there was one thing that was really cool.  The US Customs office is in the Vancouver airport; you check through without going out of the secure area and hop on the plane as though it is a purely US flight.  The flight to LA was pretty quiet.  We had a room at the Hilton; not nearly as nice as the ones we've had in China but I guess we have to come back to earth sometime! 

You know there are things I've forgotten.  I'll see if I can get some random ideas together for another post.  We'll see!  Thanks for stopping by.

Our visit to China!

I was looking through the blog archive and discovered an amazing omission:  in April we spent two weeks touring China and I didn't blog about it at all!  Grrr!  Anyway, most of the following was written just after we returned in May.  I've added more information taken from the notes I took at the time.  Sorry, I guess you need to chalk it up to being just another old guy's brain fart.

Don

Ok, I haven't posted in a long while but I've got an excuse, no really, I've been in China!  Yep, my wife and I just got back from two weeks in the amazing space that is called China.  Because it is such a large place and so very foreign to us Westerners, we took a tour.  Had a nice guy holding our hands every inch of the way.  Did we see everything?  Hell, no!  It was only two weeks!  But we did see a lot and had a really great time.

We drove down to Los Angeles on Monday the 14th and spent the night in the LA Airport Hilton.  They had a really great online deal where you got to park your car for only $8 a day.  That's even cheaper than the Las Vegas airport and it turned out to be covered parking!  Jeez.  Then on Tuesday, the 15th we headed out.  We were on a Viking tour so they bought the airline tickets - they sent us up to Vancouver, BC!  Then after a short layover, we flew from Vancouver to Shanghai, China.  Wow!  That alone was a 12 hour flight that crosses the International Date Line so we were a bit befuddled to say the least.  But, wow!

We had just two days in Shanghai, enought time to get our feet on the ground anyway.  We got to see some sights like the Bund where all the Western powers had encampments that were forced on the Chinese back around the early 1900's.  We spent a couple hours running through the Shanghai Museum learning some things about Chinese arts and culture.  And we got to see an amazing traditional Chinese nobleman's garden:  Yuyuan Garden.  Fantastic.  The weather was a combination of cool, foggy, hazy and polution that stayed with us for most of the journey.  The photo is from our hotel room.  It is of the rear of a building built by the Russian government to honor the Russian-Chinese friendship; these days it is simply a glorified convention center.

The Yuyuan Garden was to be a place of quiet and relaxed living and the grounds covered about five acres.  It is still an amazing place!  The entry is iconic; seen almost any time Shanghai is mentioned.  The bridge leading to it has 90 degree angles because it was thought evil spirits couldn't make the turns.  The buildings are basically pillars supporting a roof.  The walls are then added to keep the rain out. 

We also took in a show one night that was all about acrobatics.  The things you do when you are a tourist!

After two days however we flew to Wuhan to start the second part of our journey; the river cruise.   Wuhan has 10 million poeple, 6 mill in the metro area.  It is a very ancient city.  The whole tour was under the auspices of Viking; a company known for it's European river cruises.  In China they have boats that are borrowed somehow from a Chinese company then turned into a North American 'bubble' that floats up or down the Yangtze.  Here's a photo of our cabin on the ship.

This is a sistership that looked just like our vessel.  We were tied up side by side a couple times and people would dis-embark by walking through the ship that tied up first.

No, we weren't roughing it!  Actually it works quite well.  It is a very gentle introduction to Chinese food and culture.  Off the river they use local guides and high grade hotels.  It is a class act if quite an expensive one.  The Yangtze is a working river and the number of other boats we saw was just overwhelming.

On the Mississippi we would have a single large tug and 8 or 10 barges.  Here they have individual small boats each with it's own load of coal or rock or whatever. Let me tell you there was a tremendous amount of coal being hauled up that river!  Everywhere you would see strange sights.  The land around this area was quite flat but that was about to change.

I have absolutely no idea what those people were doing or what the water buffalo was up to!


We got to visit the Three Gorges Dam; whether for good or bad, it is a tremendous achievement.  Millions of people were relocated; antiquities were lost but flooding should be reduced, clean power generated and new homes, presumably better than the old, built.  We took photos but they just don't do justice to the place.  It is placed in an area where the river is constrained by mountains on either side.  It is quite amazing.  There are a series of five locks used to move traffic up river and five more to move traffic down river!  Plus there is a lift for smaller boats.  The cost was supposed to be $26 billion US; lots of concrete!  There were also buses of Chinese Army guards keeping it safe.  No, you don't take photos of the Chinese Army guards here or anywhere else.

The actual dam is so huge you'd have to photograph it from a plane.  This is what it looks like from the observation deck.  Pretty lousy huh!  The second photo is from the visitor center where they have a model that gives you some idea of the whole place.

As you go up the river sometimes you are in what appears to be total wilderness then a huge city will appear.  You have no idea of the name of the place but it's clearly packed full of people.

We continued up the river as far as Chongquig.  Chongquig is another city of 6 million or so in a district that totals some 34 million people.  It isn't as old as Wuhan but one of it's claims to fame is that it was the headquarters of General Joseph Stillwell during World War II.  Unfortunately we didn't get to see any of the city as we just headed for the airport.  This was the one place where we dis-embarked and had a long walk carrying our luggage.  Guys were standing around offering to help and at least one couple we knew got taken advantage of by them.  Viking kind of dropped the ball here.

I'm going to continue this in a day or two.  We've got lots more to see!  Thanks again for stopping by.

Happy Veteran's Day!

Established after World War I Veteran's Day (also called Armistice Day or Remembrance Day) it's one of my personal favorite holidays.  Thank you to all vets and certainly to all current active duty service members.  I'm proud of my service and proud of all you do.  I've spoken of the service records of my family and my wife's family.  We think some form of Universal Service should be enacted.  Every person would owe the country two years of service.  You could choose between military service or various civilian services:  hospital work or a free clinic or running a food bank or teaching - anything that helps you grow and helps our society.

Bass Pro Shop in Las Vegas had a nice sale on the Masterbuilt 40" Smoker - I just couldn't say 'no'.  I've been reading the My Old RV blog for a long time and Andy loves his smoker.  It's all his fault that I had to buy this thing.  It is pretty amazing.  Ok, it's electric which some might consider wrong but I just don't have the personality to keep adding wood or charcoal to a fire for 8-10 hours.  Sorry, I've tried it but just don't get it done!  It also has a remote so I can smoke food and fool around on my computer at the same time.  Cool!  We had a chuck roast hanging around so I tried smoking it:  pretty good but I've got to admit the shrinkage astounded me.  I'm climbing a learning curve on this one.  Hopefully I'll even learn to take photos of some of my attempts!  Anyway, here's the new baby.

We've been experiencing some pretty nice weather; much nicer than much of the country.  So we go sit on the patio in the evening and enjoy the sunset.  Or, last week, the moonrise.  I got this photo of the moon just rising over Mt. Charleston while the sun set turning the mountain an amazing color. 

When we look the other way we find a hummingbird just hanging around 'his' feeder.  This guy is pretty territorial and chases most other birds away.

Hope you have a good one.  Thanks for stopping by.

Not dead yet but close!

I keep falling off the blog-train.  Sorry about that.  We had two stops left before arriving home.  The first was Petrified Forest-Painted Desert National Park.  It was pretty cool.  There is a road through the park with stops where there are lookouts and some short walks.  You go into one park and exit from the other!  We started with Petrified Forest and sure enough there is petrified wood.

We went through the gift shop and actually bought a couple hats since we had stupidly left ours in the trailer.  The rest room had a sign I've never seen before!

We had a fairly cloudy day so it was really quite pleasant.  The views are amazing.  The rock layers, the way they are eroded, it's just really cool. 

At one stop you are above this canyon; maybe 50-60 feet above the floor where there are rocks that ancient people used to tell their stories.  Real petroglyphs just being there does something to me.

The rocks are quite a distance but that's why they can just sit there as they have for so long and people aren't defacing them.  That was pretty cool. 

After all this we needed one last stop to drain our tanks so we decided to try the Oasis Las Vvegas RV Resort.  This is definitely NOT the kind of place we usually stay but thought we might give it a try.  First it is huge - over 700 spaces!  It was also kind of expensive but not outrageous.  They had lots of rules of course and wifi was $6 a day extra.  This is Vegas after all.  Would we stay there again?  Yes, I guess, but only because it is really convenient for us. 

So what's been happening in the last month?  Lots of not much but one kind of interesting thing.  I got appointed to represent Pahrump on the Nevada Site Specific Advisory Board.  It sounds like typical government speak and it pretty much is just that.  Part of the desert north of Las Vegas was used to test nuclear weapons from the 1950's to the 1990's.  Everyone just calls it the 'Test Site'.  There are other sites around the country where nuclear weapons were made or stored.  Each site has a board of 15-20 people from the surrounding area to advise the Dept. of Energy on what people are going to think about things they are doing on that site.  (I'm still confused about how this became a Dept. of Energy site but maybe it will become clear sometime.)  It's pretty easy stuff:  go to a meeting once a month or so, read up on what's going on and tell them if anything stands out as really stupid. 

These days the Test Site is still used for testing that doesn't include actually setting off a bomb; they call it 'subcritical' testing.  The scientists have plenty of room to play and security is pretty tight.  They also have a bunch of cars, trucks and planes lying around that are used to train first-responders on what to do if there is, for example, a guy with a bomb on a plane.  They are trained to find the bomb and how to deal with it safely.  More than 150,000 people have gone through this course.  I thought that was pretty cool.  They also have what is basically a garbage dump for low-level nuclear waste.  When they say 'low level' they mean it.  Trucks bring stuff from other DOE sites, like Oak Ridge, TN.  The radioactivity level is so low that the drivers don't need any safety gear.  They have a dosimeter but that's it.  The trash, and a lot of it is just that, is in barrels or even containers like you would see on a ship.  It is stacked carefully in a huge hole then when the hole is getting full it is covered over with dirt.  The one thing they don't allow is any liquid waste. 

Personlly we are now getting set for winter.  This morning is the first morning I've seen ice on the bird bath - about a quarter inch.  The desert still looks pretty much the same but we'll have snow on the mountains soon.  Those neighbors who love to decorate for Christmas should be starting soon.  I'm just going to say "Bah, humbug!"  But I'll try to blog before then!  Take care & thanks for stopping by.

Nitwit Alert!

Boy, when I screw up it's pretty amazing!  I mean I really manage to screw up royally! 

Anyway, in an attempt to protect the privacy of our friends in Colorado Springs I totally forgot to mention a wonderful experience traveling on the Manitou and Pike's Peak Railway!  I've gotta say it was a great trip.  The railway is a cog railway built in the late 1880's and while it has been moderized, it's still pretty amazing.  The trip starts in the town of Manitou Springs which is, itself, pretty interesting.  Easy to get lost in as well because we managed that really well.  We didn't feel too bad though because our GPS was lost as well.  You are starting at something over 6,600 feet (2,000+ M) so at first you are clunking along in the woods. 

Because it was built so long ago you have times when you are just in a really narrow canyon and other times where you are hanging onto the side of the mountain with reasonable drop-offs on the other side.  We were on the first train of the day and had two cars.  Coming down we met another train going up and they had three cars.  Each car has two diesel engines for power (if not speed!).  You get assigned seats when you buy your tickets and I think some people didn't get to sit with the rest of their party but we two did get to sit together.  Our seats were facing downhill so we went backwards up the mountain and facing forward going down.  The seats are rather small wooden seats; kind of slippery too!  You have three facing forward sharing footspace with three facing backwards.  You get to know your seatmates!  On the mountain side of the aisle is a group of two and two.  We got to sit with two guys who were taking the train up and were going to hike down.  The other two were going to pick up rented bikes at the top and bike down.  How we got with such an athletic group I'll never know.  They did make the trip more interesting though talking about their local experiences.  Trees started to thin out and we started seeing some views.  This is looking back down towards the east.

After a bit we broke out above the tree line and the views got bigger.

Off to the southwest we could see the Sangre de Christo Mountains and a gold mine where they have ripped the top off a mountain.  Finally after about 90 minutes we made it to the top.  Top is 14,115 ft (4,302 M) if you believe their website.  The conductor claimed that new GPS measurements had recently added a few feet but who knows what the next measurement will show!  Anyway, the air is really thin up there!  Just walking around made us both feel really light-headed.  I'm sure glad we weren't either biking or hiking down because my balance was definitely OFF.  There is a large gift shop and snack bar on top which was a nice place to get in out of the weather.  This was September 9 and it was just freezing at the top with wind chill taking the feeling-temp to 25F (-4C).  I've no idea who these kids were but I like that they clambered down to this show-off place so I could get a shot of them.

Needless to say there were steep drops all around.  They were tough to photograph though.  I kept trying but don't have much to show.  This one was an almost vertical drop down into a bowl with a rim on the other side then another drop.  I was surprised that there were not many railings but I guess if you fall off a mountain it's your problem.  Some other poor schmuck will have to figure out how to get the remains - if any.

  Our conductor who offered some guide type talk claimed that 90-some percent of the rails were still the same.  She didn't mention the 'cog' because I'm sure that gets LOTS of wear.  Naturally I had to get a photo of that!

The train has pull-up windows that were down for part of our trip but about half way up we closed the windows.  You start getting reflections of people in your photos but you stop shivering.  I guess it's a fair trade.   Here's one of the cars of our train waiting for us to get our sightseeing done and go on back down.

Going down was much like going up though the perspective is different.  Once into the trees I got to see an old cabin someone built; I suppose it was a prospector but it was definitely someone who liked his/her privacy!

It was almost an anti-climax to land back at the station.  They had a VERY interesting way to get out of the parking lot; I'm glad that F-250 isn't about six inches longer!  We had purchased two bottles of water to take with us on the trip.  We finished one when we were on the top of the mountain and I screwed the top back on just out of habit.  It shows a bit of the reason we were feeling light-headed while on top.

Air pressure at the station in Manitou Springs was crushing that empty bottle with the Peak air pressure inside.  Cool! 


Thanks for stopping by.  Next time I'll try to get these things in order!

More travel

My last post ended up with us visiting friends in Colorado Springs.  I'm not sharing any photos for two reasons:  privacy AND I was too dumb to take any!  Grrrr!  Haven't seen those folks in three years and then to not take any photos is practically criminal. 

Well, enough whining.  We left Colorado Springs and headed south in I-25 ending up in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Santa Fe in a nice town.  The park we stayed in was in town on a main street so the bus was just outside the gate.  Seniors get to ride all day for $1 - $2 for you younger folks.  It was a great deal since parking isn't real plentiful.  The name of the system is Santa Fe Trails.  Here is the bus stop sign.

Pretty cool huh.  Until you look closer!

Whoever cast this concrete was having a little trouble with spelling!  They had the E first and had to fill in the bottom bar then chisel out a part for the F that needed to be an E.  LOL  What a hoot.  I can't spell to save my ass but I'm pretty sure I could get FE right. 

Once in town we enjoyed some of the museums and art galleries.  We didn't buy anything; they seemed to have a really good stock of $8-10,000 paintings.  Oddly, I didn't value them at quite that.  We also visited the cathedral and the Loretto Chapel.  The Chapel is fairly small but is known for a spiral staircase that has no visible means of support.  Here's a photo of the staircase.

The only disturbing thing is that we were charged $3 each entry fee to visit the Chapel.  Visiting the Cathedral was free.  What a rip-off.  So that's my $6 photo-of-the-day. 

While in Santa Fe we made a day trip to Taos.  It seemed to me to be another town full of galleries looking for customers.  We did actually buy a small vase but that was it ($25).  The high spot of the day for me was the views of the Rio Grande River and it's canyon.  I didn't take any photo of the canyon worth sharing but we did see this guy and his dog enjoying a day on the river!

That gets us through Santa Fe and Taos.  We have one more really great place to visit but I'll  leave that for another day.  Thanks for stopping by!

Home Again

We arrived home again a couple days early as usual.  Once we get within about a day's drive "Dobbin smells the barn" and we head for home.  However to go back a couple weeks I've got some photos I'd love to share. 

We left North Dakota impressed.  The state was much more beautiful than we were expecting and, of course, the vibrancy that is a result of the oil boom was pretty cool.  One thing I didn't get a photo of was the huge fields of sunflowers that are being grown.  Of cousre I know all that sunflower oil has to come from somewhere but, jeez, some of those fields were at least several hundred acres.  Very amazing! 

We left Dickenson, ND and headed for Newcastle, WY to spend the night.  There we made a major error and stayed at one of the worse places ever:  it was a small park associated with and behind a motel.  Just getting in was a hassle since the whole thing is built on the side of a hill.  Access to sites was limited by overgrown trees and about a third of the sites were closed off with traffic cones anyway.  Needless to say they weren't level!  Lousy sites with a busy road on one side and a train on the other.  They didn't move many trains in the night but in the morning and evening there was literally one every 10 minutes.  The odd thing is that they still haven't charged our credit card!  Who knows! 

The photo shows the hookups for FOUR rigs:  ours, one either backed up to our rig or pulled up right behind (if it was a Class C!) and two more in spaces 6 and 8.  Thank goodness there weren't other rigs trying to stay that night.  We carry two sets of leveling planks:  a 2 inch one and a 4 inch one:  we needed the 4's here.

The next night we stopped in Loveland, CO.  Amazingly enough we found another park with problems.  The sites around the outside of the park were all wide, deep and nicely treed.  The ones inside were short, perpindicular to the road and narrow.  Our living room slide was lless than 18 inches (.5m)  from our neighbor's bedroom slide.  Thank goodness that the guy knew how to park his rig. 

The stay at Loveland was prompted by a desire to visit Rocky Mountain National Park.  We aren't real fond of roads with drop-offs so avoided the higher parts of the park.  We know that we miss a lot but the stress of traveling the roads overcomes the enjoyment.  The lower elevations were beautiful though.  Even the lower elevations were 8,500 feet (2,600 m) so it's not like the air wasn't a trifle thin. 

We stopped in Estes Park for a meal at "Smokin Dave's" bbq place.  HIGHLY recommended!  We split a 3 meat platter with ribs, pulled pork and brisket with two sides.  Everything was excellent.  Driving back down to Loveland we were in the canyon created by the Big Thompson River:  very impressive.

After Loveland we took a short trip down I-25 to Colorado Springs to visit friends.  We haven't seen these folks since 2011 so it was time.  To our amazement, the trip through Denver was pretty simple.  Turns out it was just our day:  we were south-bound; the north-bound folks got treated to a miles long backup.  "Sometimes you are the windshield and sometimes you are the bug."

I'll do more on our trip later.  That's all for now.  Thanks for stopping by.

Travel finally!

We've been moving on.  After escaping Utah without accident, we moved on into Idaho and Montana.  This was mostly Interstate driving as we were really trying to get a few miles up the road.  All these states are fixing roads because, after all, doing so in winter isn't much of an option.  In Montana I noticed something kind of funny.  They are working on some bridges and typically close one lane, reduce the speed limit and get to work.  We came over this ridge and saw work going on down in the valley.  They reduce the speed limit to 55 mph; I've always figured that I'd be an idiot to get a speeding ticket while towing 8,000 lb of trailer so I'm pretty sure to be below whatever the limit might be.  Well, this time there were three or four white vehicles and one black one way at the end.  I was doing about 52 mph and guess what, the black vehicle was a police car!  The guys behind me who had been probably cursing were now probably pretty happy.  That was a nice ending.  Then it happened again the next day!  These cops are having just way too much fun. 

Our objective on this trip was to visit Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota.  It was a great place!  We stayed in the town of Medora, North Dakota.  It's pretty much a tourist trap for folks staying at the park.   We stayed at the Red Trails Camp Ground; nice enough place but average.  We had lunch in one place that was great; then we had dinner at a place one of the locals recommended that was worse than awful.  Amazing.

The national park is divided into a North and a South portion.  We only visited the South.  There is a 36 mile drive going around the park; fantastic views all over the place.  There are hiking trails all over the place but we didn't do well with them.  We tried two and each started with a bunch of steps carved out of a hillside.  We flatlanders just didn't want to do that.  They brag about the number of buffalo; we only saw them at a distance until nearly the end of the loop when we rounded a corner and there was a big bull dining on grass in the ditch.  We were so shocked we didn't even get a photo.  They brag about wild horses; didn't see a one.  They 'brag' about having lots of prarrie dogs; well they sure have them!  We also got to visit the Painted Staircase area:  it's got some great overviews of the park.

Here's a buffalo - far away and showing us his ass!

It's a tough place even for a tree.

Here is an overview of what much of the park looks like.  It was taken from the Painted Canyon ranger area.

Anyway, we moved on to Dickenson, ND.  Dickenson is living the oil boom.  Shale oil workers and money are making the town exciting.  There is lots of building; the restaurants and service industry people are doing well.  It all makes us folks who live in the slow growing areas envious.  I guess the oil industry can inject a lot of money in an area. 

From Dickenson we took a quick trip on the Interstate to check out Bismark, ND - the state capital.  It was weird.  First of all, it was Labor Day so everything was closed.  Secondly, the state capital building was strange:  it looks like an office building!  So we ended up having lunch at Pizza Hut just because there wasn't anywhere else but McDonalds.  

We'll be moving south now.  More info later!  Have a good one.

Gone Walkaway....

Ok, we wandered off finally.  Photos:  oh hell no!  Not trying to make lots of miles but landed in Leeds, UT for our first time. The Leed's park is a nice little place off the highway; we have been here before; didn't go to the Zion Park just because we'd been at the park before.  Drove on to Salt Lake City today.  Nice quite drive until.....

We were in Salt Lake City coming off I-15 coming onto Westbound I-80 and it was just crazy.  First of all I must admit that my wife and I have different ideas about what happened.  I'm kind of supporting her version but that's because I was busy at the time.  Let's face it, I'm driving and I don't have the universal view.  Here's the deal.

While we were coming off I-15 towards I-80 Westbound we saw an accident.  My wife says that a vehicle ran up onto the INSIDE of the curve, turned over and stuff flew out.  I don't know, I was too busy avoiding the guy in front of us who moved over into our lane.  Happily, there wasn't anyone in the lane to our right so I was able to escape him.  I was also able to escape a LOT of sharp rock that the rolling vehicle had tossed into our lane.  We called 911 and reported the wreck but we didn't really want to park a 50+ foor rig on the side of the road and block things up even more! 

So now we are in Salt Lake City and headed north.  We'll update you from time to time.  Hope there aren't any more accidents!  Take care.

Dummy Alert!

Oh boy, did we do a dumb thing the other day.  We have the trailer out of it's shed and next to the house because we are doing a little work on it - the new bathroom sink.  So we opened the awning to keep the morning sun off the side so it would be cooler.  So far so good but then comes the dumb moment:  we left the awning out and came into the house.  You know what happens next:  the wind comes up and suddenly I hear this whacking sound.  The awning was doing it's best to try to rip itself to bits.  I ran out and grabbed it but it was too much for me.  Happily my wife heard it as well so she followed me out after a minute or two.

We tried flipping the lever to roll it up but it was jammed and wouldn't roll up.  Finally I had the bright idea to release the awning legs from the side of the trailer and just let the awning hang down against the side of the trailer.  My wife couldn't get her end of the awning to release but I managed it and that released all the strain from the 'roll up' lever and we managed to get the awning rolled up.  Damn, that was a near thing!  We've been running around in trailers for almost 15 years that's too long to be making a rookie screwup.

We do have a new sink though.  It looks good and hopefully we'll get the plumbing done later this afternoon.  My wife is the family plumber; all I do is hand her the tools.  I won't be taking any photos of that! Here's a photo of the old sink propped up in the cutout for the new one.

And here is the new sink happily installed.  What a difference!

My computer is officially screwed up.  My battery icon gives me a message that says "6% available (plugged in, not charging)".  It's almost exactly 5 years old and when I took the battery out, it's leaking.  It's just a bad deal.  I checked out batteries online and they are running about $30.  I checked out the ones at the local BatteriesPlus store in Las Vegas:  $100.  Hmmmm.  Guess I'll be buying online again.  On the other hand, there is a nice Toshiba Click 2 advertised for $530.  It's small but maybe I could get used to it.  We'll see what happens.  Stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a good one. 

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.

No I'm not dead....

We've been having more fun than you can imagine getting that oven installed.  We bought the oven from an Amazon affiliate; mostly because it was $800 less than at Home Depot or Sears.  However, there was a slight delivery problem.  It was a week late arriving here.  Grrr!  My wife was about ready to fly to New York and kill someone.  However, finally it showed up.  The guys unpacked it and we inspected it carefully.  Happily it was just fine.  The only problem is that the thing weighs something over 300 lb (135kg)! 

Now that we had the oven we felt comfortable getting in touch with the electrician.  They couldn't come immediately so it took a couple days and we had the new oven sitting in our nook.  Now we felt comfortable about taking the old one out but it was a little heavy for my wife to help me.  So we waited for the electrician.  He showed up and was great.  He helped me pull the old one out and unhooked it.  Then he wired up the new one and helped me put it in.  It fits like a glove!  Happy days.  Well, almost.

The instructions for the oven tell you to remove the oven doors prior to installation so we did that; then we couldn't get them back on!  Jeez, let me tell you, we tried!  We tried time and again but finally had to admit defeat.  I called our local appliance repair person and got on their schedule.  Finally, the day comes around and the guy shows up.  I've got to give him credit; he didn't even laugh!  It took him about half an hour but he did get the damn doors back on.  Finally we could trip the breaker and we have an oven again.  Jeez!

We've tried a couple things and so far it's working well.  It has all kinds of bells and whistles that will never be used.  For example, you can connect it to your wireless network so you can use a smartphone to fire up the oven before you get home.  Really?  Gradually we are getting the various settings modified to our liking.  There are a few things to get finished, like painting, but nothing too challenging.  And we get to eat in the meantime. 

We did take the old ovens and microwave to the recycling center.  It was 300 lbs of various metals and glass; we got $20 for it.  It's hardly worth doing but I like the idea that it will be something else someday rather than just taking up room in a landfill. 

There are a few other things going on but I can't talk about them right now.  Besides, I have some kitchen duties calling me.  Have a good one!

Oh gee, crappy blogging again!

Here's a headline that talked to me; except I'm not so stupid as to try to hide my knife.  When we were in China I forgot to pack my Swiss Army knife in my luggage one time.  When I admitted this to our guide, he recommeded leaving it behind.  He even called a friend to come 'find' it.  Well, it was a great way for the 'friend' to get  a nice pocket knife but I figure it would probably found it's way to a landfill otherwise so I guess I'm ok with the friend having it.  I've had two Swiss Amry knives:  one from when I was about 21 and visited Switzerland for the first time; the other from my mid 40t's after the first started being kind of sloppy.  Well, now I've got a third.  Same version but just tighter.  Too bad we can't get a new body like we get a new knife!  LOL!

Things have been rather quiet around the homestead these days.  We pulled out the over-the-stove microwave/vent hood and replaced it with a regular stove vent hood.  The old one didn't do a very good job of venting the stove AND somehow grease found it's way into the thing to drip into the microwave.   Weird but nasty.  So now we have a dedicated vent hood.  I'm really sorry to say it took us all day to change it out!  Guess that we made almost every error known to humans.  I even made a template which did help in positioning the screws but was a bit off.  Gee, wish the maker had thought to give us one.  $400 noisy POS! 

We are waiting, impatiently, for a new double oven to replace the one we currently have.  The new guy will have convection in both ovens and the self cleaning feature as well.  The current ones are just a pain in the a55.  We should get them next week and after the torture of installing them, I'll post a before and after photo. 

Gotta wander off now.   It's almost 22:00 and time for old guys to be in bed.  Take care!

What is he so interested in?

I saw the cat sitting by the back door, very intent on something.

Hmmm,, guess this would be it!

Don't know if it is the birds or the bunny but there has to be some breakfast out there somehow!

We haven't done much in the last couple of days; just working on the every longer 'honey-do' list.  I work out in the garage but by 09:00 it's way too warm to keep going.  Don't you just hate it when you sweat on something you just painted?

Thanks for stopping by.  Take care.

Just a photo...

I don't have much to say this morning but I wanted to share this photo.  We had a little bunny visiting this morning at the base of the bird feeder helping to clean up seed that has been spilled on the ground.  He was pretty cute and seemed to get along fine with the doves who are our more usual visitors.  Notice how everyone kind of blends in with the rocks.

We have a cloudy day today.  It's kind of nice for a change but it doesn't smell like rain so I'm thinking we won't get any.  As 'The Weather Channel" says "Dry conditions will continue."

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a good one!