More travel!

We had been talking about the trip to the Northwest for some time when my wife comes up with this promotion that comes from the Catalina Island Ferry system:  a free trip to Catalina Island on your birthday.  Well, free is her favorite word so now we were talking about two trips at the same time.  First to the Northwest then three weeks later heading for Los Angeles and Catalina Island.  Hmmm.

You know driving all the way to L.A. for a couple days on Catalina didn't sound that wonderful and I was pretty sure the neither of us would care for more than a couple days on the Island.  But, it is L.A. and there are other attractions.  One, right next to the ferry terminal is the Queen Mary.  We love the old ocean liners and staying on the Queen Mary would certainly fit into our trip.  Then I remembered all the advertising Disney is doing about the 60th Anniversary of Disneyland.  Do you see what's happening here?  See how easy it is to fill a week in L.A.?

We took off on Sunday the 9th headed for Disneyland.  My wife was taken there the first year it opened.  Then she lived in California until her mid-twenties and continued to visit from time to time with the kids.  When we lived in Orlando we visited Disneyworld quite often but I had never made it to the original Disneyland.  She wanted to show me.  We found a much different situation now; I guess 40 years does make a difference!  We stayed in the 'Resort District' at the Doubletree Inn.  It is the last property in the 'district' and walking from there to the resort was probably about a mile.  Still, it was an ok place to stay.

Disneyland was all alone when my wife started going to it then in the mid-70's it got surrounded by hotels so that the attractions looked small.  Well, they've fixed all that!  Mostly they bought up the hotels, demolished them and turned the land into parking lots.  The remaining hotels are farther away and only six or seven stories tall.  While walking around in the park I didn't see anything outside the park at all.  The park itself is much smaller than the Florida park but seems to work for the kids.  We were there in summer so there were quite a few kids; actually hordes of kids!

There were hordes of strollers as well!  That is one of the smaller stroller parking areas. 

We saw plenty of kids sleeping in the stroller while Mom and Dad were visiting Disney!  We got there about 09:00 (they open at 08:00) and it wasn't too bad but as the day wore on it got more and more crowded.  It was only about 80F (26C) so not really hot but because it is closed in there was no breeze.  By 13:00 we had had enough and left for Downtown Disney.  Downtown is an area of independent shops and restaurants; i.e. they serve alcohol!  After dodging strollers for a couple hours we needed wine with our lunch!

We could have gone back to Disneyland but we'd seen almost everything there was to see so were more than happy to wander back to the hotel.  We didn't go on any of the rides except for the train and the riverboat but that wasn't the reason for our visit; my wife wanted to see the changes and I just wanted to say I'd been there.  We were done!  That night we ate in the hotel restaurant and had a fairly nice meal.  Then went into the lounge for one last glass of wine.  The bartender served us then went on break!  She just sat there reading her paper and ignoring us; her only customers!  Absolutely amazing.  We stretched out drinking our wine so that she could come back on duty and give us the check.   Really?

The next day we didn't hurry but made it to the Queen Mary around 10:30.  We were amazed to find that our room was ready!  So we dumped our stuff in the room and took off touring the ship.

There is a Russian submarine tied up with the QM but it was closed for repairs.  I was just as happy to skip it as subs can get a little tight.  It wasn't so bad when I weighed 180 but these days those tight spaces are just a bit tighter!  You can tour most of the QM.  Inside in the passenger areas the walls are wood and beautifully finished.  We got to see some of the mechanical spaces but none of the really good stuff like the engine room, etc. We did get to visit the bridge, officer's country and the radio room; they were done to passenger level.  The radio room is kept up by a local ham radio club which was pretty cool.   Much of the deck is beautiful teak but there are places where it has been replaced with plywood.  The plywood may be cheap but it sure isn't lasting. 

I loved this view of the hull.  They wanted this ship to stay together so they used plenty of rivits!

Our room was quite nice.

This was taken from the entry way and the bathroom is beside me.  We got 2 portholes for the view and the door visible leads to a small closet.  There was a tv mounted in the corner partially obscuring one of the portholes.  The view was of the dock.  We could have had a sea view but figured who is going to stand at the porthole and look out?  I was really kind of surprised at the size of the room.  I'm sure it must have been one of the more expensive cabins when the ship was in use.

Some people complained about noise from neighbors; we had no problem with that.  We did get some noise from the hall because there was a 1 ft by 2 ft louvered opening in the door for ventilation.  My wife noticed that the toilet dripped water when used and when we reported it to the desk they had someone come over and fix it right away.

We ate at a restaurant that is just across the water so we could see the QM.  This was Parkers Lighthouse.  They were a little screwed up offering wine that they didn't have but the food (sushi for my wife and shark for me) was good and the location/view was fantastic.  Parking was validated to only cost $4 rather than $10.

I've blathered on way too much already.  I'm going to hold the big trip to Catalina Island for another day.
Take care and thanks for stopping by.

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.

I'm BAACCKK!!

Yeah, I know, no one missed me.  Well, I'm back anyway.  It's been quite a month so I hope you will be ok with me covering this in a couple posts.  It all started on June 28 when we left on vacation.  What was unusual was that for the first time in years we were taking the car; not our RV.

We have a Toyota RAV4 that we bought basically to drive back and forth to Vegas.  It gets almost 30 mpg where our truck is pretty lucky to get 16.  And, of course, it actually fits in a parking space where the truck really needs two or three!  We were a little concerned about taking the car since the only long trips it has been on have been to Southern California which is only a few hours away.  This would be a weeks long trip up to the Northwest.  As it turned out the car worked out really well.

Our idea was simple.  The family has several birthdays in the July-August timeframe and this year we had 85-65-60-45 quadfecta come up so it was time for a party.  We lived in the Northwest for many years and never really got to spend enough time in the British Columbia cities of Vancouver and Victoria.  We decided that spending some time in Canada then doing the party would be a good thing.  It turned out to be great.

You could make the drive up north in two days but three is really more our style these days.  So we spent three days getting up to Washington.  We had some stuff to drop off before hitting Canada so while we left home on the 28th of June it was actually July 2 before we crossed the border into BC.  July 1 is Canada Day and, of course, July 4 is Independence Day here in the states so we were concerned about crowds; turns out we were right but for the wrong reasons.  Now everyone knows the Women's World Cup Soccer match was played in Vancouver on July 5.  I've got to tell you we sure didn't know that when we scheduled our visit!  (Congratulations to the U.S. women for winning!)  Had we known about the world cup we would have found another time to visit for sure.

Anyway we spent a couple days visiting Vancouver.  You have to visit Stanley Park and we spent a lovely afternoon there; most of the day actually.  Gastown is also a kind of iconic place:  it's near where the city began and has older buildings and trendy shops.  Of course we had to visit it again.  We are uncertain but are thinking that the last time we were in Vancouver would have been 1982.  Hmm, nothing like spending all your vacations in the same place!  And it's really odd but I don't have a single photo of the city!  What on earth is coming over me?

Anyway we escaped the mainland on July 4 and headed off to Vancouver Island and Victoria.  Actually what we were really focused on was Butchart Gardens since my wife had never visited.  To that end we stayed in Sidney, BC which is quite close to the Gardens.  However we certainly had to have High Tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria and this was the day of our reservation! 

Well, I have to say it's kind of not that special.  We had a nice table next to a window which was great because it was warm and there wasn't any a/c.  The 'tea' is a multi-level tray:  sandwiches, scones and candies.  Are you full when you leave?  We certainly were.  Was it worth the $63CDN plus tip each; nah.  Even with the exchange rate in our favor it wasn't that special.  We'll not have to return.

On July 5 we woke to find the world to be an odd color.  Turns out that there were wildfires burning on Vancouver Island and the smoke was visiting Victoria.  We visited Craigdarroch Castle which is a Victoria 'landmark'.  Apparently it was built by some early 'robber baron' to show off his wealth in the 1890's.  I don't know what he did but one of the placards refered to questionable 'employment practices'.  Sounded kind of harsh considering it was posted on what he must have considered to be his crowning achievement!  It is quite the place and wonderfully presented by a group of volunteers.  The family was pretty unlucky except in that money thing:  they had 8-10 kids most of whom died fairly young.  One of the survivors had another 8-10; the last of whom died in the 1950's.

You can see the color of the sky behind the castle.  It was really most odd.  I didn't smell smoke but the air quality was really poor.  The web site has some nice photos of the interior of the Castle.  I love the catch phrase they are using:  "Lavish lives and wayward daughters".  That pretty much says it all.

Butchart Gardens is just amazing.  A wealthy family started re-purposing a dis-used quarry and now have ended up with this world famous garden.  It's amazing!  We heard that it is a busy place in summer so got there when they opened; a VERY good choice!  It was relatively uncrowded when we started but by lunch time people were streaming in by the busload.  I didn't count but we must have seen twenty gardeners slaving away; the place is immaculate. 

The house is now used for a restaurant, offices, gift store, etc.  We did have lunch there and it was very nice.  The only sore spot would be the $34 for a half-carafe of their house wine.  Hmmm.  Well, gotta pay those gardeners somehow I guess. 

This seems to be the quarry where it all started.  You can tell we were early because there is only one person in the photo!  You can also see the haze in the air.  Butchart is some way from Victoria and between the distance and the wind direction the air was much cleaner than in Victoria.  Still it's obviously not bright and sunny. 

After our visit to Canada we headed back to the USA via the Black Ball ferry, the 'Coho'.   It is a nice big ship but we were glad to have reservations.  We got home and the customs guy asked why we went to Canada and I answered 'Just a vacation' and he asked 'yes, but why Canada?'.  I swear those people must go to school to come up with weird questions.  Oh well. 

We spent the 7th through the 10th visiting family then on the 11th had the big birthday bash.  No photos but it was lots of fun; too much food and wine as usual.  On the 12th we headed back south getting home on the 14th.  Another quiet drive with just the ocassional idiot being an accident looking for a place to happen. 

Our excitement wasn't over but I need to go do things.  Thanks for stopping by.  Have a good one.

Photo Op

We had a visitor to the bird bath the other day; a young hawk.  Needless to say there weren't a lot of other birds hanging around!  He didn't stay long but did hang around for one portrait.

The birdbath is attracting attention these days.  It's getting warm outside and everyone needs a little water.  We even had a crow stop by one day.  (No photo, he was shy and quick.)  Plenty of the ordinary birds:  pigeons, doves, sparrows and finches are the most common.  Once in a while we spot a newbie but this isn't exactly on the way to anywhere!

I mentioned the fun with the septic tank.  Found a photo that gives one an idea of the job.

This big old tanker truck with a tractor on a trailer was just the thing.  The top of the tank is about four feet down (1.2M) so we were all glad the guy had a tractor.  No one knew exactly where the openings were so he used a tool to probe around in the ground then proceded to dig in exactly the right place.  You've gotta say it might be a stinky job but he sure knew what he was doing.  Yes, the black thing in the photo is the 'straw' they use to suck up the sewage.

I said it's getting warm.  Here's the latest from the Fox news in Las Vegas.

That's 39C-41C for our highs and around 27C for lows.  Needless to say we are running the a/c a lot.  It is basically 24/7 now for a while.  We like to walk around our neighborhood but when it is this warm we either go really early or not at all.  A new alternative is for us (wifey needs exercise too) go to the gym.  Yes, I said  gym.  It's not a word you've heard from my mouth (keyboard) before but there it is.  As part of my medical care under Medicare (health plan for oldies here in the states) I have a gym membership.  I haven't used it much but these days a treadmill in an airconditioned building is better than walking in the neighborhood at 05:30 or so.  I tried out a stationary cycle; found muscles I didn't know I had in 2 miles.  I tried out an eliptical stepper thing; yep, more muscles I didn't know I had.  Finally tried the treadmill; at least I can do that!  I strained my foot back when we were in Ireland and 15 minutes on the treadmill make it quite painful.  There is something about the surface that is harder on my foot than ordinary walking.  Still, gotta move it or lose it.  They also have strength-training machines.  These are weird machines I've never seen and can hardly figure out how to use even when I'm reading the directions!  I tried two of them:  one for your chest and one for your abs.  I guess they are ok but it's another episode of 'old dog, new tricks'.  As though the new pc wasn't enough.

That's it for today.  My spouse wants to go to the gym again.  Stock market hint:  buy Advil!  Have a good one.

More Life in the Fast Lane

We are spending most of our time inside these days since the triple digit days are here.  Actually we are hovering in the high 90's most days but we have seen 101F (38C).  To bring some excitement to my life I have just purchased a new computer:  an HP Envy 17" laptop.  Wow is that some learning curve!  My old machine is from 2008 and had a pretty basic version of Windows Vista.  I know some people had a lot of trouble with Vista but actually I was fairly happy.  The new machine is Windows 8.1; it has lots more screen (!) and it's a touchscreen to boot.  So far it's acceptable but from time to time it decides to cancel what I've typed or delete an email without consulting me.  It's just learning curve I keep telling myself!

 One thing that has me going is the amount of software that I'm needing to download to make this thing work.  I forgot how many extra pieces of software are on the old machine.  Of course the stuff HP put on here is not my style at all.  It's a good thing we have a decent internet connection because I'm going to be using it!

Otherwise we did exciting stuff like having our septic tank pumped out.  That was a thrill!  We didn't know where the tank was; there is a pipe coming out of the ground but as it turns out the pipe is 2 feet west of the actual tank opening and 5 feet south.  Happily the guy who did it knows what he is doing and found the tank relatively quickly.  Then he had to dig down about three feet to the tank, remove both the caps and empty both chambers.  Two and a half hours and $500 later; we should be good for another 8-10 years. 

Anyway, that's it for today.  I'd post a photo or two but haven't resized them.  Maybe there is something on the machine that would do it but I don't recognize it if it is here.  Grrr!  Later

Still here!

No I haven't dried up and blown away quite yet but it's getting close.  Actually my wife and I have been occupied with planning a couple more trips in the not too distant future.  These will be much closer to home but should be fun anyway.  I'll fill you in more later.  Can't post a photo of someplace I haven't been yet, can I?

We have had pretty good weather but it's getting warm enough to make firing up the bbq rather than warming the house using the stove or oven a valid consideration.  The lesser cleanup with the bbq has absolutely nothing to do with our choices I promise.  I was looking at a video about smokers (food smokers!) the other day and the presenters ended with 'You can never have too many smokers or bbq's'.  Well, I'm approaching the limit I think!  We have a full size Wever kettle; a Weber gas grill and now the smoker.  That's a lot of iron on the back patio!  Of course I didn't mention the little Coleman grill that we carry on the trailer   Hmmm.  Can I spell addiction?

However I must admit to using all this stuff.  The Weber kettle gets the least use just because I'm too lazy to get charcoal going before we are actually starving.  I do love the charcoal taste.  The gas grill gets used at least once a week and often three times.  The smoker is taking it's place somewhere between the kettle and the gas.  You kind of need all day to smoke something so it's not a spur of the moment thing.  That's not even considering marinades which are used quite a bit.  I did learn something new last week though:  reverse sear.

"Reverse sear" as I understand it works like this.  It is a technique for a small piece of meat like a steak.  you smoke it to add flavor then sear it to finish the cooking.  In this case we had a couple of t-bones that were a bit more than a pound each.  So you do whatever you want to with them first.  We marinate in soy sauce and worchestershire for 20-30 minutes; they get to come up to room temp during that time as well.  So now we put them in the smoker for an hour or so.  This is how they looked when they came out.  I cannot tell you how soft they felt; almost like completely raw meat.

So after an hour in the smoker I fire up the gas grill.  These Weber gas grills go from 0-60 pretty much like a Corvette - fast!  So now I grill the steaks for 1.5 minutes on a side.   For us it was a little too much.  Next time I'd probably use a minute on each side.  (Without the smoking, I do my wife's steak for 2 minutes on a side and mine for 3 minutes on a side and it's pretty perfect medium-rare.  My wife's steak lets out a little 'moo'!)  After resting for a few while my wife made some potatoes to go with the steaks it makes a nice plate doesn't it.  There is still some pink to the steak but not a lot.

Sorry but getting cross-checking grill marks in 3 minutes is beyond me.  Guess I'll lose Master Chef!  Have a good one and I'll be back later!

The end of Ireland as we saw it

Finally!  I know.  All these photos of someone else's vacation are boring.  Sorry.  It seems to be a totally human characteristic though.  Certainly I've seen qute a few vacation photos in my life.  Anyway.

We basically ran out of time to see all we wanted to see in Ireland.  We wanted three or four days in Dublin and we just had to skip Northern Ireland.  We'll just have to include it in another trip.  We both have family from that area so there is some motivation.  However this trip we got on the motorway in Galway and headed east for Dublin.  We thought we'd stop at the Tullamore distillary but when we finally found it there was no parking so we decided to keep going.  Finally we found the Kilbeggen distillary and toured that!  Actually I don't think they do much here but it was a great old time distillary water powered with gears all over the place.  I took a TON of photos because real old time machinery is a facination but I won't bore you with them.  Here's just the one.

So then we finally made it to Dublin.  Went to the airport and turned in the car; who needs a car in a city?  And it turned out that about 80% of the traffic in downtown Dublin was buses!  While at the airport we stopped at the tourist counter and had them find us a downtown hotel - for only 115 euro a night!  We were amazed!  It was the Cassidy Hotel; rather old and some of the work that was done on it over the years wasn't the best but it was actually pretty good.  We'd certainly stay there again!  The big thing was that it was downtown.  We could and did walk almost everywhere.  The hotel is on Upper O'Connell street which is a great location.  Just down the street was this weird thing.

It has no name or anything to identify it; it's just this tall tapering thing.  Dublin was great.  Lots of older building with lots of character that are being re-used for modern stores.  Of course we went to see the Book of Kells (photography not permitted) and Trinity College but mostly we just enjoyed the city.  We did find the worst bar in town:  the Bruxelles in the Temple Bar district.  It was only the second place in Ireland where we had bad service but certainly the worst by a mile.  The bartender couldn't even be bothered to pour the Guinness properly!  What a tourist trap. 

So then we wandered back across the Atlantic and home.  We were more than happy to be back.  Three weeks in hotels is trying even if they are nice places. 

Next time I'll talk about our future travel plans.  Yep, there's more on tap.  Have a good one!

Jeez, what's with my blogging?

I just am not doing very well with this blogging thing.  I don't have a good excuse; hell, I don't have ANY excuse.  This is a great time of year around here.  Temps are in the 70-80 range (21-27C) and it's not too cool at night.  This means the air conditioner and the heat both get some time off.  It helps offset the mid-summer time when it runs 24/7 and our monthly electric bill can reach $300. 

I'm not sure what happened while we were gone, the neighbor says nothing, but the weeds just took over our yard!  Being on the wrong side of 65 years old and overweight, an hour or so of weed picking is all I'm up for so we've got several weeks of work here.  Then toss in a few days when I'm recovering from the previous day's weed picking and you can see it could take a very long time.  Makes me want to think of more pleasant things, like Ireland!

After following around the Ring of Kerry we wanted to go North along the coast.  The owner of our B&B very kindly suggested that there is a ferry that would cut off several hours driving.  He didn't have to suggest it twice!  We raced off to get the 11:30 ferry.  This being Ireland and the roads being as fine as they are; we made the 12:30 ferry by the skin of our teeth!  We were the last car on.  There wasn't a lot to do because it's a very short trip across the wide Shannon river but it was cold!

One of the sights you are supposed to see without fail are the Cliffs of Moher.  It is wild and beautiful but I've got to say that the best photos of the cliffs are going to be taken from either a boat that is offshore or a helicopter.  This was my best effort.

This coast of Ireland is mostly rock.  There is an area called the Burren where the rock is about all there is to see.  The famous description of the area dating from the 1640's describes it as "a savage land, yielding neither water enough to drown a man, nor tree to hang him, nor soil enough to bury."

I like that photo because it not only shows the Burren but it shows what was rather typical of the roads we found.  It is hard surfaced but narrow; sometimes there is a center line and sometimes it is too narrow for two lanes.  At that time either you or the other driver has to kind of dive for the side and let the other pass.  It's interesting enough when you meet another car but meeting a bus gives you a whole new appreciation for small cars!  Most of Ireland had either fences or hedgerows along side the road.  Only here in the Burren do you get sheets of rock.  There was more that one occasion when meeting someone that the side of our car was pelted by the weeds in the hedgerow.  Happily we never hit any of the rocks or fence posts.

Thanks for stopping by.  I'll try to figure out something interesting to do so I can blog about it!  Take care.

It's not ALL about our travels!

Though today seems like it might be!  I've spent quite a lot of time selecting photos to load to Flickr to share with the family and resizing them in the process.  It takes time but hopefully is worth it.  However, there are other things going on at the old homestead. 

For example, we had a special visitor last night at the bird feeder.

The doves are typically here late in the afternoon.  The bunny isn't usually here!  While we were in Ireland the weeds grew quite a bit in our yard and I'm hoping that Mr. Bunny is eating some of them.  Well, when he isn't filling up on birdseed. 

This morning I was all energetic; I've no excuse.  Sorry.  But I made breakfast of toasted cheese sandwiches with prosciutto and a bit of mustard.  Pretty good if I do say so!  The butter was just from the fridge so the browning was kind of spotty but it didn't bother me a bit.

Then I got started dealing with some pieces of pork sirloin that we bought a couple days ago.  We got this long plastic tube with about five pieces of pork sirloin in it.  Each was somewhere between one and two pounds (something under a KG).  I froze some but two were headed for the smoker.  I used a rub of salt, brown sugar, chili powder, onion powder and garlic powder. 

I smoked it for three hours using a combination of apple wood and hickory chips.  Then we brought them in and put them covered in a pan in a 225F oven for another four hours. 

We had to try a bit from the one on the right; it's pretty tasty.  Two forks pull the meat apart nicely so I'm thinking it is done.  Now the trick is not to dive in right away but let them rest.  That's the hard part!

That's all the news for today.  Have a good one!

Still recovering!

It's been a week since we returned from Ireland and we are still recovering.  It took us between three and four days on each end of the trip to get to feeling normal again.  That's longer than when we were younger but acceptable I guess. 

We got home to some nice cool weather; about the same as in Ireland as a matter of fact!  Then twice last week it actually rained.  Yep, we get rain here once in a while.  The rain was much harder than any we experienced in Ireland!  There we had light misty rain; this was a regular thunderstorm complete with lightning.  Happily it didn't cause any mud slides. 

I've been going through some of the approximately 600 photos we took during our three week trip.  That's not as bad as the number we took when visiting China last year but it's still daunting.  Our trip started and ended in Dublin.  We wanted to see as much coastline as we could so we traveled in a clockwise direction around to Galway where we drove across the country to return to Dublin.  Originally we wanted to continue up to Northern Ireland but we just ran out of time.  Here is a map roughly showing our route in blue with towns where we stayed underlined in yellow.  A couple of the towns were way too small to be on the map so I just left a yellow line there to indicate the approximate position of the town.

I'm going to add photos is pretty much a random order; there are just so many!  After landing at Dublin airport north of town we took the ring road around town and headed south for Wicklow.  Why there?  No reason; it was just the first largish town in the direction we wanted to go.  We needed to find a place for the night before falling asleep in the car.  Then next day was when we first saw the coastline we'd been looking for.  It was kind of cool and rainy but not bad.

There are a few photos that I'll toss in that typify Ireland for us.  Here is one showing the lovely green countryside and the nearness of the sea.

I don't often think of the ties that bind our two countries but they are certainly there.  We stopped at a hotel/pub/restaurant in the town of Kinsale ssouth of Cork on the seacoast.  As we were leaving I noticed this memorial they created for firefighters lost on 9-11.  There must be some local tie but I found it rather touching to find this in just an ordinary hotel.

I'll end with something traditional:  kissing the Blarney Stone.  We both had to do it.  It was way up in this old tower.  I didn't like those steps and they didn't like me but I got up them anyway.  So now I'm an official silver-tongued devil.

The guy is there to be sure no fat Americans get stuck in the hole!  As my wife says it sure would have been easier to do this when I was 45 rather than 65.  I'll be sharing more photos as I get them resized.  Take care.

Howdy!

Yep, we've been off having fun again.  This time it was visiting Ireland. 

My wife and I both have relatives who left Ireland for the  U.S.  We thought we might get to check up on them but it just didn't happen.  It's along story but basically we just ran out of time.  Here's the 5 cent version of what DID happen. 

We left Las Vegas on March 31 and landed in Dublin on April 1; yep, April Fool's Day.  Happily no one pulled much of a prank on us so we started our journey.  We were going clockwise around the island so headed south to Wicklow.  We had a couple ideas about the trip.  First, it's been 15 years since we visited Europe so we wanted an easy entry into the different cultures we might find.  Ireland is somewhat unique but at least the people mostly understand English as we American's speak it!  We also wanted to slow down our rate of travel.  We thought that limiting ourselves to an island 300 miles long would do the trick.  Well, things don't always work out the way you'd like!

The last 15 years have brought about a lot of changes; like now you have wifi on the bus whereas 15 years ago it was cutting edge technology.  Cell phones have become almost a part of us; not having one makes you one of the invisible people.  Almost every hotel asked for our cell phone number in case they needed to contact us.  Uhh, where did they think we were staying?  But, of course, we weren't always in the room!  Hmmm, guess I'm just out of touch.  Also I can't be contacted!  It was an odd feeling and I must admit rather uncomfortable a lot of the time.

Of course driving on the left has it's own set of problems.  The manual shift wasn't one of them though I have never had a six speed to shift before.  It worked just great.  The first car did have a minor problem:  use the passenger side window and you can never get it back up!  Well, at least the AA (Automobile Assn.) guy could help me get it up!  The rental place, Enterprise, traded in our small car for a much larger one but at least this one worked. 

My wife's screams were probably heard the length and breadth of the country; apparently I got kind of close to things on the left hand side of the car.  Didn't hit anything though and I have the rental receipt to prove it!  The roads varied from absolutely fantastic motorways (M4 and M6) to tiny little roads barely wide enough for our car.  We did have to back up a couple of times and other's backed up for us a couple of times.  There were also many one lane bridges where someone waited for the other.  Interesting stuff.  We left Ireland on the 21st; on a very long flight to JFK then to Vegas.  I'm tired just writing about it!

I'll post a few photos in a few days.  Right now I'm just trying to catch up on my sleep and not do it while driving around in town.  Take care!

Life goes on

We were actually quite prepared for losing the cat.  He was old, not a world's record, but old enough and was remarkably thin.  He was clearly slowing down too sleeping more and more.  So it was his time.  We can all only hope to go so gracefully.

I did manage to find a pork butt to smoke.  No, I'm still way too slow to remember to take photos so you'll have to take my word for it that it was quite good.  The butt is actually the front shoulder of the pig (as if that mattered).  The one I had was sold in a saline solution, 4% if I recall, so I didn't think brining would do much for it.  I simply made up a rub of salt, various peppers, onion and garlic powder and tossed it into the smoker.  Smoked it for about three hours then wrapped it up and gave it another four hours in the oven.  It turned out really good.  Next time I'll try a more sophisticated rub but otherwise leave well enough alone.

We are dreaming up another trip but I'll leave that until later.  Sorry about the short post but life intrudes even upon the internet.  Have a good one.

RIP Scotchie

We took our cat to the vet yesterday for a check and she agreed with us that he was ready to leave this world.  So, of course, we helped him on his way.  The vet has a room especially for people to spend some last moments with their pets.  We were shocked but it was actually quite a nice experience - much better than some sterile exam room.  We came home and had a bit of a wake with both alcohol and tears.  Today we are entering into the next phase:  seeing all the places we used to see him but without him.  We are thinking that he may be our last cat.  We love travel and want to spend more time overseas and you sure can't take your animals with you.  Well, not easily!  One last cat photo and that's over; it's his Christmas photo from a couple years ago.  You can see from his look how happy he wasn't!  Now we have no more cat to make fun of.

My wife's folks are in their 80's and just aren't up for travel any more.  That's embarrassingly close to my own age these days so we want to travel NOW!  We have a trip planned to visit Ireland soon.  Even though we both have Irish roots, we've never been there.  In the summer we hope to spend some time in Alaska.  We visited Anchorage once something over twenty years ago but this time we'd like to check out more of our largest state.  It's just one of those places you have to see.

Anyway, today is going to be quiet even by our standards.  Things will start improving but for the next couple of days we are going to be a bit down.  We are planning a big trip to the shelter later today to donate lots of food, litter, toys, etc.   

Hope you have a good one!

A few interesting things

Life isn't really in high gear but we do have some interesting things going on here in the boonies.  First an update on our cacti; the new parts are coming along nicely (I can't figure out if they should be called leaves or what!).

At any rate we are glad to see them growing.  When you only have two plants in your life any advance by either is great and happily both ours are doing well.  Here's the staghorn.

We did just observe St. Patrick's Day in our own quiet way, no green beer or drunken parties required!  However we did have a lovely dinner of corned beef, new potatoes and cabbage (two ways).

We found this recipe for a 'sauce' for the potatoes and cabbage so tried it.  It consisted of butter, horseradish and mustard and was about a thrid of the way to a success.  It basically melted off the potatoes leaving them pretty much unchanged.  It did sink into the quarters of cabbage (at 10 o'clock in the photo) and pretty much obscured the flavor of the cabbage.  So if you want to eat cabbage but don't like the flavor; it's made for you.  My wife likes a lightly sauted cabbage (1 o'clock) but not 'well done' so she got the one and  I got both.  My wife did a potato bread that was pretty different.  The recipe called for a mashed potato and a raw one that was grated.  It is both dense and fragile.  Anyway, it was pretty darned good!  Pretty too.

On a sadder note, our cat who would be 20 this summer is not doing well.  He hasn't eaten since last Tuesday and is drinking far less than usual.  Here he is just a couple of weeks ago trying to lick up an ice cube that fell from the ice maker.

He's a skinny little guy who has been running about 7 lb for the past couple of years.  It's not like he can hibernate so I'm thinking he isn't long for this world.  If I give him a 'treat' he'll eat it but the regular kibble just sits there in the bowl.  He's getting weaker every day so the end has to be near.  Since my wife and I both believe in euthanasia for people, it's safe to say that we'll be saying 'goodbye' to our kitty before long.  RIP Scotchie!  And yes, we will undoubtedly hold a wake for the little guy.

Off to do exciting things. 

Not bragging but....

Sorry Boston but I've gotta say our average temperture for this time of year is about 65F (18C).  This year we are about 75F (23C) today and the forecasters are talking 80F (26C) by the weekend.  I've got to admit though that it's not real pretty around here.  The mountains are nice.

That photo was take March 2 from our front yard.  We are at 2,600 ft. (790m) elevation so I imagine the snow level is down to 4,000 ft (1220m) or so.  Sorry I don't remember the temp. that day.  The camera captures a lot of information but not that.  Not yet! 

Has anyone checked out the new cameras with GPS built in?  It might be cool for a professional photographer but as a private citizen I'm not so sure I want that information available on my photos.  Say you post it on a blog like this; you would be giving the location of your home to anyone interested.  So if you are blogging from San Diego all a person would have to do is look at an older photo of your home to have the address of your empty home.  Nah, I'm going to skip the GPS attachment.

The weather has been so nice our cactus have decided it's spring so it's time to bud.  We don't have any other plants in our yard but the neighbor's trees are budding out too.  Here's the staghorn buds.  It's the small red mass in between the spikes!

Our other cactus has had a dry winter too but when it is stressed by the cold and drought, it turns red or purple.  Now that it's spring I'll start watering it regularly and it will return to green.  Here the buds are the little round guys in the lower third of the photo.

To get off the weather for a moment let me show you my latest adventure with the smoker:  pork ribs!

I finally found some decent advice on smoking them and they actually turned out quite well.  I made up a rub that was basically salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder then smoked them for two hours.  After that I read that I should wrap them in foil and cook for another two hours.  I figured that they sure weren't going to get any more smoke through that foil so brought them in to finish in the oven.  The final step was to just cook them for another hour but not in the foil.  In the last half hour I did baste them with just a bit of bbq sauce.  They were really pretty good.  The first time I skipped the foil and just let them ride in the smoker.  They got dry and tough so foil is my new friend!  There is a pork butt in the fridge.  I'm trying to figure out what to do with it.  Hopefully I'll take a photo or two of whatever becomes of it.

That's the quiet life for now.  We didn't go out to lunch yesterday so I'm thinking my wife will have plans.  Take care!

Home again...

We decided that since with had the trailer out we'd head out on a road trip.  Not a very long one, just over to San Diego to see Number One Son, Significant Other and the sights.  It was a good week.  Long enough to see stuff; short enough to still be happy in the trailer when we got back. 

What do you think the odds are that in a place where we get maybe 2" of rain a year that it would be raining when we hooked up?  Small odds for sure.  Now what are the odds that it would be raining when we unhooked a week later?  Tiny, right?  But that's what happened.  Rain around here is usually like mist in other places but we had it going on both when we hooked up on the 22nd and when we unhooked on the 1st of March.  Not only that it was really raining (by anyone's measure) when we hooked up to leave San Diego.  Jeez! 

The trip down was pretty uneventful except there was some kind of traffic slowdown on Cajon Pass so rather than worrying about keeping everything down to a reasonable speed we got to worry about getting to the park before they closed.  The GPS estimated our arrival at 15:30 when we set out but we actually made it to the part at 16:55; only 5 minutes before the office closes.  Doing 6-7 mph for the entire length of the pass makes quite a difference!  The uphill side was going fine; it was just the downhill side that had the problem.  We called the California DOT hotline but they didn't know of any problem and we didn't see one.  Who knows; it's just California traffic.  

We got one of our usual spots overlooking Mission Bay. 

It's expensive but we get that water fix whenever we look out the window.  Water, boats, ducks; what's not to like?

We managed to hit Pacific Beach a couple times.  It's fun walking along doing people watching.  We saw this one guy who was shirtless; he must kiss the mirror every time he looks in one.  Then there was the woman who had some obvious help in the bra department who also thought that 5 lb. of makeup was appropriate for the beach.  Wow, some poeple.  Happily they were the minority!  We also went to IKEA.  I know it's not to everyones taste but I like seeing different things and IKEA has it's own style.  I believe they are planning a store in Las Vegas but that's down the pike a ways.  One of the most fun things was going to the Poway Farmer's Market (son lives around there).  It was fun looking at all the stuff and we got a couple little items.  The stalls were really into organic almost anything.

Trip home was pretty much like the trip going except we were spared the slowdown.  Instead we got rain most of the way!  The forecast was for wind and snow above 4,000 feet so I was happy enough with the rain.  We got here to find an entire weeks newspapers thrown in our yard.  The delivery person apparently doesn't read the 'hold' notices.  Needless to say we aren't impressed.  The paper is my wife's thing so she is trying to figure out if she wants to cancel the subscription or if they can manage to convince her to keep them on.  We'll see.

Now that we are home; I can BBQ again so I'm off to the store looking for a likely subject.  Maybe I'll even remember to take a photo.  Thanks for stopping by.

Excitement - over stupidity!

Ok, so my wife and I decided we should get our under-used trailer out of it's parking spot and do a little cleanup on it.  How tough could it be aside from the obvious washing, waxing, etc.?  So we back the big bad F-250 up to it and....  Hmmm,. can't get the tow ball under the trailer hitch!  Hmmmm.  I do remember when parking the trailer that I thought there wasn't much extra that I could raise the hitch.  How the hell do we raise the trailer hitch?  I've got to admit it took us any embarrassingly long time to figure out we needed to dig a couple holes to let the truck wheels down thus lowering the ball rather than raising the hitch. 

ANYWAY, 15 minutes with a pick axe (even the ground is tough out here) and a couple shovels allowed the hitch ball to dive under the hitch and away we could go!  Apparently during the time without the trailer the truck's rear suspension found another half inch or so of height.  Interesting!  So now we have the rig out and are cleaning away.  Not sure yet if we'll go anywhere; My wife isn't happy with the slideout; she is afraid it has gotten crooked in the frame somehow.  Maybe we'll just tow it over to Las Vegas and get the dealer's opinion. 

In my spare time I decided to make hummus.  No photos, sorry.  The recipes aren't tough.  The one I decided to follow included a can of chickpeas (garbonzo beans), tahini, yoghurt, garlic, EVOO, lemon juice, salt and pepper and a jalapeno.  They carefully recommend removing seeds and membrane from the jalapeno first. Then you basically beat everything up in the food processor and there you are.  Well, the jalapeno's we've been getting aren't very spicy so I not only don't remove the membrane, I add a second, quite small, jalapeno.  The first problem was that the food processor would just throw everything off to the side of the container without even mixing it.  Grrr!  Finally I pulled it all out and fed it into the processor a spoonful at a time.  Pain in the ass but it got the stuff to a reasonable consistancy.  Hmmm, I've got to admit, my inner Mexican (I'm from Iowa, German and Scotch-Irish parents, so he's not a big influence) failed me.  Damn, that's hot stuff!  Well, not to some people, but a little goes a long way for me.  Should have doubled up the garlic instead; can't be far enough from the vampires! 

We did have a little rain a couple weeks ago; just enough to wake the weeds really.  So we have to go kill weeds.  We have a fairly large yard and it's all covered with just rock so when the weeds grow they have plenty of room.  So my wife and I load up sprayers with Roundup and go to it.   We get tired spraying after a while so it takes us several days and took 18 gallons (68L) of spray!  We buy the concentrate whereever we can find it (Walmart or Home Depot) and it runs about a $1 a gallon of spray in the really large size and I've got a few more years worth besides.  I'm hoping most of our lawn mainenance is done for the year. 

Otherwise, not much to report.  It's been a REALLY mild winter.  Back in December the bird bath was freezing; not much since then.  The last half of January and most of February have been about 10 degrees (F) above normal.  For example, that means today was 74F (23C),  Not tough to take!  We had our daughter over for lunch last weekend and ate outside; had a hard time not just laying out there all afternoon.  Sorry Boston but there it is.  We'd sure love some of that snow melt though!

I am not dead

Stealing the title of my post from Croft is just one of the things that's kind of lame about these days.  It's being a nice quiet winter with a few bumps in the road.

Like lots of people my wife and I caught the bug that is going around though it was pretty mild for us.   My version included going through about a box of Kleenex a day for a week.  My wife's version was more about coughing her poor head off.  We spent quite a bit of time hiding at home and preparing comfort food for each other.  There are a couple other physical problems we are dealing with but this isn't that kind of blog.  Life in the fast lane!

We did manage to find some salmon that we smoked.  It's not the same as the wild caught Pacific salmon we used to get in the Pacific Northwest but it was pretty good.  This is farm raised Atlantic salmon; it's got more fat but I guess is easier to raise.  We took a filet that was about a pound and a half (.5 kg) and cut it into sections that were about the same thickness.  Then we marinated it for about three hours then smoked it for about five.  Pretty good stuff.

We also had time to do more bird watching.  We bought a new hummingbird feeder; the first one we've ever had that has a perch for the birds.  Amazingly the hummers are happy to sit down while eating.  I never knew!  Anyway now we are sold on perchs for the hummers.  We had a group of six at one point but I was slow; only got three in this photo.  Still, it's a new high for us.

Every now and then I have to get a photo of the mountains around here.  They really make the place special even if I am too lazy to look around for a position without the light pole in the way!

So, you see, you haven't missed much by my lack of blogging..  It's pretty sad when cooking a piece of fish is the big deal in your life.  Hopefully we can get things going here in the near future.  Thanks for stopping by.

Well, this is different!

Ok, how about a kind of dull story?  Usually my wife and I drink decaf coffee because she has a problem with the caffeine.  Today she didn't want any coffee so I decided to drink some instant with caffeine (Starbuck's Colombian) that I bought for our daughter-in-law back in 2013.  Turns out there were six packets left and I've had them all.  I'm actually high!  I'm so wired I can't believe it.  This is like being drunk without the alcohol.  I'm amazed.  Ok, it doesn't take much for me but really this is bizarre.

There is a danger of this becoming a bird blog but I've got to share another bird photo.  Our new hawk friend showed up again yesterday but not for lunch. 

He came by for a bath!  What a deal.  Like I said, it doesn't take much for me these days does it?  LOL  Anyway it was great seeing this lovely creature enjoying himself. 

To balance all the bird photos I've been posting; here is one of a shadow I spotted this morning.  We have this little wooden figure of a coolie carrying water.  It's been in the family for quite a while.  It's just a cheezy souvenir kind of thing but it certainly has sentimental value.  It also casts a great shadow!

Aren't you glad you don't have to earn your living carrying water in barrels?  I am!  Have a good one!

Deja vu all over again!

Happy 3rd day of the new year!  I'm sure most people are like us:  up to their ears in leftovers.  Wow.  Even when you try to reduce the proportions in a recipe there still seems to be a lot.  Of course there are those times when my wife says 'should I make a smaller amount of X' and I say 'no, that's really great.  I can deal with the leftovers'.  Hmmm.  Does the word 'idiot' spring to mind? 

We were happily dealing with some of the afore mentioned leftovers yesterday at lunch when my wife looked outside and saw another hawk-pigeon interaction.  Yep, another pigeon lunch for the hawk. 

This time at least he/she was dining on the rocks so we didn't have a bunch of blood to clean up!  I was shooting through the venetian blinds so that's the reason for the blury parts of the photo.  The hawk was keeping a pretty good eye on me!  Apparently it prefers to dine in private.

It's a pretty bird though.  Because of the varigated chest feathers we assume it is rather young.  After being sure the pigeon was no longer going to escape the hawk took it's prey off over our wall out into the desert to finish eating.  You might think this would give our back yard a bad rep with the local pigeons.  Nope!

This was taken 3 minutes after the previous shot.  Pigeons sitting on the electric line as though nothing had happened.  Hmmm, kind of sounds like some people.  Turn your head and what you can't see didn't happen. 

Can you tell that things are a little quiet around her these days?  My big deal is hoping this old laptop keeps on running for a while.  I'd like to go directly to a Windows 10 model but that might be a while.  As in so many things only time will tell.  Thanks for stopping by.  Have a good one.

Happy New Year!

Here's wishing a safe, healthy and profitable new year for everyone!   2015 sure came around quickly.  It takes me about six months to get used to a year then we have to start planning for the next.  It's confusing sometimes. 

Just in case you saw the post about the hawk and his/her lunch, I'd like to point out that there are plenty of birds left in the 'hood. 

We typically have a pretty low-key New Year's celebration and this year was no exception.  My wife and I celebrate it alone and mostly talk about the past year and plans for the next.  I used to be pretty good at having a 5-year plan; lately that's gone by the wayside but I'm hoping to resurrect it this year.  There are always the lose weight kinds of thoughts but also places to go and things to see.  I'm 67 this year and realistically traveling around for another 10 years is posibbly optimistic.  Who knows.  I had a nephew die this year and it's not like I live such a superior lifestyle! 

Our plans for 2015 include travel of course.  We have tickets to visit Ireland; that's the big international trip.  We've spent quite a lot of time visiting 'mainland' Europe but missed out on Ireland and we each have ancestors who lived there.  That should be fun.  We are also hoping to make visits to some of our 'local' sites like Yosemite, San Franscio and the Grand Canyon.  The last time we visited the Grand Canyon was over 30 years ago!  Not that I expect it to have changed but it is certainly worth a re-visit.  Also we have another one of those 'special' birthday years coming up so that will probably involve travel, maybe even extended travel.  We'll see how that works out.

I don't really have a 'bucket list' but there are certainly places I want to visit and re-visit.  We spent a week in our nations capital back in 2003; we both want to go back for at least two weeks this time.  In spite of living in New Jersey for a couple years, we haven't seen nearly enough of New York City.  All of Western Europe is calling to me.  Australia and New Zealand are on my list.  We talk about Central America but I have to admit the media attention about the drug cartels has us a little gun-shy (so to speak!  Sorry about that!).  A trip to Alaska via the water is definitely on the list.  My wife has known for years that an Alaska Cruise is about the only one she is going to get me on.  Even better, I'd like to visit using the Alaska Ferry system because then you choose the amount of time you stay in various areas for yourself  rather than have the cruise line 'help' you.   We'll see:  there are certainly 10 years worth of destinations.

There are also plenty of things I'd like to do here; chief among them managing to contribute to the community in various ways.  Good thing I'm retired!  I wouldn't have time to do all this stuff if I was working.  Gotta go.  Thanks for stopping by.