More hanging around....

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

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

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

And only a couple weeks ago things were kinda normal.

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

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

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

Just hanging around....

It's been pretty quiet around here if you don't pay attention to any news source.  The news is, as always, pretty noisy.  This whole coronavirus mess is interesting.  By the way, I do believe there is such a virus and I do believe it will be growing more dangerous here in the USA.  Listening to our esteemed President about this makes no more sense that listening to him about anything else.

Anyway, our little town has lots of RV'ers who seems to have stopped here and they are making shopping just nasty.  Ok, they are spending their money here but they are also clogging up roads, parking lots and even restaurants!  Go away, people!

Sorry, I had to get that off my chest.  Actually, they aren't doing anything too awful.  They are just stocking up for their next month or two of self-imposed isolation.  A couple days ago there was no hand sanitizer left on the store shelves.  Now, I don't use that crap so I didn't care but that's not where it stopped.  Yesterday we went into Walmart for a couple things (dog food and some blackout curtains if you must know) and decided to look at the meat counter.  There was NO beef!  There were only a couple packages of pork chops left!  The frozen food area was half empty as well.  Really?  I should have taken a picture.  People are just going crazy over this.  Now, granted, the media is carrying coronavirus headlines every day but jeez! 

Ok, I'm over 70 but fairly healthy so EVEN I should have a decent chance of surviving this thing.  So who the hell has stripped Walmart of all their meat?  It is just stupid.  I guess I'm not used to seeing panic in the streets.  We were in a restaurant the other day and the two guys at the next table were talking about buying ammunition - lots of ammunition.  Like it is going to be the end-of-the-world and sick people are going to be attacking them and they needed to shoot them to save their hand sanitizer supply.  What idiots!  And, yes, we are still going out to eat.

Of course having the stock market go nuts is only to be expected.  Those traders are just one step away from nuts most days.  Do we have money in the market?  Yes.  Has our investment gone down?  Yes.  Will we be eating dog food next week?  No.  The dog will but, naw, unless the supermarket doesn't come up with more hamburger we'll stay away from his food. 

In the midst of all this our daughter is still in the process of moving to Austin.  Her house sale did go through and the one she purchased is being spiffed up.  I'd be going crazy if I were her having people doing things to my new house and not being there.  But, if it works for her, great.  Of course we'll have to visit her one of these days but Austin is a lovely town and there are lots of other places to visit between here and there.  It should work out just fine. 

Gotta go.  Thanks for stopping by.

Daughter visit

Well, so why is that worth a post?  Well, it' s because she is selling her house in Las Vegas and moving to Austin, Texas!  (I hope, if the sale goes through!)  In the 'If You Can Believe It File':  she has had some trouble selling her house because there is a solar array on the roof!!!!  To be fair it is a rent-to-own set up where she is paying for the array and her regular electric bill is dropping her total bill by about $40 a month but there is an additional bill, like $15, each month.  No one who was reading things could mistake that it was a good thing!  Oh well, plenty of people don't think - I mean, how did we get Trump as a President?   Isn't there a 'Ability To Speak In Public' requirement for the job?  Or at least an IQ test requirement?

Sorry, I've had a few drinks.  I'm so unhappy with the Democrats this year.  We get a bunch of 80 year olds; a gay mayor and FINALLY one younger person with national experience to whom no one is listening.  So why aren't people voting for Amy Kolbuchar?  She is younger, experienced at the national level, REASONABLE, not a socialist:  DAMN she's perfect!   Well, except for the woman thing; the reasonable thing; the not giving everything to everybody thing.  Oh well, what the heck, I know she won't get it.  She just isn't stupid enough to be President!  I mean look at the President!

Gotta go.  It's after 21:00 (9 p.m. to you civilians).  Have a good one!

Balloon Fest

Every year our small town (if you call 40,000 people a small town) has a Balloon Festival.  This year it is combined with a high school rodeo so that's extra fun.  It is part rodeo part carnival and balloon stuff.  Lots of excitement for us (I really like the photo the newspaper used!)  My wife and I have hit the rodeo before but didn't go this year.  However, we do get to see balloons from our house!

That balloon in the second photo is up north with part of the 'Last Chance' range of mountains in the background.  Of course, today it rained, so there aren't any balloons to be seen.  That photo was taken using a small Celestron C90 Spotting Scope that has an attachment for my camera.  I've had this thing since the mid-1990's.  OMG, I just looked it up and it is still sold on Amazon! 
 
I talk about this being a small town because those 40,000 people are spread over a large area.  Call up Pahrump on Google Maps and you get the outline of a roughly triangular area that is about 35 miles north/south and 15 miles east west at it's widest part.  It isn't all built up for sure!  Those mountains are actually included in what Google calls Pahrump.    It's kind of fun to pick a street in town and call up the photos of that spot.  Often there is nothing to be seen except desert.  If you see a tree you know that it is being watered!

That is something that bothers me a lot.  When you buy a home that isn't in one of the subdivision communities you get water rights.  You drill a well and there is your water.  People seem to think that means you can use as much water as you wish and it will never end.  That is just really unlikely BUT no one has ever done the research to figure out the size of our aquifer.  This area started out with people growning cotton in the valley.  Then people started growing feed for cattle.  Both of these activities take a lot of water.  But now we have lots of people and lots of trees.  It's not unusual for an acre lot to be completely surrounded by trees and every one of those things is being watered.  One of these days Pahrump will have a nasty awakening. 

Sorry about the rant.  Thanks for stopping by.

Puzzling stuff

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

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

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

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

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a good one.

Wow! The year is going fast!

It's hard to believe that the year is 1/12th over already but I guess it's true.  I'm avoiding politics as much as humanly possible but it is totally in my face every day.  Jeez, what a mess.  It is distinctly difficult to see a good outcome for the country regardless of the outcome of the impeachment hearings OR the 2020 election.  Is there another planet I could live on?

Personally things are fine.  The usual aches and pains associated with being over 70 but I prefer them to not being here any more.  Weather in this corner of Nevada is weird.  Yesterday morning I was spraying weeds in my shirtsleeves at 70F(21C); then the wind came up in the afternoon and we had gusts around 40 mph (65kph).  It freezes the birdbath most nights so that's pretty chilly.

Our 'new' dog is coming along.  He had a bad day early in the week where he threw up during the night.  He must have gotten into something we didn't know about but about 03:00 he decided to rid himself of it on the rug in the bedroom.  He didn't even want to eat that morning and we only gave him about a fourth of his usual dinner.  Now he seems completely recovered.  His hair is growing back in small patches which makes him pretty funny looking.  It is still likely, I believe, that it will never grow back completely.  This is his most usual position.

We want to take our trailer to Las Vegas on a shake-down trip.  It's been a LONG while since we've been anywhere in it.  Like I think it was October of 2017!  Wow!  Anyway, we hope to start checking out parts of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Nevada that we've overlooked.  We'll see how that works out.  The dog seems to travel well enough but we'll just have to see how he does in a completely new environment.

Hope the new year is treating you  well.  Thanks for stopping by.

Happy New Year!

I hope that your holidays were everything you could have wished.  Mine were ok aside from being troubled by the general situation of the United States in the regard of the world.  There is also that idiot we've elected President but let's not go down that path to doom and destruction!  I can't say I have much admiration for either party these days.

We had friends visiting between Christmas and New Years.  They are perhaps our closest friends though we live a thousand miles apart.  The guy is great; the woman is as well but can be somewhat trying; but we manage.  This isn't a resort town so we spent a LOT of time together.  I know that one of our first trips with our new dog, Ollie, will be to see them.

I've been doing a lot in the kitchen lately.  Our daughter was here for Christmas Eve and we had a ham so any cook knows what is coming along:  ham leftovers!  Yes, I've done ham and cheese omelettes, ham and bean soup and more - not forgetting the simple ham sandwich!  Of course there is Hoppin' John for New Year's Day.  BUT, I did insist on a rather large ham so I'm not complaining.

We do have a pretty house these days.  Well, especially outside.

Our celebration is rather subdued since neither of us believe in God but we were both raised in Christian households so honor the holiday.  For us it is simply an enjoyable time when all those other people try to be nicer to one another than usual.  Isn't that sad? Why can't they start with being nice to one another?

The dog is coming along nicely.  He is responding to commands and (knock on wood) hasn't had an 'accident' in the house in a couple of weeks.  His hair is taking it's own sweet time growing back - like maybe never!  I guess we'll just have to see how it goes.

Otherwise it it a normal Navada day. A belated Happy New Year to all.  Take care.

Happy Holidays!

Well, Christmas is almost here and other holidays seem to be sprinkled around this time of year:  Chanukah and Kwanzaa spring to mind.  So I guess all religions are causing their believers stress.  Happy days indeed!

Yes, I am a grouch.  Yes, I am a non-believer.  Please don't bother to tell me how wrong I am; plenty of people have done that already.  I was probably rude to them in return.

We are having a Christmas eve luncheon with our daughter today.  She is all excited about going on a trip after Christmas so we'll get to hear lots about that later today.  Then on Friday we will have friends coming to visit for a couple of days.  It's been a long time since we've been together and we are looking forward to catching up with them.  Of course having guests means extra cleaning, planning special meals, etc.  Lots of fun!

Every day when I drive into town (we live in a sort-of subdivision a couple miles from the center of town) I see three or four flags or banners calling for re-electing President Trump in 2020.  It makes me feel like I don't belong here at all.  The President is just so foolish, so self-centered, so bad at being the representative of our country.  Of course, I have trouble liking any of the Democratic candidates but Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence are just disgusting.  I remember hearing in 2016 how happy the people of Indiana were that Mr. Pence was being taken off their hands.  It is the only argument I can imagine that makes not-impeaching President Trump a good thing. 

Speaking of the Democratic candidates, wow, what a bunch of losers!  And the front runners are mostly old.  Don't get me wrong, old isn't automatically bad but Bernie Sanders is 78!  I mean the average life expectancy of men in this country is only 76.  Let's be darned careful about Bernie's running mate because we're probably going to inherit him or her.  Then again the Democrats all sound like they think socialism is what our country needs.  I can't think of a better way to lose the election.  I do like Tom Steyer and Pete Buttigieg but neither has any federal governmental experience.  Elizabeth Warren has experience but she is 70.  Oh well, the Russians will probably give the election to Trump anyway!

So, have a Merry Christmas, happy Chanukah or joyous Kwanzaa!  On to 2020.  Thanks for stopping by.

Something different

We've been doing a lot of international travel since our beloved pets died 6 and 7 years ago.  The dog had a cancer that was operated on several times and it just got to the point where she would still be in recovery at the time a new eruption would be found.  The vets just could not get all of the cancer out of her.  The cat just died of old age.  We took the opportunity and traveled via cruise ship a lot but also just taking a month and visiting Italy or Australia or wherever.  Well, that's over now!

Saturday, Nov. 30,  we went out to lunch then thought we would stop by the local animal shelter to see if they had any new dogs that we hadn't seen before.  Long story short:  we brought home our new dog!  It's a weird dog for sure.  It doesn't pull on the lead much when you are walking it but it is totally untrained.  Of course we don't know what it's previous owners called it so we can't call it by name.  However, it doesn't know any of the common commands:  come, sit, stay....  He doesn't even know how to play.  If you bounce a ball in front of him, he watches you but has no real interest.   We were told that it was found out in the desert abandoned and covered in stickers so it was shaved!  They said they thought it was a year old and starving.  On Wednesday we managed to get in to see our vet and she suggests the dog is more like six or seven years old and we believe her to be correct.  The dog just doesn't act like a young dog.  Also, he weighs something like 57 lb (25kg) and while you can fell his ribs they aren't sticking out as though he was starving.  So anyway, here's a photo of Ollie our new dog.

According to the animal shelter, Ollie was shaved in late September or early October and his coat is still not growing out.  The vet suggested that the follicles might have been burned and the hair may never recover.  At any rate, he looks like he was shaved last week by a drunk who didn't know what he was doing!  There are little tufts of hair here and there but large portions of his coat has hair that is perhaps 1/16th of an inch (1.5 mm) long.  We'll see.

He is pretty smart and he definitely responds to food!  He's learning his name, sit and come.  He is a long way from perfect but it's coming along.  We have a crate for him to sleep in since he isn't house trained at all.  We put him in the back seat of the truck and took him on a trip to Las Vegas that worked out really well.  There is a restaurant/bar called BJ's that has a small outdoor area and they said having a dog out there was just fine.  He was really good just waiting for us by our feet while we had lunch.  We are already thinking of our first trailer trip with him!

When we flew to Norway to take that North Atlantic cruise something happened to my back and I've had pain ever since.  Before the cruise we would walk around our neighborhood about 2.5 miles (4 km) 5 or 6 times a week.  I still can't walk a tenth of that distance without severe pain.  Just shopping in the grocery store can send me for more ibuprofen.  The doctor sent me to Physical Therapy but after 10 visits I've had only minimal improvement.  They are going to try dry-needling which sounds like a semi-copy of acupuncture.  It would be cool if that worked!  However I'm scheduled to visit a orthopedic specialist the first week of January.  Should be lots of fun too. 

So, that's all the news from around here.  Thanks for stopping by.  Hopefully I'll manage to update this before but if I don't have a Happy Holiday - whichever you celebrate!

Not a lot going on!

Well, we managed to make things calm and comfortable at home again so there isn't a lot to report.  Well, a little.

Went to our daughter's in Las Vegas for a Thanksgiving luncheon.  It ended about 3 pm and we headed off home.  That means going up through a 5,400 ft pass (1,600m) and, since it was raining in Las Vegas, it was snowing on the pass.  The bottom line is that we've never driven the Escape in anything over rain.  As it happens, it turned out really well!  We'd be stopped and giving the gas a little touch, the car moved ahead very easily.  Since the traffic was moving at about 1 mph, that worked going up hill.  Coming down, we gave the car ahead lots of room but braking was never a problem either.  So, we're thrilled!

Other than that, it's a quiet time.  We are looking for a dog to make our house stinky again but it's a work in progress.  We'd really like a shelter dog but we'll see.  Sorry for the short update but it's quiet around here!  Take care.

More travel!

Ok, so we've been gone again.  This time we do have a really good reason though!

My wife's sister-in-law passed away from pancreatic cancer recently and her husband (my wife's brother) was holding a Celebration of Life to memorilize his wife.  It was held in a small town near their home on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state.  I've never attended such a celebration but this was quite interesting.  She was a poet so various people read their favorites from her poems.  It was quite a fitting sendoff.  Of course having someone close to you die of such a terrible disease is really quite awful.  In her case it was especially nasty because originally there was hope that it was operable and in the end it was not.

The ceremony did lead me to think about what I am doing with my life and I believe I'll be making some changes to give more back to our community.  I was thinking that if it were a celebration of my life it would only be family members attending.  I need to do more.

Because of the sadness of the occasion I didn't bother trying to take photos but there were sure some opportunities!  That part of the world is both beautiful and depressing at the same time.  Locally it is called Washington's Banana Belt.  Well, you could have fooled us!  Rain, mist, cloud and just plain wet was the order of the day.  You fly into Seattle then drive about 3 hours so that pretty much takes a day.  Coming home is another day.  So on a 5 day trip you spend 3 with the people you've come to see.  Yeah, I guess you could compress it if you wanted but I'm over 70 and don't want 12 or 14 hour days. 

Now it seems as though things will settle down for a bit.  We have no travels planned so anything that comes along will be a surprise.  Right now the things on my calendar are getting lab work done and my annual visit with the doctor.  Talk about hot stuff!

So this is what Washington looks like in good weather.  This was taken July of last year on the Washington shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  Thanks for stopping by!

A little trip...

So I really do like being home.  However, my wife and I just got back from another little jaunt so I can't whine about it being dull quite yet.  This time it was 'business'. 

For several years I've been a member of a board that is supposed to tell the Dept. of Energy, Environmental Management people what local people think about the Nevada National Security Site - aka the Test Site.  You may remember it as the site used for testing atomic weapons back in the day.  Well, it's still there and parts are still radioactive and all is off limits except when you are taken on a tour.  It is 31 miles 'as the crow flies' from home so that is the excuse for me being on the board.  Actually, I'm just interested because of it's place in history.  Once a year the group gets a tour to visit things we'll talk about in the coming year and I always invite my wife.  We spend the day wandering around the site (on a bus with guides!) seeing places that are scheduled to be 'cleaned up' in the next year.  Security is pretty tight:  cameras and phones are banned and the guards do carry guns. 

I am not afraid of radioactivity so long as it is far enough away so visiting these places is always interesting.  Some of the pollutants need to be cleaned up; some simply cannot.  One place I remember was a concrete bunker that was polluted with some cleaning agent.  We recommended that it be locked and signposted as 'Do Not Enter'.  Recently the DOE transported hundreds of truck loads of dirt from one place to another because the first area is on an Air Force base and was needed for training.  It seems silly to move dirt but those tests ended in the 1990's and it was still polluted today.  The site has special areas reserved for Low Level Polluted Waste and that's where the dirt ended up. 

ANYWAY, every year there is a meeting of people from our board and other similiar boards from around the country.  This time I got to represent our board and the meeting was in Sun Valley, Idaho.  We've been near Sun Valley but never in the actual town.  It turns out to be a pretty little place and the resort we stayed in was quite nice.  The meeting was a day and a half (and pretty dull) but we also got to tour part of the Idaho National Laboratory.  We got to visit the EBR-1 nuclear reactor built back in 1953 and some other reactors still being used for various tests.  It wasn't as historically dramatic as I find the Test Site but it was very interesting all the same. 

We could have flown but decided to drive just because we haven't seen all that northern Nevada has to offer.  It is a 600 mile (970 km) trip one way but we were in no hurry so we made it two days up and two back down.  We got to visit a few new Nevada towns and see a bunch of pretty scenery.  No photos unfortunately because it was cold and windy.  When we were touring the Lab. areas photos were not allowed anyway; and yes, their guards carry guns as well.

So that's what we do for fun.  Drive, drive and drive some more.  Thanks for stopping by.

Coming on home...

So last time I left you we were having an 'at sea' day to get to Greenland.  I was looking forward to Greenland just because the place seems pretty difficult to reach.  On Viking ships, and I believe most, you get a little 4 or 5 page news release every night.  On this night we received one extra piece of paper:  a Projected Weather Forecast. 

"Due to strong winds of up to 40 knots at the entrance of Prince Christian Sound, we will not be able to enter the Sound at our scheduled arrival time of 06:00 AM.  The wind is forecasted to drop during the morning of September 21 and the planned entrance is now amended to 1:00 PM.  This will allow us an enjoyable scenic sailing through the sound utilizing day light.  With this change in schedule, we will be unable to make our call to Nanortalik, Greenland."

Grrr!  But in the end it was actually rather fun.  Cruising the sound in the afternoon meant lots of photo op!  Here we've been sailing in open water for a week and suddenly it gets pretty narrow.

One of the things that, well, I just don't understand is how people live places like this.  I've spent my adult life in cities and suburbs.  Even now, living in rural Nevada; this isn't what you'd call empty.  There are police and fire fighters and stores.  It isn't like that some places and this had some of them.

The folks who live in this little community seem probably to be on their own.  I'm sure there is a tiny store there where you can get things or at least get them shipped in if you request them but it's not like the FedEx guy will be bringing your Amazon order in 2 days.  I want to give you another view of the town that shows a little more of the area.

That is one tall mountain! 

This is a glacier that comes right down to the ocean.  Sorry about the rain flecks on the window but we weren't being encouraged to go outside.

I was walking through the pool area and looked over to notice how close we were to land.

They have a pool grill where you can eat but on this cruise it was pretty unpopular.  It was just too cold.

The next day, day 9 of our cruise, we reached Qaqortoq, Greenland.  It was supposed to be our second stop in Greenland but it turned out to be the only one.  It is a cute little place with, of course, lots of fishing boats.  The houses must be in some order with roads, etc. around them but it sure doesn't look like it.

They do believe in color on their houses.  There is a fountain in the 'center' of town that was pretty cute.

A few years ago a group of sculptors decided to make the town their own and there are little pieces of artwork all over the place.

It was just a very cute little place.  And if you are there and need to meet people, there's a place for that.

 We, however, got back onto the ship and headed off for Canada.  Monday, our 10th day of the cruise, was another 'at sea' day.  On Tuesday we reached L'Anse aux Meadows, Canada.  It is thought to be the first Norse landing in the Americas.  There were two things we were visiting:  a reproduction of the village and the location of the actual village.  Apparently people have thought this was the place where Leif Eriksson landed for many years but there was no proof.  Then in 1960 the remains of the original buildings were found perhaps a mile from the reproduction village.  So first we visited the reproduction village.  The houses were all sod covered, this happens to be the church.

Some of the buildings were rather large.

Inside they had people doing what Viking settlers might have done:  weaving, iron working, etc. 

After checking out the village we went over to see the 'real thing'.  The Canadian park system has an office on a hilltop then you walk down towards the water.  What you find is this.

The archaeologists dug into the little bumps and discovered proof of the Viking origin then covered it up again simply to preserve it.  They had little plaques saying this place was a forge or that one a home.  Still, it was a nice place to visit.

Well, after all that excitement, we had another 'at sea' day getting us to Saguenay, Canada.  There was supposed to be a stage show for us to learn all about fur and timber trading back in the day.  It was rainy and the ship was docked quite a distance from the theater so we made an executive decision and stayed on the ship!  Saguenay is only about 240 km from Quebec City so it's pretty much a city.

Our 14th day on the cruise was a stop in Quebec City.  We took the included tour that was the worst tour we've ever been on for one simple reason:  there were at least five other ships docked in Quebec City and each one had a tour going over the same places!  There were tourists EVERYWHERE!  What little bit we saw of the city we liked but there has to be a time when the place isn't overrun by tourists.  The photos we got were just awful so I have none to share here.  I mean it was just stupid. 

The final stop on the cruise was Montreal and we visited there just last fall so our version of seeing Montreal was getting long-hauled by a cab driver to get to the airport!  Honestly, we got the same treatment last fall so I'm over Montreal.  But the airport was nice.  We had a short flight to Detroit then another home.  Las Vegas looked pretty good and it wasn't cold!

That's the end of the trip.  Hope you've enjoyed hearing about it and maybe you'll go check out some of these places.  We love traveling so there will be more.  Take care and thanks for stopping by.

Onward!

So last time we were just getting on the ship for our North Atlantic cruise.  Ever since I was a kid and read about navy ships in the North Atlantic during World War II I've wondered what it would be like.  I mean, the water isn't going to look different or anything but the weather was supposed to be pretty fierce.  At the start of September I thought we might start getting some bad weather but hopefully not too bad!  As I said earlier, the first two days of the cruise, Saturday and Sunday were spent tied to the pier in Bergen.

The cruise started out with a letter from the Captain stating that because of bad weather, consisting of up to 60 knot winds(70 mph or 110 kph), we wouldn't be making our scheduled first stop in Lerwick, Shetland Islands.  Hmmm, well, we did sign up for fall cruising up north.  So, instead of getting to check out the Shetland Islands we spent Monday 'at sea'.  I must admit that it did rain pretty much the entire day and it was windy even where we were.  Of course the ship has stabilizers but we were still rocking more than I've ever experienced before.

Viking has a number of ships all built to the same design.  All staterooms have a veranda that is usually quite a nice place to get some fresh air; maybe take your glass of wine out and try to get photos of birds or the sunset or whatever.  On this trip we used the veranda for a total of probably 15 minutes and those minutes were either in port or entering a port.  It was about 40F(4C) and raining for most of the trip.  Likewise these ships have two decks that are designed to give you a place to walk.  My wife and I like to walk and normally take a few laps even if we aren't the fastest people on the ship.  Not this time!  Most of the time the doors leading to the outside deck was marked as wet and dangerous and you were told not to go outside. 

So, what did we do?  Well, we did spend an unfortunate amount of time either eating or thinking about our next meal.  We usually had breakfast and lunch in a huge cafeteria on deck 7.  They have some fixed items and some that vary.  One of the favorite fixed items was the Gelato Bar; it was busy every lunchtime.  We had most of our evening meals in 'The Restaurant'.  Yeah, but it was really quite nice.  They would have 6 or 8 entrees and the same number of appetizers and deserts that changed every night and 3 or 4 that were always on the menu.  They have two 'specialty' restaurants on the ship and we ate one evening in each but the food is no better and the staff isn't as good.  During the day, the ship had various card games set up and a bean bag toss game that I guess is called a Cornhole Game.  (I don't know but that's what it's called on Amazon.)  Bridge lessons and knitting lessons were offered as well as the usual stage shows.  We found a game table that had a Mahjong game and we took that up on several mornings.  My wife found some historical tv series that she watched even knowing more about the history that the author's did.  There is an enclosed pool on board but it was downright cold in that area so I never saw anyone in it.

The 4th day, Tuesday, we made port in Torshavn, Faroe Islands.  The islands are owned by Denmark.  I don't know if you can read it but the gray building in the photo is "Bergen Fiskeindustri" which pretty much is how the islanders make their livings - fishing!

The ship offers an included (free) bus tour on most stops and has optional tours for the interested.  We stuck to the included tour since we had no idea what we would find.  The tour just wandered around the island a bit.  There was some rain and wind and some mild sunshine.  There were large groups of sheep wandering free everywhere (even at the Hyundai dealer). 

Our guide told us they were owned by the various families and shearing and butchering were done in kind of a community setting.  I still have trouble with who might own what sheep but I guess that since I don't live there I should stop worrying about it.  The islanders began having sod roofs and you still see some of those even in the city.

There are almost no trees on the island.

At any rate, we enjoyed our tour but we each have to wonder what keeps people living here. 

Our 5th day, Wednesday, was another 'at sea' day.  My wife and I were enjoying the cruise but I can see where some people might have been getting a little cabin fever.  On our 6th day, Thursday, we woke to find ourselves in Reykjavik, Iceland.  Another island, another bus tour!  This time we coughed up extra money to get to see more of the island and I can only vote it as 'ok'.  Iceland is an amazing place but we simply didn't have enough time to do it any justice.  Much like the Faroe Islands, fishing is important and, increasingly, tourism.  A couple we met onboard had taken advantage of a 'free stopover' offered by an airline and had spent a week there last year.  That seems like a great way to check it out.  Our tour guide was kind of funny.  We saw some wind turbines; there were three, she said there had been four but one was blown down.  We saw some radar domes; there had been more but one blew away.  We started worrying about ourselves blowing away!  There was a nice museum containing a boat, the Islendingur,  that was a replica of those sailed to Vinland (present-day Newfoundland) by the Vikings.  Let's just say those guys were crazy setting off in something so tiny and open.

There are supposed to be amazing waterfalls, fantastic lava fields and geysers.  It was cold and rainy and we almost all stayed on the bus! 

Our 7th day, Friday, was another 'at sea' day.  This time headed for Greenland.  I'll see if I can't get us on home next time.  Until then, thanks for stopping by!

OK, I've been gone!

Yep, we just keep drifting off to new and different places.  This time it was another cruise with a little extra time padded on just for the fun of it.  It all started on September 8 when we flew off to Oslo, Norway.  You see there is this Viking cruise called 'In the Wake of the Vikings' which is a cute way to say the North Atlantic.  It is also a good way to move a ship from Europe to North America.  It leaves from Bergen, Norway so, as usual, we gave ourselves a few days to sightsee in the country from which the cruise would leave.

As it turns out, I twisted something and have been having quite a lot of pain ever since we landed in Oslo so our sightseeing was severely curtailed.  Oslo is a moderate sized city with lots of national institutions but we only got to see the outside of a few of them and took no tours.  We stayed in the Thon Terminus Hotel which is a new chain for us.  It was actually very nice.  Norway in general seemed expensive but the hotel did something I have never come across:  in addition to breakfast they served a light dinner to the guests.  It wasn't fantastic but considering that it was included in the price of the room AND that I didn't want to walk anywhere; it worked great for us.

We planned on three days in Oslo then a travel day ending with three more nights in Bergen before the cruise left.  The travel day was on the train from Oslo to Bergen.  There were several stops but no changes.  It was actually very comfortable and, since we are both seniors, not terribly expensive.  The countryside varied quite a bit from farm land near Oslo to a large lake to rough and rocky.  It went from sea level to 1,222 meters or 4,009 feet where there was snow and back down to sea level. 

When we made it to Bergen we went for another Thon hotel; the Thon Hotel Rosenkrantz.  This was about 1 km from the train station and I was happy to find that I could walk that distance.  It was a huge improvement over when we first landed in Oslo.  Anyway, one of the things you are supposed to do in Bergen is take the Floibanen funicular railway up Mount Floyen and check out the scenery.  Somewhere I read where one should go early in the day as it gets busy later on so we hopped up and went over to it.  The railway car is divided into half a dozen little areas each with a door on each side.  Our car had one compartment with adults and the remainder of the car was filled with little school children on some sort of day trip.  Wow!  Were they ever noisy little rascals!  However, the trip is supposed to be 6 minutes long so it wasn't that awful. Here is a photo of the car from a couple days later.  You can see the tourists along the fence up above.

We got to the top of the mountain and started taking pictures of the city below us.  You can see the storm coming in from the water.

Then it started to rain.  People were planning on hikes of all kinds and they were ready to do it in the rain.  Not so much us.  We are warm weather and sunshine folks so we hopped onto the next train going down.  As it turned out, we were the only passengers on the train!  When we got to the bottom there was a huge crush of people waiting to go up!  So I have to say what I'd heard is true:  go early!  BTW, the white ship in the last photo is the Viking Sun, the ship that would be carrying us across the ocean.

The remainder of our time was spent wandering around the old part of the city.  There is a nice Farmer's Market which was fun to see and cheap since we weren't doing any cooking!  We visited the Fish Market and the Indoor Fish Market where we saw some fish I'd never seen before.  (Not saying much since I'm no fisherman.)  We spent some time wandering around in the Bryggen which is the old part of the city.  It was built of wood so much of it has burned down over the years.  Now what is left is pretty touristy.

And then it was time to board the ship.  The 'cruise' begins by spending two days tied to the pier in Bergen.  Weird, yes, but I guess they want you to see their home country.  We took one of the tours offered which was a bus ride around the town.  Not too exciting.  However being back on board one of the Viking cruisers was fun.  We've been on a couple other cruises on sisterships so it was like re-visiting a favorite place. 

I'm going to stop here.  There are more places to visit on the trip but I have to go cook!  Thanks for stopping by.

Travel? Me?

Well, yes!  My wife and I just returned from a quick trip to San Diego.  She was born there and really does love the city but the big draw is that Number 1 Son and his SO live just outside the city.  So we like to go down every now and then to torture them.  We spent the weekend doing just that then added on a couple days so we could do some tourist stuff.

Driving down there was absolutely the worst trip we've ever made down there.  First we got stuck in a traffic jam out in the middle of nowhere thanks to a traffic accident.  Then we got slowed down for no apparent reason at all.  Granted there are plenty of cars on those roads but usually they just kind of carry on with it.  Anyway we left here at 09:30 and didn't get there until 17:00 which was at least 2 hours later than we should have been.  We had fun with the family finding a couple new places to eat and just generally catching up.  By Monday they had to go back to work so we got out fairly early.  My wife is the travel planner and she had found us a place called the Old Town Inn.  It is within walking distance of Old Town and was quite nice.

The first day on our own we spent shopping then wandering around Old Town.  We escaped buying a small scuplture by the skin of our teeth but we both know we'll be back in town again.  If it is still calling to us we might have figured out a place for it by then.  The second day we went to the zoo.  We love to visit the zoo and it really is quite the place.  This time it was a little warm, well a lot warm, but otherwise pretty great.

There were quite a few babies born this year so we got to see some of the young animals.  Giraffes are pretty tall even when young!

There are even wild animals living at the zoo.  Wild as in not official residents!  I'm pretty sure the bunny doesn't have a keeper.

Of course the flamingos are amazing even when sleeping!  There was another one walking up and down the fence line demanding attention from the visitors.  Nope, no one had anything to feed him.

We had fun checking out the baby monkeys.  These two were having a great time playing hide-and-seek.

As I said, it was warm and everyone (and everything) was liking the shade.

Of course the zoo is really pretty large and we only got to see about half of it.  If this was the only time we could visit we would have stayed but having seen about half of the acreage we decided to  head back to the motel.  We walked over to a restaurant in Old Town and had dinner then back to the room for an early night.  The next morning we were at breakfast at 06:00 when they open it up and were out of town soon after.  This time we only had one slowdown so made it home by noon.  Much better!

Thanks for stopping by.  Take care.

Wow, almost a month!

Somehow it's been almost a month since I last blogged.  It's been mostly kind of dull (which I don't mind at all!) and a little excitement.  It's getting something over 100F (38C) most days but that's pretty normal.  We like to get out before 06:00 for our walk and it takes at least 50 minutes.  We aren't power walking so talking about what the neighbors are doing in their yards, etc. takes time.  There is also the big discussion about what's for breakfast!

Last last month we flew to San Francisco for four days to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary.  That was fun.  We stayed in a place on Hyde Street where we could go up on the roof and see Alcatraz.

The hotel is part of Wyndham's Shell Vacations Club.  We don't belong but they let a few rooms to civilians I guess.  Anyway, it was a nice little 1 bedroom apartment.  It wasn't cheap but nothing in the city is.  The rooftop area is clearly quite small but there aren't a lot of apartments in the place.  As you can see we had great weather and even managed to get a little sunburn.  Grrr!  Here we leave the desert and get a sunburn in what is supposed to be a nice foggy city. 

This is looking the opposite direction.  It was taken over looking what had been the parade ground.  There were quite a few parts of the island that were off limits.  We were there at a time when the birds have had their young and the park service didn't want us disturbing the birds.  They were everywhere!

We like to just walk around so did a pretty good job of covering the tourist water front from Pier 33 where the Alcatraz boat docks over to the Presidio.  We had two days of over 10,000 steps per my wife's Fitbit.  When we wanted to go farther or come back in comfort we used Uber.  The rides were in the $10-13 dollar range which we thought was pretty reasonable.  The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is reasonably nice to older tourists:  round trips from the airport to downtown and back were $9 each for seniors.

We like to take a ride around town sometimes and this time we took a Hop-On-Hop-Off bus tour.  It was 2.5 hours roundtrip but we got to see quite a bit of the city AND it took us across the Golden Gate Bridge where you could catch another bus to Sausalito if you wished:  we didn't.  I must admit going across the bridge was a chilly trip.

We got home and resumed that quiet life until just yesterday.  For the 4th of July nature threw us a party:  an earthquake!  The quake, 6.4 in magnitude, was centered in Searles Valley in California but we sure felt it here!  By the road it is 160 miles away but it is actually only 84 miles away.  (I use a great site called Freemaptools.com to give me the distances.)  It was quite a long quake and our house got quite a shake.  All that lead me to checkout earthquakes around here and I found www. earthquaketrack.com.  We get a lot more that I ever imagined.

Well, that's all the news that's fit to print.  Thanks for stopping by.  Have a good one.

Getting warm!

Well, the unusually temperate weather has pretty much left and now we have been looking at 105F (40C) or so daily.  That means having the air conditioning on 24/7.  The forecast is for that to go back down to 95F (35C) but we'll see!  We are getting out to walk as soon as we wake up since it's already 70F (21C) and the sun is warm.  Our usual walk takes in about 2.5 miles (4km).  It is flat as a pancake and paved but it's better than sitting inside and losing our ability to walk anywhere!  Usually we make a game of counting the rabbits; we have both regular bunnies and jack rabbits.  We will often see a small hawk but that isn't a sure thing.  There are a few neighbors who keep horses and we have to check on them.  The past week or so we've seen balloons.  Please forgive the quality of these photos; they are taken with my phone then enlarged a lot!

Usually we see 1 to 3 balloons.  We are only having very gentle breezes so it makes for a nice flight.  We do have a balloon festival in the early part of the year.  We have quite a few balloons flying then and, of course, there are all the other parts to a festival. 

We do check out the Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings.  Personally I feel it is mis-named because most of the people there are some sort of craft person.  You can buy art glass, leather work, wood work; all kinds of craft work and I was happily surprised at the high quality of the work.  Fruits and vegetables are in pretty short supply though. 

We are planning another trip or three but they are down the road a bit.  As usual I'll report on them when we are back.  Until then, thanks for stopping by.  Take care!

More quiet times

We haven't been doing a whole bunch lately.  The weather has been odd to say the least.  It's been quite cool with highs of maybe 70F (21C) but it's been fairly windy as well, like 15 mph (25 kph).  It isn't awful just not what we expect at this time of year.  To add injury, my wife managed to fall down and do something to her right side that makes walking painful.  THEN she did something to her right shoulder that caused her doctor to prescribe physical therapy.  All in all, it's not big problems but enough to keep us from wandering around much. 

We did make it in to Las Vegas a few days ago and bought a small table from IKEA.  We've been fans of the store since we lived in the Netherlands.  You wander around in the maze they call a store and can actually come up with some interesting ideas.  Anyway, the directions for the table were fun I thought.

I mean, 36 different languages to tell you how to clean the table???  It also speaks to how dull things are that I counted them all! 

At least one of our cactus plants is happy.

It usually comes up with one or two blooms but this year it is out-doing itself.  It makes the bees happy as well. 

I'm to the point that I can hardly look at the news any more.  Our President is such a jerk; I keep thinking he can't get any worse then he trump's himself.  And some people still support him.  Driving into town we pass this house that is flying TWO "Trump 2020" flags.  The Democratic party seems to be trying to keep him in office given the huge group of losers they have running for President.  There are 23 of them!  Most of them are unknown except for their own family and the front runners are the same old white men that have been unelectable for years.  These fools are simply helping the President stay in office.  To make it even worse, Biden and Sanders are 76 and 77 respectively.  I mean they are older than me for crying out loud (and Trump for that matter). 

Well, sorry for the rant.  It just bothers me that we have such an unreliable fool for President.  Thanks for stopping by. 

Just checking in...

I don't really have much to report.  It's quiet around here and getting warmer every now and then.  Now we are up to the mid-80's(29-30C) most days and we probably won't be gettting much more rain for a while.

Haven't really gone anywhere or done anything since my last post.  Well, I've been making good use of the bbq and the smoker but otherwise it's been quiet.  This week I did a personal best when I smoked beef jerky one day and smoked salmon the next day.  There's only so much excitement an old guy like myself can take!  High point of today, after waking up of course, is going to the grocery store and seeing this sign.

I'm not sure if $19.99 is good for Titos but considering it is a new product - VOKDA - I imagine it's good.

I did visit our local marijuana dispensary the other day.  Since it is legal in Nevada, I want to try it again.  I went into the store on Friday early afternoon and they did seem to be doing a fair business.  The other customers were clearly repeat visitors.  I sure felt like the newbie.  We tried some 2 years ago when they first opened and it just didn't do a lot for either of us.  I keep reading about what a huge market it might become and figure this is something I can test personally.  Besides, I was pretty bummed about how dull the stuff was 3 years ago.  I was impressed though that the guy behind the counter could see my previous purchase in their records!

We keep talking about going places but so far something seems to come up to keep us here.  The house was built in 2005 and we've lived here for 10 years.  Things are needing work; nothing big but lots of little stuff.  Well, it's better than not being able to take care of it.  Gotta go.  Thanks for stopping by.