Thanksgiving

Hey all,
Nothing better than spending Thanksgiving with friends. Lebette and I packed the dogs in the car and headed out for San Diego for the long weekend. There is not a lot on the road to see between here and the coast, hence no pictures, except the long line at the California agricultural check point.

The wiley Ag inspector spies our Texas plates as we pull up, so after sitting in a 3 mile, 30 minute line, he pulls us over. "You coming from Texas?" He asks (secure he has insider knowledge thanks to our license plates). "Nope" I respond, "Nevada". As he looks on confused and befuddled the hell hounds in the backseat start barking. He quickly asks if we are carrying any plants (nope again) and clears us through the checkpoint. Boy California, that is a ironclad agricultural check point you have there.

Anyway, we spent the weekend with wonderful friends out on Coronado Island doing the local thing (walking dogs to the beach, overeating on Thanksgiving, watching football) and touring an aircraft carrier with our very own Navy XO as a tour guide. Here is the girls thrown in the brig for misbehavin'.



We had loads of fun, but the best picture of the whole weekend was in "Bob Hope" Park in front of a statue commemorating the WWII famous photograph of "the kiss". Well, Andy swept Shannon off her feet and laid one on her for the cameras.....here is the proof!




P.S. We watched half a dozen folks peek up the skirt.....Lebette finally had to check; nothing to see. Oh Well.

Valley of Fire

For Veterans day 2008 we went sightseeing to Valley of Fire State Park just Northeast of Las Vegas. It was a pretty dull drive out of town, and then we crested the small ridge into the park....and loh and behold we understood why the park was named "Valley of Fire." All of the large outcroppings of rock are a brilliant red reminding us of Sedona AZ. We drug along our long-time friend, Billy-Ray, to go rock climbing and geocaching.

Here are a few pictures of BR, Monty and Lebette as we climbed all over the rocks.




Then Monty and BR when after a cache up on top of one of the rocks...which led to Lebette trying to quell the anxious thoughts by taking several cool pictures of the rocks while we were gone. Due to limitations of my account with blogspot, here is only one of the photos.



Finally there are several pictures of the petroglyphs at Atlatl rock (Atlatl is a weapon using a stick with a socket to rest a spear for extended range). Unfortunately the park service has to put up a plexiglass wall so people won't add their 20th/21st century graffiti to the rock. The rock faces directly east and some have hypothesized the rock was used by locals 3,000 years ago to track the lunar eclipses.




BTW, we didn't find the cache on top of the hill, but not for a lack of trying/climbing/sightseeing from the top.

Go here if you want more info on the park, or to camp there amongst the beautiful red rocks (http://www.parks.nv.gov/vf.htm)

Las Vegas

These pictures are from last August when we had time to break from the boxes of moving in and get out and about. The first two are of my favorite site on the strip....the fountains of Bellagio!

Then we are off to Hoover dam. The third photo is downstream from the dam. In the fourth picture you can see the future bridge that will span the river gorge and decrease the traffic across the dam. The road will be 2 lanes each way and will allow traffic to move right along. Having said that...there is no way I'll be on the bridge; it is way too far up there. I'll divert down to Havasu AZ on my trips back to Phoenix.

The last picture is to show the drought that has been affecting the west for decades. The band of white is mineral deposits from when the lake was higher, and has been slowly dropping. Just a couple of wet winters up river would help a little.

More later,

Reimer Ranch Texas

Visiting the family in the Austin area and made a quick run out to Reimers Ranch. A beautiful mountain biking / rock climbing / hiking / fishing park west of Austin. Here is the family out walking the trails and hiking down the canyon. From the park you can see the movie set for "The Alamo", "Stop Loss" and "Appaloosa".

Vespa and Bacchus video

Nothing worse than puppy parents with a video camera! Need I say more?


Vespa and Bacchus on film in Virginia.