FUN AT THE FAIR!

Mom and I finally got to the State Fair last Saturday. It was a blast! Of course, it was the hottest day of the year (well over 100), but I tried to keep Mom from wilting by feeding her lemonade, chocolate milk and Hawaiian Ice. There were lots of things to do and we got some good pictures and videos. Below is the photo we got at the Hollywood "green screen" booth. Turned out well...

This one is special for Kim and Michelle. We all know how much they love the subject matter. It was part of the Candy Mountain exhibit we loved so much. More photos from that later.

One of the things Mom really wanted to do was see the horse races. They didn't have any horses that day, so we watched about eight Jennies (as opposed to Jacks) run a short half mile race. It was kind of fun - but we were disappointed there were no real horse races. : (

1 Down, 35 to Go

This has not been updated lately for a couple of reasons: 1) I haven't done anything really fun lately, and 2) school started this week - the same time I had lots of Church work pressing to be done.

The first week of school has been pretty good. Most of my students are returning and my program at Tierra Buena continues to grow even though the enrollment there is down a little. That may mean I'll get my dream of moving to a larger room more centrally located. At present I'm in a regular sized room at the far end of the campus from where all my students have their classrooms. With the situation as it is I may get to move to a double sized room in the middle of the campus.

On the other hand, Barry School continues to have declining enrollment. I'll be lucky to have 50 students there (as opposed to over 100 at TB). Those I have are fun kids, however, so it will be a good year.

The title for this post comes from Bruce George (you may remember him) who teaches Special Ed classes. It's his way of dealing with the year.

I'll try to do something fun and post some photos soon - but don't hold your breath.

A Morning of Geocaching in the HIlls

I had some time today so Melody and a good geocaching friend (Vicki Miller) and I drove out to the Spenceville Wildlife Area to find some geocaches. The area was used prior to, during, and after WWII as training grounds for the Army. (What is now Beale AFB used to be Camp Beale). Some of the caches we've looked up previously are located in abandoned pill boxes and fortification structures. Very fun stuff.

Below are some views of the kind of landscape we walked through. It's very dry this time of year. The best time to go is Spring or early Winter. Summer brings out the rattlesnakes, burrs, and star thistle. Of the three, I prefer going up against the snakes. At least they can be scared away. Nothing removes start thistle.

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But today was overcast and cool, and windy enough to want a jacket. We did a quick find, then started a 7 stage multi-cache stretching a mile and a half where each stage took us farther from the road and back and forth across the one remaining creek. Actually Melody and Vicki stayed on the road (with the dog) and I had a great time tromping off through the thickets and brush. Below is one of the creek crossings I made before finding the last two stages

Each of the 6 lead-up stages was a camouflaged pill bottle with nothing more than the coordinates for the next stage. But after hiking up over a small hill I located the final stage - and the cache. I looked up and there is was, hanging 10'-12' up in an oak tree - a 5 gallon bucket! The largest cache I ever seen. So how do I get to it? Climbed the tree of course. So up I go, and just as I'm leaning over to open the lid, I see the thin cord and set of pullies. It's strung up from another tree. I climbed down and let the bucket loose as was intended. Loads of fun!

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These bottom photos are just interesting sights along the way. The left one is of an old watering trough, and the right one is of Melody picking stickers out of the dog's fur. No, the dog still doesn't have a name. I just call her dog.

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This photo is a left over from our trip to San Diego earlier this summer. It's a 20' tall statue of the famous picture taken of a sailor kissing the first girl he sees upon his return home at the end of WWII. The statue may not look that tall, but I was quite far away when I took it. They have it placed right next to the USS Midway. We drove past it a couple of times a day on our way back and forth between our motel and the convention center. I got a big kick out of it.

Final Report

For those who have been waiting on the edge of their seats to hear the final chapter in the tree-cutting saga, I finished just today splitting the last of the downed limbs. Some of them were as big as 12" in diameter, but most were more in the 3" to 8" range. I got close to a cord of split wood, averaging 10" in length.

We took a bunch of it over to the coast on our trip there with Kim and David. It was great to have along. The rest is stacked gains the fence ready to be burned in my portable brick fireplace (ask me about it sometime).

I'm going geocaching in the Spenceville Wildlife Area tomorrow. If things go well I'll post some photos.

KD5

Melody shot some pretty good video (other than the "surf cam"), including this fun little clip near the end of our surfing , which shows Kim and David giving each other a high five as they wash up on the beach. Very cool.