Our updates for all of you

Taken last night, our tree with Stacy's Santa that climbs up and down the ladder in a 30 second exposure. Below, no snow on Christmas this year, but a cold 23 degrees as the photo taken looking across the street shows the snow and ice from the snow last two weeks ago. A nice sunny COLD day! Christmas Day 2009 found me and Stacy enjoying the day getting phone calls, texts, and e-mails. We also spent a couple of hours working outside trying to move our storage build back 5 inches. Only five inches! Couldn't do it though, too frozen, too slippery and no traction for the tractor. Tomorrow? We go out in the after Christmas craziness and replace our 4 year old dish washer. Merry Christmas!!! Tad

I had a dentist appointment this morning and thought I'd take a few photos while I was out for the appointment. After the appointment I stopped and filled up the KIa (4 wheel drive!). All this snow is just from the last 3 days of snowfall! Above photo- is of the ONLY stoplight intersection in town and of the ONLY 'fast food' place in town"Zip's". Below- looking South on Main street. Above- Looking on Alderson Lane from the gas station. Below- Driving North on "Main street" as it's known in town. Highway 95 & 2 if you're just passing through to Canada North, or all the way down to Nevada on Highway 95 South. Or you might be traveling to Montana heading East or Washington going West on Highway 2. . Anyway, over a foot of snow in just a few days. Normally it doesn't snow this much until right at Christmas or after. Doesn't look like it right now but the winter is predicted to be cold but dryer than normal around here. We'll h...

Well, we've been back for a week and a day now, and nope, we are not even near getting all caught up yet! But, Tad and I wanted to jot down an outline of our trip while it is still so fresh in our minds and the visions are still dancing in our dreams. We flew down on Saturday the 21st of November. Sandy and Sean met us at the airport. When we arrived at Sandy and Erik's apartment, Thanksgiving dinner was cooked and ready to eat. Sandy did a beautiful job with all of the Thanksgiving dishes. We visited and Sean entertained us with his guitar playing, and we watched the movie UP. Monday morning we were up early and flew from John Wayne Airport to San Francisco, made our way to the International terminal and boarded a giant 747. Sandy had procured us an economy plus seat which allowed us a few extra inches of leg room. Thanks Sandy!. We took up the four center seats of a 10 across row. We were only two rows from a divider, so we had a great view of a rather large flat scr...

It has taken a few days, almost a week actually, but Stacy and I have almost gotten our biological clocks reset to Pacific Time from Central European Time. I'm up to sleeping until 5:30 am or so from being wide awake from 1:30 to 2:30 am. Stacy is sleeping to 5:30 to almost alarm time of 6:00 am. We're both still fighting to stay up to 9:00 pm though! The nine hour time difference makes most of Germany's daytime during our night and most of our daytime during their night. This week has been getting back in the swing of things at work, I've been transferring the video we took on the trip to DVD. We took about 4 hours worth of video on the SD cards. Taking that video to the computer then converting it to DVD has taken DAYS! Everyday since Monday and getting only two disks done a day it takes so long. The last disk, number 5, is a partial so it actually should be done before we go home tonight. So tomorrow I'm back to sorting the photos and get at least some on-line ...

Safely back from Germany Stacy and I are kind of resting as we clean up at Sandy's apartment today, do a little laundry and relax a bit before the final flights back to Spokane tomorrow. We averaged walking about 8 miles each day while in Germany, flew over 10,000 miles there and back. We sat through 7 movies and 6 TV shows on the 747-400's over both flights. Between me Stacy and Sandy we took almost 2,000 photos while we were there. And Stacy and I took almost 4 hours of video. I also recorded a couple of hours of audio with my Olympus recorder. While in Germany we did try to add a quick update to the blog but found out that the keyboards in Germany are WAY different than ours here, and if the letters are rubbed off from use FOR GET IT!!! We gave up after struggling to find the right letters we needed to access our accounts. I gave it a go and gave up when I was unable to locate the "@" symbol! You can't do much without finding the "at" symbol! We'r...

Friday afternoon we leave work early and go to Spokane. Saturday we're on our way to Southern California and stay 2 nights with Sandy. Sunday is an abbreviated Thanksgiving with Sandy and her husband. She's doing all the cooking and Sean and his wife are coming up for the day from San Diego. Monday the trip really begins! 11 hour flight from San Fransisco gets us in Frankfurt on Tuesday morning. When there Sandy has us on an itinerary of mostly 2 nights in several cities across the country, with 3 nights in Berlin. Back to Frankfurt and 10 hours to get back. Sandy says she thinks I'll be watching Germany through a viewfinder as we travel, I don't think so, but it also isn't likely I'd be back there anytime soon so I'm planning on lots of photos and video. Along that goal it works out perfect that Google recently has made it possible to add 20 GB of photo storage to their already allocated 1 GB on their Picasa Web Albums for only $5.00 a year. So I signed up ...

Some brief highlights of last weeks trip to Missouri. It was a trip to be able to be in attendance of my fathers 50th wedding anniversary celebration. Unfortunately Stacy couldn't be there with me due to work issues this time, everybody said how much they would have liked to see her, I would have liked her to have been there too!! I really enjoy flying, just not in airliners. Were I really wealthy I'd have my own plane and fly myself on trips such as these, we're not that well off though and private aircraft rental is so expensive now you could fly back and forth several times via airliners at the cost of renting a small plane for one round trip. But even with all the changes to my flights and schedules, it got me there. Due to changes, Mike and Brenda arrived well before I did instead of the within a half an hour of each other. They were able to meet up with old friends and have dinner with them before I got to Kansas City. They picked me up and we made the over hour drive...

Three photos taken earlier today as the area got a little bit of snow. Nowhere near the predicted 1 to 3 inches (yet!) on the valley floors, but it looked nice to see some snow falling again. All the photos are views from my 2nd floor area, above is one of the Sheriff SUV's with the dusting of white. Below is looking at a dark truck in the Safeway parking lot to show the snow falling. And the last photo below show the snow sticking on the hillside above the highway that runs through town. Since I took these, it has lightened up and warmed to about 34 outside so all the snow in these photos has melted. Oh well, it's usually just cold from now until near Christmas, then it snows and sticks until next March! One week from right this minute I'll be into my first full day in Missouri. And one month from right now, we'll be in Germany! More later, Tad

I first heard about Soupy Sales dieing this morning as I listened to the 60's on 6 as I was working on breakfast and getting my lunch ready to go for work. His show was often very funny, even more so as I grew up and had a better understanding of his more adult humor. I know I was seeing reruns of his old show even back then, 1970's era, but they were new to me! As I was reading on the Entertainment Weekly website about his death they had clips from You Tube to see. Boy the memories, of his as well as all the shows I remember seeing back in the mid 1960's and on. Pookie, White Fang, funny. I never cared much for the 'pie in the face' gag, but still overall funny shows. Growing up in the areas of San Bernardino, Highland and Redlands California, we watched the channels from the "greater Los Angeles area". I recall Captain Kangaroo on channel 2, Hobo Kelly on either 11 or 13, Sheriff John's Lunch Brigade ("put another candle on the birthday cake, th...

We've been a bit busy the last two weeks, at home and work! Last post was the 7th, that following weekend was the 3 day holiday of Columbus Day for us local government worker types. So we'd decided to take that holiday and really push to get the firewood for winter as done as possible. Stacy's father had been concerned that we might not have enough wood so far so he'd made arrangements to buy four loads of "rounds" from a local person he knows that makes a living of odd jobs including firewood for this time of year. Anyway, he'd delivered the loads of rounds, mostly one and a half to two and a half feet across by fourteen inches long (thick) to the house. It was purely coincidental that a very early "late November" type of weather pattern decided to come through just before and stay through that same weekend. So we get up that Saturday morning..............and it's +15 degrees outside!!!! "Normal" temps for early October are as th...

Stacy actually got some really good photos with her Sony pocket camera while on our recent trip. These four photos were all taken by Stacy. Above was on the I-90 East in Montana on day 1, getting the trailer in side mirror of the truck. The above photo is at a stop near the Yellowstone sign as you drive into the park border from the North miles from a town called "Gallatin Gateway" along the 191 Highway from the I-90. Above and below are photos Stacy was able to take while we waited in traffic as the 191 highway was under complete restoration. Many miles of road base stripped down to the bare dirt, dusty, very rough and loooong waits. The affected road was the main road from the Jackson/Teton area to Yellowstone Park from the South. Made it a really quick decision NOT to go back this way!!

Since our return from the Wyoming trip a little over two weeks ago, the fall temps had already set in in our area. The coolest temps of the entire trip were on our return home. Mid 20's last night and upper 50's in the daytime. I guess the 70's are over till next year!Even snow at the 5,500 foot range of the area mountains, earlier than last year. This morning I finished the design and copy of a menu for a small deli restaurant across from our offices. It changed hands a few weeks ago and the new owner is the wife of a guy from the local motorcycle club we'd been involved with for a couple of years. Since I had done the club newsletter she asked me to do her revised menu. I gave her three example setup copies, she picked the one she liked so I finished and printed them up for her. Last weekend we started in earnest with the winter firewood project. We still had over a cord left from last year but Stacy's father bought 4 pickup truck loads of 14 inch 'rounds'...

Last performance of the event on Sunday the 27th was the 8-up draft hitches. Really the showiest of the draft shows are these long teams. For shows like these many teams are truthfully accidents waiting to happen! With so many horses in relatively small spaces and not always, but some owners keeping their horses "hot" (on a grain and sugar buzz) for a more spectacular effect. At this show the teams were brought in individually worked, then all brought back together for the final judging. When we worked with Larry in 2000, they ran them all together at those locations. Above shows the effort involved in getting something this long and connected primarily by leather straps turned, in this case from the left to the right for the right turn. Kinda looks like an "S" doesn't it? They all got together and made the turn though. The guy on the left in the photo is the driver with all those reins in his hands. Guy on the right is there to help when the team stops. He ...

After the Barrel Racing, but while the course was still set up. Another race was run, this was supposed to be a $2,000.00 wager between the two participants of what was faster, a two mule team or a four horse team. Above are the mules as they were running hard! Below, the 4 horse. There was no way four would be faster! Too much to move!! Below is a 4 horse Clydesdale team "docking", or backing in a small pathway and knocking off a board on the last two cones without running over any of the others or knocking off a tennis ball set on the front four cones. This maneuver is often done in today's big rig deliveries. It is pretty difficult with four or more horses! You have to be able to have the team stop and move sideways as well as forward and back to be able straighten or turn the wagon. These guys made it though even if they look all crossed up in this photo!

Last Saturday/Sunday, Stacy and I went to the Draft and Mule show in Sandpoint for the second year. We both really enjoy it and I like all the memories it brings back of our summer of 2000 as me, Stacy and Laura were the 'crew' for our late farrier and his wife that had a team of 6 Percheron draft horses. We traveled with them in our 5th wheel trailer to the 4 big shows he did that year. They always slept in the barn with their horses, we slept in our trailer in a whole lot more comfort! I only took photos on Sundays performance because it was so windy on Saturdays with blowing dust and dirt everywhere. It was still better than last years rain though! So what's with the top photo? Early on in the 12:30 PM performance this wagon had a team of Mules and was going through the course for points in the "Gamblers Choice" obstacle course. When the team was coming to a set of cones and the driver was slowing them down, the mules had slowed abruptly and the driver went f...

Three photos taken on the Wyoming, Idaho, Montana trip. Above are some of the actual Falls of Twin Falls Idaho. Stacy and I had passed through the area on many trips. Even stayed in the town in 1993, but we'd never seen the Falls. We came across them by accident driving around in the town from the convention center while looking for the Wal-Mart. I'm glad we did! Below was taken at where else? Yellowstone National Park. I took many photos on the day we spent driving around the park. I liked this one for the steam rising. We saw more Buffalo than anything else as far as wildlife went. I really liked being there in the late summer almost fall for the lack of bugs! Over the years we've been there on various trips from late spring to mid summer and had to always deal with being eaten alive by all the bugs. This was a great time to go and I'm actually looking forward to the next time we go there. Below is a nice photo (I think it is anyway!) I took on the "Going to th...

The final photo taken on our trip was at our own County Fairgrounds that also has a free RV dump. While we have an RV dump at home too, it's nice to just drive up, dump and go home. So the trip was over and a few days after I gathered up all the trip statistics I logged as we went along during the trip. Started 8:25 AM on Wednesday September 9th, 2009 Ended at 12:35 PM on Sunday September 20th, 2009 1,879 miles from start to end. Most miles in a day, 398 miles on day 1 least was about a mile each round trip day during the Juvenile Justice Conference Usual travel day was around 200 miles Least expensive Diesel fuel, $2.61.9 in Jackson, Wyoming (who would have thought!) Most expensive, $2.87.9 in West Yellowstone, Montana (expected it to be expensive there) Maximum speed of the entire trip 69 MPH. Even with 75 max posted in Montana Stacy and I really love the 28 foot Wilderness Travel Trailer. While not as much storage room as our 10 year old 30 foot 5th wheel, it is perfect for us t...

Stacy checking to see if Yellowstone Lake is cold or warm from all the underground volcanic activity that the caldera is famous for. It was cool by the way. Below, leaving the Grizzly RV park and heading home Saturday the 19th. Above is the valley as viewed as you head out of the town of Ennis, Montana. Below Stacy made lunch for us at a stop along the way.

Above. On the road, truck stops are often the best place to stop. Our truck being a diesel often means fueling where the Big Trucks do! Here in Montana. Cheapest Fuel was $2.61.9 per gallon in Jackson Wyoming. Most expensive was West Yellowstone at $2.87.9 per gallon. Pretty well averaged about $2.75 a gallon in most places. Above is our site at the "Grizzly RV Park" in West Yellowstone Montana. A very nice, very large facility. An RV 'resort' that was for mostly RV's but also had camping cabins and tent sites available. For the area, $55.00 a night was 'cheap'. We'd stay there again if in the area. We spent a full day exploring Yellowstone on our way back from Idaho Falls and meandering home. In 8 different trips we'd never spent much time there at all. It was a lot of fun. Above we saw more Buffalo than anything else. Just a week later and most of the people were gone so it wasn't very bad at all. Below was a classic Yellowstone traffic s...

Above and below are photos of the "Chapel of Transfiguration" in the Tetons National Park. The day before the wedding of relatives Stephanie and soon to be husband, Christopher. The price of being married in this little 1925 chapel? Starts at $500.00 for one hour. The minister and the admission into the National Park are both extra! Above. I thought that a photo of 'duck butts' as they were feeding would be interesting! Below is Sandy taking a photo of me taking a photo of her! Everyone should have one of these!