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Showing posts from March, 2010

Sea World, San Diego, CA

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A little "perk" from the Family gathering; an invitation to visit Sea World with sister Sandra and family.  Spencer has worked for Sea World for 20 years now and he gave us a  lot of inside info on some of these wonderful animals.  What a joy to spend day with family and see all these marvelous animals too.  They are wonderful creatures and we learned so much about sea stars; bat rays; killer whales, dolphins etc... they have sea turtles now too that have been given to them from confiscations of illegal catches... interesting.  A wonderful day!  A bit tired at the end but then we aren't youngsters anymore either. ha!

Bradbury Family Reunion

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A wonderful time to be had by all... A very busy weekend starting Friday afternoon and ending Sunday afternoon! 30 people in all and a great group! All stayed over so we had time to all get to know each other a little better... So much fun watching people swim and play mini golf and eat and the campfire on Saturday night too! Thanks to all who came and helped make it so enjoyable. Missed those who couldn't make it but perhaps next time.

Spring housecleaning time!

Happy to report we are nearly done with our major spring housecleaning.. ha! Hired a crew to scrub and wax the outside of our house and now it's all nice and shiny. Can't leave the inside undone so cleaned all inside windows and screens. My of my how a light settling of dust seems to stick to the inside of the windows.. yuck! Glad it's gone and now perhaps my allergies may go away.. hum.. we'll see. Anyway, need to finish cleaning all those blinds but I never do them all at once - to daunting a project so chip away a few each day. What a relief not to have Earl climbing up and down that ladder though cleaning the roof! Worth every penny... Now to just stay out of flooded areas we'll be ok!

Bluegrass Festival - Temcula, CA

A lovely day here in the southland and perfect to go over to Temecula for their annual Bluegrass Festival. A while since we have enjoyed such an event! Lots of seating and good music. Also a lot of traffic. What we were unaware of is that today is also their Farmers Market so there were a lot of regulars there for that besides the music festival. It was held in Old Town which supposively has been around since 1859. This is another area in California that has exploded with houses and stores in the last decade. We had a great time though and probably recieved our fair dosage of vitamin D!

Death Valley National Park, CA

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This is our 3rd visit to this National Park and have to say enjoyed it so very much this trip! Of course we love all the National Parks but this time we made a point to get out and do more hiking and although we have seen a lot of this park before we saw even more this time. This park has some lovely slot canyons perfect for hiking and the salt/borax that collects all over too. Walked up the sand dunes and even saw some wildlife... a few lizards and a roadrunner with something in his mouth (looked like it had a long tail) - Met some great people from Mass so that was great too. No phone service in park and dry camped at Furnace Creek. Never knew this before but they have a very large heated pool from natural spring that is open to public for no fee. There are rumblings they may start charging for people who are not guests of their Inn/cabins but no charge as of now. They have a nice golf course there, tennis courts and a small date farm too. Fun!

What is this???

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Valley of Fire state park is one of my favorite places to hike! Love the funny shapes of these colorful rocks! This thing looks like he has his tongue hanging out - and all these holes in the rock! The day was cool and cloudy so not the best weather for pictures but nice enough. Met some nice folks from Virginia too so had a fun friendly time - one drawback. Couldn't get through the slot canyon due to the standing water....

Touring the Town

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While here in Las Vegas, John's daughter Glenda came down from Ely for a short visit. Wonderful to see her again. Took here around to see the shows on "the Strip" like this water show in front of the Bellagio set to music. This is my personal favorite but also were able to see the volcano at the Mirage, the indoor show at Ceasar's Palace and the pirate ship show at the Treasure Island. Weather was decent at that time and we ran our legs off to get to each show on time. ha!

Bridge Project

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Here is most recent picture of the bridge project that was started after 9/11 - to secure the Hoover dam from terrorists... Now let me see, this project was started in 2003 with a due date of being completed as 2007. It is now 2010 and guess what folks... it's still a ways off from completion. Should we draw straws as to when it might get done? This is our wonderful trusted government at work.

Shelby Car Museum - $20 mil cobra?

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Our visit here in Las Vegas has been good; the weather has been on again off again but it's still winter so guess it is to be expected. Anyway, took ride out to Valley of Fire State Park with a stop over at the Shelby Car Museum on the same premises as the Na scar Racetrack. Good tour of the factory; such as it is and we were told that Carroll Shelby still owns his very 1st Cobra for which he was offered $20 million and turned it down. Nice! The car still has it's original upholstery and it's a cute little car. Enjoyed the tour very much and although I am not a big car fan; its still interesting to see these cars and learn how this mfg has done so well all these years dating back to early 1950's and is still reporting to work although he is 87 years old!

Dry camping on the move

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Time to roll down the road after a wonderful time at Cottonwood. Left on a sunny, clear day with snow still on the sides the road up in Flagstaff area but otherwise bare... A few hours drive to Kingman to this pull out area. We have stayed here before so knew where to go. There are two separate railroad tracks - Earl's idea is one for empty containers heading back to L. A. and others full heading east... so we settled in for a very blustery night! The coach shook but we were nice and warm and safe inside.

Cottonwood, AZ

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Time is flying by and here we are nearly ready to leave this area on Wednesday. The bad weather came in over the weekend but turned out we did not get much of it here is our little valley. It certainly came over us but we were still able to get out for a walk up the hill! This preserve is in 3 sections with hills in between and makes for some good exercise getting from one section to another! We have enjoyed our visit here as always.