Category: Outdoors

After our unexpected adventure on Saturday we took it a lot easier on Sunday morning.

We hiked the Grove of the Patriarchs Loop in the Mount Rainier National Park. It’s less than 1.5 miles and has about 50 feet of elevation gain. And the trail is wide and flat:

The trees, while no match for Sequoias or Redwoods, were pretty cool. Some were 1000+ years old.

As is usual in much of Western Washington there was a lot of moss:

There was a cute little bridge to cross:

And much of the trail was what we considered “just about our level” after the previous day of exertion:

This was kind of interesting. A bunch of little trees growing out of a an old fallen tree:

I’m 6’ 3” so this gives you a little bit of scale for some of the trees:

This is Barb pretending to be a starfish in the same tree:

It was a pleasant hike with nothing particularly dramatic to see and a low probability of another “unexpected adventure”.

It started out with a mistake on my part. I got a call from Bloodworks Northwest on Tuesday asking me to donate blood. I made an appointment for the following evening and a couple minutes after I got off the phone I remembered Barb and I were going to go hiking on Mount Rainer over the weekend. Rats! I’m going to be hiking up mountains at high altitudes while a pint low on blood. It figures. I did the same thing when we went to Yosemite a couple years ago.

Continue reading “Barb and Joe’s unexpected adventure”

Barb, Maddy, and I went on a hike up to Rattlesnake Ridge yesterday. It was cloudy and there was some precipitation but not bad. It was about two miles each way with quite bit of elevation gain. Because of the dreary weather I hadn’t anticipated there being any great photo opportunities so I didn’t bring my SLR with me.

The view was nicer than I expected and we took a few photos with our phones:

Near Venice beach:

Last month I made some substantial changes in the landscape around the Boomershoot explosives production facility (Mecca). I took pictures but I was frustrated they just didn’t seem to capture the changes. Barb and I were there again this weekend and in addition to some minor additional changes, such as spreading grass seed around and raking the seed into the dirt:

I took some more pictures. I think this one captures things much better:

I also was able to take a picture that better captures what the new tent site looks like:

This last weekend Barb and I did some Boomershoot 2014 prep. We installed some new LED lights in the target production facility (Mecca). We cleaned up the benches and Barb swept the floor. We are close to ready for target production in about two and half weeks.

One of the critical chores was an inventory of the target stakes:

This was just a jumbled pile of stakes and we stacked them in a neat pile to aid in counting and distribution for this year.

We also checked on the status of the daffodils we transplanted last June. They seem to be doing okay:

I suspect many of the bulbs didn’t have enough mass to support blooms this year and will build up this spring and bloom next year. But some have already bloomed. Barb and I were encouraged by the results.

The ground was generally dry and even if Boomershoot were to have been last weekend there wouldn’t have been a problem with weather:

We did make a trip across a section of another field that is unrelated to Boomershoot and nearly got stuck. We left some deep ruts, we were bounced around quite a bit and muddied up the sides of my vehicle that remained even after some fairly heavy rain on Saturday evening:

Yesterday we visited Hoover Dam. I had driven by a time or two but had never stopped and took pictures and went on a tour. I’ve been on tours of Grand Coulee and Dworshak which are also very impressive but Hoover, for some reason seems to generate more awe for most people. It is an impressive piece of engineering.

We took a tour of the power plant which involved going through some tunnels near the base of the dam.

This was on the ceiling of some of the tunnels to keep the tourists from getting dripped on from some minor leaks.

Yesterday we visited Zion National Park in Utah. We were visiting Las Vegas and since gambling doesn’t hold that much interest for us we drove to Zion and spent most of the day there.

As Barb said, more than once, “When you see it you understand why they made certain areas National Parks.” Zion has a resemblance to Yosemite in that what Barb said about it also applies, “Meh. Maybe I’m getting spoiled but one stunning view looks pretty much like another.”

Yup. That pretty much describes Zion. It’s not surprising the park gets over a million visitors per year.

This was on our drive to Zion. I think it might have actually been in Arizona. We crossed the Northwest corner of it on our way.

Another picture that probably is in Arizona.

You just expect to see Wiley Coyote and Road Runner zip by you any moment. Is the dust in the picture below from them?

Again, probably in Arizona or outside the park near St. George Utah.

It’s beautiful to visit but Barb and agree there is no way we would want to live there. We like the tree covered mountains, rivers, and lakes too much to spend much time away.

The rest of the pictures are from inside the park and I’ll mostly let them speak for themselves.

Close up of the upper right corner of the picture above it. Notice the size of the trees to get a clue as to the scale.

There were some people climbing the cliffs. A small group of people were pointing at someone on this cliff. I couldn’t really see it so I took a picture with my telephoto lens, then zoomed in on the spot they were point at then asked them if this was what they were looking at:

Yup. Just as I thought. It was just a rock formation.

 

We spent most of last week on the Disney ship Magic in the Bahamas. I had been on Disney’s sister ship Wonder several years ago but this was Barb’s first cruise. As with me Barb had never had much interest in going on a cruise until after having actually been on one. Part way through the cruise Barb was talking about “the next cruise we go on”.

This was the entrance to the ship. Notice the resemblance to Mickey Mouse?

This was the going away party. There was loud music and some of the Disney crew were doing cheerleading. I found it an interesting psychological study.

After observing the party from an upper deck Barb and I found a little quieter spot and watched Port Canaveral fade away in the distance.

The next morning we arrived in Nassau. As we approached the harbor a pilot was brought out to our ship to guide us in.

Arrival of the pilot.

Departure of the pilot’s transportation.

This was the flag near the bow of our ship.

This is the harbor at Nassau as we arrived. Do you think maybe they have a lot of tourists?

The last time I was here a tour guide said the walkway between the buildings was a hotel room for rent—at $20,000/week IIRC.

We did a self guided walking tour through parts of Nassau and “fought” off the aggressive tour guide who really, really wanted to give us a tour in his limo. The most fun thing we did at Nassau was go through the Pirate Museum.

The next day we arrived at Disney’s island Castaway Cay.

The first thing we did was rent bicycles and go for a ride across the island.

This picture was taken from an observation tour on the far end of the island.
From the same observation tour.

They claim the highest point on the island is less than 16’ above sea level. I can believe it.

We also fed the sting rays and went snorkeling with them. Barb thought they were “SO CUTE!” I thought they were a little ominous but it was fun to swim above them as they went “flying” through the water just above the bottom.

Most of the rest of the time we spent on the adult beach. It was very pleasant.
Someone had used shells to make an outline of something.

I’m not sure what the name of this bird is but it was pelican like. Taking pictures of it while we were on the beach gave me something to do.

I’m not sure if it was diving for fish or just making very ungraceful landings.

This was how it looked as we left the island.

The next day we spent the entire time cruising around in a circle. Then during the night we returned to port. We were off the ship and back to the airport by 9:00 or 10:00. I didn’t know how long it would take to get there when I made the airplane reservations and we were scheduled for something like a 6:00 PM departure. There were no seats available on an earlier flight so we waited in the airport. We flew to Houston and found out our connecting flight was something like five hours late. We didn’t leave Houston until after midnight. It was something like 2:00 AM Pacific time when we finally made it home and into bed. And, of course, we were fully adjusted to Eastern time. We were really, really tired.

The vacation was totally worth it. Much of the rest of the nation was enduring snow and bitter cold. And best of all I sent some of the bloggers who were discussing the cold an email sympathizing and included this picture from Nassau:

Barb arrived in Idaho late (as in nearly Midnight) on Christmas Day. The next day she helped me finish up the installation of the solar panels at Boomershoot Mecca. I had left one of the brackets at the hardware store in Orofino when I went into town to get the right type and size screws for mounting them to the side of the shipping container.

We did some more Wi-Fi experiments involving more cross-field snow hiking with a battery, fence post, and a Nanostation.

At the end of the day there was a nice sunset. Barb very impressed with it so we took a bunch of pictures from different locations as we drove back to my brother’s place for the night.