Where's Dave?

Since Sunday, Dave has visited Baker City (by accident) and Durkee in Oregon, and Caldwell, Nampa, Twin Falls, Rupert (seriously), and Pocatello in Idaho. I've worked at a cement plant, a paper chemical manufacturer, a state wildlife forensics lab, a seed distributer, a potato processing plant, a hospital, 3 wastewater treatment plants, and a cheese plant. It's been busy. For the next few days, I'll be in Pocatello, Blackfoot, Idaho Falls, Rexburg, and Dubois, Idaho doing all sorts of stuff, and then some more places on the way home. I'm at about 800 miles so far and it's only been 4 days. Today at least, I did have a little bit of time to stop by Shoshone Falls in the Snake River Canyon. I sort of thought it would have more water going over it in the spring than when I saw it last fall, but it wasn't too impressive. It's still pretty cool, but not as wet as I was hoping. I have some pictures and you would be looking at them right now if I had remembered the cord for the camera. Maybe later.

Plus I ran over a groundhog that jumped out in front of my van. Stupid rodent.

It's a great trip so far.

300 miles from home, 100 miles from where I was trying to be

So I spent the night in Baker City, Oregon. I wasn't trying to spend the night in Baker City, Oregon, but my transmission disagreed. I spent the evening and this morning wondering if I was going to get out of that town today or not, since there was one transmission shop and zero rental cars. Turns out it was just a couple of sensors, but it put me a day behind and stuck in Baker City, Oregon (population 10,035). It was every bit as good as it sounds.

Raspberry Beret

So, the Mizz has decided that he likes hats. He likes to put on whatever hats he finds, and although he usually doesn't wear them long, he often tries to find a mirror to see himself. He has even taken to putting on things that might not otherwise qualify, such as pan lids, toy buckets, whatever. This afternoon though, he took it to new heights by putting half a dried raspberry on his head and screeching "HAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" until I agreed that, yes, it was indeed a hat. This happened with the second half of every raspberry for the duration of the snack.

Wow, what a pic

That picture's pretty bad. Apparently, a Motorola RAZR in a dark room is not the best camera in the world. Good to know. The good news is that now I know how to do this from my phone. Now if only I had a reason to do so...

Mobile blogging here I come

My first attempt at blogging from my phone. How did I do?

Starlight Run

One of the many cool things about Portland is the Rose Festival. And one of the cool things about the Rose Festival is the Starlight Run. It's a regular race, but with a Portland twist. Everybody runs in a costume. We've seen a pregnant (not really) woman running next to a doctor (not really) and being chased by her husband (maybe) carrying a suitcase (really). There was a tree, which seemed hard to run in since the tree had no arms. There were several guys from Portland General Electric running tied together dressed as a power station, several power poles and a house. Lots of guys in dresses and people in clown wigs. All sorts of silly crap.

Anyway, I've decided to run it this year. That sounds impressive, until you realize that it's only 3.1 miles long. However, I'm in awful shape (you know post-partum and all that), and it's a good motivation to change that. I don't want to be the only idiot huffing and puffing to finish a 3 mile race. I'm trying to get Franny to run with me. Maybe we could do some silly-ass costume together. I need some idea help though, because although I'm motivated to get some exercise and be good for this, I still lack the creativity to come up with something good for a costume. Any ideas?

I Like Lambs

I don't know if this shows too much feminine side or too much immaturity, but dammit, lambs are cute. I don't care about the look of them exactly. It's just that I pass a ton of them driving up and down I-5 and the lambs look like a bunch of toddlers playing and carousing as their parents stand around and have boring conversations about the weather. They're all still pretty small right now, and very playful.

On a related note, I learned recently that most of the sheep I see up and down the valley are not locals. Apparently, they come from further east, mainly Colorado. When it's too cold for them to find food, the owners load them up on trucks and bring them to the grass seed fields of the Willamette Valley (grass seed capital of the world, or so they say). During the winter, the fields are just sitting there, so the ranchers get a cheap place to feed their sheep, the farmers get a little extra money, the sheep get abundant food and temperate weather, and the grass gets chewed up and crapped on. Supposedly, this is good for the grass. Whatever.

A Couple More Hawaii Pics

I was sitting on a jetty in front of the Hale Koa hotel and this was about the best sunset I got to see. January is just not the time for the best sunset-viewing weather. I did like the sun coming through the clouds though. Franny calls these God rays.

I had a tough time getting myself lined up with Diamond Head. This was the best I came up with. I'm sure everyone is sorry for me that I was there by myself. (Would have been better with company though...)

Promised Pics of Hawaii (1 month late)

Here goes nothing. Can Dave post a picture? How about 5?

Some sort of natural lava arch. I just liked it.

The beginning of many miles of lava that crossed Chain of Craters Road in the last 20 odd years. 10 or 20 miles down the road it also covered an entire town. Not crazy fast like the movies. No, these poor people had to watch their town covered and destroyed in slow motion. Apparently some people have started to rebuild above their old houses, even though it just a thick layer of rock. As one local put it, that's where you build if that happens to be the only pile of rocks that you own. I guess if you had beach front property, you made out like a bandit, what with all the new rocks in your front yard.

This is where the lava was actually entering the ocean on the day we were there. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to walk out to it. Apparently it's quite a fireworks show at night.

I saw a lot of postcards that appeared to have posed pictures kind of like this, but as far I could tell, this was the real thing. I was standing on about 6 or 8 feet of lava that had crossed the road and trapped a sign. I was impressed that I could read this one. Another sign that might have been a speed limit sign had all of the black paint burned (melted/boiled?) off and was just white.

Here I was standing in the crater if Kilauea looking down into the caldera, or maybe vice-versa. Anyway it was steaming all around us and it struck me as odd that I was standing around playing tourist in the crater of an active volcano. Not active like Mt. Hood is technically active. This one is currently dumping molten lava into the ocean. What a strange place for a photo op.

More Reviews

I saw a couple more movies this week.

Fantastic Four: I saw this movie in Eugene Monday night on HBO. For free. I still think I got ripped off. I'm not sure what my problem is. I was never a big comic book guy, but I did like the ideas behind some of the stories, so I still want the movie adaptations to be good. The problem is that they rarely are. This one is no exception. Lots of special effects and such, but not much else. So of course it made a lot of money and has a sequel coming and I'll probably end up seeing that too sometime. I'm an idiot. The thing is, it's exactly what I expected, but I watched it anyway. Kind of like rubbernecking. If you haven't seen this yet, don't bother. If you have, feel sorry for me.

The Departed: This was excellent. Maybe not best picture excellent, but damn good anyway, and what the hell, Scorsese's had this coming for years. Franny and I both enjoyed this and I would definitely recommend it. Maybe not for Tutu, but for anyone else.