Adventures
Walking the cheetah
Great zoos are hard to find. There are good reasons for this, the primary one being cost. Keeping a Siberian tiger healthy and happy takes a lot of money. Another good reason is habitat. Koalas, for example, eat nothing but fresh eucalyptus leaves – you can’t even give them frozen ones. Housing arctic polar bears … Continue reading
Carmel, Monterey and 17-Mile Drive
On Saturday the dogs got bored. They said, “Look, Dad – it’s not raining! A nice sunny day, kinda warm temperatures, a full tank of gas… Please, Dad, can we take a ROAD TRIP?” (Those of you who know my dogs recognize this as pure fiction. They would never say “please”.) So I grabbed some … Continue reading
Tillamook crabs
I went crabbing yesterday on Netarts Bay with my brother-in-law Chris and my niece Kim. It was not my first time crabbing – Chris introduced me to the sport a few years back – but it was my most productive. We caught 9 good-sized Dungeness crabs. Chris cooked them and I now have two of … Continue reading
Heavy weather
We are still hunkered down at the Seven Feathers casino and RV park in Canyonville, OR. The weather is awful here and worse along the coast. There were gusts of over 80mph all along the Oregon coast today, including one of 98mph at one location – that’s a category 2 hurricane. We felt gusts that … Continue reading
Las Vegas: Shows
Jett and I were in Vegas in 2005 but did not attend any of the shows because we are cheap. As much as we love Shania Twain’s music, we would rather hear it for free on the radio – or pay $10 for a CD that we can keep for years – than shell out … Continue reading
GTW Hop 8: Hillsville, VA, to Heiskell, TN
225 miles via VA 100, I-81, I-40 and I-75. Cumulative distance: 1,303 miles. It just keeps getting worse. Another day, another blowout. This one occurred at 60 mph in the middle lane of a very busy I-81 on a downhill curve near Wytheville, VA, less than 30 miles into our 225-mile journey. It was the … Continue reading
GTW Hop 7: Luray, VA, to Hillsville, VA
207 miles via US 340, I-81 and VA 100. Cumulative distance: 1,078 miles. We traveled to Hillsville for one reason and one reason only: it was just over 200 miles from Luray. We have determined that we don’t want to travel more than 230 miles in a day, that being the comfortable limit of a … Continue reading
GTW Hop 5: Gettysburg, PA, to Lorton, VA
101 miles via PA 116, US 15, I-270, I-495, I-95 and VA 600 and 242. Cumulative distance: 775 miles. A ding-a-day. It is the theme of this trip. It would be more accurate to say “ding a hop” but that doesn’t have quite the same ring. So a ding-a-day it is. The Hop 5 ding … Continue reading
GTW Hop 1: Northwood, NH, to Warwick, MA
105 miles via US 202, NH 9, 10 and 78 and MA 78. Cumulative distance: 105 miles. FYI: “GTW” stands for Great Trip West. This was a nice trip, right up until we got to the Wagon Wheel campground. The problem? We didn’t know that we had arrived. We were relying on the GPS and … Continue reading
Madison, WI
I was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. I attended grade school there. I graduated from high school there (Robert M. LaFollette Sr. Junior/Senior High School – say it a few times). I played Little League there. I attended church there. I ran around the neighborhood, unfettered by rules (but with the knowledge that I … Continue reading