Good weather........

[chefboy2160]

Its here, good weather in the northern hemisphere.So , what are you going to do with your time off of work in this lovely season? My list includes camping , swimming ,Farmers market visits, hikes, star parties(yes Im an amature astronomer)and of course cooking outdoors (BBQ)!I wish travel was involved in my plans this summer but all we are looking at is the Grand Canyon star party perhaps.So tell me, what fun shall you be involved with during this good weather? Doug....................

[Headless Chicken]

No plans, will be stuck indoors all weekday long working till the weekends when it starts to rain. Mother Nature just loves me

[phatch]

In light of the Grand Canyon comments, here's a Usenet post I've saved:

The recent posting on the Grand Canyon mini-vacation inspired me to post
my script for setting backgrounds.

It displays a live picture of the Canyon during daytime hours, and a live
picture of the Arizona sky from Kitt's Peak at night.

The pictures are updated every 15 minutes.

Alas, it only works on Linux systems. If you run one of the "lesser"
operating systems <g>, you can download the Granyon Canyon image at
http://www2.nature.nps.gov/air/WebCa...cacam/grca.jpg
This one gets updated by the NPS about every 15 minutes.

And the night sky image at
http://concam.net/kp/annotated.jpg
This one gets updated every few minutes, it seems like.

Keeps my mind refreshed, knowing that there are places like that around.

Here goes:

#!/bin/sh
if [ -n "$DISPLAY" ] ; then
DISPLAY_SIZE=`xdpyinfo | grep "dimensions:" | awk '{print $2}'`
DISPLAY_WIDTH=`echo $DISPLAY_SIZE | cut -dx -f1`
DISPLAY_HEIGHT=`echo $DISPLAY_SIZE | cut -dx -f2`
while [ 1 ] ; do
wget --cache=off -q -O ~/myimage.jpg http://www2.nature.nps.gov/air/WebCa...cacam/grca.jpg
if [ `ls -s ~/myimage.jpg | awk '{print $1}'` -le 4 ] ; then
wget --cache=off -q -O ~/myimage.jpg http://concam.net/kp/annotated.jpg
fi
SIZE=`identify ~/myimage.jpg | awk '{print $3}' | cut -d= -f1`
WIDTH=`echo $SIZE | cut -dx -f1`
HEIGHT=`echo $SIZE | cut -dx -f2`
XZOOM=$((100*$DISPLAY_WIDTH/$WIDTH))
YZOOM=$((100*$DISPLAY_HEIGHT/$HEIGHT))
xloadimage -geometry 1152x864 -fullscreen -display $DISPLAY -onroot \
-xzoom $XZOOM -yzoom $YZOOM ~/myimage.jpg
sleep 900
done
fi

Hmm, seems the indenting messed up in the html display. Shouldn't effect the program though.

It's pretty cool actually. Check the links even if you don't run linux.

Phil

[Peachcreek]

The Blue Forest of the Eden Valley hasn't been a forest for close to 50 million years. The low hills of western Wyoming stretch out unencumbered by trees for miles in every direction, the only thing breaking the horizon is the occasional oil well or gas pipeline. I go there rockhounding several times a year looking for opalized petrified wood. I was out 3 weeks ago for the first time this year. The higher than average snowfall last winter made acsess difficult because of the runoff- lots of mud, so my favorite digging spot was off limits. Still it was beautiful, saw lots of pronghorn antelope and a big herd of elk. Really cool.
Last week the family went to Yellowstone Park to see all the baby animals. We saw lots of buffalo, a herd of bighorn sheep, elk and deer. Wanted to see a moose but did't in the time we had. Spring is a great time to visit the western national parks because of the lack of crowds. They are much more relaxing without the lines of people and traffic you encounter in the summertime. This weekend I will be out again- maybe Topaz Mountain. I always have good luck there.

[Peachcreek]

Went to the City of Rocks and did some hiking this weekend. Beautiful.
http://www.nps.gov/ciro/home.htm

[chefboy2160]

Beautiful looking area peachcreek!I'll bet you realy had a good time there.I will definately have to put this on my list of spots to visit.
My son and I did a day hike on the Thomas creek trail off of Mt. Rose highway yesterday and man was it peaceful.Its an old trail the indians used to travel between the washoe valley and lake Tahoe. With what we do for a living this is such a relaxing diversion from our normaly stress filled occupations.Keep on enjoying the natural beauty and peace of our beautiful world.Doug.......................

[Peachcreek]

Went up to Montana this weekend and saw elk, moose, a herd of bighorn sheep and some buffalo, lots of birds. No green ogres. And it snowed all weekend!

[phatch]

We went to Dinosaur National Monument as my kids are the age where Dinosaurs are important.

Today was a trip to the ever shrinking town where my dad was born and my mom is buried. Then a side excursion to a local hot springs with water slides and other nonsense.

I'm tired.

Phil

[chefboy2160]

Sounds like a good memorial day weekend for you both! I love the links you gave phatch as they are very inspirational to look at while cooped up at work or home.Also sounds like you made a good trip this past weekend for you and the family!Dinasours,yes kids love them and so do I.
Peachcreek, sounds like you and yours are realy having some seriouse fun.
These experiences we give our children now will give them the stories and the reason to take there families on adventures when they grow older.WOW peachcreek, all of that wildlife and snow to boot!Must have been a blast.
My son and I took saturday off and did our household chores and then tackled a 12 mile day hike in the Mt. Rose wilderness area on sunday starting at 5:30 AM and finishing at 12:30 PM. My son wants us to get in good enough shape to do MT. Whitney next year ! Man Im still tired from this last jaunt but who can realy argue with your childs wishes when they are so good. I realy feel that getting out of the kitchen and enjoying the beauty of our world not only helps us cope with our stress filled jobs but also helps us to bond with those who we love and hold so dear. So whats up for this weekend , or perhaps next? Peace , Doug..............

[Peachcreek]

We try to get out as much in the summer as we can. This weekend we are camping. We bought a huge "condo" tent for the kids and us. I think we will end up in Montana again (different part) to dig quartz crystals and go sit in a hot springs. The weekend after that I'm busy cooking with two big back to back caterings. Then the weekend after that we have tentatively have planned to go camping in a fairly remote area of central Idaho for a few days to do some rockhounding again. A place with a really cool name: The Dismal Swamp. Maybe I'll sight that green ogre yet!

[chefboy2160]

This last sunday my son wanted to hike Mt. Rose which is a 12 mile round trip from the trailhead. On our way up in the car we had a bear cross our path about 10 feet in front of us.We stopped and the bear stopped and it gave us a once over and continued down the road. This happened at about 5:10 AM so it was a great way to start the day.We hit the trailhead at 5:30 and did not finish until 12:30.Man were we whipped.The hike was made harder by the many snow fields we traversed and the altitude increase. Not to mention that the wind was blowing very hard at the summit and it was freezing there. The summit was 10,766 feet and we were only able to stay for about 20 minutes. The view was awesome though, you can see lake Tahoe, Truckee,Reno and the Carson valley as well as Mt. Lassen.
This weekend we have planned some smaller jaunts,a 4 mile hike on saturday with a 6 mile hike for sunday.Gotta take it easy sometime is what I tell my son(and my feet).The outdoor adventure just makes work so much better no matter how you do it.So whos next?Doug.................

[phatch]

Wednesday evening, the plan was to season some cast iron and do a bit of charcoal and dutch oven cooking. So of course, the storm came in a day earlier than forecast when we were finalizing plans for the week.

The cast iron seasoning was being done in a covered gas grill, so that proceeded without trouble.

The "Dutch Oven Potatoes" was a bit different story. In calm neutral temp weather, 24 coals should be all this needs for both top and bottom. With the wind and cooler temps, with little spits of rain, it took all 24 of those coals on the bottom for rendering the bacon, sauteing the onion, garlic. And to get it all to simmer properly too. So another 10 coals were fired up for some top heat to finish it off. Once there was enough heat, cooking proceeded properly.

There was just time to eat it before the rain really broke.

Phil

[Peachcreek]

Took the family and some friends to Dismal Swamp this weekend. Nearly a 7 hour drive back into the mountains of central Idaho over some large summits and down to the Middle Fork of the Boise River. It was a little cooler than we had hoped for, and it did end up snowing briefly while we were there. There was also a lot of snow left on the hillsides and roads the farther we went and finally turned around when I high-centered my vehicle and we had to pull me out.....guess the roads closed, eh? We did a lot of exploring and digging with only minimal finds- a few choice smoky quartz crystals maybe an inch long.
The campsite was beautiful. It looked to be a hunting camp, but with hunting season 4 months off the area was deserted. We heard two trucks go by the road in two days. It was also our first camping trip with our one year old. He loved it. This weekend I am debating between going back to Montana for the weekend to meet friends to go dig, or, paint the restaurant...Decisions, decisions...

[chrose]

Most of this summer will be spent puttering around the house building, painting and coaxing my herbs, peppers and veggies to grow. But as I mentioned in another post, we are headed to Anchorage, Alaska next week. We are going to visit my sister and to show my wife and son where I used to live, work, etc. We will be mostly Anchorage based, but are planning on going to Seward and take a ferry to Halibut Cove , across the Kachemak Bay. Fishing for Salmon on the Kenai Peninsula, see Portage Glacier and my other sisters house in Girdwood. We should be there in time to catch the Girdwood Forest Fair as well.
I'll give a report and have pics to post (I hope) upon my return.

[Headless Chicken]

I'm heading for Detriot this weekend for a friend's graduation party. Never been to Detriot before and a bunch of us are driving down there via Sarnia (sp?), Windsor tends to have a long lineup at customes since a lot more people pass throught there when crossing the boarder. Drive should take shy of 4h.