Weekend fun

Thought you'd like to see a bit of what my camera saw.

Walk Worthy May 13, 2011

Sure was a hot and humid day for the 2011 running of Walk Worthy. For fun, Mr. Ritzema and Mrs. Thomas told the elementary students that students raising $1000 for the school could put a pie in either of their faces. Actually, Tim and Dana Boyd's two kids raised enough so they could each smash two pies in faces. And, Mr. Ritzema and Mrs. Thomas decided to allow the student in each class who had gotten the largest number of donors to do the pie thing. And, with hot temps and fun attitudes, the whipped cream traveled a bit from person to person. I know Nathan had fun with it :)

Yupper...They did it!

Perfectly good weather for running in the River Bank Run. The senior member of the team put out a great time in his first 5k ever. One of four 64 year old men and nine 64 year old women to run the 5k, out of almost 5000 runners, he did it under 30 minutes, placing him 22nd in the group of 59 men from 60-64.

Congrats to all the guys for a race well done. Mike S met his 'under 2 hours' goal. Eric came in at 2h, 03 minutes. Mike K, inspite of fighting shin splints, came in just over 2h, 18 minutes. Whew! And I got up at 4:30 a.m.

West Virginia Spring Break Escape 2011

Our latest West Virginia Spring Break Escape included so much fun! Jenna FINALLY got her birthday present from us. And, we got in on Micah's birthday party just three days early!

On the way home we wandered around a whole day in some of the more remote areas of WV. After hearing of Cheryl Michael's amazing buys at the Rio (rye-oh) Flea Market, and figuring we were ready for anything after the markets in The Gambia, Timbuktu, and Cleveland, we made that a destination. We've already installed the amazingly cheap bungie cords on the sawdust trailer, and the Frugal Farmer's new castors look terrific reposing gracefully in the workshop.

Seneca Rocks area caught our attention. We'll go back when we can choose a spring trip that matches the scenery rather than the school calendar.

One thing that really surprised us, traveling across West Virginia, was the number of small farms we saw in the valleys.

And, of course, the wind farm near the border between Ohio and Indiana seemed appropriately trendy. Those mills dwarfed the machines working around them!

27 years ago

Wow! What's happened to us since January of 1984?

Hoover Dam and new bridge

Most definitely, the Hoover Dam is amazing -- every time we see it.  Two years ago, seeing the new Mike O'Callaghan Pat Tillman Bridge almost finished entranced my engineer.  Seeing it finished kept us wandering around the area way too long.

I've chosen four pictures to post. The one that looks like a giant transformer is from the bridge, shows the the scope of the dam itself, with the beginning of 110 mile Lake Mead at the top, all overshadowed by the bridge.  The other three are my attempt to capture the scale of this engineering marvel.  One is from the top of the dam, looking at the bridge and down river.  If you zoom in on that photo you will find the van also pictured in the next two photos.  It is beyond the bridge, on the far side of the river, just after the last major cement embankment.

And, then, God created the world and everything in it, and the stars and the firmament and man and the angels -- in six days, before he sat back to admire the beauty of his handiwork.

Groundhog Day Dump