Operation Desert Fun

In mid October some friends and us headed down toward the Salton Sea to the Truckhaven off-road area for Operation Desert Fun.  The weather was super windy when we got there so we spent most of the first evening indoors, although we did make ourselves quite a dinner.

Through the canyons

View from our truck

Day 2 was the reason we came, the 4x4 runs.  Both of us having stock trucks we chose to do the easiest run that was available "The Slot."  The run winds its ways through a bunch of tight canyons, through some sandy washes, down the slot, and through a bit of rocky canyon area before heading back to camp on dirt roads.

Lunch break

Down the slot

Again the view from our truck

          

Around the rocks

After the 4x4 run we hopped on the toys and took a quick run to see some other sights in the area that we wanted to see.  This included the Pumpkin patch:

And the gas domes:

Grand Canyon

At the end of September we went to the Grand Canyon (South Rim) with friends and family.  We spent two days walking the trails along the edge and seeing the sights.

Most of the group on the first day

Terry and Angela

A group of pack mules headed out

A posing lizard

 A few of us got up early to see the sun rises

Mom and Angela waiting for sun up

Almost time

During the sunrise looking the other direction

Happy in the early morning

Trouble

More trouble

Content

Our group...well not the grumpy looking one closest to the camera

Host of the campground

Imagine running into this on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night

Chipmonk!

Squirrel!!

Squirrel!!

Angela and I

Dad and Terry

I am hoping that we can make this kind of thing yearly, it was a great time for all.  Hope you all enjoyed this 1% of the photos taken on this trip.

The Camera Survived

After about a week of drying the photos coming from the camera went from this:

To this:

So it appears that all is ok with it, we will see if the charger survived once I wear the battery down some more.

Water Dog

We took Luna to the vet for her shots and checkup. Then we went and played in the river.

We thought she broke her tail somehow as it was floppy for the next few days, but it must have been her feeling down from the medicine.

These will probably be the last of the pictures from this camera as it went swimming shortly after this last one.

Tahoe

We took a trip to Lake Tahoe for our 4th anniversary.  We stayed at Squaw Valley, the site of the 1960 winter Olympics.  While there we went moonlight kayaking, hiking, swimming, tramming, biking, and eating.

Kayaking was the first thing we did when we got there.  It was a sunset tour so we left with the sun up and paddled along the shoreline as the sun went down.  The trip took us about 1.7 miles down the shore as the sunset and then we paddled back in the dark.  None of the photos I took from it really came out, its hard to take a long exposure picture when the boat is moving up and down.

The place we stayed at was really nice and was full of shops and restaurants.  Unfortunately, the bars made it   really hard to sleep as drunks were constantly yelling at each other until 2-3 in the morning and the windows had to be open due to the lack of air conditioning (keep in mind it rarely gets hot there, but was when we went).
We took a drive around the lake and caught a couple of car shows while doing so.  There also ended up being an autocross in the large parking lot next to the hotel while we were there.

They also had a tram that goes up to their High Camp (8200 ft), we received tickets for it with our hotel stay otherwise we would have passed due to the cost.  Up at the top they had swimming, paintball, disc golf, hiking, roller rink, a restaurant, tennis and lots of hiking.  We went swimming, the temperature at that altitude was really nice. They also had the Olympic museum up there.

#1

Angela was not tall enough to ride all the rides.

An overview of where we stayed.

Emerald Bay 

A photo from the drive home.