Christmas stuff

 Even though we don't get to enjoy it over the holiday we decorated the house and got  a real tree.  The tree lights are two color LED with a remote to change the colors.

Technology

This is now what controls the outside lights and Christmas lights at our house.

Catch up

I'm going to do a catch up post since I have been ignoring the blog lately.  They will probably be mostly pictures.

1:I think one of the oldest things I missed was my trip to RI.  I went there for a week for training, so there really wasn't much to blog about.  I did take an evening to run over to Newport and explored some of the south end of the island.  The amazing thing here were the old houses (mansions) and from reading some of the plaques, most are still private residences. SLIDE SHOW

2: Luna got a life-vest that we have yet to use

3: We went to Vegas for a wedding and went to the Shelby museum and wax museum too

4: Then there was Halloween

5. A trip to go play in the snow

Sometimes when you are short you have trouble with deep snow.

6: Went hiking outside of Ridgecrest.

7: The most recent thing was the LA Auto Show, Pretty much got to drive my dream car there. PICTURES

More about Luna

We went to the vet today to get some puppy dog cough medicine, and she believes the shelters guess of 1-2 years old was way off and that she is only 6 months to a year old based on her very white smile and how she acts.

Luna

She has a name finally.  She also has a bit of a cough, hopefully she will get over that soon.  She weighs 46 lbs and her shoulders are about at our knee height.  It seems she is house trained, she is learning the crate very quickly and hasn't barked yet.

The unnamed puppy dog

Laguna Seca

Way back in July we took a trip with some of our friends up to Monterrey to watch Continental Tires Grand-Am and GT Series races.  

The eventual race winner.

The two cars above crashed together near the end of the race.

There was also a nice little car show and parade lap.

 Picture Slideshow

Death Valley 6-10-11

A few weekends ago a group of us from work took an overnight camping trip into Death Valley. We left Friday morning and returned Saturday night. We left Ridgecrest and headed north to Olancha. From there we hit dirt roads and would not see much pavement again for the next 200 miles.

 

 As we started north into the park we began to climb in elevation.  We were driving through the pine trees and the temperature was a pleasant 65 degrees.  Sadly, this was not going to last and we would soon drop into the valleys where the predicted high was near 100.

 

Our first real stop, besides a quick lunch break during the descent, was at Tea Kettle Junction.  As you can see people bring tea kettles from all over and leave them, usually with a message, at the junction's sign.  Next stop: the Race Track. 

The Race Track (I also suggest viewing the night time panoramic shot on the Wiki page in full size) is famous for its mysterious moving rocks that leave paths across the dry lake bed.

Some of the paths were quite interesting, making zig-zag marks, for others it appeared as though the rocks had split into multiple pieces during their travels.

Our next stop from here was the Ubehebe Crater, it was getting later in the day when we got there and the wind was fairly strong so we decided against the hike around the crater. 

Although the pictures don't really show it the crater is half a mile wide and 500 to 777 feet deep.

As I said the wind was quite strong and the updraft out of the crater was amazing.

From the crater we headed to our camping spot at the Eureka Dunes.  There was still a fair bit of wind when we got there but it calmed as the sun went down.  We made a dinner of fajitas with a dutch oven peach cobbler for desert.

The next morning we got up and went and played on the dunes, I quickly overdid it climbing one quickly and made myself feel sick for a bit.  We went back down to camp and had a breakfast of bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast burritos with pancakes.

We broke camp and one truck took off for the highway route back home while the other two of us circled to the other side of the dunes to take another off-road trail back.  Our progress was quickly haulted when we got to a (the) rough section of the trail.  It looked bad enough that the trucks probably would have come out with body damage so we turned back.

We headed out where the other truck had gone towards Big Pine.

We stopped and ate at a local place when we got to Big Pine.  Then we proceeded down Highway 14 back to Ridgecrest.  A total trip of about 320 miles, with well over half being off-road and no problems, not bad for  a truck with ~150,000 miles.

More Pictures Here!  Password is dv2011

Grill time

We bought a grill the other day, took it out of the box and the lid was crunched.  So, two days I took it back and waited for Home Depot to go through their boxes until they found a good one...the third box off the top shelf.  We assembled it in the garage the next day and then a few days later got the first food (burgers) grilled.  We have since done burgers again and kabobs tonight.

  

Home Improvement

Here are the pictures of some of the improvements that were made with the help of both our parents.  The original plan was to have Angela's parents help us paint and my parents help us move.  It turned into the opposite, mostly due to moving time constraints.  The paint change in the bathroom is the most obvious and biggest.  Its harder to see the changes in the colors of the living room and into the kitchen, but it really changed the house and made it feel more like home.

Other upgrades are Angela's kitchen faucet that dad installed, and risers for the shower heads in both bathrooms, ours also got a new shower head.