Two weeks at a time

It has been another two weeks so I guess the time to write a new post is here. Last weekend of course we had some parties to attend to. The party was fun and there were many people all dressed up.
Here are Drew, Amy, and Makenna...AKA Tinkerbell, Peter Pan, and Wendy.

Here are a few of the carved pumpkin. The winning Obama one is one the left.

Brenda and I were on our way to a 50's dance and stopped off at the party. The draw of Beer and food were too much for us to resist.

Then the party turned ugly...I mean we really got to know each other better and discussed our feelings.

Here is my glowing eye pumpkin. I did not have a pattern or any idea what I was going to do until about 10min before I got this.

A few of the carving participants.

The next day was actually Halloween and we got to go over to one of my co-workers house who was having a BBQ. I am not sure if you have played this game before, but there were three horizontal bars and we each had three ropes with a golf ball at each end. It took a while to get the hold of it, but I ended up doing OK.

Here is Megan and Sharon throwing the balls.

Sunday I got the chance take a ride up Page Mill road. It was a great day. Page mill is a great twisty road in the nice part of town(usually I see numerous Ferrari's, Maserati's and the like). Roads in a part of town like this are smooth and fun to drive.

Here is one of the great lookouts that day. Within about 15min there are so many roads around here to ride it is awesome.

Yesterday Brenda and I took the bike to Dublin to watch the jr. high's flag football game. We had a good ride and the game went well(they got second in the championship). The refs were different story. Usually it is the fans complaining about the refs, but these two idiots got into several altercations between each other. The refs were yelling at each other and saying that the other did not know what they were doing. All of this in front of the kids and the fans. Never had I seen two bigger fools in all my life. What these two needed was a good knock across the face with a rubber hose.

Here are the kids.

Another thing I wanted to comment on was this new health care crap. Sure health care is overpriced. You want cheaper drugs and care, go to Mexico. I got three prescriptions down there for $17 where one up here with insurance helping was $30. What kind of crap is this? Someone is scamming the system and I know there is a better way, but do not know what it is. There is one thing that I am certain of, anything Pelosi or Boxer are a part of is not going to work. They have some weird distorted version of how the world works and live is a fantasy land where they are the only ones who matter and are always right. Those are two crazy women that no one should listen to.

I want a politician who does not beat around the bush and admits when they are wrong. Don't consider feeding me anything else, but the truth.

Boat Drags

This weekend we really were missing the country and good old redneck activities so we decided we should do something about it. I checked online and found that there was going to be an enduro race in Madera (2hrs away) and we decided to go. The enduro consists of demolition quality cars racing on a track that has soap and pumpkins smashed all over it. The race goes 100 laps one direction, and then goes 100 laps the other direction. There are no rules..no stops for crashes...and lots of carnage.

There were a lot of interesting people there, but not the redneck hicks I was hoping for.


Notice the yellow trike is actually half of a car.
There were a bunch of trikes that took a couple of laps for some unknown reasons. There were a bunch of custom trikes and a few even had wheelie bars and some did a few wheelies.

Some of the actual racing (done by professionals). I use that term loosely because the second place driver in the race was a 14yr old kid. He beat a lot of people and it was amazing.

Some of the sprints

Some scenes from the pumpkin smash. Notice the 4' tall gaudy trophies.
Burnout...stuck on the infield.

For the grand finale..Boat drags. This is not boat racing, but it is cars racing around the track with boats tied to the back. The last car with the boat attached wins. Needless to say this was a great time and crazy crashes were everywhere.

Lined up for the race

Fireworks were fairly impressive.

Another parting shot.

I have attached this video of the boat drags for those of you who would like a good laugh.

Indiana in the fall

So last weekend we went out to the great state of Indiana, a state I have not seen in about 9 years. Brenda's sister and her family live out there and we thought this would be a great time to go and see them. Here are the Voyagers arriving by canoe. It rained all day Friday, but cleared up for the feast on Sat and Sun. It was very muddy and a bit cold, but that is just the taste of the midwest Brenda and I wanted.

There also were some Scot's in the area so they had a caber toss for fun as well.

Dan is a woodworker and he has the booth at the Feast of the Hunters Moon. This is a get together to celebrate the French Voyagers history of the area. Dan has a booth where he has kids turn a giant wheel and the wheel turns a lathe. The kids get a chance to pick out a figure for Dan to turn on the lathe and then he makes it and gives it to them.

Part of the requirement to work in the booth is that you had to dress in the period clothing. So Brenda and I got to partake and dress accordingly. I told them all I needed was a loin cloth, but for some reason they insisted that I wear the knickers.

Baking some Bread.

There was a blackpowder reliability test and the guy firing right now is just wearing a loin cloth. He was so hardcore.

Dan also had another guy at the booth who turned some wood toys for the kids and gave him some breaks.

Abby was very happy...and I am holding her, so I guess she likes me.

Here are the girls.

Finally the last day we had time to go for a walk around the neighborhood and found a pumpkin patch.

Great time was had by all and we are so glad we went out to Indiana.

Brenda with her cloak and the girls.

Triathalon

Quick update on what is up. I am now out of town north of Reno working at the Sierra Army Depot and very busy. Last weekend Brenda had a triathlon and it was fun. She did great and it looked like she also had a good time, but I cannot think of how running can be fun.
My beefy woman.

Hot...so hot.

I guess it was not all seriousness at the triathlon, but here is Brenda having fun.

The weekend before I went camping, fishing, and hiking near Saddlebag lake outside of Yosemite with some guys from the church. I can upon these on one of the hikes.Bear tracks.

Here we are at the top of mount Coness in this picture. Great hike, but I should have brought a jacket.

Nice view down the valley.

Here I am at the peak...with the Def Leppard shirt.

You could see half dome from the top and much of Yosemite.

All in all it was a great time and we caught some fish as well. Just a quick update, but that is all I have time for now.

Def Leppard and Camping

Last week we got the opportunity to go to a Def Leppard/Poison/Cheap Trick show at the Shoreline. I of course got the hairband mullet wig out and made a Def Leppard/Poison T-shirt. It was awesome and there were a few others there that got dressed up as well.
Like this guy. I guess this was the only band shirt he had.

Crazy guitar with 5 necks. I was waiting for them to drag that thing out the whole time they were up there and then finally at the end...there it was.

My woman also had a fake hair extensions in that put her as a 10 on the hotness chart.

Here is our group

I got a lot of women that wanted their picture with me..,.so I obliged. Brett is laughing because he tried to pull me over about 5 seconds earlier.

On Friday we left for the Backpacking in the Sierras Trip. We took the bike.

Here it is.

At the trailhead there is a tungsten mine abandoned in the 60's, but kept in working order if the price of tungsten ever rises again. The trailhead was about 7500' and the pass we were crossing was a 11600. It was a very hard first day.

Looking to Nevada.

Nice views the whole way up, but about a million switchbacks.

Here is the meadow just on the other side of the pass. We camped down by the river in a great spot.

Here we are at the pass...very tired. Brenda is doing her best to keep a smile.

The next day we just went for a day hike to Merriam lake. It was about a 1.5 hr hike and a great lake to relax next to all day.
Our private camp with a waterfall in the background.

Very clear water with great trout fishing.

I caught 4 golden trout and it was great. The fishing in the middle of the day was not great, so I read a book for a while.

Brenda and I are blocking a great peak.

Great views everywhere.

On the hike out I threw my line in and about 5 seconds after it hit the water I had one...if all fishing was this easy. These trout were Brookies.

Brenda exiting the wilderness.

I noticed that the tread on the bike had dropped drastically on Saturday and wanted to keep an eye on it on the way home. We stopped at a gas station in Bridgeport and this is what I saw...Steel belts showing us that our motorcycle journey was over. With no services within 90mi we were SOL. A tow was over $500 for 90 mi and there was not an open tire place until the next day. Not good.

Kevin to the rescue. I called Schenk and explained our problem and proposed a solution of him picking us up in his truck (we were 3 hrs away) and then drive us home (5 hrs) and the go back to his house (1.5 hrs). He said he would not let us down and accepted. This is a true friend and I am glad that he helped us out. I don't know what else we would have done, but Kevon really came through and we will not forget it.

Here I am waiting for the great Kevin Schenk.

Pour some Sugar on Me