No bars in more places

Yep, that should be AT&T's new slogan. When I got to Greenville I wanted to call Karen and let her know I had made it there safely I was surprised to see that I had no bars at all on my cell phone. Now we had always had cell service on her property so it was a little surprising that now there was none. There was a little new snow on the mountains so maybe that could account for it but still it was a little disconcerting not to be able to make a call. I walked around the property thinking maybe I was in a dead spot but to no avail. In desperation I restarted my phone and got one bar and I was able to talk for a short time but after that the service was terrible and kept dropping my calls so I got frustrated and gave up.

Ya just gotta love that advertising campaign that AT&T has, unfortunately that's all it is and it's really not true in reality and their service really sucks instead. Go AT&T... to you know where, that is!

On the road again

Woke up this morning at Tracey's to rain pouring down. I guess that's preferable to snow falling so it's ok with me but I'm hoping that when I get back to the mountains later today I won't be seeing too much of the white stuff there. I'm going down through Napa to visit Bill for a short time before heading back to Greenville and since I have never been down that way it will be a new drive for me.

Tomorrow I have another long drive in store for me, back to Idaho and that one is a route I know well. As much as I have enjoyed my trip out here I can't wait to get back to see my beautiful lady and as she wraps up the end of tax season we have plenty of free time in our future. Ya gotta love that!

Sunny California

Ok, maybe the weather this year has been anything but sunny but it's a might warmer than it is were I live. I got snowed on all day when I was in Greenville and the roads the next day were a mess all the way down to Mineral. Then the next day it rained so hard that the streets were flooding in Anderson where I was holed up at my sister's house trying to stay warm and dry.

I ended up meeting up with Bob and Dennis a day late due to the bad weather and Monday when we all met at the lake the rain was really coming down. There were some heavy showers going on that day and we were out in the boat trying to fish when one of them moved over us. We finally got a break on Tuesday and then Wednesday was just beautiful and we were finally able to get the heavy coats and sweatshirts off for a while. Unfortunately poor Dennis was sick and ended up going home when we got back to camp. The good thing that happened that day was that in the evening we saw some fish activity in the cove where we were camping and when I went down to throw a spinnerbait I started catching some really nice bass. I ended up catching the same number there that I did all day in about a half an hour and some of them were nice and chunky. Ya gotta love that!

So now I'm over in Fortuna till Monday when I head down to Napa to see Bill on my way back to Greenville for the night then Tuesday back to Idaho. Of course there is yet another storm coming for Sunday and Monday so my drive might be a little wet, I just hope it's not the color white.

Rain, snow, cold...

Yep, global warming alright! Since I'm getting ready to go camping again the rain and snow have started again. It has to be because I'm going camping you know, there couldn't be any other reason. Well, it doesn't matter much if a person goes prepared for the conditions so that's what I'll have to do, but it sure would be nice to have some warm sunny weather.

Today is my last day working for H&R Block and I'll be off to California the day after tomorrow. I still have some preparations to do to get ready to go and I'll get those done tomorrow. So this morning it's off to work... ya gotta love it!

Gettin' ready to travel again!

Yep, this time I'm going fishing in California at Lake Shasta. I'm leaving next Thursday and will be there for a couple of weeks all told. Last year I only went fishing one time all year so a week of fishing will be nice. Of course seeing my buddy's Bob and Dennis will be making it a good trip, no doubt. I always like getting together with those guys and we always have a lot of fun. It used to be that we had a lot of fun together at work but now all of us are retired and living in different parts of the country.

Another good thing about my upcoming trip is that I get to see my daughter Tracey and my grand kids. In fact, I'm going to try and make the rounds and see Colleen, Sue and Bill all on that same trip.

The weather here in Idaho has moderated some, it snowed yesterday but there have been some warm sunny days since we got back last Saturday and most of the snow on the ground is gone now from the winter. There is still a small pile at the edge of the driveway where I piled it up when I was shoveling. Karen's pond was frozen over for too long and she lost all her fish, which is a shame since she had some sizable koi in there and they are quite expensive to replace. I keep waiting for global warming to kick in but I think another ice age is upon us instead. To be honest about it, human kind would do much better under a global warming scenario than they would under an ice age one.

Mengel Pass

Here is a little video of us going through Mengel Pass.

It was in pretty good shape compared to other video's I have seen of it.

Back from the warm desert

Well, we got back from the desert on Saturday evening after a nice 2 week trip. Unfortunately the weather could have been much better for both of us but it wasn't bad all the time. The first night it snowed on us and the first picture is what it looked like in the morning when we woke up. I was really hoping that wasn't going to set the pace for the rest of the trip and it didn't so that was good. It actually warmed up later in the day and I was even able to walk into Darwin Falls with my shirt off to get some sun.


I was planning on doing a blog update from Furnace Creek Visitor's Center since they have free wifi but the laptop had a battery issue and we didn't have enough juice to be able to do much of anything. Oh well, that's the way it goes. We did some pretty gnarly 4-wheeling and we got some video of it that I might post here next time. The Jeep was great and the short wheel base really helped maneuvering around the many rocks and other obstacles. Like I told Karen, we took the worst roads I knew of in the park on this trip and never had a problem.

One funny thing was that we ran into a guy in a campground in Death Valley that looked familiar to Karen and indeed he should have since he was the guy who drilled her well in Greenville. Talk about a small world, huh? We finished the trip in Saline Valley at the hot springs where we stayed for 3 nights but Karen wasn't too thrilled about the nudity there. The weather in Saline was in the 80's and that was nice but the last night a storm blew through with the worst winds I have ever seen out there. The drive out Steel Pass was uneventful and the road was like I remember it, not too bad.