Garage

For the record, my Silverado is as good as new again. It was repaired last week while we were in Colorado.

Also, I may have mentioned before that when I purchased the truck in Wisconsin, I was a little unsure about it fitting through my garage doors back here in Iowa. Well, it did, though barely. If I stopped before entering the garage to fold in each of its side-view mirrors, I could get it through our seven-foot-wide doors with only a few inches to spare on either side. Needless to say, this wasn't the most convenient situation. So, we decided to replace the two garage doors we use for our vehicles with a single door. Eliminating the post would give us quite a bit of room to maneuver.

Here is the end result after yesterday's installation—one door for the garden tractor and a large door for the two vehicles. This may not be quite as attractive as before, but it solves the problem and gives us some better flexibility. Actually, I like it for other reasons too, especially the fact that it feels nice and roomy for loading and unloading and for moving things like our recycling bins out to the curb. I have a little touchup painting to do, but otherwise, we are good to go.

Patty's Birthdaty!

Today is my sweet cousin Patty's birthday. You will enjoy this picture of her celebration, which might have occurred more than a few years ago.

Because she lives too far away, her brother and I could not be with her for any of today's gala events. Nevertheless, we celebrated on her behalf with a breakfast at the Bluebird Diner.

Patty: We enlisted the help of one of Rex's felines to complete this celebration. Please copy this number: 2724816038713. Then click here and enter that number in the upper left corner where it says "Pick up my ecard." (It should be easier than this, right? Wouldn't you think two technology guys could come up with something better?)

Family Get-togethers

Time to get caught up on my postings! About a week ago, after we finally returned from one of our summer visits to the lake, we got together with Rob's family for breakfast. Since we had missed celebrating Penny's birthday on the actual day-of, we used this occasion for that purpose as well. Here are all of Rob's girls with Eleanor giving Penny a hand with the gift opening.

The next day, Kathie and I headed west on our way to see Travis in Colorado. Rather than suffer through a single twelve-hour day of driving, Kathie suggested that we stop in Omaha for one night on the way. Omaha is really a fun town. There are lots of things to see and do there and in near-by Council Bluffs. Sometime we want to spend a longer weekend there, but at least this time we enjoyed seeing a few things, having a terrific steak dinner, and having some fun at a casino (although fun does not equal making any money!).

One of the things I have always glanced at as we drove west in the past was the pair of historic Union Pacific engines on display on a hillside just as you cross the Missouri River and enter Omaha. This time, we were able to stop and see them up close. One is this massive 4-8-8-4 "Big Boy" steam engine. The numbers describe the number of wheels in each set from front to back, and the two eights mean that this brute has 16 drive wheels. The engine weighs about 1.25 million pounds. Its history is an interesting one. The task of moving it to this location for viewing is an interesting final story in its life. There is an interesting sequence of still images at this YouTube location if you are interested in seeing how they got it up onto this hill.

The other engine is a diesel originally manufactured by General Motors' Electromotive Division (EMD). It is officially an EMD DDA40X rated at 6600 horse power. These engines were nicknamed "Centennial." They remain the most powerful single-unit diesels ever built. Kathie's dad worked for EMD as a metallurgist, and so it was with some extra sentiment that she spotted the EMD logo on the engine.

A day later, we arrived in Colorado. Jessica and Maia came to enjoy the week with us too. We had a picnic in a city park one day, and Maia enjoyed her new orange ball.

Maia really, really likes fruit!

We had not been in Colorado to see Travis in quite some time, though we had been together several times elsewhere. We had lots of fun playing golf, miniature golf, swimming, and, of course, just visiting. Oh, and we had lots of great meals and some root-beer floats! (And somehow, I managed not to gain a single pound!)

Not My Best Day

Not even 3,000 miles logged on my new pickup yet, and a deer decided to blast out of the woods and collide with my left front corner this morning while I was driving our garbage and recyclables to the local drop-off point. The nice couple that came up behind me stopped and said they had seen it all. They agreed there was nothing I could have done to avoid this and helped me pick up all the shards off the road. It is still drivable, although the front seat belts are now locked up and the air bag (which didn't deploy) requires at least a reset (the truck is complaining about its condition). We filed our insurance claim and will get the truck back home for repairs this coming Monday.

It was interesting to experience the OnStar service. They called me right away on the pickup and said they had detected a collision and problem. They knew right where I was located and were very insistent about making sure I was OK—must have asked me five times if I needed medical attention or assistance. I suppose they have to make sure someone is not in shock and providing incorrect responses. I also got an email from them detailing some messages from the pickup about the airbag needing attention.

In the grand scheme of things, this is not something about which to be very concerned. Other folks have lots more pressing issues to deal with. However, I'm feeling pretty sad about this nice new truck, which I was attempting to give extra care and attention to keep it nice as well as all the inconvenience these kinds of things create.

Railroading in WI

(It is OK if you decide, after reading this, that the writer of these stories has too much free time on his hands!)

I decided to relocate my Lionel model trains to the lake this year. There are two reasons. One is that it gives me something interesting to do when it is raining or when we are not fishing or otherwise having fun. Second, we have a nice big room in the lower level that lends itself to creating a really nice layout, though I've promised not to leave it assembled indefinitely. Anyway, I finally got around to setting it up, and so I thought I'd share a couple of videos with you.

The first video shows the basic layout with one of the trains operating. I have lots of work yet to do with wiring and creating scenery, and I want to make some adjustments to the table shape, but you can get the general idea. I've also begun to play with my new computer-based controls, which are quite flexible and which allow me to operate multiple trains and other features simultaneously.

The second video is intended especially for my grandkids. I mounted my iPhone on the front of one of my engines, set it to take a video, and then ran it around the track. You'll get the idea when you watch it.

Outing with Friends

Friends and neighbors invited us for a leisurely cruise in their pontoon boat yesterday afternoon.

It was an especially comfortable day and quite pretty on the lake. One of our destinations was R&R Bayview Lodge, where we enjoyed dinner. Next we motored over to a different resort for ice cream. I'm waaaaay off my diet with these outings and need to work in a few more bicycle rides soon!

D&R Visit the Lake

Dick and Rina visited us this past week. We rented a pontoon boat one day and spent nearly all of our time exploring the west side of the flowage, which is a part of the lake we don't often frequent. Along with the usual stimulating conversation and light-heartedness, we fished and picnicked.

Daisy went along with us, and Mom, the official dog lady, spent a fair amount of her time entertaining Daisy.

One morning, Dick and I hired a local guide to teach us a thing or two about muskie fishing. For those of you who may not know, a muskie can be quite large—most of the ones caught here range from 35" to 55", and the world record is something like 68" and 69 pounds. People around here believe there is a muskie in the flowage that could still break this record.

Both Dick and I have had equipment for muskie fishing for some time and have spent hours trying for one of these big fish, but there was a lot we didn't know about choosing areas in which to fish, choice of baits, presentation methods of baits, landing procedures, and lots more. Although we didn't catch one, the outing was well worth the time and cost. The muskie is often referred to as "the fish of a 1000 casts", so one has to be resigned to spending lots of time and casting lots of baits in order to experience the thrill of those 15 minutes when one actually strikes. Our guide told us that there are estimated to be about 7,000 muskies in our lake, so I'm hopeful that one day I'll actually experience one first hand. It can be tiring casting over and over again, because the baits are quite heavy (most are about 10" long and weigh quite a lot).

I must confess that I did become enthused about having a longer rod, so for fun one day, we drove to Park Falls, the home of the St. Croix Fishing Rod Company, and shopped their company store for bargains. I got a slightly blemished rod for about two-thirds the suggested retail price. Seeing some of the manufacturing process was also fun.

Other things we did included visiting some other good friends of Dick and Rina who happen to live on another lake not far from us. We had a lovely dinner and evening with them. However, most of our time was spent fishing. Dick loves to fish—just ask him. He really loves to go fishing. Here we are parked near an island where we picnicked on one of our outings.

Below are some of the success stories. Everyone caught fish at one time or another, but we had the greatest success on the river northeast of our cabin. The smallmouth bass were hungry and plentiful.

Dick loves most of all to present artificial baits and to have a fish blast at it on the surface. He prefers this to "fishing with meat", as he puts it, which involves using worms or minnows or leeches. On this trip, he was more than satisfied with the outcomes, which included this 17" beauty.