Open House

The clinic held its open annual house on Memorial Day, offering a free tasty barbecue, kids games, and fire truck and ambulance rides to the community. I had the important and challenging job of "hang around and be friendly." Fairly demanding, I know, but I managed to pull it off.



Senor had Mo-mo (his monkey) checked out by the MDs. Fortunately, he's in good health, despite a bit of encrusted dirt. The Doctor even let Senor use the stethoscope. (Senor didn't appear to enjoy it. But I think he was pleased to learn of the monkeys good health.) The whole experience reminded us a little bit of Lars and the Real Girl.


As always, Pax Rev was entranced by the skate park and the big kids enjoying it.

People were saying this was the first time in many years that the weather actually cooperated.





All tuckered out from the games, cookies, and hamburgers, here's Mister dreaming about the day before, when we hiked up to Bunker Hill...






Here's a nice example of a Quack-Quack, as Mister likes to call every flying creature. (Except owls. He's got owls dialed in.)


After the nap, we decided to take advantage of the blue sky and make a Memorial Day theme of exploring old WWII remains. Which is easy to do around these parts.








Worms!



The exploration continues, up on Strawberry Hill. Mister was the only one in the group small enough to fit in this one. Fortunately for us, he decided to come back out.







Out of the wind, it was pleasantly warm.



And here's a nice example of a tractor, a term according to Senor that encompasses most types of machinery.




"Hey, how's it goin?"

Stomp The Yard II: Unalaska

Plot line: The youngest enrollee ever at UAF I-AC has to prove he has what it takes to Stomp The Yard, Alaska Style. Will he have the moves? the style? the stamina? Little do they know, he's got a secret weapon - his mama's dance moves. She taught him everything he knows... but will it be enough? See this thriller to find out.

Beyond the pride. Beyond the rivalry. Beyond the tradition.

---

He will challenge their traditions. Their traditions will change his life.

---

Give it everything you've got.

In case you're not up to speed with Stomp The Yard (part I, or the prequel as we like to call it):

After the death of his younger brother, a troubled 19-year-old street dancer from Los Angeles is able to bypass juvenile hall by enrolling in the historically black, Truth University in Atlanta, Georgia. But his efforts to get an education and woo the girl he likes are sidelined when he is courted by the top two campus fraternities, both of which want and need his fierce street-style dance moves to win the highly coveted national step show competition.

(We haven't actually seen it (yet), but we've seen the previews so many times it's kind of like we have.)

Blue Sky Sunday

Yet another glorious day!

So there's this cottage on the beach for sale. Asking price, $200,000. Sounds fair, until you get a good look at the cottage. It needs some work. But still, it's tempting. The place initially gave Boppa West Riverside flashbacks but he slowly began to see the potential. The seller thinks a person could put $100,000 into it and then sell it for $500,000. That's dreaming big, for sure. We think he's way off base, but unfortunately, as long as he has that belief it seems highly unlikely that he'll be interested in a low-ball offer. We're thinking more along the lines of buying it for $140, putting $20 into it and selling it for $160. But you never know! Maybe by August...

You might note that the cottage has a fireplace, and the land has some of the only trees on the island. It's actually one of the oldest houses here, pre-dating WWII. A person could beach comb for firewood, and have a subsistence salmon set-net just steps away from the front door. Heat! Food! Practically like living on the Kuskokwim! Walk to work, the pool, the gym. We practically wouldn't even need a car! Which would be a good thing. Especially at the moment. And not just because of the $4+ gas.

This would be the view out the front window. It's too expansive and awesome to actually capture without a wide angle lens, but you get the basic idea.



Our excitement ended early.

Unfortunately, the blue sky Sunday left us feeling a bit blue, and the undercarriage of our car even a bit more blue (as in black and blue) on account of a misperceived large rock. The car still runs well, but it took a few shots to the kisser, particularly in the tranny region. And the muffler region. Gas tank region. Floorboard region. We still don't have the final bill. But the good news is we've finally figured out where our economic stimulus check is going!




Nice solenoid! Unless your a mechanic, and you notice the one that is missing on account of being crushed. Dangit. We've still got our health! Here's to our health, and yours, and Regan's!

Nevada

Well, since heading to America we've completely passed grape week and are well into Kumquat week. In no time at all little racecardriver #2 will be the size of a fig. Mmmmm. All pretty tasty sizes to be, really.

Here's one last Montana shot:



And then it was off to Vegas, for a reunion with my long lost friend Julie from PT school. She's currently super-mom. Here she is pushing the stroller, walking, and nursing Brady simultaneously. I had to study her moves to get myself ready for December.




Here's Julie and little Brady and little Peyton.




Doesn't Peyton look kind of like Senor? I don't think Boppa took any Vegas trips three years ago. Maybe it's their shared Shoshone bloodline. The blonde hair and blue eyes kind of mess up that theory though. Hmmm...

The 90's of Vegas were a bit blisteringly hot for my Aleutian conditioned blood, so it was a minor relief to get back up to Reno and the mid 70's. Aunt Ardie showed us the Reno sights, like the park and the train museum, which Paxson Revel loved. It was her first time meeting Senor. And of course, she graciously welcomed the Williams folks who descended upon her dwelling for a mini-family reunion. Thanks Aunt Ardie!



Here's a shot of Pax Rev getting a horsey ride with his cousins. Technically second cousins, as they are Dawson's first cousins.


Senor loved Reno until his last day, when he did a classic face first P.Rev dive bomb out of the camper, which happened shortly after he recovered from a dive bomb into a large cactus field. The offending cactus is in the background of this picture. In the foreground is the buggy Uncle Dale used to ride into town (Reno) when he was a kid, back when it was still pretty much the wild wild west.



Here's the great grand-parents:




Mister practicing for his future career in extreme sports.

Climbing? Kayaking? Ogling?



Checking out the Reno riverfront and kayak riverfest.





And the auto museum. Racecardriver did not actually love his trip through the auto museum, so it was a 13 minute trip. It probably deserved a more thorough viewing, but we did get to see a nice Back to the Future mobile and a Baja 1000 beauty (in honor of my Meyer's roots).



Other fun included Virginia City ghost town action.



Hey!


What's this warm weather business, get me back to the North! I'm ready to ride!



After two weeks of telling everybody how bad and extreme the weather is in our neighborhood, we came home to this:



And even more exceptional - since we've been home, we've seen three sunrises. That's more sunrises than we've seen total in the year+ we've lived here. (Clouds, not sleeping, have obscured the sunrise in case you were thinking it was an inability to get out of bed that was causing us to miss the sunrises.)





Back on the island, we did our civic duty and picked up trash along the road during clean up week. Senor was especially helpful and good at it. A little slow, but an excellent helper! Thank you Revel-Roo!



And in other news, as we write Regan has begun his mega-adventure. He's flying his replica open cockpit Tiger Moth biplane from Dallas to Alaska. He's currently in Oklahoma. Regs bought a little GPS contraption that he periodically clicks and it sends out an email, letting us know his exact coordinates. For example, today he was here, here, here, here, and here. In case you bothered to click on all the links, you might have noticed that he didn't cover much ground. I didn't say it was a fast plane! 60-70 mph is pretty much the max.

He'll be camping under the wing at night, landing on grass strips all the way to South Dakota. True barnstormer style! From the badlands, he'll be taking a more comfortable approach, as he'll have a support vehicle the rest of the way. We can't wait to see the pictures! Happy flying, Regan! Good luck!