Geocaching With Little Phil

After we attended the gun show, we did some geocaching with little Philip then toured a park with an old tower, and an old spa.

This is the Sulfur Springs water tower. It had a better time than it has now, but according to this article, they are working on getting it back on the path to restoration. www.sptimes.com/2005/07/01/Citytimes/Springing_to_life.shtml

Sulfur Spring itself. This was something of a bath house / spa that is closed down now. It is interesting to see that there is some history of 'Old Tampa' and thanks to geocaching, we are learning more about our neighborhood and city.

This is the old section of Sulfur Spring.

Before stopping at Sulfur Spring, we stopped off at Jay B. Starkey Park in order to locate a couple of caches before heading over to pick up the girls from the Renaissance Festival.

Hi Philip! He sure is smiling after locating his first find.

After that last one, we had to trek for over a mile to get to this next one. If it didn't have a coin in it, we wouldn't have gone so far. The views were nice though.

While we were searching for the container, Luann decided to lean against this old dead tree. Come to find out, her hand was less than a foot away from the container.

Yep, the coin is in there, and a beautiful lizard pin too. We took the pin to give to Philip's sister Melissa.

Well, time to go get the girls...

Hey! Let's Watch A Machine Gun Show!

Rat-A-Tat-Tat! Nothing like serious firepower to make you realize it's great to be an American...

We decided to attend a machine gun shooting demonstration today. Unfortunately, Katrina had to work at the Bay Area Rennaissance Festival with her friend Melissa, so we took Melissa's brother, Philip with us.

Here are some of the cars that were placed out here for the machine-gunners to shoot up.

There were all kinds of neat weaponry brought in by the National Guard and civilians. We were most impressed by these young ladies shooting .50 BMG rounds. That's 50 caliber, Browning Machine Gun, the stuff that fighter aircraft typically shoot. The blow-back from the muzzle brake on one of those things was amazing! We saw one fool get too close to her when she was shooting and as soon as the round went off, his head snapped back from the force of the blast. Yep, Testosterone meets Estrogen, and she slapped his face...

Directly in front of us were a couple of guys that really didn't impress us. The best they had was this .50 BMG that they used to shoot low-power practice rounds.

As the rapid-firing progressed, every so often, we would hear a thump and then a huge "ka-boom!" Turns out this guy is with the National Guard and was working out with concussion grenades. It must be nice to be able to throw some of the tax payer's finest out there.

Everyone was trying hard to catch the cars on fire. Eventually, the van was hit by a round that started it burning pretty well.

She did it, she did it! Apparently, she decided that if a car had to be torched, it was up to her to get the job done. She simply dropped an incendiary round in the .50 BMG to her right and shoved the 'flamer' into the van's fuel tank to start the fireworks.

Here is one of the roof-mounted machine guns, getting loaded for the next volley. I personally liked the Gatling gun mounted on the truck next to him. It ripped through rounds so fast, it sounded like a thousand pissed-off hummingbirds taking flight. It was just a case of: Ziiiiip! All done!

Here is little Philip, watching the 'Car-B-Cue' action.

Hey look at that! Looks like another one is on fire! Burn, baby, burn! We had a bunch of fun with this. The best part was when the girls showed the guys how to get it done...

Katrina Works At The Renaissance Festival

Katrina is doing some volunteer work with the Bay Area Renaissance Festival (yep, BARF). She's finding out real quick that "work is hard".

We stopped by Melissa's house to pick her up, because Melissa volunteered to work at BARF too.

Here are the girls, all dressed out as "Serving Wenches".

Ok, time to saddle up the horses and head on out...

Ah, the employee entrance. Doesn't seem to have that pleasant, welcoming atmosphere like the customer entrance does, huh?

And here is she is, after working her first full shift. Looks a bit worn down... Maybe it was the 8 hours of standing on her feet. Or perhaps it was the heavy rainfall for most of the day that left her soaked and carrying her outer skirt. Anyway, time to get her home for some much deserved rest.

On the way back to the car, we came across this bumper sticker. Yeah, gotta keep those steps in order.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ok, so we went a little nuts this year...

This bear was named Me-Too in honor of the first teddy bear I gave Luann, named "Me". When we were first dating, I gave it to her when I was leaving to go on vacation to Florida for a week (we were in Arizona). Since I was having flowers delivered the day I was flying to Miami, I bought Me and had the florist deliver it too. I told Luann (later, over the phone) that if she missed me while I was gone, all she had to do was hug Me, who was something of a Hans-proxy. Apparently, it went off fairly well...

Since Me has long departed, I felt it was time for a replacement bear. This one is named "Me-Too" as a double statement. One, he is the second Me bear. Two, he is still part of the idea, in that if Luann were alone, she could take Me-Too with her.

These are the two bears Katrina got from a couple of her friends at school.

This is the setup we left for Katrina to discover when she came home from school. The funny thing is, she went with me to the florist the night before to buy these things, thinking they were for Luann.

Surprise!

I knew that she would love it because she was cooing over the things we were getting for 'Mom'...

And of course, what is Valentine's Day without flowers? Katrina bought a dozen mixed roses to hand out at school and these by the front door were for Luann.

And here is the bunch we bought for Luann the day before V-Day. Peanut is doing a good job holding the vase for us.

Words Of 'Wisdom' From Yogi Berra

Baseball great, Yogi Berra, is known for his slanted view of the world. Or rather, his ability to speak his mind, even though what he is saying, isn't exactly what he is thinking.

The following is a collection of statements Yogi has made, some of which I have repeated to our teen-aged daughter. She thinks that the guy in the AFLAC commercial who is getting a haircut at the barbershop, is real funny... Enjoy.

"They give you cash, which is just like money." (a posed, AFLAC statement)

"This is like deja vu all over again."

"You can observe a lot just by watching."

"Think! How the hell are you gonna think and hit at the same time?"

"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."

"I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early."

"If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else."

"If you can't imitate him, don't copy him."

"You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six."

"Baseball is 90% mental - the other half is physical."

"It was impossible to get a conversation going; everybody was talking too much."

"Slump? I ain't in no slump. I just ain't hitting."

"A nickel isn't worth a dime today."

"Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded."

"Do you mean... now?" - When asked for the time.

"I take a two hour nap, from one o'clock to four."

"If you come to a fork in the road, take it."

"You give 100 percent in the first half of the game, and if that isn't enough in the second half you give what's left."

"90% of the putts that are short don't go in."

"I made a wrong mistake."

"Texas has a lot of electrical votes." - During an election campaign, after George Bush stated that Texas was important to the election.

"Thanks, you don't look so hot yourself." - After being told he looked cool.

"I always thought that record would stand until it was broken."

"Yeah, but we're making great time!" - In reply to "Hey Yogi, I think we're lost."

"If the fans don't come out to the ball park, you can't stop them."

"Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel."

"It's never happened in the World Series competition, and it still hasn't."

"How long have you known me, Jack? And you still don't know how to spell my name." - Upon receiving a check from Jack Buck made out to "Bearer."

"I'd say he's done more than that." - When asked if first baseman Don Mattingly had exceeded expectations for the current season.

"The other teams could make trouble for us if they win."

"He can run anytime he wants. I'm giving him the red light." - On the acquisition of fleet Ricky Henderson.

"I never blame myself when I'm not hitting. I just blame the bat, and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn't my fault that I'm not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?"

"It ain't the heat; it's the humility."

"The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase."

"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours."

And to clarify the above statements:

"I didn't really say everything I said."

Bicycle Caching

Yep, geocaching in Florida does come with a challenge!

Actually, we were looking for a good place to put a new cache container in a park near our house and came across this Florida Native. After taking this picture, we can uderstand why a picture of an alligator with the text "Geocaching With A Challenge" above it is the logo of the Florida Geocachers Association (of which we are members). Katrina is wearing one of their shirts with the picture of the gator on the back in this photo while we were in Trout River and Flatwoods Parks. Here we are with one of our finds, sorting through the items inside and signing the logbook. See, we did the whole thing on our bikes!

At one point, were even looked for a letterbox and couldn't find it. The view was worth it though.

This one was taken while we were going through the off-road trails in Flatwoods Park. This was a bunch of fun and the trails ran everywhere!

Looks like Katrina found another one!

They even had this cool bridge for bicycles to cross over, smack in the middle of the woods.

When Katrina was retrieving this ammo box from this tree that was hit by lightning, she ended up getting some of the soot on her arm.

I think Katrina is getting a bit tired of the tons of pictures I have been taking during this trip.

How nice of the park to put a road sign in the middle of the woods... Now, how far is it to Elk City?

We had a ton of fun riding our bikes and chasing down several, but not all, of the caches in these two parks. We will be back again to finish them up some time.

Drew Sent More Hiking Pictures

This one is the family hike, when his wife Amelia and his two boys, Christian & Alexander joined him.

On the road again... Yep, there's lots of desert landscape in Arizona (duh!).

Ok, the car is parked and Drew is working with his GPS.

Looks like he's waiting for the rest of the crew... What could they be doing?

Maybe it was a pause for another picture of an adoring mother with her boys...

So, which way should they go? Looks like Alexander knows the way, follow him!

I guess this is why they call the parking area, First Water Trailhead. Wow, flowing water near here, who woulda thunk it?

You can see that the sun is starting to get pretty bright, so it's time for a break. Hey, any bit of shade you can find in Arizona is a good thing!

And what is the name of the book Amelia is holding? Could it be...? Nah! That isn't a hiking book is it? I thought Arizonans naturally knew all about hiking the Rocky Maintains, like they were born with this knowledge...

Looks like the trip is winding down and so are the boys. Time to head back to the car. Nothing like a family outing to have fun and enjoy each other's company.

Ok, so this picture doesn't have anything to do with hiking or mountain climbing, but it is so cute!

On The Way Home

I guess one good 'turn' deserves another, so here is yet another show-stopper on the bridge as we were coming back home from work. Katrina took this shot through the back window as we drove by. Looks like it's made up of 4 trucks & 2 cars (count the side-view mirrors), with the last truck having a trailer hooked to it (but I'm not counting the car on the trailer). This is what we call, "Using Another Car For Brakes".

On The Way To Work

Just a typical morning while heading in to work. Seems like whenever we get a little rain, people lose their minds and refuse to adjust the speed of their vehicle in order to better match weather conditions and their poor driving skills. Nobody was hurt in this one, thanks to good-old seatbelts.