MUDDSCAPE

We’ve been having so much fun in southern Utah that we’ve simply been too dog-tired to blog. So let’s catch up!

We left you last in Henderson, Nevada. Our stay there was at the Desert Sands RV “Resort”. It’s Vegas, right? We’re expecting some cool place, but we find out that $15 a night buys you a space, some electricity, water, a sewer hookup, and a dip in a pool. There was no ambiance in that list because the DS is basically a trailer park for long term (and apparently minimum wage) residents. At least they have their teeth. And really great tans! The “Mayor” of the Desert Sands, Al, looked like he was a leather suitcase with arms and legs. We thought it was really hot at 105F until Elaine called to tell us that the day we left Anaheim for Vegas it was 113F in Los Angeles! The all-time high record. So, maybe for the first time in history, someone went to Vegas to cool down! We were definitely cooled down when we found that the 2 “top spots” for gelato had gone belly up. Bummer. Then we cruised by the Sunrise Station casino and dropped a quick $50 on a dollar slot and 2 nickel poker machines. Not to be defeated, we did make that trip to see Hoover Dam, the real reason for our stopover. It was STUPENDOUS! We also discovered that they have completed to new highway bypass around the top of the dam by constructing a massive bridge over the gorge just below the dam. So when the docent at the start of the tour said “Enjoy the dam tour!” he didn’t really understand we were enjoying so much more!

Wendy at Hoover Dam

New Hoover Dam Bypass

We slithered off to Hurricane Utah on Sept. 29 for our first official full week of camping! Up to this point we’ve been 2 nights here, 1 night there, so much setup and teardown! This time we’re really delighted at the Willowind RV Resort. Clean, paved, wide spaces with grass around them! Modern utilities to hook up to! Really friendly staff with a real front office! And great neighbors who are mostly full timers just like us, except they don’t live here year-round. On one side I was greeted immediately by Howard with “Are we having fun yet?”. This as the sweat poured off of me while I schlepped the power cable and the sewer line out for hookup. But, I WAS having fun, so Howard and I became immediate friends. His wife Marge we never met, she’s a “rig hobbit” who rarely goes outside apparently. On the other side we met Charlie and Roy (wife and husband, keep your minds focused here). She’s delightful and he’s retired from the California Dept. of Forestry. Oh, he’s delightful too, but she’s much more sociable so we see her a lot more. It always amazes me how fast you can meet people in an RV park and within 1 day know virtually everything about them. For instance, Charlie and Roy have been full-timing for 14 years. They didn’t intend this to begin with, but like many full-timers they just forgot how to live in a house. But last April they were rear-ended in Yuma Arizona while towing their big 5^th wheel by a semi truck and sent flying out into the desert. The rig was demolished but they escaped with very minor injuries. It was a quirk in their rig insurance, the “full replacement” clause that put them back on the road. If it was a “cash out” policy they would probably have purchased a house in Redding CA (their home base) and called it quits.

Thursday Sept. 30 was a day at Zion, about 30 miles up the road. We started the morning with a short 2.5 mile walk before breakfast. When we arrived at the park entrance we thought we were pretty darn smart by purchasing an annual National Parks pass for $80 instead of a one-time entry pass for $25 only to discover that the time starts ticking on the 1^st of the month, in this case Sept. 1. Oh well, what a difference a day makes! We enjoyed wonderful Mother Nature at her finest and decided that since we had a short morning walk that we would take a short afternoon hike. Just under a mile to Lower Emerald Pool. Perfect! But when you make ONE wrong turn at the start of the trail, you end up 1.5 miles farther and 500 feet higher at the Upper Emerald Pool. The view was worth it, and we took plenty of Advil before going to sleep that night.

It's really really hard to pick a good picture of Zion!

On Saturday we visited Kolob Canyons, a new addition to Zion National Monument. Since we had taken no morning pre-breakfast walk we decided to hike the Taylor Creek trail to Double Arches Alcove. What a gorgeous hike! The “outside” temperature was over 90 (above the canyon walls), but in the canyon along the creek bed it was a very pleasant and shady 70. And the end of the trail made it all worthwhile.

Double Arches Alcove on Taylor Creek Trail

On our trip back to the RV park we got to discussing the origin of the name of the town of Hurricane. I was convinced that because it was so implausible that an actual hurricane could ever reach these parts that it must be something stupid like a wild horse named Hurricane that killed one of the original town settlers, or something like that. Our curiosity was satisfied a short time later when a sudden storm front pushed through with gusts of wind that slammed the sides of the rig and stripped a ton of leaves off of the surrounding trees. Wow. No crazy horse I guess.

Sunday we got up at 5AM and drove the 120 miles to Bryce Canyon. After all, we bought the annual pass we might as well use it. Totally different from Zion, and magnificent. This is a sample in high def video. We elected the easy hike again to “The Queen’s Garden” down into the canyon but decided after reaching it that we would complete the “Navajo Loop” back out to another spot on the rim, the Sunset Point. All in all about 2.5 miles, and we lost and then gained back about 1000 feet of elevation. Pretty strenuous except this is all early in the morning so it wasn’t hot. But it was also all at about 8,000 feet of altitude to begin with. My body will be bursting with red blood cells when we leave here!

Bryce Canyon - The Queen's Garden

There is so much more, but we wanted to salute our Person Of Interest. Today it’s our Chief Postal Officer, Mort Lasnik! Without a permanent address his house in Bass Lake has become Muddscape Mail Central. And it’s been an exciting week. We are getting daily updates about checks, retirement benefit changes, insurance notices, all kinds of stuff. And Mort is right on the job. He figured out that phone calls don’t always go through to the boondocks, but he can send an email summary of the days mail and scan and forward important stuff, so we’re thinking of adding to the “Snow, sleet, rain….” motto with a little “Sort, scan, and send” footnote! Great job, Mort! Now if we can figure out what to do with the checks…

Chief Postal Officer Mort

And last (but not least), here’s Tippy!

I smile every time I walk in or out of Wertle! We told everyone that we didn’t want or need anything for our rig, especially after ridding ourselves of a ton of unwanted stuff. We did receive a few small things and one of my favorites was from Dana, who insisted on getting something for our new home. It was the perfect gift, a colorful flip-flop doormat. Some of you might know about my shoe collection. During our purging, I was forced (self imposed) to get rid of most of my shoes. The flip-flop mat is a reminder of my favorite kind of shoes and my favorite daughter-in-law, albeit, my only daughter-in-law. It’s not too large so it fits neatly by the front door when we pack up to move. It’s functional, so we can keep dirt out of the rig! And, of course, it’s cute shoes!  What more could a girl want!

So cute!

Another gift that I use on a daily basis has a familiar theme. My very thoughtful sister, Elaine, or “E”, as I call her, gave me a very functional water bottle that has a shoe design, all colors and shapes of flip-flops.  It comes with me when I get in the truck for a travel day and on our hikes. She, also, gave me a beautiful, functional, leather bound journal that I have to start using! I’m so lucky to have such a thoughtful sis!

Functional & cute!

Besides shoes, another thing I had to give up was growing avocado trees- Warren was insistent that the rig could not sustain a 6 foot tall tree while we traveled. I tried to be good but motherhood got the best of me. Just before we left our home, I cut into an avocado that had already split and was starting to grow roots. It has always been my rule that if they had started to grow I had to help them continue. Soooo…I am now caring for my newest “babe” as we take our journey.  It will be interesting to see how big it gets before we set down our own roots.  I did manage to take one other plant, a gift from Luis Bustamante (Carlmont), because it was a Lucky Bamboo and was small enough to find space in our new home.

A very lucky gift!

I also had to leave behind my huge elephant collection but I did manage to find room for some of my “more petite” friends. I was able to hang a string of elephants from one of the window frames, a very thoughtful birthday gift from Joanne Davis some years back. I managed to find hanging room for Amelia, my barnstorming elephant who peddles a tricycle-turned-biplane. I’m sure she’s been on some crazy rides since we began our trip.

Lucky elephant times 5!

Carole Pierce, an English teacher at Carlmont, came to see our rig when we had our open house in May. Due to a handicap she was unable to walk the stairs to see the inside but she wanted to give us a beautiful “sun catcher” that she made. It now sparkles in the window of our rig, a constant reminder of  some of the wonderful people I was fortunate to work with at Carlmont.

Shiny Reminder!

My last small gift is something that started out much larger. Andrea Dembrowsky passed away over two years ago after loosing her long battle with breast cancer. Andrea gave me a very large bar of “Thyme” bath soap. I started using it before we left home and it’s now half of it’s size. I couldn’t bare to part with it because it had sentimental value so it came with us on our journey. Now, I can think about my dear friend each time I shower.

A sentimental gift!

We truly treasure all of the well wishes from friends and family and we’re delighted that the only space they take is in our hearts!

We woke this morning in Anaheim and knew we were headed for Hell. Las Vegas, actually Henderson, as a stop-over on our way to Zion National Park near Hurricane Utah. The forecast called for near-triple digit temps during the day, and we thought “What are we thinking?”. Well, we arrived here in Henderson a little after noon today to 95 degrees and crabbing about the heat and all while we set up the rig and got ourselves situated. First job: hook up the electric so we can get the air conditioning on full blast. Get some cool air filling up the trailer. Cool down the cats, and ourselves. We got that all done, and while we are cooling down Wendy checks her voice mail. Sister Elaine is telling her that today it hit 113F in LA! The hottest ever! Wow. We got out just in time. After that, somehow it just didn’t seem as hot. In fact, we began to notice the peace and quiet, and how nice it cooled down toward the evening, and wouldn’t some gelato be good….

Along the way the boys, Bongo and Sly (especially Bongo) figured out that the wood floor directly under the air conditioner outlet was the prime real estate in the rig.

Cool Cats in Henderson NV

Wendy takes one look and says to me “If you even THINK of stretching out on the floor like that……” I won’t publish the rest of that remark, but it had a line from Jeff Dunham’s “Achmed the Dead Terrorist” in it.

Anyway, the heat will come and the heat will go. And so shall we, according to the following “Itinerary of the Day”:

9/27,28    Henderson Nevada, Hoover Dam, Slots
9/29 – 10/6    Zion National Park, Utah
10/6-7    Laughlin Nevada, Slots, Blackjack and Craps baby!
10/8-11    San Diego (Hi Mary & Jeff! Hi Mom!)
10/12-18    LA, hanging with family
10/19-24    Wendy is off to Puerto Rico with the girls, Warren is batching it in San Diego with sport fishing, family, and Big Bro Brian
10/25-31    LA, hanging out and a Cousin’s Party on the 30th
11/1-2    Hanging with Mort in Bass Lake CA
11/3-6    A visit to our other kids and grandkids in Sacramento
11/7-Thanksgiving, tour the Oregon Coast and visit the Rein’s in Portland!

After that it’s up to our whims and the local authorities where we are and what we’re doing.

Oh yeah, let’s not forget Tippy, especially in light of all the “rinsing out” we’ve been doing on clothes today!

We arrived this afternoon in beautiful Anaheim, California. The town that surrounds Disneyland. Although the temptation to visit the Magic Kingdom is great we have work to do. A weekend investor’s workshop, and then we’re out of here! It was a toasty 99F when we arrived, and it isn’t much cooler as I write this. When we checked in I remarked on how warm it was, and the guy checking us in replied “Yeah, I think a little heat wave is starting….”. I immediately retreated into my heat-wave mantra, the one I adopted while walking Rome 2 summers ago in 95 degree heat: Gelato, gelato, gelato….

We loved staying at Avila Beach, our neighbors were wonderful (as are MOST neighbors in RV parks). Steve and Ellen on one side were recently retired from education (sound familiar?) and Frank and Claire were returning to their San Luis Obispo roots from Palm Springs. We wish them safe travels.

Moonrise over Avila Beach

Sunrise over Avila Beach

The moonrise on Thursday evening sent us to bed. And we were greeted on Friday morning by the promise of a very warm day indeed!

Our blog today is centered around our Person Of Interest: Max Mudd. Max was living at home with us when we pulled the plug and leased it out, and he had to hustle to find other digs. Of course, as with most things Max, this didn’t go as smoothly as one would hope. Initially he had a couple of lines on rooms for rent with friends in apartments that would fit his budget if he could only find another 20 or so hours to work per week. That led to yet another job (#4?) working at Jump Up, a child-play and party palace that enslaves young people at minimum wage with a less-than-scrupulous boss who regularly shorts pay checks. Add this gem to his 24 Hour Fitness shifts, private trumpet tutoring, and Dungeons and Dragons Mastering at a local game shop and he was pushing 50 hours a week of part time minimum wage labor. Then he gets introduced to Vector Marketing as a Cutco Knife Salesman. This work actually suits him. I’m a past Cutco purchaser and it’s a great product that teaches basic sales skills to young people and actually pays decently. Things are looking up!

Then he gets an offer from a workmate for a room to rent in exchange for household duties and chores. Perfect! Now things are really rolling! But D-Day approaches, the absolute move out date, and just 2 days short of that all falls through. No rooms to rent, no apartments to share, no couches to sleep on. Nada. That same day the starter in his ’92 Honda quits. And he loses his cell phone. All of this while we are packing the entire house into either storage or the rig. Doom. Gloom. Disaster. Oy.

Things happened quickly from that point on. A new starter was found just a few miles away, and 2 hours later it was installed and working. He was due for a phone upgrade, and that could be taken care of quickly. Phone calls were made and some brainstorming was done and Justin, a past acquaintance, appeared with a newly vacated room in his house in need of a tenant. And to top it all off, a new job opportunity with Delta Airlines materializes. Wow! By D-Day Max is moved into Justin’s, his new phone is in his pocket, his car is working fine, and he has an interview scheduled for Monday. Double Wow! To make this incredibly long and sad story short and happy, Max got the job and starts next Monday.

So we salute Max. Good job all the way around. Even his younger brother is relieved.

Super blogging is a widely used, heavily respected and well known term that I just invented. We’ve been s-o-o-o b-u-s-y packing and cleaning the house in advance of our tenant’s move-in date that we had to stop ourselves to eat. This is not a diet I recommend. But, voila!, on Monday the 21st we finished! Actually just moments before our tenant arrived for the walk-through. Less than minutes, really, moments. All was done, handshakes were exchanged, our “2 Vickie’s” neighbors brought wine glasses and snacks and grilled the new neighbor thoroughly, and we were gone. We had a little business with the tax man on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, September 22 2010 8:50AM we began our Great One Way Road Trip.

So, to make up for all the empty space, I’m going to Super Blog for a bit. Serial blogging would be a good term too. I could put it all in one blog, but you would all be asleep before you finished reading it. And besides, we couldn’t get very many “Persons of Interest” in a single blog, could we?

Today’s Person(s) of Interest are: the Two Vickie’s. Sorry Vikki #2, but there was only one way to spell it in the plural. We are possessed of not one, but two neighbors with the same sounding name. Both marvelous, both helpful, both generous and fun, yet each unique in her own way. We shall stay in touch with both (and don’t worry, Norma, you too). Norma, by the way, is another neighbor and is also quite interesting too. Thanks ladies. You made our time on Passage Lane memorable and helped to slide us to the finish line on that final day. But you aren’t rid of us too easily, I’m sure we’ll be back to visit.

The cats, Bongo and Sly, have now traded the old house, where everything inside changed every day and the outside remained the same, for a new one where just the opposite is true! They seem to be adapting quickly into great “Camping Cats”. And speaking of cats, while cleaning the house I overheard Wendy muttering to herself “How the HELL does cat hair get into the BACK of the freezer?” How indeed?

Camping Cats Bongo & Sly

We’ll close today with a local picture, this clever white heron who found a perch on a floating patch of seaweed off of Avila Beach, our first stop. If the fish won’t come to you, go to the fish!

Resourceful Avila Beach White Heron

And, last but not least, here’s Tippy!

Woof. And not like a dog, but like a kick in the boiler. We had frantic fits of cleaning and painting almost all the month of July and had the main push last week leading up to our first open house on the townhome. Paint, clean, patch, sweep, paint, window-wash, more paint, sweep again, vacuum, more paint, ooops missed a spot, more paint, clean up from that, it goes on and on and on. Here’s a peek at what we started with (Max’s room BEFORE we rented the tractor).

The Max Pit - Before Tractor

But at last comes the goal. Saturday, 1PM. Our place has NEVER looked so good! We’re finally open for business on our first Open House! It didn’t matter much, fishin’ was poor and we didn’t get a single bite. But we sucked it up and were SURE they would be beating the doors down on Sunday!

Sunday. Better, but only by degrees. We were open from 1PM to 5PM, and the first of our 2 guests strolled in about 4:30. All the internet advertising brought in was zip; the 2 we saw were just drive-by’s that saw our lawn sign. At least one of them was honestly looking for a lease/option but I think we’re a little out of their price range. There’s always next weekend!

We found out cats and open houses don’t mix. That’s the thing about an open house, the open part. It’s best to leave the front door OPEN, and most everyone was concerned the cats would use the opportunity to make for the hills. Not to worry. Even fearless Bongo made himself scarce. Very scarce. There are words in our language to describe what Sly made himself. Invisible would be an understatement. We could have been missing an entire wall of the house and he would have stayed in hiding.

Speaking of missing that entire wall thing…. Just after we finish patching and painting most of the interior, the construction crew that has been doing all the exterior refurbishment of our development decides it’s time to start OUR building. We have an end unit, so we have more exterior walls. And it was on the end wall that this crew decided to do an extra special job. They stripped the entire outside down to the framing. Then they stripped all the trim from the windows. Then they commenced to rebuilding it with what felt like 8 lb. sledgehammers. For 2 days it felt like we were one of the little pigs and the big bad wolf was banging on our outside wall to get in. Of course, all our fresh patch and paint pretty much got knocked loose, along with a whole bunch of stuff that wasn’t cracked or popped loose in the first place. Just this morning our new BFF Paul, the interior repair guy, finished with the patching again so now I can finally start painting AGAIN! I knew I missed a spot…..

We continue to bash away at both the commercial real estate investing (2 great property leads that we’re in the middle of putting together, stay posted), and have been putting a fair number of hours into the Internet Affiliate marketing programs we have up and running. Those are pretty exciting, especially when they finally start to respond with higher Google page ranks and even some revenue! It’s funny how 2 grown adults can jump with glee over their first earnings report from their portfolio of advertising sites: $0.77. That’s right, a whopping 77 cents! It’s a start. You don’t have to stay so tuned in on that one, it might take a few months for these things to start earning something with numbers in FRONT of the decimal point.

At last we have all the family birthdays, parties, and weddings out of the way. All that stands between us and the open road now is renting out the terra-digs (trailer talk for TownHome). So between that time and Thanksgiving, we’ll be rolling around the West looking for some fun, and rest.

To quote Forrest Gump, “I’m kinda tired.” Tired, that is, of referring to our soon-to-be-fulltime home as “the rig”. When I was just a lad, my two younger brothers (the twins) frequently named things. All kinds of things. Animals, cars, strangers, even boogers. But instead of the inconvenience of coming up with DIFFERENT names, they named everything “Eddie”. Even guys named Charley were sometimes Eddie. It would frequently piss off those Eddie’s who were really named Charley, didn’t matter. A world full of Eddie’s, that’s how I grew up. By the way, it hasn’t stopped, even though they are both well past the half-century mark. Except that they are 900 miles away so THEY live in a world full of Eddie’s. Me, not so much any more.

So what’s all this about? We need a name for “the rig”. Nicolas Cage had his “Eleanor”. The Lone Ranger had “Silver” (and Tonto). I’m thinking Wertle. And this didn’t just pop up, mind you. No sirree. A lot of brainpower went into this one, because I’m also thinking it will get used a lot. Wertle. Like Yertle, from Dr. Seuss. Which came from Turtle, as in the animal that lives inside of it’s own house (shell). Getting the picture? But Wertle? Well, with two names starting with W’s, it only seems natural that we add another, to sort of keep it all in order. And there isn’t much danger of us getting real famous like Dolly Parton or Captain Kangaroo, so we don’t need a really cool name for posterity to immortalize. So, Wertle. Maybe we’ll just test drive (pun intended) Wertle for a while and see how it sticks.

I wish people would stop asking me if I’m enjoying my retirement. It’s only been 37 days and I haven’t had time to figure that out because we’ve been traveling every weekend since I officially retired on June 5. To make matters worse, I’ve never known how to relax – just ask Warren. He says I have terminal spilkes (pronounced SHPILL-kiss, it’s Yiddish for ants-in-the-pants).
Here’s a brief calendar of our wanderings:

June 11-14: Granddaughter Carly turned two on June 8th and we took the rig to Sacramento to help her celebrate. We returned on Monday and had 3 days to work on our townhome, which we have been busy getting ready to lease.

June 18-21: We flew to San Diego to celebrate niece Madisson and nephew Parker’s high school graduations. We’re extremely proud of Maddie, who will be attending Marymount College and Parker, who earned an appointment to the Air Force Academy. As I write this he is nearing the half way point of boot camp in Colorado Springs. We got to see family, including little Annie (4 months at the time) and her big sister, Emma “the little entertainer” who absolutely LOVES her pink tutu. We assisted with party preparations including me decorating two cakes and Warren gardening with brother-in-law Jeff. We got home on Monday morning and continued work on the townhome for the next 2½ days.

Emma Jane LOVES her pink tutu!

June 24-27: We flew to Dallas, TX for our Commercial Foreclosures Boot Camp (not quite like Parker’s). We knew Texas is BIG and now we know it’s also HOT. We learned a lot, met some nice people and now were ready to go back to work… on business and, of course, our townhome! We had a whole 3 days to clean, paint and pack before the next trip.

July 1-8: Wow!… A whole week in Van Nuys at Birmingham RV! With help from Snaggletooth, the one-tooth campsite manager, Warren managed to back our 36-foot-long rig into a tiny middle slot with not an inch to spare. Imagine sliding a Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast into a manila envelope, plate and all, without getting any syrup on the paper. At least we had shade and it never got past 90 degrees and that’s amazing for July in the Valley. We were here for another celebration. Grandson Dylan turned one on July 5th and Grandma Wendy and Warren were there to make sure the party was complete with cake and shade. Dylan wasn’t so sure about the cake. He didn’t know if he should dissect it or take a lick. He settled on the former.

Dylan the Cake Dissector

We got to see family and generally had a swell time. The trip back home was almost uneventful. With one soda too many under his belt, Warren pulled off at “Casa de Fruita” for some relief. We almost cleared the gate as we pulled into the lot. That’s a whole other story and I’ll let Warren tell that one. We made it home, albeit a bit later than we had planned. And me, well I started unpacking and doing laundry almost before the truck door slammed.

Our FIRST weekend home, we decided to tackle 2 big jobs that have been staring us down for weeks. We painted the kitchen ceiling after a small repair turned into a much larger repair, and finally tackled Max’s room. With Max off to Boy Scout Summer Camp for 10 days, it was the only opportunity. You can get an idea of the magnitude of the task by imagining all of the monkeys in the movie Jumanji having a food fight and tobacco-chewing contest for about 6 months in a space 10’X10’ with new carpeting. And no toilets. Ew. We plugged away for about 16 hours between us, and it looks completely different! The trick now will be to KEEP it that way after he returns. We have 6 days to think it over. I wonder if he has any outstanding arrest warrants?

I’m going to rest now, and reflect on whether or not I AM enjoying my retirement. In 2 days I leave for Sacramento again. I may have forgotten to mention my NEW Granddaughter, Shayla, arriving on July 7th. Formula for success: Grandma Wendy, cookies, cakes, repeat.

Amerifest 2010 Rose Bowl Fireworks

The Fourth of July. Wow! In with a bang, out with a bunch of over-sugared, loud, but finally-sleeping-in-the-back-of-the-minivan grandkids and their friends. The oldest of the Mudd/Marks quintet, Jeff, invited us to a suite at the Rose Bowl this year for Amerifest 2010. He was attending to a couple of his best new clients, Passion Growers, who are now (thanks to Jeff and Premier Partnerships) recognized as “The Official Rose of the Rose Bowl”.

The Official Rose of the Rose Bowl

It’s amazing that after all these years there WASN’T an official rose. Anyway, here we sit, in a suite overlooking the field of glory where so many college football championships have played out. Except we’re watching 5 of the top Drum Corps International troups do their thing, which I also don’t get. A marching band apparently infested with pseudo-ballerinas swarming around the grass, every once in a while freezing into some sort of pose or design. I couldn’t see any order to it, and I was sitting way up high. I sort of expected to see an Uncle Sam top hat, or a waving American flag, or Betsy Ross. Nada. A lot of noise and mass confusion. Like a train wreck.

A Drum Corps band doing what?

All of this, however, didn’t hold a candle to the discord wrought by youngsters. We had 7 kids sitting in chairs directly in front of a long open window with about a 50 foot fall outside to the crowd below. That made for 4 anxious Moms constantly pulling and warning “Tushies ON the seat!”. Throw in 6 plastic cups of water and a bushel basket of churros, you get the picture.

An impending disaster?

Why is it that the boring pre-show stuff lasts 3 hours and the fireworks only 20 minutes? At least the fireworks were FABULOUS! What a great country where we get to celebrate the biggest birthday of the year by blowing stuff up. It’s not as good as it USED to be, mind you, where they would sit paying customers right in the fallout zone. Kind of like sitting in the front row at the Sea World Orca show, except the spray is on fire. The insurance companies have taken the excitement out of that part of our lives. But it’s still a good show, and the finale still gets my blood pumping. And we all still get stinging eyes and sore throats from the smoke. But WOW! It almost makes you forget that the show, in the middle of summer where the days are already long, starts at sundown and therefore can’t possibly end before about 10. And that’s before you gather up to go. It’s just the beginning of an already long night at that point. So someone tell me: Why does the drive INTO the parking lot enjoy 8 to 10 marked off lanes (5 minutes in) and the drive OUT have only 2 (1 hour)? God bless America.