Trash Creek

My oldest walks the neighbor's dog. He enjoys the time with the dog, and he gets a little bit of money out of the deal.



He told me about this area he sometimes takes the dog walking, a place he has dubbed Trash Creek. I thought it was the area he described to me, but I'd never inspected it that closely. He told me of this one area that has a bunch of tires.



Before I sent my new camera back, I had him take me on a tour.



Turns out it was right where I'd thought it was.



And the tires??? I had pictured them just resting in the bottom, but as you can see, someone fashioned them into an effective retaining wall!!!



It was a good hike, and I got to get a few decent pictures as well!!!

Bad Scene at Eaton Canyon

Over the weekend we went for a hike up Eaton Canyon again. I realized as I was preparing for this post (and looking at the previous Eaton Canyon post) it's been almost four years since we were up there!!!



The weather has been excellent, and it looked like everyone else had the same idea!!! The place was PACKED!!! My dad had suggested bringing a change of shoes & socks, as it had been quite wet leading up to this. He'd anticipated the stream being swollen and that we'd end up getting our feet wet.



We probably could have avoided soaking our feet, but it was so crowded that it would take a while crossing on rocks & such, as you'd have to wait for people coming the other way. The stream was a bit fuller, but not that bad.



Of course, the water was freezing. I kept saying, "It's as if they made it from melting snow!!!" My younger boy would complain when he'd get his feet wet. His brother helped him across several times by carrying him on his back. We made it up to the falls and were resting, taking pictures, enjoying the view. The falls, I'd say are 30 to 40 feet, with the canyon walls rising 45 to 55 feet on either side, a classic box canyon.



Now for the bad scene: After we'd been there a few minutes, there's the noise of rocks coming loose and bouncing off the walls. Shortly after that, we hear screaming and crying. Looking over, there's a young teenage girl out cold. Quickly a crowd is gathered around her. I check to see if my phone gets any reception, but no. Fortunately, someone else has better reception that me and calls 9-11. We left pretty quick after that, as did a few other hikers with small kids. Guess no one wants their little kids to have to deal seeing a dead person, or whatever.



It was rather chaotic there, and we're not exactly sure what happened yet. The official story that the local paper had on their site was what we'd thought had happened: She (and other hikers) had climbed up over the falls, and she ended up falling down, and in the process knocking a few rocks loose that ended up raining down on her. We did see people up there, and it seems like an exceeding bad idea. The other stories we'd heard were that she had been down below, and someone above inadvertently loosened some rocks, which fell of her, or they were tossing rocks down from above. The latter two scenarios seem plausible, as I would have expected to hear some yelling if she'd fallen. Of course, one rap on the head right at the beginning of a fall and you'd be silent the rest of the way.

Anyway, there was just a little bit of blood. The paper's site said she was in serious condition. We got to see the rescue helicopter nice and low on the way out, and saw a couple police and half a dozen firemen, as well as a couple of park rangers heading in as we were on our way out. I looked up the hospital's phone number today and was considering calling and seeing if I could find out any more information, and even toying with the idea of paying a visit. Hope she's OK!!!

Random Recap & The Christmas that Everything Broke

Happy new year to all!!! It's been a while, huh??? Soooo much has happened, who knows if I'll cover it all???



Christmas was good, but a lot of things broke (as you may have surmised from the title) right around then. The week before we were having our famous rain storms, and the top of the pepper tree by the property line and driveway blew off. This was actually something of a win, as we've been gradually working on cutting this tree down for a while, and the top portion is the hardest to get to, and when it fell it was away from the cars & the neighbors' house!!!



There's a shot of my younger boy in one of his Christmas presents, a shirt from Woot! It's got to be one of his favorites, he's worn it almost every day since!!! The colors have grown on me. Boss shirt, boss!!! (He says, "I know.")



We had goody day a few weeks back at work. As usual, it was good, and there were plenty of leftovers. I ended up taking home two 12-packs of soda and the remains of a cheese ball, among other things. I've been nomming on that cheese ball ever since!!!

The work Christmas party could have been amazing. Instead it was pretty decent. A lot of things could have been a lot better, though. I'm interested to see if they keep the same venue next year.



The sink in the kitchen had been draining slow. I took it apart to clean out the trap & use the hydraulic drain cleaner on the pipe. Turned out the galvanized pipe was all corroded out on the bottom threads. Only about 12 years or so that lasted, I remember replacing it before. Replaced it with some incredibly beefy schedule 80 stainless steel pipe, think it'll outlast the rest of the house!!! Of course, I had to put it back together in the meantime. The garbage disposal stopped working in the interim, sounded like something was jammed in it. This breakdown magically fixed itself, but on the night of the 23rd, while the older was doing dishes, it all came apart, flooding the kitchen with 2 sinks worth or dirty dish water. Before this project was done, I had to replace the P trap, too. Once I got it back together, it had a line of pin holes down one side.



There's a shot of my nephew with a blade from my younger's Lego set. Ever see the Veggie Tales' "The Toy that Saved Christmas"??? My nephew goes by the nickname Louie, so here's your Buzz Saw Louie!!! The only toy featuring an actual working buzz saw built into his right arm!!!

Had a power surge on Christmas morning that took out the stereo amplifier that we run the sound on the T.V. through. I was resigned to buying a new LCD T.V. the next morning. We went out and saw Tron, then I messed with it and another like it I had in the basement when we got home. Couldn't find anything wrong, but when I put it back together, it worked!!! Another problem that magically fixed itself!!!



A couple of shots of pumpkins here... One is my youngests' of Sonic. Of course, I did all the carving and a lot of the gutting. First time I've ever followed a design, and first one I've ever done with the shaving off of the top layer. My pumpkin, I was inspired the day we carved 'em. I was going to the boys' room to get them, and I saw the shells the older had brought back from Florida, along with a couple of blue marbles from inside spray paint cans. I like the way the flash made them glow!!! Somewhere in my video camera are some clips of the annual pumpkin smashing...



Speaking of video, see the shot of me with my new camera??? A real nice Pentax I bought for myself. It'll shoot a video HD enough to choke your laptops' meager video capabilities!!! It also features in body image stabilization to help keep the price of lenses down. I'm quite pleased with it... except... after about half a dozen shots, the built in flash stopped working!!! At least it's still under warranty...

One of these pictures is of my dad with our Christmas present to him, a gas tank that I'd had in my panel truck. Hope it works better for him than it did for me!!!



There's a shot of the cake I did for my nephew's birthday. If you don't know, that's Wubbsy. My sis started with him, then changed to Sponge Bob. I've done too many Sponge Bobs, so I stayed with Wubbsy, only with Bob's pants on him. Why??? That's why his tail is in the form of a question mark!!!

I know another thing or two broke around then, but I can't remember what....

New year's resolution: I resolve to blog more!!!