Sand and Sea

Back near the beginning of summer I'd posted about this year's return to the beach, for movies on the beach. It was a good time, but it was night and didn't feature the sun and swimming of a proper beach trip.

Went through most of summer without making a return trip, either for conventional beaching, or for a movie. Before it ended, however, I managed to get two trips in!!!

Both trips were to Horny Corner. The first time surrogate was arranging for several people to go... then his car broke!!! On the day he'd been planning, I asked if he wanted me to come by and pick him up, and he said he wasn't going, and everyone else flaked out, too. I had been looking forward to it, and younger came with me.

It wasn't crowded at all, and it was a very high tide!!!

There's usually seagulls perched on some of the swim area buoys, but this time there was a pelican on one of them!!! We usually will swim out to the buoy line, and when there's a gull, we'll see how close we can get. Often, I'll get within around 6 feet and they'll be getting a little sketchy, then I'll go under and swim under to around the same distance on the other side, and they'll fly away while I'm under. Got this picture of a pelican on the wing after we were out of the water.

We mostly got there, got in the water, and swam most of the time!!! Out to the buoy line, then down to the bridge. Last year one time when surrogate and I had gone with just us, we'd done the same swim, but this was the first time for younger. Swam back, dried off, then went for burgers at Grill 'Em All!!! I got the same as last time, the Witte, and younger got the Long Beach Dirtbag, a chili burger with bacon, chipotle ketchup, and garlic aoili. And, of course, the primate fries. Once again, I was craving a premium burger, and once again was not disappointed!!!

Two weeks after, we went again!!! This time, surrogate came as well. Got there, and went straight into the water and out to the buoy line!!! Scared off a seagull by swimming under it, swam down to another, and we got really close to the buoy and gull!!! This guy (actually I think it was a girl from the coloring) was pretty bold!!! While we were there swimming around and talking to her, another gull flew up and tried to chase her off, but she stood her ground!!!

The first time we were there, they had the inflatables up, but they were gone the next time. We swam over to the float that they stage from, and climbed up and jumped off it a few times. It's got an unusual construction, with two floats joined together with a wide area of grating between them. I swam under the grating area, and it's a bit strange and claustrophobic under there. Younger swam in after, and I went back under, and surrogate finally came under again. After that, I went back to shore, dried off, and re positioned a chair in the sunlight. As the summer comes to it's end, the light fades faster!!! The sunlight was right to the edge of the water, and I turned the chair towards the sun for a selfie. Oh yeah, it was a fairly high tide again!!!

The guys were still soaking, and I was mostly dried off, so I went and changed. On the way back, I spotted a snowy egret hunting along the water's edge. I went to take a picture, and he was heading off. I followed, parallel to him, and finally caught up for a decent picture.

I really like the burgers at Grill 'Em All, but it's a little expensive!!! After we finished up this time, we headed over to the local In-N-Out for some also great burgers, at a considerably lower price!!! One of my favorite summertime activities (besides hitting the beach!!!), I've realized, is dining outdoors when the sun is down, but the temperature is still up!!!

What I Did This Summer

Or "Stupid Fun"

For our 4th of July hi-jinks today, we came up with this amusement.

One person holds a foam paddle board vertically underwater. They count down, then release it into the air. At that moment, the other person attempts to hit it with a beach ball!!! Seems like sometimes the air from the board would cause the ball to veer off.

Good times!!!

4th of July Hijinks I

Back all the way on 4th of July this year, we did as we often do for that particular holiday (one of our favorites, Summertime, outdoor dining, swimming, and fireworks!!!) and went to my parents' house. We partook in three of the four above listed activities, and then my parents took my sister and my nephew to a local fireworks show. He'd never been, and word is that he enjoyed it. On our way, we stopped by a local fireworks stand and picked up $40 worth of the so-called safe and sane fireworks, so because of that, and the fact that I was working overtime the next day, we stayed there until a little after dark. Just before they headed out, my younger and I helped my dad out by re-hanging one of the side shed doors, which required the use of his ladder. After they left... the mischief ensued!!! The boy and I climbed up, and I jumped off a couple times, and after getting his nerve up, the boy tried a couple times. Yeah, I know, parent of the year!!!

I know at least my mom would have been troubled by this, so hopefully she doesn't come across this!!!

Don't think I've made mention here, but one of my recent pleasures has been morning radio with The Woody Show on Alt 98.7.

One of the segments they do daily is Redneck News, which the boy enjoys the intro for, and does the "Whooo Hooo!!!" along with. Well, for the roof jumping once he got going, he wanted me to come up with intros for, and he'd do the "Whooo Hooo!!!" on the way down. If memory serves, he was wanting me to do 'em earlier in the day as he was jumping from the diving board. Oh yeah, when we were on vacation, at our last hotel in Galveston, he learned to do a flip into the pool, so that's cool and a really useful life skill to have!!!

Of course, later on that evening we lit off the fireworks, and I've got video of the stupidity that ensued on that also, so if I ever get that posted, you'll have part II!!!

And, as always, we drove home through the badlands of the 710 freeway, which is always like driving through a tunnel of fireworks on the 4th of July!!!

Aztec Falls Revisited

Finally getting some more pics from Aztec Falls up. Once again, I've got a ton more I could do, but for now you get this.

You start off at a place called Splinter's Cabin. There's not much of a cabin there, but just a bit down the trail from there is a pretty cool bridge.

I'm not a fan of graffiti out in nature, but I actually kinda liked the addition to these rocks!!!

As you make your way down, the upstream part has a wide, shallower area. I call it the kiddie pool.

A nice little jump off point. It's about as deep as it is tall, so be sure to bend your knees on the way down!!!

Farther down is the big jump off points. I used the boy's height and checked the high jump against it in Paint Shop Pro. Looks like I was real close with my estimation of 35 to 40 feet up. You can see there's something of a pillar to the left side, which could be climbed to pick up that much more height, but it's a little tricky.

I like the splash down shot that looks like the shape of a body.

On the far side, near the base of the 20 foot jump, there's even a natural rock ramp to climb out on!!! You can see that in the bottom left of the last shot. I'm sure we'll be back next time!!!

I've got the idea to share how I stretched my birthday out to a week, perhaps that'll be next...

Aztec Falls

Usually when we head up to the mountains, we've headed up to Deep Creek. Unfortunately, there were some heavy rains a few years back, and it washed so much sand and sediment downstream, so the last few years it hasn't been much in the deep department.

This year, my older looked up to see if he could find any other places. He came across Aztec Falls, probably a little more than a mile downstream. I wasn't holding out much hope for it, being as it's rained less and less the last couple years. Turned out to be far beyond what I might even have hoped for!!! May have to make another trip up there again this year, and definitely we'll be back next time!!!

The close side was about 20 feet up, the far side around 35 to 40 feet. The boy did the biggest cannon ball ever from the far side. I jumped probably half a dozen times from the lower side, and once (since I was there) from the far side.

I didn't take a ton of pictures (I was wet most the time) but I've got a few I may share later on. Only took this one video, and things went awry!!! A guy from another group jumped from the other side at almost the same time!!! Everything came out OK, but you can tell I was troubled!!!

Queen for a Day

Yesterday was the observance of my wife's birthday. Good times!!!



The cake turned out to be something of a challenge. I had a can of frosting in the fridge that I'd thought was about 1/3 full still, but when I opened it turns out all that was left in there was colors I'd had mixed for the last cake!!! There was just enough of the frosting this one'd been iced with to do most of the color, and the portal orange worked out for a crown.



We celebrated at my parents' house. It was overcast, typical June gloom all morning, with no sign that it would burn off, but no sooner than we got ready to go into the pool out came the sun!!!



Don't know if my slide animation will work on here. Try clicking on the pic if it's not moving.



It was the first time I've made it in the pool since the slide has been installed. It's quite cool!!!








OM NOM NOM!!!




And there's the Birthday Girl!!! A queen every day, truth be known!!!





Last shot is my dad & I, I was showing him the remote control I picked up for my camera. If you look closely you can actually see it.

Deep Creek

Last week we were up in the mountains. Good times!!! One day we went to an area called "Deep Creek". Hiked a bit more than a quarter mile back, and there's a, well, deep area great for the jumping into, complete with a rope for climbing up the sheer face. Notice how on my vacations I tend to find a high place to jump off into the water???

Right before you get to this place, the water spans from one side of the canyon to the other, and you have to swim from there. Of course, it was around a bit of a bend, so I couldn't get any pictures or video from there. After several jumps, I made my way back and got my video cam and found an area shallow enough to wade across. Turned out to be deeper than I thought, and slippery on the exit. Bare inches above the water, it was. Of course, after the boy shot this clip, the battery died as I was attempting to film his jump!!!

"No Swimming"

That's what the signs all said.



Looking at the actual falls, Rainbow Falls in Hilo, that seems like very good advice!!!



However, walking just a little ways up the slope (I swear, the path was part of the path the Bradys took to return that unlucky idol) and there are many tempting areas to swim, with calm water and excellent rocks to jump in off!!!



The mountain water is somewhat cooler than the ocean water, but very refreshing.



We spent the better part of the afternoon of our last day doing just that. Stayed a bit longer that I had intended (I was on vacation, I had no timepiece with me!!!) and we missed out on touring the Manua Loa macadamia nut factory. Oh well...



One of these shots is the older boy and I climbing the roots of the immense Banyan tree with the rope swing tied to it.



The last shot of the previous post has the boy jumping in with his feet just hitting the water from this part. It also has the towers we jumped into the ocean repeatedly from. That wasn't us in that shot (it was taken from our hotel balcony), we didn't get any of us actually jumping in.