RenegadeRider

I have just finished reading the book, America Alone , by Mark Steyn. I see it 's now in paperback. I highly recommend it

Here's the evidence of Her Bionicness. It was rather difficult getting these images. The doctor had given us a printed copy of the x-rays. I then tried to scan the images and they came out barely recognizable regardless of the scan parameters. These are photographs of the prints with some manipulation. Side View Front View

This sign was posted on the door of a hospital room of a Navy Seal recovering from wounds. It expresses an attitude of someone who is very much alive and who will prevail, no matter what. It expresses hope and appreciation. Thank you again.

Dianne's medical adventures helped to provide some new outlooks on life and giving. We often hear (and say ourselves) when someone has needs, "if you need something give me a call". We then never follow up and the one that needs never calls. As a preface to this discussion I must state that we are not in need. But that does not seem to matter. In a little over a week we have been the recipients of three batches of soup, a pan of lasagna, cookies and two loaves of bread. In addition, her daughter, Wendy came for the Thanksgiving weekend and cooked a turkey with all the fixins. We haven't eaten this well in years. Besides the food, our friends have supplied us with crutches, a walker, a wheel chair and have done our housework. I'm almost ready to put my feet up myself. Out of this we have a new appreciation for someones needs, even if they are not expressed. We also have a new appreciation of gratitude. Without this "misfortune"we might not have ...

Dianne tried to teach Riley to ride a bicycle. Yeah, I understand you already know about it, I'm slow. And the good news is that Riley did not fall off the bicycle. Nor was he injured. Neither did he require surgery to repair any damage. The same cannot be said for Dianne. Observe the stitches. She has hardware in her knee that the doctor could have gotten at Home Depot. She only has to keep weight off the leg for three months. BTW, I tried to warn Riley about the perils before they left home. I told him that his mother would try to do him harm. He then either didn't listen or assumed he was quick enough to avoid whatever she could try. Since he returned home safely, I guess he must have been right.

Yesterday we participated in the Veterans Day parade here in Reno. I received a frantic call from a friend. Republican Congressman and Presidential candidate, Duncan Hunter would be in town for the Veterans Day parade and his ride fell through for the parade. Would I be willing to take part in the parade (she knew I had a convertible)? I jumped at the opportunity. Even though Congressman Hunter was from San Diego, we really knew very little about him. We knew that he was the ranking Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee, and that he was a strong supporter of the border fence. But, we usually heard the pundits dismissing his as a "second tier candidate". Participating in the parade gave me the warm fuzzies. Again and again people would approach the car and say that they were supporting him and that they were counting on him. Dianne and me with Congressman and Lynn Hunter. We later attended a town hall forum (which we had not had any intention of attending...

We just baked a loaf of no knead bread. It was quite wondrous. The recipe could use a little tweaking, possibly because of the altitude. A Google search for "no knead bread" revealed over a million hits. Look for a You Tube video from the New York Times.

I refuse to ever use one of the automated checkouts at Home Depot where they replace humans with computers that like to speak "Espanol". I believe that they have and exhibit their contempt and disregard for American consumers Around 9 p.m., the man was in line at a self-service checkout stand, ready to buy a pry bar and hacksaw, according to a Seattle police report. But as a manager told an officer, the man accidentally hit the button for Spanish on the computer screen. And then Home Depot received the proper payment.

You were probably wondering the whole time. Well, I must finally admit it. The only reason for the trip was to find my own park. Here it is and I like it! What do yo think?

I learned about High Points about three years ago when I was passing through Lone Pine, CA, the closest town to Mt Whitney, which is the highest point in the lower 48 states. No, I have not attempted Mt Whitney, yet. We also learned of highpointers, a group of people that set out to reach the high point of all 50 states. We thought that would add an interesting touch to our travels. I have no intention of reaching all 50 highpoints. Five of the highpoints require technical mountaneering skills and specialized equipment. Dianne has rebelled at just the idea. As of the end of this trip we have conquered ten state High Points. I just learned that in addition to the High Points, some folks have also gone to the state Low Points. Here is Harney Peak at 7242 feet, the High Point of South Dakota. Shown is an abandoned fire tower that was constructed by crews during the WPA days. It is listed in the national historic register. View from the top of Harney Peak. Timms Hill, at 1951 f...

Again, we continued on our High Point quest. This time we scaled Hoosier Hill, the high point of Indiana at 1257 ft. It is located on private property about 50 ft from the road. We temporarily parked the coach in a truck stop that was within about 10 - 15 miles. We next (later in the same day as Indiana) conquered Campbell Hill, the Highest point in Ohio at 1549 feet. This site is located in the campus of Ohio High Point Vocational school at Bellefontaine, OH. It was once a Nike missile site. On our way home now, we bagged Hawkeye Point at 1670 feet, the High Point of Iowa. This is located in northwestern Iowa in a farm yard. Yes! we had permission. Approaching Hawkeye Point we passed through the city of Okoboji, IA and an area called the Great Lakes of Iowa. It was a water wonderland and clearly, one of those "secret" treasures that are unknown to the rest of the country. Next at 5424 feet was Panorama Point, the High Point of Nebraska. This site is also located on ...

We're home! Yes, that home, the one in Reno. You probably thought that we had fallen off the edge of the earth since I have not posted for so long. I haven't had convenient access to the Internet in all that time. Sometimes the connection was not reliable or not secure. Other times, too much was happening to take the needed time. We began this journey by dawdling and meandering wherever the road lead us. We avoided the Interstate wherever practical. The terrain is quite similar on both routes, but the Interstate bypasses nearly all the small towns and cities. I believe that the heart of America lies in the small towns. It cannot be found in any of the shopping malls or chain stores that proliferate along the Interstate and in the larger cities. We found treasure after treasure, along with a few duds. The duds were the price we paid to find the treasures Treasures cannot be found on a Denny's menu or in chain stores. The treasures also depended on not adhering to ...

We stopped at Devils Tower National Monument and walked around the base. We then drove on to Rapid City, SD. Fri: The road lead to Custer, SD, and to Custer State Park. I wanted to climb Harney Peak, the highest point in SD. The round trip took about 4 hours and covered about 6 miles. It passed through some very beautiful country. A former forest service lookout tower was built on the peak as a CCC project. We returned to the bottom just as it began to rain and hail. View from the lookout tower at the top of Harney Peak, highest point in S. Dak I secured a camp site in the park. We were all three exhausted (Yes, Riley was allowed on the trails at the state park.) but Riley soon found his second wind. Sat: We visited the Crazy Horse Memorial mountain. It is a very impressive undertaking and I highly reccommend it for anyone. Crazy Horse from the visitors center.

Bison (Bufffalo) in Yellowstone. American Buffalo with our favorite patriot. Custer, SD. Buffalo on LSD, Custer SD.

Coal truck to haul coal from the mine to the crusher. I could use one of these in certain parking lots. I'll bet i get fewer door dings. View of the 80 to 120 foot coal seam from the rim of the open pit mine near Gillette, WY

Wed: Arrived Gillette, WY. We explored the town. Noticed That a passenger train was in the station. A tent was set up and a barbeque was in progress. We inquired what was happening and learned that the train was there for a Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) employee appreciation event and travelled around the route system during the summer. BNSF is one of the world's largest transportation companies. In Gillette, the business was to haul coal from the mines to the various consumers, mainly electrical generating stations. We were invited to ride the train, about three hours, and then were treated to the barbeque. We even brought home a doggie bag. We saw a lot of wildlife, mostly deer and antelope, 'playing'. Thu: We toured an open pit coal mine. Northeastern Wyoming is experiencing a huge economic boom. It currently supplies about 25% of our nations coal. It is also becoming a large producer of methane which lies on top of the coal.

Tue: We left Yellowstone, encountering a major road construction project near the east entrance. The route into Cody, WY was much the same as in Yellowstone. We were pleasantly surprised. The Buffalo Bill museum was superb. My maximum time in a museum is about two hours. I chose the firearms section and was enthralled. They have about 1500 firearms on display, and then another 1200 downstairs. We also previewed a cowboy memorabalia auction. It was scheduled the next day and we chose to not stay. We progressed as far as Sheridan.

Mon: We joined another ranger guided tour along the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We have found the tours to be extremely informative and probably better than stumbling about on our own. A common theme was emphasized in each of their presentations. The park was here and available for us today because it had been set aside and protected over 130 years ago. It appears that the park service is constantly in confllict between preservation and use. Often it seemed like preservation is winning out. I realize that my thought is not entirely correct, but I sometimes got the feeling that Yellowstone was treated more like a museum with exhibits behind velvet ropes than a park as a place to play. We are instructed to stay on paths and to not touch the features. Now I realize that Yellowstone can be a very dangerous place. Many of those warnings serve to protect us foolish and unaware visitors. People have fallen through the thin ground that is near the thermal features and have fall...

Sat : Arrived at Yellowstone. Sun: We made the requisite visit to Old Faithful. While walking around the geyser basin we met some folks that are geyser watchers, a.k.a geyzer gazers. The older ones are geezer geyser geezers. They are sort of like the geyzer version of storm chasers in tornado country. They might sit there for hours on end lest they miss an eruption. They monitor, record on notebooks and report their observations. They keep in radio contact with their associates and also with the rangers. They are better able to predict the next eruption than the rangers. They told me that a geyser named Grand was predicted to erupt between 3:45 and 7:45 pm. Grand is larger than Old Faithful. It's the largest 'predictable' geyser. I decided to watch Grand. The weather was less than cooperative. It was cold and windy and began to rain. Distant lightning was fast approaching. I decided to get inside. While waiting, it rained, snowed and hailed. Approaching 5:30 we noticed a r...