Latenightrob

Cool extra wide load!

2011-12-22T22:28:00.001-08:00

This happened a little bit ago, but finally got to load it up here. Driving along through Maryland on 695 we came upon this extra wide load. Due to traffic we were behind it for a bit, would love to see this piece assembled with the rest of the plane?

Our world

2011-11-05T17:42:00.000-07:00

I look at this picture and get the feeling of what astronauts must feel when looking back at the earth! Or did I have too much wine?

A tribute to a great family member, Licorice!

2011-10-18T14:21:00.000-07:00

Who knew what a single cat could have done to a family. Today we had the unfortunate experience of laying to rest the best cat one could ever hope for. Licorice was a special cat that loved barbie shoes, ham, getting high on cat nip, laying on jeans, and most importantly-kneading Lori's hair all night long! Licorice was special in that he had the ability to produce unique sounds and based on those sounds we knew if there was a squirrel, cat or dog, and/or a certain type of bird outside. For a long time he would announce himself as he enter a room we were already in. The following are a few photos from over the years. We love him so very much and will miss him!!!!!!

Bottling Success!!!!!

2011-09-12T09:35:00.000-07:00

After another long year of waiting, the grapes have been smashed, fermented, aged, and now bottled!

Here is a video of the assembly line.

Here is a video of Katherine our smallest and youngest wine maker placing a label on the bottle.

Again, thanks to everyone who came out to this years bottling, you were all a big help and thanks for being apart of our 240 little babies!!!!!

Hummingbird

2011-08-23T06:31:00.000-07:00

After years of trying to attract hummingbirds, I have finally got one coming to the feeder!!!! Here is a video!

Down in flames

2011-05-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

We could have taken this small fire inside the Crabtree Tavern as an omen that the philadelphia flyers were not going to win friday night! The workers must have spilled the sterno causing the fire and they tried to snuff it out by putting more and more towels on it, which made more flames......

Mulch

2011-05-04T14:35:00.000-07:00

It is that time of year again and my local place to get mulch went under, so I we had to travel a little further and it was a little more expensive. However, here is a quick video of how the mulch is dumped into the truck. It is so much better then using bags!

Ambitious goose chaser

2011-03-15T06:12:00.000-07:00

It seems my little RC truck decided to go after something more it's size and kind! Lens is a little off sorry!

2011-03-15T05:36:00.000-07:00

A very short video showing our firebellied newt stalking a decent size ghost shrimp to no avail. enjoy!

geese chase take 3

2011-02-28T10:57:00.001-08:00

In this video you will see a birds eye view from my deck as well as a on board video from the rc truck. Enjoy!

geese chase take 2

2011-02-09T03:59:00.000-08:00

Geese Chase

2011-01-05T16:16:00.000-08:00

Well here is my first attempt at chasing those annoying geese at the lake! For Christmas my big present from Lori was this awesome (pictured above) remote control truck. I attached a HD helmet camera to the truck and went after the birds! My bad driving skills landed the truck upside and the camera popped off, but here is the few seconds of semi-good video with the birds getting the hint to scram! More videos to follow, next week!

Northern Flicker

2010-12-15T09:44:00.000-08:00

One of the coolest birds and by far one of my favorites (next to hummingbirds, yellow finches, and birds of prey- hawks, eagles, and falcons) is the Northern Flicker. I see and hear these birds all around my house, however they are very skittish and take off in a moments notice. They are very colorful and normally take no parts of bird feeders. I noticed a few years ago that they would occasionally hit the soft suit vs. the hard suit cakes we put out for the woodpeckers, and luckily today I was able to snap a few photos of the flicker fattening up for winter! If you don't put out bird food, I suggest it is time you did to see birds up close like this one!

Time To Wine

2010-11-04T14:06:00.001-07:00

After a long travel day (from Ireland) and a good nights rest, our grapes came in from California and we had to crush and de-stem them. We are making two kinds of wine this year with the anticipation of reserving one of them. To “reserve” one just means that we are going to let it sit in a barrel for an additional year, allowing it to “barrel age”. The two types of wine we are making are Brunello and Cabernet Sauvignon. Here is a video of the beginning, we took close to 1,000 pounds of grapes and sent them through the crusher and de-stemmer machine. Here you see us mixing the grapes up to even it out and add some chemicals to the must. Then after a week to ten days as fermentation slows down, we have to press the grapes (click here for a vid. pre-press) and get as much of the juice out as we can. In this video you see Mr. Cocker and I moving the grapes to the press by the use of the high tech bucket! And this video shows the wine getting squeezed and transferred to the stainless steel holding tank. Now the wine will sit in the steel tank for 48hrs before they move it to an oak barrel. The idea of waiting is to allow some of the solids to fall out of the solution and in the tank and not in the oak barrel. (solids just means dead yeast cells and anything else that was dissolved in the juice). Lastly the cool thing with the grape press is that in the beginning when the wine is sort of free flowing out the wine is still a bit sweet, but as water pressure is added to the press the last bits of wine that come out are much more dry and tannic, tasting like a very good but young wine.

Ireland Update

2010-10-27T08:09:00.001-07:00

I am not sure where to start, after sorting through some 14 + gigs of photos my eyes are a little gooey. Some of what I am adding may be a duplicate but it is easier for me to start from the beginning. Going back in time, here are a few of us at the airport bar.

Our flight was actually quite nice considering it was a red eye. We left JFK around 9:40pm and arrived in Dublin ready to catch a bus and some breakfast. In our travels we stopped at a round tower at Monasterboice (click here for a video). Of course what struck me was the amount crows and their respective loudness, (or ravens) Our next stop was to see the Proleek Dolmen and legend has it if you could balance a rock on top of the dolmen you would be granted good luck. Here is me succeeding.

Giant’s Causeway, I already posted a bit about the causeway, but here are a couple more pictures and click here for some video. click for video and the steep steps.

I forget the name but here is a picture of a rope bridge that was supposed to be closed for the season, but if you look closely enough you will see someone walking across it.

Here is a random picture of the country side

and here is a picture of Ossian's grave and a video.

What isn’t included in the video and the picture is the 3/4 to 1 miles hike we had to take to get up there. This site was not marked from the small rural road at the bottom and our driver had to drive about 3 miles out of the way just to turn around.

Next stop Carrickfergus Castle. I think this was built around 1100 and inside the castle was a fresh water spring, so when invaded they could hold up inside and still get fresh water. Here is me going down the stairs.

While in Belfast we took a ride out to the shipyard and got to see where they made the Titanic! this is the dry dock.

Click here to see Maryann singing Patsy Clines Crazy.

Here are some random shots of us

Don trying his first Guinness, do you think he likes it?

and an old man that was trying to pick Lori and I up!

Scary old dude, when he got to the pub he ordered 6 vodka and cokes and drank all but two of them. Leaving the last two for us if we wanted.

he even bought us shots (these had whiskey on top of baileys) Not exactly the easiest to stomach. We didn’t want them because who knew what else he had done to them?

Next we hit The Ceide Fields. Unfortunately the weather was terrible and the tour was cut short. Under the bogland of these fields lies the most extensive stone age monument in the world dating from 5 to 6 thousands years ago. Here is a video Lori took down by the water.

Here we got to see a very old two headed grave stones

Here is a link to more information.

In the town of knock in 1879 there was a apparition and now today people come from all around the world to visit the site and get some holy water. Me on the other hand was searching for a pub and guess what we found Nothing, No pubs were open not even the town hotel? Very strange but that just shows you the bad times that all of Ireland is going though, our bus driver told us that they are losing a pub a day to closure.

At belleek pottery there was a little joke that Don had purchased a 23 thousand dollar statue (for his rock garden) (notice the hoppeapparition in the glass)

Donegal Tweed, here was a place that they still make tweed using the oldest looking machine (click for video) Once you get there they give you some Irish coffee to loosen up your purse strings. worked for my wife .

Tobernalt holy well. Out in the middle of nowhere this natural spring flows. Back in the day and even some people today believe in the healing powers of the water.

Almost done! I am sure I have missed a lot but my eyes are done just like Lori was in this picture

Here are a few more random shots

In the tables are the taps!

Don joining a band.

Help moving a sign.

last night: Cabra Castle. Here was a cool castle that we got to stay in. We also got to crash a wedding they were holding. Dinner at the castle

Now the funniest part of the castle revolves around the supposed hauntings there. Notice the chandelier above Don . When you walked on the floor above the chandelier vibrated and clanked together. I had already gone upstairs leaving Don, Michelle, and Lori. Once I crossed the floor the chandelier made noise and to be funny Don started speaking to the lights! He’d say two different names and depending on which one I’d shake the lights violently or softly. Well this attracted some other guests of the castle who really thought some mystifying haunting was actually happening, to the point where the other guest started cautiously saying the two names! Too damn funny (oxygen stat)

All in all we had a great trip, with a great group of people

THE END.

We are home

2010-10-25T08:22:00.001-07:00

We have been home for a few days unwinding and getting back into the grove. I have over 14 gigabytes of pictures and videos to sort through and I will be updating as time permits. We had a great time with our group and above is a picture of us all on our last night in Cabra Castle. Oh and here is a picture of the castle's mascot Oscar

Murals

2010-10-20T15:29:00.001-07:00

Just some of the murals we came across in Belfast. Some of our group took the "black cab" tour of Belfast, unfortunately Lori and I were not one of them. In the tour they were driven into the heart of Ireland's conflicted areas, areas that have very large fences separating the two sides. Also, there are gates that can be locked down that allow no passage. We saw the gates and the murals above, but did not get to see the more off beat areas of the conflict.

Waterfall, grave, and halloween

2010-10-19T00:35:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile and we have been to many places and I am afraid that I will not be following the time line, however, here is a couple of pictures of some of the things we saw.

The waterfall was not exactly an easy walk. The path was 3km long and for the most part uphill! What they should have done was provide either a golf cart to take people up and down, oxygen, or at least a pint of Guiness.

Here is Maryann sitting on the grave of Finn McCool's son. This also was a bit of a hike up through a side of a mountain. It was an adventure but totally worth it!

Lastly, here is Don with his new pal, he has made many new friendships here with the locals!

Gotta run, more to come, today is a shopping day

Giant's Causeway and Bushmills

2010-10-15T05:27:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update. Yesterday we first hit the Giant's Causeway and it was a lot of walking but well worth it. In the first two pictures I marked them with a tiny arrow showing you the two furthermost points. we took a picture at the beginning looking at the end of the hike and another picture from the end looking at the start point. We started the walk along the top of the ridge and about 2/3 way hit a stair case that was 162 steps down the cliff edge.

Here is a picture of Lori sipping Bushmill's top dog, 21 year old whisky. She gives it 4 livers (in case you don't get it 4 stars)

And lastly, here is a picture of Patrick who everyone in my group thought was me walking back and forth. We stopped him and asked for a picture and while talking he told me he has 2yr old twins, so in the picture he is holding up a cell phone with a picture of his twins, pretty funny! By the way the pub was great with traditional Irish music mixed in with songs like John Denver's that goes like "take me home country road to the place where I belong West Virginia....." and the Monkeys "Sleeping Jean" along with "come on Eileen" I was really surprised to see a bunch of well lets say very happy Irishmen singing and dancing to a song about West Virginia, however, it was awesome!

The Crown Bar

2010-10-13T23:12:00.000-07:00

Our first night out in Belfast and most of us were dragging. Keep in mind that we left NJ at 3:30pm Tues. and arrived in Dublin at 9:30am (4:30am our time). Then we got on a bus and headed right out to start seeing sights. When we got to Belfast and checked in most of us were afraid to sleep considering we didn't want to not sleep through the night. So, after dinner some of us headed over to The Crown Bar to enjoy a pint. The Crown itself was a very well built pub, the extent of the workmanship (woodwork) was beyond compare. The quick story is that the workers at the ship yard would moonlight and built this pub. Anyway, very cool place to be and they even had very private booths for those looking for a little intimacy. I just couldn't get a picture that would do it justice. Calling it an early night we crashed! Now we are off to Bushmills and the Giant's Causeway.

IRELAND

2010-10-13T08:52:00.000-07:00

After a long travel day, we made it to Belfast! But before we ventured to Belfast we went and saw a bunch of high crosses and a Monastic round tower. We also saw a Dolmen which was pretty cool. The dolmen itself is a tomb that was once covered in earth and the body would be placed inside, however, after all this time the earth has been washed away.

Now, we are off for dinner will update again later!

Found Jesus, in Vegas

2010-10-12T05:53:00.000-07:00

Who knew that I would have found the son of god, the almighty, the man who walks on water walking down Fremont Street Las Vegas, but I did!

Other than finding JC we hit the Neon Museum, Pinball Hall of Fame (again), Fremont St., car show in the Imperial Palace, few clubs, and lastly none of us won at gambling. The Neon Museum was a place not yet opened to the public, but they offered private tours. We were able to get in and got to see all the old Vegas signs from the years past.

The Pinball Hall of Fame was very cool as usual but this time we had a bit of a different experience. While playing Iron Man a new pinball game the guy working at he place came over and cranked up the volume as well as giving us all a free game (which he played with us) While he was playing he was teaching us exactly how and what to do. He was very impressive considering his score was 50+million and the rest of us were like 2-5 mil.

That's it for now!

One of these things is not like the other!

2010-09-27T16:34:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of golfing with the Dix brothers over the weekend and they are very much a shoe in for the 2010 version on the tv show the ODD Couple!

and

Bottling Day

2010-09-13T06:23:00.000-07:00

Almost one year ago Lori and I had begun the process to make wine for real and you may remember that post on on this blog, if you want to revisit it click here. Fast forward to Sept. and we were ready to bottle #240 bottles of wine. We could not have done the bottling alone as there was a fair amount of work involved. Our wine was transferred and filtered from the barrel it slept in the prior year to a stainless steel holding tank to await the bottling process.

First, the stainless steel tank was hoisted up high and the next step was to fill the bottles by way of gravity.

Then they were corked and RTB our heat sink master double fisted the wine bottles and heated the tin foil caps on
From here they passed down to get their labels

Once the labels were spun on we had our finished product and Tom's special bottle Notice his great attention to detail!

That is it, except we had to repeat that process a total of #240 times and once the tank was emptied we ventured over to our table to enjoy some food and great wine!

The entire bottling process took just about one hour however, taste testing the other wines available and enjoying the food we made an afternoon of it.

All in all we had a fabulous time and really appreciated everyone who helped us bottle and moved the wine! Now, the hard part is allowing the wine some additional time to age in the bottle before we drink any of it. Optimally the wine should "bottle age" anywhere from a few months to a few years to enhance and further develop its unique flavor. Here is a little explanation regarding aging of wine.

Video of Newton Pub

2010-09-10T09:57:00.000-07:00

They opened up the Whitehorse Pike around 11am and I drove down to take a look at the diner. Here is what I saw!

Newton Pub engulfed in flames

2010-09-10T03:54:00.001-07:00

At sometime after 5 am this morning we were awakened to the two alarm fire sirens and then the hovering noise of a news helicopter seen in the video. Currently they have the entire whitehorse pike closed down for the fire trucks. Unfortunately, this is our go to diner, bummer.

Cool Hockey move

2010-08-26T12:28:00.000-07:00

Here is a video of my niece doing a nifty field hockey move.

Big Ass Spider

2010-08-21T20:31:00.001-07:00

This sucker is building a nice web between our house and the table umbrella.

2010-08-11T13:52:00.001-07:00

If you have any business in new jersey stay clear of rt. 73 & 70 it's a completely fubar!

2010-07-26T00:33:00.000-07:00

The prefect steak special served from a dive casino in las vegas, Ellis Island Casino. Best to order it as medium otherwise they over cook it. All this for the low, low price of $6.95 and they throw in a pint of their microbrew or home made root beer!

World Cup

2010-07-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

Just one of those moments you have to say "ouch"

Back in West Virginia

2010-04-02T06:02:00.000-07:00

We are taking a fast trip back through West Virginia using our driving book "The most scenic drives in America" So far this book has been right on everywhere we have gone. In the video you won't be seeing much but you should be able to hear all those little spring peepers making noise in the back round, at first we thought that the noise was locus, but it hit us that the little frogs are coming out! The first picture speaks for itself and the second picture was a close up of an old fashion ground water pump located at the beginning of a trail head in Beartown State Park.

Flooding

2010-03-14T04:50:00.000-07:00

During the storm yesterday we went out for a little lunch and on the way home we drove around the lake taking pictures and videos. We are used to seeing the flooding occur, but this was much worse.

Wine Update

2010-02-14T16:05:00.001-08:00

Our sixth month wine update. The weekend before the super bowl Lori and I went to check on our wine. The purpose of this visit was to "rack" the wine. Racking is just a term to remove the wine from the barrel and clean the barrel of all the sediment that is formed in the wine process (ex: dead yeast cells) Since there are so many barrels and too little time, the facility demonstrated the racking process with random barrels and we were told if we found our specific barrel that we could take a little taste. In the pictures take notice of the happy faces of the tasters! So, now we are anxiously awaiting our next visit in August or September when we will bottle and label the finished product. Stay tuned

And more snow

2010-02-11T12:37:00.001-08:00

As you can see my ornamental grasses look like a very big funnel cake. (wasn't easy to dig out)

Ok now to the "what am I" Rob Cocker guessed it right with "Wart" here is a bigger picture so you can see the other two that I didn't include with the 1st picture.

I said I wouldn't say who the foot belongs to, but I will say this, he doesn't live in any of these states
al, ak, az, ar, ca, co, ct, de, fl, ga, hi, id, il, in, ia, ks, ky la, me, ma, mi, mn, ms, mo, mt, ne, nv, nh, nj, nm, ny, nc, nd, oh, ok, or, pa, ri, sc, sd, tn, tx, ut, vt, va, wa, wv, wi, wy.

wow snow day

2010-02-06T17:20:00.001-08:00

In the first picture can you find my neighbor's car?
Second picture is the result of snow blower plus wind gust = frozen face
Third picture self explanatory.

Don't worry I will update the Guess what I am by Monday and our wine making.

Everyone enjoy your snow day.

Guess what i am

2010-01-30T17:20:00.000-08:00

Interesting thing I came across tonight, Can anyone guess what I am? Post a comment if you think you know what I am!

Lots of Snow

2009-12-20T03:00:00.001-08:00

Not even sure how much snow we got, however, our deck is completely covered (almost hip high). Here is a night shot of our house, hard to see the lights, but you get the idea.

snow day

2009-12-19T05:25:00.000-08:00

The Weather men and woman got it right. Just after 3 or 4 hours of snow we have about 4 or 5 inches! Here is a picture from the security camera of the front and back of my house, I will add another picture before it gets dark to compare. Have fun in the snow and if you have to, drive safe!

Making wine for real

2009-10-10T12:39:00.000-07:00

As many of you know Lori and I have been making wine at home for many years, however, the reds that we make have not been all that exiting. So, we have decided to up our ante and make it at a facility close by called the Cherry Hill Wine Room.
At the wine room they provide all of the wine making equipment and ingredients (crusher, destemmer, wine press, yeast, grapes, etc.) This year we are making a combination wine called a Trilogy (cab. sav., merlot, and cab. franc) After the grapes were crushed and destemmed we pumped them into this giant container were the yeast will be added for fermentation; here Lori is stirring it up.

Rides at the stratosphere

2009-10-08T06:23:00.000-07:00

While in Vegas the four of us decided to ride the rides at the Stratosphere hotel. The unique thing about these rides is that they are set up on top of the Hotel which makes them over 1100 feet high. In the videos you will see Rob and Rod riding the Big Shot and also riding the X-scream. Then you will see Rob and me riding the big shot. We didn't get any video of the third ride with us on it, only a quick vid of someone else. Note: I know our names are confusing but keep in mind there were #3 Robs and #1 Rod on the trip. last note, you will notice a bit of arm swaying/dancing, this was a signature move create by Rod.

Vegas

2009-10-03T16:33:00.001-07:00

Rob, Rob, Rod, and I are in Vegas for a few days. Here is a picture of them standing out front of the Pawn shop from Pawn Stars from the history channel. It however, was not as cool as we were expecting, for those of you who know the show Chumley was there. We then went to the Stratosphere but due to the wind the closed the rides, maybe tomorrow.

Bermuda

2009-10-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a five day cruise via the Explorer of the Seas that left out of Bayonne, NJ. We hit a lot of rough seas which caused Lori a little extra time in the room, but once we reached Bermuda the weather was perfect. We didn't actually have a lot of time in Bermuda, but we choose to fill up our days by going on two excursions. The first one was a tour of the dockyard on our own personal Segway.

If you have never had the opportunity to try one- DO IT. They were extremely easy to navigate and only took a few minutes to master. The only drawback was they maxed out at 12.5mph!

After the Segway tour we decided to rent a single scooter and tour the island at our own pace. We have heard plenty of daunting stories regarding scooters, but we went for it anyway. Driving on the opposite side of the road was a little challenging, but I had Lori constantly in my ear telling me "STAY LEFT, STAY LEFT" We rode up the coast and made it to Hamilton, which we learned ever so quickly why we didn't want to stay due to the overwhelming traffic. We turned and hightailed it back to Jobson's Bay for a little romantic walk on the beach- sorry no skinny dipping for us!

The next day we arose very early to reach our next excursion which was the Hartley's Helmet Dive, after a 30 or so minute boat ride, we got in the cool blue water (and our heavy helmets) and descended into the coral reef. Under 10-12 feet of water there was a strong current, but our guide kept us tethered and showed us around the reef pointing out the sea life and allowed us to handle his "trained" local fish Stormin' Norman. The neatest part was when I was given a piece of coral to hold and Lori was given bits of squid on her fingernail and she held the squid just over a hole in the coral and a little itty bitty blue crab came out and snatched his snack from her. (all the while I was being nipped from the other side of the coral buy the rest of his clan!)

The Ship- Awesome dinner companions!! We sat with three other couples, we had such a good time with them that it seemed we ran to dinner and the staff was pushing us out to make room for the next seating. The casino wasn't nice to us, it was a bit smokey and we had more fun in the arcade playing Galaga! We did manage to have some free champagne by attending the onboard art auction and we did purchase two small pieces and a third as a present. We did have a smoother ride home for the most part, but they tell us we encountered a very strong storm, yet due to our wine coma we didn't feel or hear it.

Any cruisers here is a tip- Sign up for the express check out. It was great, we were off the boat within minutes and in our car within 15.

MoonFlower

2009-09-06T05:09:00.000-07:00

A few years back my neighbor had given me
some really old seeds (about 20 years old), he told me they were called moon
flowers and that the seeds were hard to germinate. That first year
I was successful in growing the viney flower, however, I was only able
to get a single flower. The following year I wasn't able to get the
seeds to germinate and the following year I lost them. Now this year
while shopping at Lowes I came across a packet of seeds and
low and behold they were Moonflowers. Determined I tried and successfully
germinated four seeds and placed them in different locations outside. It seemed to
take forever but I finally got some flowers. The cool thing about this vine is that the
flowers only open up at night, (they start the opening at dusk, remain open all night, and close at dawn). the vine itself grows up to 15 feet and the flowers have a fresh
cotton smell and are 4 to 6 inches across. If you have the space and something for them to grow on they are
worth having!

Took a little drive

2009-08-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

We decided to take the new truck for a drive and made it eight hours away to Snowshoe, WV, after having to turn around at City Line Ave b/c I forgot my camera and computer (dummy). We are staying on the mountain in a tiny studio condo overlooking the village square, we imagine it would be more spectacular if the village was under 3 feet of snow. Have not done much, just grabbed a bite to eat and took the ski lift down to see the lake. in the picture you can see an adventure's mountain bike on it's way back up to the top. Over the weekend there is a mountain bike race and a butterfly festival.

Big Elvis and the pinball hall of fame

2009-07-14T22:48:00.001-07:00

A few miles off the Vegas Strip there is an awesome little place called the pinball hall of fame, it has over 200 machines including south park, star trek, cyclone, adams family etc...also there are some non-pinball such as donkey kong, spy hunter, and ms. packman. We spent $5 in quarters and spent a few hours playing, it was a lot of fun I will absolutely make it back there. In this video, big elvis is singing a louis armstrong song what a wonderful world, and for me it is just great! Quick background on big elvis, this guy use to be close to 1000 pounds and he has up to now lost 550 lbs!! I think he sounds better then elvis.

Las vegas

2009-07-13T09:43:00.000-07:00

v

We are in cool Las Vegas, Thursday it is going up to 111 degrees, Lori is not too Happy!
Anyway, we had a very good time at our convention. We got to meet Adam savage from Mythbusters, Penn & Teller (we actually heard teller speak). We also got to see Penn & Teller's show and it was awesome. Sunday we got to attend Linda and Calvin's wedding which the happy couple looked amazing. In the video clip the older guy is Jack Jones and he is telling a joke. (incidentally we saw his show as well)

Stupid Airlines!

2009-07-08T12:29:00.001-07:00

Select	Passenger	Status	Rapid Rewards Number	Date	Scheduled Depart Time	Flight Number	Routing	Fly By Lane Availability
No Boarding Passes Available	ROBERT SMITH	Airport Checkin Required	ADD NOW	JUL 09	02:25 PM	2467	PHILADELPHIA (PHL) to LAS VEGAS (LAS)	No
	LORI ANN SMITH	Available	ADD NOW	JUL 09	02:25 PM	2467	PHILADELPHIA (PHL) to LAS VEGAS (LAS)	No

Some of you may know that we are flying to Vegas tomorrow, however, because the name ROBERT SMITH is such a common terrorist name, the name has been placed on a "watch list" As a result of said watch list I can not use the little kiosk at the airport nor can I print my boarding pass from home. NO, because of this, when I flew home from Ireland I was detained by the TSA for questioning! I actually joked with the tsa agent that I should change my name to Muhamad..... she laughed and said "that would only make it worse"

200 + Babies

2009-06-03T10:52:00.001-07:00

Some of you may have known that I have placed 5 mantis egg sacks around my property. You may think I am crazy or may think it is a neat idea, either way I was lucky enough to watch as they hatched out of one of those sacks! Unfortunately for me as soon as I got out there with my camera the battery died, then Lori's camera (a point and shoot) would not focus on the little guys. So, I ran back in, plugged the battery in, and had a cup of coffee. I took a little video using Lori's camera and while it is not in focus you can get the idea.

This link has a very simple graphic of the life cycle of the Praying Mantis if you are interested. When I was cutting back my ornamental grasses this year I found 2 of the mantis egg sacks, however, I had already ordered the other 3 ($12). As far as I can tell this sack in the pictures is the 2nd one that has hatched so far. Very cool!

West Virginia

2009-05-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

Click HERE to see more pictures of our first day in West Virginia. We drove from NJ through the Maryland Panhandle into West Virginia's Potomac Highlands taking roughly about 5.5 hrs. Once in West Virginia we stopped at BlackWater Falls and Canaan Valley Park, which was very impressive. From the falls we traveled south through Monongahela Forest as well as Dolly Sods (aka Satan's hole) The drive through the "hole" was very dangerous, foggy, pot hole ridden, and wet (very wet). It must have been awesome scenery but we were too busy changing our Depends to notice! It had been a very long day at that point so we made our way to Elkins, WV- our home base for the next few days. We had a quick Cinco De Mayo dinner at the local Mexican eatery, Humberto's, and headed back to the room. At that point we realized we will not get the Hockey games down here. This was followed by the sun coming out and a rainbow which we saw from our hotel. We are too bushed to get back out there to enjoy it. Tomorrow we are heading further south towards Snowshoe and back.

The Catskills

2009-04-29T16:43:00.000-07:00

Lori and I have spent the last few days tooling around the Catskills in New York. We saw lots of waterfalls (unplanned), reservoirs, got lost, and had a awesome lunch in Roscoe NY in a place called Zach's (also unplanned, but worth the trip). Most of the time we were on roads that were not on our maps nor the GPS, yet we made it back to the hotel with out getting too lost, (many " Look kids Big Ben's/Parliament" from the movie European Vacation). One of the pictures we posted is of our future dream home we will never own, just amazing!

Spring

2009-04-27T12:46:00.001-07:00

I am sure I wasn't the only one outside this weekend playing in the yard! We spent all day Sunday planting Gerbers and cleaning up outside. Today I took a short walk and snapped some pictures.
Left to right the 1st photo is of one of our Gerbers followed by a tadpole in my pond, followed by a stupid Canandian goose sitting on her nest right next to the play ground at Newton Lake! The 1st picture on the bottom row is of a Praying Mantis egg sack, in that little sack holds roughly 200 babies, which if I am lucky enough will be present when they hatch. The last picture is one I took a few weeks ago of an unfortunate squirrel being consumed by one the lakes red tailed hawks.

Cutest little ice cream

2009-04-13T13:45:00.001-07:00

Walking through our local Super Fresh I couldn't help but notice the smallest of ice cream containers. At the time they were on sale for 10 for $10, not a bad deal. The only problem is I could eat the normal size pint and want more, so the small single serve does little to fill you up!

When Irish eyes are smiling

2009-03-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day by going on a cruise on The Lantern Queen in Havre de Grace MD. We cruised along the Susquehanna River listening to Irish music and eating Irish food as well as sipping on a Guinness. A word about the Guinness: while visiting Ireland in the fall a lot of co-travelers suggested that the Guinness in Ireland was better then here in the states. After much consideration and many trials both here and there, I have to say I think it tasted just as great in both places; however, I will continue my experiment in the matter of science only! Back to the cruise, we were entertained not only by the authentic Irish music but also some truly authentic Irish dancers (see video). The amazingly cute red head is Katherine (our friends the Weber's little girl), who will be three in June. I'd like to point out the other little dancer in the video was four yrs old. We had a great time and hope to do it again next year!

Glazed Eyes

2009-03-13T09:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday our cat Licorice had to have blood taken and since he is ferocious, the vet had to sedate him with a little IM shot of Ketamine. Check out how big his pupils remained 5 hours post sedation. (I also added a picture with his normal looking eyes) Had he let the vet take blood without sedation the procedure would have only taken seconds, instead it was a whole day event. On the plus side they were able to examine his gums, teeth, and cut his nails (which is a first in 13 years). Licorice has been consistantley losing weight about half his body weight over the last 5 years. We think he may have a hyperthroid? We will find out on Monday? Apparenlty Lori gets just as upset with our cat getting sedated as she did with Courtney's knee operations.

SNOW DAY!

2009-03-02T15:37:00.000-08:00

For the first time this season we finally received
about 6 inches of snow! It took Lori and I about 45 minutes to clear off our trucks. There were a ton a kids sledding across the park, Lori and I treated ourselves to some ice cream, and even our cat got to enjoy the birdies on the deck digging for the bread crumbs we put there.
Also check out our traveling "white boy" truck, he is almost covered in snow. (again if you don't know check out the license plate)

VA caverns + Skyline Drive

2009-02-14T16:50:00.000-08:00

Today was similar to yesterday, we got to see one more cavern (Luray caverns) and drove the rest of Skyline drive (105 miles one way). The caverns today were really out of this world, extraordinary. Once underground the size of the caverns were just huge with many giant structures reaching from the ceiling to the ground. In the picture above we saw yet another reflection pond, but this one was 3 times the size of the one from yesterday. Also on today's tour we were not the only ones, but apart of a group of about 25 people. From the caverns we rejoined Skyline drive were we left off yesterday and continued to the end. Mile after mile there are overlooks that have views like the one shown here. We hiked one time to see a waterfall about 1.25 miles down the side of a mountain, going down wasn't so bad, but coming back up it took us about 4 times as long and Lori was shedding lathers rather quickly, if only it was 2 miles long.
After Skyline drive we drove back towards the hotel and had a tasty mexican dinner. Now are aching muscles are insisting on a little rest before our return home in the morning.
Hopefully I will add a few more photos when we get back home.

On The Rode Again

2009-02-13T17:10:00.000-08:00

Well it has been plenty of time since our last update and Lori and I have taken two trips since Ireland. Three weeks ago we hit up Vegas for 5 days (sorry Finn we left out Flat Stanley), anyway weather was a bit chilly but much better than 120 degrees. Highlights of Vegas: Big Elvis @ Bill's Gambling Hall, Drew Carey and company @MGM, free dinner buffet at Wynn, and hitting a four of a kind at the golden nugget playing let it ride! We Stayed 3 days in the new tower Palazzo at the Venetian and 1 nights downtown at the Golden Nugget. Lori prefers the strip but I am a new fan of downtown. Enough of Vegas lets get onto Skyline Drive Virginia.

The first picture you see is of a small reflection pond at skyline caverns roughly 220 ft below ground, it was pretty awesome for only being two inches deep. It is not exactly tourist season down here and as a result the tour we took of the caverns was just Lori and I (pretty cool too). Tomorrow we plan to hit a few more caves/caverns and continue on skyline line drive. The second picture above is of the guardians of skyline drive which we ran into immediately upon entering the Shenandoah Nat. Park via Skyline drive. Skyline Drive is roughly 100 miles (35mph speed limit) traversing through Shenandoah Nat. Park, we only drove the first third today and will hit as much as possible tomorrow. I'll report back in tomorrow.

Waterford Crystal employee's retire early

2008-11-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

As it turns out one American shopper by the name of Don apparently bought so much crystal some employees could retire early, Let's hear it for Don.

Well our group made it home safe and sound late Halloween night Click HERE for the latest pictures. For the members of the traveling group, if you see and want a picture from this site, just email me and I will forward them to you. Or if you have a picture you want me to post for everyone to see email me the picture and I will post it.

FYI when viewing pictures from the Flicker site you will notice you can do it one by one or via a slide show, however, when doing it by the slide show you won't see how I described each picture.

Lori and I had a great time with everyone and hope everyone's bed and shower felt as good as ours!!

Dublin

2008-10-30T01:13:00.000-07:00

A quick update as we are having a difficult time getting online here in Dublin. First we heard about the Philadelphia Phillies, AWESOME!!!!

Two days ago, Lori and I ate at the oldest pub in Ireland, The Brazen Head, (I will update pictures later) I ate my first Irish meal of Guinness stew, which was very good. After that we walked through some pretty bad rainy conditions to view the book of Kells at Trinity University! The University was very impressive and old, located at the end of the book of Kells was a library of extremely old books, (we were not permitted to take photos) The old library was just an awesome site which made me feel like Indian Jones running for my life!!

Yesterday, we saw the Guinness plant/store, not that impressive but we did get some free pints of Guinness! Got to run.

More pictures of Flat Stanely later Finn, don't worry!

Today we are off for a visit to New Grange some old Tomb, afterwards we will have free time in Dublin hopefully the weather will allow us to get around?

Fore Abbey

2008-10-28T01:48:00.000-07:00

We explored the ruins of the Seven Wonders of Fore today. It was a beautiful day and we took a lot of great pictures. Also, we saw the Children of Lir lake and Maryann's family church and land. What a magnificent countryside!

Cliffs of Moher

2008-10-27T01:41:00.001-07:00

Unfortunatley two days ago it was really, really a rainy day here for us. This is a picture of the Cliffs of Moher, and when you click HERE you will see another picture of what the road looked like with all the flooding. It was actually quite funny- the wind was so strong that when we leaned backward it kept us from falling over. Everyone was already soaking wet from visiting the Poulnabrone Dolmen and the Corcomroe Abbey, so by the time we got to Tom Malone's Pub, we were ready for the warm fire, great music and liquid lunches. It was a long, wet day and after reaching Tullamore, we were exhausted!
The next morning we headed out to Clonmacnois, a beautiful shrine with stain glass windows, and then Tullamore Dew whiskey tour. It was a beautiful day minus a spot of rain at the church. We had an Italian dinner at DaVinci's which was quite good but took forever! (But we were rewarded with Limoncello in the end!) We heard the Eagles won and the Phillies too- hope it continues!

We met a Hooker

2008-10-24T13:16:00.000-07:00

Annie pictured above is what the Claddagh fishermen used for fishing in the Galway Bay, she was used to take "pete" (bog used as fire wood) to the Aran Islands were they bartered for fish that the island locals caught. Then they would take the fish back to mainland and sell the fish for a nice little profit.

Click HERE for updated pictures of the trip so far.

Some observations I noticed so far here in Ireland.
1. Small cars
2. small roads (very)
3. high bath tubs (easy to misjudge and trip)
4. Guinness and lots of it.
5. Bacon is not so good, but the sausage links are!
6. Coffee and tea are great.
7. Not Cheap (pint of guinness 3.9 euros about $5, not too bad but the food seems to be more expensive 9 or 10 euros for a burger)

Lastly, we are learning a ton of History from our great bus driver Mick and each time we step foot in the bus he starts a new lesson along with some corny jokes. Tomorrow we head out of Galway and go to Tullamore for a few nights.

Day 2 (Galway)

2008-10-23T17:28:00.000-07:00

The picture above reminds me of being in Vegas, first time there in the Venetian hotel in vegas at 3am we walked around and had a very similar view, just like this (very cool). However, this was picture was taken in Galway city Ireland. Again, we had a long day but we made it and Click HERE for some of today's pictures.

1st night

2008-10-23T01:51:00.000-07:00

Well we had a great night out at the Bunratty Castle midevil dinner!! After words we went next store to Dirty Nelly's a very old bar (2nd oldest in Ireland) something like it was built in the 1600's and it actually just was sold for 20 million dollars!!!. Click HERE for a couple more photo's. notice in the picture of the plaque on the wall, if you read down at the bottom it says "admiral Penn" this is the father of William Penn and it was beleived that William was in the castle that we had the dinner in. For all of you who were on the trip with me in 2001 it is the same castle that we visited on the last day. Not much has changed! it is rainy hard at the moment and we are getting ready to leave, more to follow.

We made it to Ireland safe and sound!!!

2008-10-22T07:58:00.001-07:00

Click HERE for a couple photos. Just a fast update, we made to Ireland with no problems except maybe the security line via JFK, otherwise smooth as can be. I just woke up after about a 2 hr nap as it is 4pm here Ireland time (I believe 11am back home). We did take a little tour with our driver around some very small back roads in and around Limerick to get to breakfast. After breakfast we checked out some local sites and headed to our hotel to check in and a much needed nap. Lori got a bit nauseous on the bus that lead to a little vomit but she is now feeling better with her nap. I am having a little trouble adding a picture but I will work that out sooner or later.

update

2008-09-28T12:11:00.000-07:00

Now that we are home I have not felt like doing anything with the pictures... Click HERE for the latest. I have a lot of work ahead of me to manage and figure out what pictures I am going to print out. For those of you who are computer savvy, we took 20 gigs worth of pictures. In time I will create a slide show of the better pictures and leave them on my laptop to show whoever is interested.

The voting is over and the winner was "hell yes, I'd love to hang with the spouse" followed by "hell no, I'd rather go to the bar". thanks to all who voted!

It was fun keeping this blog to update our travels and it even helped me to keep things straight. Assuming the Ireland hotels have internet I will keep the blog going!

Home

2008-09-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

We made it home really late last night after a short 800 miles drive! Total miles for the trip was 7,075. I will update after I get through the last couple of days' pictures. Happy to be home, and I think the cat is too.

Effingham, IL

2008-09-25T20:33:00.000-07:00

We traveled some 700 miles and made it to Effingham, IL, we have about 800 miles to go. Depending on traffic and construction we could roll into Twp. by midnight, or we may stay somewhere in between? It will be nice to use our own shower!

Colby, Kansas

2008-09-25T07:31:00.000-07:00

We didn't leave Utah until the afternoon yesterday so we only made it to Colby, Kansas. Yesterday we visited the Arches Nat. Park in Moab Utah and it was cool, I will post pictures when I finally get home or have the energy at the next hotel! It looks like we have about 1500 miles to go to get home.

Moab, Utah

2008-09-23T13:28:00.000-07:00

Click HERE to see the newest pictures. The first picture here on the blog shows a shot of our SUV and more importantly the license plate, it occurred to me that if anyone who didn't know the SUV wouldn't understand my "white boy" reference. So, it you take a look at the plate you will understand-it spells it out. In the second picture Lori had her chance to kick me off the side of the mountain, it was a straight drop to the Colorado River. We were on a scenic drive (Rt.95) when we stopped to observe the beautiful red canyons and travel through canon after canon, very confusing if you were to try to navigate all by yourself. When we did a little hike about 2 miles it was very evident we would clearly get lost without markers and probably dry up and get eaten by coyotes! After about 370 miles we wound up in Blandings, Utah and would you believe it was a DRY town, and nothing like Haddonfield!!!

Today we had an easy day set up, we were only about 80 miles from our next hotel stop, so we decided to travel 60 miles out of our way to see the Canyonlands Nat. Park. If we were prepared to hike everywhere within the park, we may have seen a lot. But, since the park was under constuction we didn't quite see what we thought we would!

Now, we checked into our hotel in Moab eartly b/c we have a dinner cruise set up that will take us on the Colorado River with a light show on the canon walls. Once today is over, Lori and I will be making our way back home, if you notice in the linked pictures there is one of the GPS that was set on HOME, just a short way from here (over 2000 miles)

NO BEER ON SUNDAY (sold in Utah)

2008-09-21T18:02:00.001-07:00

We left somewhat early from Teton village since the weather wasn't so nice (very overcast), no gondola ride to the top of the mountain.
We drove about 320 miles to Provo Utah, just south or Salt Lake City. To both of our surprise we really enjoyed the ride through S. Wy, S.E. Idaho, and N. Utah following rt. 89 (scenic byway, Oregon trail). We traveled up one side of a mountain and down the other which took about 1.5 hrs (35 miles) via Cache Nat.Forest, just down right beautiful! We caught the end of the Eagles game and had a great dinner at a local fish joint! Next up our scenic ride (450 miles) through south east Utah before turning our sights back home hitting CO via rt. 70.

The first picture above is of Lake Bear which is huge and sites half in Idaho and Utah. It was a very unique color blue as well as a very unique vacation area all together, very hard to describe, but very cool to see.

The second picture is one taken within the Cache Nat. Forest which also doesn't do justice to the entire area, but we were lucky enough to catch the fall colors amid the pines.

Kiss my butte

2008-09-20T20:34:00.001-07:00

Well I know it has been a long time since we updated so I will try to make it brief. We left Kalispell MT, for Glacier but first stopping in Lone Pine State park. To put things in perspective, we stayed in a Rhodeway INN the night before (nice room, but horrible breakfast). We left the INN without food or coffee b/c it was so bad, stopped for gas and coffee but the coffee was awful, to drive to a scenic over look to find it (scenic overlook) was of the same town that gave us horrible coffee! We continued onward to the Hungry Horse Dam which was pretty cool finding these nice deer who helped finish the foreshadowing of our long day at Glacier Nat. Park.

Once to Glacier we learned the "road to the sun" closed that morning!! So, we decided to drive what was open then back track and drive around glacier to the other side and finish the road (missing the middle two miles that were closed (best part of the park!)) However, before driving to the other side we decided to head towards Canada to see the West side of the park only to learn we drove 45 miles on dirt roads to what was another road under construction and CLOSED that no ranger warned us about, In fact the Ranger station was closed closest to the closed road! So, we went back to the east side (2 hr plus drip) to finish what we started seeing some amazing beauty, but not all (closed). We had a bit of trouble finding a place to stay, but after almost blood, sweat, and tears we made it to the east entrance of Glacier to an INN with no bottled water, TV, Internet, onions, and Merlot (which Lori drank the last glass) not to mention the Eagles losing to Dallas (we did managed to watch on the only tv in the lodge bar).

Now, on to Yellowstone, we drove about 400 miles to West Yellowstone which was all booked up but after spending about 45min. on the phone we found a place. (again no tv or Internet) Nice town good coffee got the white boy (my truck) washed and slept well! Next day we entered the West entrance and drove to our Pioneer cabins on Yellowstone lake (2.5hr drive no stops) but we stopped many many times to make this trip all day. However, we saw lots of stuff including a bald eagle, coyote, springs, geysers, waterfalls, continental divide, and bison. Not to mention the crazy awesome landscapes!

The Pioneer cabins were not all that impressive but, provided a very good location within the park. Second day in Yellowstone we got on the road by 5:45am to search out some Moose and Wolfs! NO such luck but we did see a nice sun rise and plenty of bison and one massive elk.

Day three we checked out of the pioneer cabin and hiked some awesome trails overlooking the Upper and lower falls of the Grand Canon of Yellowstone. We continued on to hike the Norris Geysey Basin and finished up the day checking into the Old faithful Inn (nice place but no Internet, or tv).

That brings us to today (yesterday) and we left Yellowstone after having a great breakfast and watching a mediocre Old Faithful (she was late and temperamental just like a woman). We left out the south entrance not before seeing the Moose falls, which was very secluding and serene.

From there we entered the Grand Teton National forest which again was awesome (maybe the most awesome) It was very awe-inspiring and we witnessed a passing thunderstorm. We stopped for many scenic overlooks including Signal mountain and Jenny Lake. From there we arrived Teton Village and acting on a tip from a very nice old lady we arrange a room at the local Hostel! What a horrible mistake that cost me $95 since we check in and out in about 3 hrs!!! The hostel I will let Lori describe "creepy, leaky, noisy, and flat out disgusting" Now we are residing in the Alpenhof Lodge which is just down right comfy with a tv Internet and balcony!

going to watch SNL now so feel free to check out these random Photos (click HERE) and post some comments!
Rob

Yellowstone

2008-09-17T14:20:00.000-07:00

Rob and Lori will be in Yellowstone for the next three days. There is no cell phone signal or internet where they're staying so Rob asked me to add this post. Check back soon for an update on the Yellowstone visit.

Kalispell, MT

2008-09-14T17:41:00.000-07:00

WE drove about 450 miles today and arrived in Kalispell MT, about 30 miles shy of one of the entrances to Glacier Nat. Park. The picture is of FLathead Lake the biggest fresh water lake this side of the country (some 28 miles long). In the morning we plan to drive through Lone Pine State park before going to Glacier. The Rodeway Inn we are in is a bit hickish but it has a casino with about 20 machines and a bar with bud and coores lite on tap. So, we will no doubt get to sleep early tonight!
Cheers

Billings Montana

2008-09-13T20:14:00.000-07:00

Since I have not fully posted I am going to list the things we saw and did. We traveled Needles Highway which was awesome, then from there we hit Custer state park, wind cave national park, crazy horse, and then took a 1880 steam train thru Harney peak. From there we continued to Deadwood were we had a nice dinner and lori managed to hit a four of a kind on three different machines for a grand total of $60 of nickels!

Today we traveled thru Spearfish Canon byway, which was breath taking and even had a few waterfalls. From there we hit Devil's Tower where we had a "close encounter" and I am not sure but we may have seen some human like aliens!
After that we drove to Billings Montana to spend the night which is a halfway point to Glacier Nat. Park. We hit the local walmart which must be the saturday night place to go because it was packed with locals!
My updates are coming in late as we are 2 hrs behind (mountain time)

leaving deadwood, SD

2008-09-13T08:20:00.000-07:00

Hello all, I wasn't able to update last night as our connection failed. After avoiding a near collision with 3 deer we drove into deadwood, sd. Now we are leaving and heading towards Glacier Nat. Park. I will update once we get settled in, whereever that may be.
Ps. Lori won $60 worth of nickles, I got pictures to prove it!

Rob

Badlands/Presidents' heads

2008-09-11T18:37:00.000-07:00

I don't remember how many miles but I think we covered some 300? We crossed the Missouri River and from there the landscape really began to change. We continued onward to the SD Badlands which our pictures won't be able to due it justice, but I will post them anyway. From there we traveled thru Rapid City (cool city) to Mt. Rushmore and called it a night in Hill City, SD.

Click HERE for photo's of today.

Day 2- Made it to Mitchell, SD

2008-09-10T18:00:00.000-07:00

The first part of our drive we took a little detour up and over the Mississippi river other than being scenic there wasn't much to see. We continued our drive for another 300 miles and arrived for the night at the Kelly Inn. The Drive thru Minnesota was a bit boring, bumpy, and windy. There were a ton of wind mills but I am not sure if they were wind mill farms or just supplemental energy sources?
We did one of the most tourist things we will do all trip by stopping by the Worlds' only Corn Palace (there is a reason it is the worlds only!) Our highlight of our stay in Mitchell was the Buffolo burgers and pale al at the local pub!
Manana we will continue onwards to the President's Heads!
for some random shot of today click HERE

Rob

some random shots

2008-09-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

Click HERE and see some random shots of today. I am not altering the pictures until I get home so they are what they are.
see you all tomorrow!
rob

I am still new to Flickr (where the link will take you to the photos) So, I was just informed I don't have enough space or sets, so I will have to work around that to post pictures via Flickr, I will figure it out later. time for a beer.

We landed on LA CROSSE, Wisconsin

2008-09-09T11:04:00.000-07:00

Wow, after 19 hrs and just over a thousand miles we made it to the very edge of Wisconsin, we are just shy of Minnesota. We had a bit of a slow start as Lori remembered at the gas station she didn't have her glasses. I went into the house only to NOT find them as they were in the car all along!!!
On to the drive, we hit heavy rain in Ohio, heavy traffic around chicago and heavy fog near Rockport IL. However, it was very managble and we got to Cracker Barrel in (IL)by 8:30am.

We are now checked into the Best Western of La Crosse WI which over looks the Mississippi river and ready for a due shower and nap, followed by happy hour at 4pm and a comedian at 8pm in the hotel lounge (if we can keep our eyes open) I will post more pictures later.
Cheers
Rob and Lori

Crunch time

2008-09-06T01:32:00.000-07:00

Well we are getting close to game time and needless to say we are not exactly prepared, it is hard with me working right up until we leave. But, once we get packed and put everything down stairs we should feel better. Going over our initial plans we might add in Glacier Nat. Park since it is only 370 miles north of Yellowstone. Please, keep in mind that we have no idea of how long we will spend in SD, WY, and MT, when I was there with Chuck we spent all of 5 minutes checking out the presidents heads, but I know Lori will read every single sentence on every plaque on every wall. We decided this isn't a race and we will take as much time in each location as we want. So, if we don't make it to Death Valley, we don't make it. My initial goal of reaching Madison on day one is one I would like to keep as it is about 900 miles away, from there we can slow down.

Well next step is to pack!

Forgot to mention that some of my nurses took a poll and decided there is no way in hell they'd take a road trip with the spouses for three weeks, so I set up a poll, let's see what everyone thinks.

Our trip is fast approaching!

2008-08-19T21:53:00.000-07:00

In two weeks and five days we will pull out of our driveway and make our way to SD. As some of you know (I being crazy) have spent some time installing a security camera system to watch over our house while we are gone. I know I have no real reason for spending the time and $ on such a thing but I thought it would be fun and since I apparently have too much spare time decided to put it together. Above is a picture of the back of the house that I took while drinking a cup of coffee at the local Panera Bread. I am still working out some kinks with the system, but from the road I should be able to view live and recorded video and access the system to make changes if necessary. Next week will be Court's last week of summer vacation as she has to report to Rider University by the 31st, Then I work the next 7 days, then come home sleep and at around 7pm Monday the 8th we will be on the road. Stay tuned

Blog Update....working with this site

2008-08-04T23:09:00.000-07:00

As I have been tweaking this site I have noticed that there are many quirks and I am trying to figure out how to tell everyone how to navigate and post comments.

1. I adjusted the settings within Blogger and now anyone should be able to comment without having to sign in or create an account. When you go to the comment page, it will ask you to sign in or click below a few spaces and you will see the "Anonymous" click that and comment away.

2. The site doesn't seem to update itself very well. According to Blogger they say to erase your browsers history and try refreshing your page. I noticed that this doesn't work every time. But I did notice if you go to the right of the page under "BLOG ARCHIVE" and click the newest blog entry that this will give you the newer updated page.

If you notice or have any problems please let me know by commenting.

Thanks
Rob

We are back from Raleigh, safe and sound

2008-08-04T22:31:00.000-07:00

After a very long 8 hour drive we made it back to good old NJ. Had it not been for the 1.5 hrs of traffic it would have been a very very nice drive! Click here to view some more photos of our time with Bob, his family, and Rob. We had a very nice time in Raleigh, it was a little hot at 95 degrees but swimming at the Hoyles' pool help a lot. We have not seen Bob's family since his wedding 10 yrs ago, so it was really great to see them again.

As far as a warm up trip (pre-cross country) what we learn was driving wasn't a problem but how exactly we packed and what we drag into the hotels on a daily basis is something we have to work out. I am not excited about bringing in everything from the car, but unless I want to risk the car getting broken into that is what we are going to do. We will leave the dirty clothes in the car until we find a laundry mat.

Weekend in Raleigh N.C.

2008-08-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

Lori and I have made the drive to Raleigh with no problems, we hit a tiny bit of traffic in the D.C. area but that was it.
Once here we went a to a surprise 30th party of one of Cocker's Co-workers, from there we headed to Hoyle's house for a few drinks and some time playing the wi. I have to say I woke up sore after playing that game check out some random shots of our trip so far.

testing page link to flickr pictures

2008-08-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

click the link to view a sample of photos of mine.

IN MEMORY OF FRAN IVERS

2008-07-29T08:56:00.000-07:00

Friend and Frank Sinatra fan, always remembered!
Dooby-doooby-doo

Going to raleigh

2008-07-27T21:53:00.000-07:00

Lori and I are going to Raleigh this weekend and we are going to test our blogging/updating ability while we are there. As most of you know Rob Cocker (check out his site in my links) is living down there and we are going to pay him a visit. Also, living down there is Bob Hoyle who has not lived in NJ since he graduated high school. So, check back and see how we do.

test video, my co-worker

2008-07-22T20:54:00.000-07:00

Early stages of cross country trip

2008-06-28T20:28:00.000-07:00

I am beginning to plan our cross country venture. Instead of flying to Denver, renting a car, and flying home from Vegas, we decided to drive from NJ. Our initial route will be about 5,800 miles, not counting side trips. Our intention is to not have a real plan to allow for us to stay in one place for however long we want. We plan to fit in as much as possible in 20 to 21 days.

Places of interest include Mr. Rushmore, Yellowstone, Death Valley, and many national parks of Utah.

COMCAST BLOWS!!!!!

2008-05-26T21:49:00.000-07:00

Not much on TV to be excited aboot, but Saturday night 8pm the Stanly Cup finals started. I had a glass of home made wine in hand and sat to watch the game on my relatively new HDTV. Three minutes into the game (count them 3) I lost all reception!!! What the Hell, NO TV, NO INTERNET, NO PHONE. I was told by comcast that the "general garden state area" was having outage problems and the techs were working on it. Keep in mind the houses across from me have cable and my brother who lives across town also has cable! My wife said we should just head to the local dive bar and watch the game. that's what we did.
Redwings kicked the Penquins asses

Day 2

2008-05-22T06:52:00.000-07:00

Horrible weather here

test blog

2008-05-21T18:30:00.000-07:00

this is my first blog and i am just testing the waters!