I'm baaaack!!!   What a fun and crazy few days!  Margene and I left here at 5:30 Wednesday morning - much closer to our planned 5:00 a.m. slot that I thought we would.  Since she had a pretty horrible cold (coughing attacks, etc.) I did all the driving until we left Oklahoma City, where she was finally starting to feel better (and not cough so hard I would be worried about us crashing).  Hence, very few pictures from me of Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico.  We had "un-nice" weather as well - not bad weather, just not good weather.  Cloudy skies and lots of wind all the way across.  Most of the pictures we did take didn't turn out that great because of the lighting.  Bummer.

We did stop a few places....

This is the Clown Motel in Tonopah, NV - I couldn't help getting a picture, even if we didn't stop.  Not my idea of a good hotel to stay at.....freaky!

Just past the Nevada/Arizona border

And I tried a panoramic photo....

Cadillac Ranch outside Amarillo, TX

A pistachio store outside of Alamogordo, New Mexico

I think we saw 5 or 6 oil derricks on our way through Texas - much thousands of wind turbines.  Acres and acres of them!

Tomorrow is the day!  Margene and I pack up her car and take off on a 3,000 mile road trip!  The planned start time is 5:00 a.m., but I'm betting that that is NOT the time we get started.....

The bees have found my lavender.....which makes it tough to mow the lawn where the bushes overlap......

Margene's last kayaking trip (at least while she still lives here....)  We went up to Whiskeytown Monday night and put in at Whiskey Creek.  The temps were in the high 70's, the sun was (sort of) shining, and the clouds were (sort of) wispy - perfect!  I'm going to miss my kayaking buddy!!!

The redbuds are blooming.....

My hair is getting grayer.....

The Indian paintbrush is out....

Our kayaks loaded up - we took out snacks - bread, crackers, cheese, summer sausage, and wine of course, for dinner on the lake....

Leaving the docks - open lake in front of us!

We pulled in to a cove to eat our dinner, and inadvertently parked under an Osprey nest.  Mom wasn't too happy with us....

The view from our dinner table.....

The clouds started coming in, and the wind picked up on our way back in....

Margene and I got the garden in on Saturday.  We went down to Turtle Bay and picked up some heirloom tomatoes (I have already forgotten which ones I got - but they sounded cool at the time!  I'll have to take an inventory of them.)  I also went over to Wyntour Gardens and got some peppers and cucumbers (Turtle Bay was already out of those.)  

Alex went with the CSU group to Kyoto for a few days - and after much nagging, sent me a ton of pictures.  They were there in time for the cherry blossoms!  (He said it was ridiculously crowded there, since it WAS the cherry blossom festival time...)  They went quite a few places, including Hiroshima and the Nara Deer Park (the deer will bow to you for food....)