Catfish Suckers in Bull Run Creek

There are at least three of these guys scouring the bottom of our creek right now. Sometimes they leap straight up out of the water. Not quite like breaching whales, but still...

Addendum: Apparently these are Sacramento Suckers.

Fire season

Early fire season here in Kernville. This is already the second of the year; apparently, winds blew a tin piece off of a roof; the piece of tin hit a powerline, and set off the fire.

And then we danced...

Here we are in the middle of our tango routine. Yes, our tango routine.

Rockabilly Cars

Every year there is a gathering of folks who have adopted a very particular style. It's car culture and more...

Rock-A-Billy Cars

click for slideshow!

Culture Vulture Links

A couple of articles about the shows we saw last week: Spamalot
and Jerry Springer, The Opera

Blast from the past

 

Then for some Cold War nostalgia, Bambi, Brad, Marty, Tim, Josh and I went to the only-in-Nevada, Atomic Testing
Museum.

Some sights inside:

Test Site Museum

Click the small picture for a slide show.

Also this week

The last look at the shell of the Stardust before they blew it up. We didn't go to the event, but could hear the
boom-boom-BOOM of the blast Tuesday, 3:00AM.

Check out the video at the Review-Journal.

Culture in Vegas

More detail later, but we're still buzzing from a couple of shows the last few days. On Saturday night, we saw Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and Ray Price, backed by Asleep at the Wheel. Holy cow. Very inspiring; great show, great hall, great audience. (Which makes a huge difference in Vegas, where some crowds and some venues are just miserable places for music. Like the House of Blues, sadly and surprisingly.) Average age of the headliners, something like 75.

Then last night we saw (the slightly Vegas-shortened) Spamalot. Entirely fun. Want to see it full length; this thing about shortening shows for the Vegas audience has a point, but sometimes you leave a show wanting much much more.

For example, no Zoot.

More later.

Temptation

 

More Snow photos at

Snow! Feb 2007

Snow!

 

Look what happened this morning!

Whiskey Flat Days and other snaps

Just click on the photo and then select slideshow!

Whiskey Flat Days

Winter River

The willows have turned a little red, they do that just before they send out leaves.

New Motto

I shall be proposing a new motto to the Town Elders: Kernville: Rich in Rocks.

Burrrrrrrrr

It has been cold, cold, cold all 0ver California and Nevada.

This AM the low at the weather station at Bull Run was 11.8 degrees. If you look closely, you can see ice on the edge of the creek in this capture from the webcam at 7:30 AM.

There have been broken water pipes galore in Kernville, including a few of our own.

In Las Vegas, the lows were a little warmer, in the 20's.

Best Blog Ever

...for the lover of the classics, that is.

Fireworks!

Review-Journal photo

We ended the evening at the corner of Twain and Decatur a mile or two from the crowds on the Strip and not far from Aileen's house.

For as long as there have been fireworks over the Strip, people from this ethnically mixed neighborhood have been gathering at an empty lot on the bluff for a perfect view of the show.

We parked on the corner and followed large families, dressed in their holiday finest making their way through the rocky lot with champagne, cameras and noisemakers to greet the new year. At the stroke of midnight,the fireworks boomed and sparkled in the distance and there were cheers, hugs, kisses and a mixture of languages from Arabic, Spanish, Farsi to Chinese and Greek. For us, it felt like a magnificent moment to be in Las Vegas.

New Year's Eve 2007 in Las Vegas

We began our evening at the Orleans with a couple hours of poker, then had dinner with Aileen at the Canal Street Restaurant. After a another hour or so of poker, I ended up even and Josh a little behind.

Then we went to the dance studio where we take lessons for a small party organized by Dave, our instructor and Aileen's favorite partner.

Here's a little slide show:

New Year's Eve 2007

Our New Neighbor

From Norm! Las Vegas Review Journal Gossip Column:

THE SCENE AND HEARD

A spy tells me the west-of-the-Strip mansion Michael Jackson has settled into is a 10-bedroom, 11-bath, 20,000-square foot private estate owned by San Francisco real estate mogul Luke Brugnara, who earlier this year tried to buy the Crazy Horse Too topless club. The never-lived-in palatial home features full-sized basketball and tennis courts, and a 3,000-square foot master suite with a 2,000-square-foot closet.

(Review-Journal)

As it turns out, that house is across the street and one block east of us. Can't wait to see how this all turns out...

One of our favorite Las Vegas bloggers has this to say about all that.

We're getting popular, but we need to improve these numbers

Bull Run Bridge & Tunnel Authority popularity

Mureta's Antiques

One of our very favorite places in San Fancisco is Gary Mureta's store. It's a tiny place on Fillmore between Washington and Jackson, filled with treasures from old SF estates.

Mureta's

Some San Fran Snaps

We were in San Francisco in November and I just now got around to posting these photos, including our visit to the new downtown mall.

SF Autumn 2006

Shapshots and Slideshow

Dinner Party and Xmas in Kernville

Thanksgiving in December

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with our friends a couple weeks late. No traveling on that most traveled of holidays...

Ron had planned a clambake, but the clams from James Store seemed more like bait than bakers, so it was a shrimp appetizer instead. Judy mashed up potatoes, Kim made dressing, Tysun marshaled the brussels sprouts, Susie baked up broccoli.

April made green bean/mushroom soup/fried onion casserole in celebration of our roots and Mike and Pat composed a salad. I baked a turkey to golden perfection, Terry carved it like a pro. Deb baked a chocolate flourless "Roberta Cake" that was too marvelous for words.

We washed it all down with the wonderful no name Siraz made by Marrianne's friends and after dinner, the musicians among us filled the house with pickin' and singin'. A perfect evening!

Rain Fishing

A little weather didn't stop these guys..

Raindrops!

A series of storms have passed through the valley.

(And I was able to work around one of the uploading problems, but my usual favored way of posting pictures is still broken)

Software, feh

I have some lovely new photographs I'd like to put up but we're using a beta version of blogger that seems to have some problems right now...

First snow

We woke up to this wondrous site -- first snow (for us, anyway; I think there was a dusting a week before we came.) Don't we have a nice front yard?

Stella

  

Quiet pool with dipper

  

The river is running about 250 cfs right now, barely enough to make a ripple downstream of the house and the rapids right out the window have a very hushed rushing sound.

There's supposed to be some rain, and maybe snow down to 4500ft this weekend. I suspect if that's the case, the last of the leaves will fall...

Winter River