This may be lazy blogging, but I took the time to clean up a little of the video from last weekend.
Please excuse the less than professional camera operation, we kind of jerk the camera around a little 🙂
First up, crossing on the way out:
Then on the way back:
-Jordan
So it isn’t actually my birthday yet, but due to a busy calendar Heather and I chose to take a day and celebrate my birthday a little early.
We both took last Friday off of work, with plans to be out and about all day.
Our intent was to start the day off by sleeping in. What actually happened was that we started the day by discovering what the building fire alarms sound like. As luck would have it, we found ourselves standing in the parking lot at 6:30 in the morning meeting some neighbors we hadn’t bumped into yet.
As you may recall from my last post, Heather had to contend with a smoke alarm last weekend. She is starting to think she will never again get the opportunity to sleep past 6AM.
On the bright side, this got us off to an early start.
We started with some amazing french toast Heather made. She has sometimes led people to believe that she cannot cook; it’s not true.
Our first stop after breakfast was Ledges State Park. The park is a beautiful little piece of geology that unfortunately had a lot of flooding last year. Thanks to the current economic realities facing everyone, including the Iowa Department Of  Natural Resources, they haven’t been able to repair the stream crossings, nor clear the silt that now covers parts of the developed area.
Given that we were just there to hike, it didn’t really matter. We only hiked for about an hour, but there was enough vertical change to make our legs star to burn from all the climbing. It’s possible we are just out of shape, but I was surprised how much climbing there was to be had!
After our hike, we headed straight to the train station in Boone. The rides there don’t take you to a new destination per say, but we had heard good things about the Boone Scenic Valley Railroad. We picked up our tickets and ate a sack lunch while waiting for our departure time.
I didn’t remember to take a picture of our car, but it was the perfect way to ride on a warm(ish) fall day. It was a flat-car with railing around it, with two benches running the long way down the center facing out. We had a great view of everything!
The main attraction of the ride is the Des Monies River valley, that we crossed via the Kate Shelley Bridge. It’s a great view, well worth the ride out. We probably missed the peak fall colors by about a week, but I am in no way complaining, it was still a breathtaking view!
Once across the bridge we had a brief stop for reasons that were not completely clear, but it made a nice spot to lean out and snap this:
The train was by no means full up there, but there was a good turn out for a Friday afternoon.
From here the rest of the day was less notable, although no less enjoyable. That being said I don’t want to stretch this post out any more than I already have.
-Jordan
It has been another full weekend, for Heather and I.
I started off camping with the scouts, on a trip that included a bike ride
As you can see we brought a lot of bikes along.
The ride was along the trails north of Des Moines. The same trails that lead up to the bridge we rode over back at the beginning of summer. The only thing was, we rode past red trees, and through piles of leaves blowing along the trail. We were lucky in that the weather was great! It was cold over night, but by the time we had bikes going on the trail it was a wonderful fall day.
I suppose talking about a beautiful ride, and the wonderful colors would be more interesting with a picture or two. The problem is all the bikes you saw in that picture were being operated by scouts… not to say they were getting into trouble, but I wanted to keep an eye on things.
That and the fact that all I had was my phone. It’s a workable camera, but phones aren’t suppose to go on camp outs. Adults get to bend those rules, but the boys complain to no end about their oppression when they see you get your phone out and they realize they can’t.
I left camp early because I was doing sound at church. It was probably a good thing I came home when I did though, because the smoke alarm at the top of our fancy vaulted ceiling had decided it had problems and started beeping earlier that day. Heather was about ready to loose it by the time I got there. It did provide an opportunity to use the big step ladder we bought shortly after taking possession of our new place… although I can think of scenarios were we would have used the ladder for some great purpose that don’t also involve Heather having dangerously high blood pressure… Maybe next time it will just be burned out light bulb.
Sunday we had a few friends over to carve pumpkins!
… yeah pumpkins… I didn’t really think it was time for those ether, but apparently it is.
My artistic vision was somewhat hampered by my absolute lack of manual dexterity or and artistic skill, so imagine the one I am holding looks sleepy. When you consider that the face on mine tilts down and sort of leans… and then add a little imagination it’s a pretty good pumpkin I think.
Oh, on a somewhat related note, I discovered that if you make pumpkin bread, but leave out the pumpkin, the resulting product will be a rather dry spice-bread. Stop by the break room at work tomorrow you might get to try some, its not bad… but it wasn’t quite what I had in mind.
-Jordan
I actually finished the entire project over the course of the weekend, but didn’t get a chance to update the blog until now…
As you can see, I settled on only having three drawers. This was largely due to poor planning on my part, as I could have made the fourth one work, had I only laid out the supports correctly.
On the other hand, having the extra shelf space may end up being more useful.
The bench has an electrical system in it, four outlets and a switched light. My initial plan was to use a GFI outlet, but that changed when I realized I would be paying $15 or more just for that one outlet. I am plugged straight into a GFI outlet anyway, so it was really just for the sake of completeness rather than any actual safety.
In the end, I am very proud of the finished product. It’s probably bigger than necessary, but it’s a nice solid platform and the lighting seems about right. I haven’t identified any projects that I plan to undertake now that it’s complete, but I am sure something will come up. At the very least I have somewhere other than the kitchen table to go when I want to take something apart 🙂
-Jordan
It’s looking pretty good so far!
I planned to chop up an old dresser and use the drawers from it in the bench. Due to my limited experience and time with Google Sketchup, I left that part out of the plans and figured I could do some subtle adaptations as I went to make it work.
It looks like my on the fly adaptations were about 1/4 of an inch off… I have a plan B but it’s clear I should have put the drawers into the plan.
Other than that though, I am really happy with the project so far.
-Jordan
One feature of the new place Heather and I moved into is a garage. The garage happens to have quite a bit of room on the sides, and was just begging to have a bench put in…. or at least that was my impression.
I spent a few hours over the past week in Google Sketchup working on this:
It’s probably too optimistic, in places… but I wasn’t happy with the designs I was finding online.
That brings us up to Friday night, where I was seen driving this:
I hope to know by the end of the weekend how much of a disaster my plains end up being 🙂
-Jordan
I always find that when I try to cover something as big as a week away from work it’s an overwhelming thing to try and post about.
So I will just hit a few highlights:
First it was great to just spend time with my family. The fact that we had plenty of work to do was nice too, it made the start of the week feel really productive.
The other highlight was getting to share so many things from my life with Heather that she hadn’t ever seen or done before.
Heather was a really good sport with everything, despite the fact that she was able to attract every bug within five miles of wherever we happened to be.
Things Heather did with me:
I should expand on that last point. As you can see from the picture it was cool enough to be comfortable wearing a sweatshirt. Still ok weather to be on the water as long as you stay dry.
The trip marked only the second time Heather had been in a canoe, and the first time on moving water. I really should have been giving more instruction during the lazy areas as we started out. I had somewhat naively hoped that there wouldn’t be any downed trees blocking our path.
On the other hand, I did make sure Heather packed an extra change of dry clothes before we headed out that morning.
As you can probably guess, we didn’t make through our little trip dry. After a few close calls with tree branches we finally met one that was going to be really unpleasant to get past. There are a number of things I should have done at this point. One, I could have aggressively back-paddled to get some space between us and the tree, then landed at shore letting Heather out. Two I could have jumped into the water and guided the boat to shore by walking in the water. Three I could have told Heather to lay down the the bow of the boat so the trees wouldn’t hit her.
Instead I only sort of explained that she should get down, and tried to get us lined up on the spot I figured we could plow through.
What happened next wasn’t so surprising: Heather didn’t realize I was planning to ram into the tree and got caught off balance, falling into the middle of the boat(on the upstream side). I wasn’t going fast enough to actually plow through the tree, and we were instantly swept crosswise of the current, and the canoe rolled.
Did I mention Heather was a really good sport about everything I wanted her to try this week? Because she got dumped into some very cold, very brown muddy water and managed to laugh about it!
We completed the res of the trip without much excitement, but I think I ruined my chance of instilling a love of canoes and or the Medicine into my wife. 🙂
-Jordan
You probably never even knew we left… but Heather and I just got back from a week in western Nebraska!
We have a camera full of pictures, I just haven’t gotten to them yet.
The downside of being gone for a week: Heather had over 1000 e-mails waiting in her work inbox Monday.
On the other hand, we had a really nice break!
More details to come
-Jordan
I learned soon after the post went up about being done decorating and painting furniture that we are not actually done with that.
None the less, Heather and I have had the opportunity to invite friends over on several occasions in the past few weeks. It has been really gratifying to feel that our hard work getting this place cleaned up was worth it. I should also note that Heather practically levitates around the house as she gives the tour of our final decor placement.
For a while there we were averaging just over two nights a week with three or more guests over. That pace has dropped off this past week, but we were having a lot of fun with it!
A few things we are discovering:
Cooking for more people is harder! I generally manage to scale the recipe up enough, only to be 20 minutes slow getting it done. Not the worst problem ever, but it feels like it throws the entire night off.
Letting guest bring over a salad or dessert helps out more than I ever would have guessed. It isn’t that we couldn’t make those, but in the time between getting home from work and when things start there often isn’t time.
And then the final bullet: Ticket to Ride is a great game!
Heather has deemed it her “favorite game ever” and thoroughly enjoys it every round, despite often loosing to a new player. And there have been quite a few new players… we played the game every night, and every time taught a new group of people how to play the game. Without fail, everyone picked it up quickly and was having a lot of fun by the end.
I am still looking for other games that we could perhaps move to once people have bought into the idea of boardgames being fun, but so far that search hasn’t turned up much. Perhaps as it gets colder and staying inside sounds more attractive we can devote some more time to the question 🙂
-Jordan
Heather and I had the opportunity to join a group of friends going to Las Vegas last week.
The trip started with this:
As large as the limo may look… it was cozy with 14 people in it! The driver also warned us that his AC had a tough time keeping up when the ambient temperature was at 110 degrees. Ignoring those details, it was a fun ride into town. We checked in, and had time to do a little walking around.
Did I mention the heat? I had sort of thought that perhaps you could walk the entire strip, but quickly realized that it would take days to cover that much ground. This is looking back after we thought we had walked for quite a while:
We were staying at Caesar’s Palace (more or less centered in that shot)
I guess I should clarify, from what I know the entire “strip” you hear about is only about five miles long. The problem is, at the point the picture above was taken, we had walked an extra few miles inside the two casinos on our way down the strip… and only half of that was spent lost 🙂
I have heard people say that casinos were like mazes before, but I figured it was an exaggeration…Â it isn’t. We probably walked twice the necessary distance inside the casinos because we were lost.
After a long walk we met up with a few of Heather’s friends from college who were able to come down, and headed to dinner. Now, everything in Vegas seems to be something you have heard about before, the buffet being no exception. We discovered that the buffet wasn’t even kind of cheap. The quantity and quality of the food still lived up to the reputation I suppose but there was a little sticker-shock.
Day two: The group had a cabana at the pool reserved, so we spent a few hours lounged in the shade by the pool that morning. At this point we discovered what ended up being a universal truth for our Vegas trip: “if you want peace and quiet, go to your room” The pool came complete with a DJ, and her mission was apparently to keep the atmosphere lively. This clashed a little with the “sit in the shade and read” plan Heather and I had. Lucky for us we had an assignment! Go pick up the tickets the group would need for the shows Friday and Saturday night from the two box offices.
We thought it would be a great idea to move inside casinos as much as possible in order to avoid the heat. It only took us three hours to pickup the tickets (want to guess how many times we got lost?) At that point the pool was in the shade, so we spent another few hours there. Later we got cleaned up and headed to our first show. It was an improv comedy show that we really enjoyed. My only observation is that you should avoid sitting in the front row at that kind of event. We were lucky enough to be a few rows back, and were happy to simply observe the show and not participate in it.
That night we discovered that our peace and quiet rule only applies to your room in as much as your neighbors have the same plan… but after a brief 3AM conversation things calmed down 🙂
The next day we got up early and headed down to the pickup point for the bus trip out to the Hover Dam. We arrived at the stop almost an hour early (our track record to this point led us to believe we might need that much time just to find the pickup point). We were pleasantly surprised to find that the strip is nearly cool and peaceful that early in the morning. Not deserted by any means, but far more open. We spent a few minutes walking up to the outdoor displays in front of a nearby casino, and just enjoying the relative calm.
The bus ride out to the dam took roughly an hour, during which our tour guide provided a non-stop stream of facts and anecdotes about Vegas, the dam, and regional history. A few highlights: The valley gets only four inches of rain per year, and 19 of the 25 largest hotels in the world are in Vegas.
Hoover Dam is really impressive. It is difficult to grasp the scale of the dam, let alone try to convey it here. I was kind of in awe while we were there.
All I can really say is that you should go see it if you are in the neighborhood.
There is also a bridge that just opened up this year:
The scale involved in both projects is overwhelming.
That night we attended our second show, a Circ De Soleil production “The O Show” at Bellagio. Again, I really don’t have the vocabulary to do what we saw justice. I don’t think I have ever spent so much time tensed up and gasping in amazement. The show was just incredible.
The next morning we had most of the day before our flight, and the plan was to go to church, eat a leisurely lunch and then head to the airport. The actual service wasn’t really worth noting here, except I have to point out that apparently nothing can be built in Vegas without having a certain style applied to it.
I know this is getting long, but before I close out the post I wanted to throw out a few more notes that didn’t fit in the quick narrative of our trip:
No mater how much you spend on tile, marble, sculpture and state-of-the-art architecture… a room full of slot machines is still a room full of slot machines
Speaking of slot machines, I ended up with a few dollars worth of quarters in my pocket for most of the trip, and might have dropped one into a slot machine… but they don’t take coins! They have a dollar feeder and a receipt printer as their only input and output. I witnessed a receipt being printed, and there is a speaker down in the coin tray playing a sound like the tray is filling with coins… but the user just ended up with a slip of paper when it was all said and done.
My final thought is this:
Heather and I are really glad we went, and enjoyed the trip. That being said, it felt like a place you go to see once.
-Jordan
Nelsons 