Thursday, July 31, 2008

Too good to pass up


Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Real estate and the state of things

Well interest seems to be picking up on the house. We've shown it several times and the fliers are really going, but so far no serious offers. You can see for yourself that this property has quite a lot going for it, and it's not a bad place to be "stuck" if it doesn't sell quickly. Oregon property has dropped a little in price but we're still holding up better than many other states. This is one of the most desirable parts of the country to live in, so it's not surprising, but it is harder to find buyers when they can't sell their existing homes for enough to cover property prices here.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Prophetic

After arriving in Lexington 3 hours late (1:30 A.M.) and feeling a bit battered I was delighted to see my experiences, and the current status of "customer service" in the airline industry had been fully and accurately documented by Carol Burnett and her pals several years ago. That video clip is the first featured on one of Kim Komando's video of the day pages. The second clip features what I think was was the airline I flew to Kentucky!
http://videos.komando.com/2008/07/09/no-frills-airlines/

Travel update

July 1 - If you are looking for a five star resort and room service – this isn’t it. If you like rim rock, wild horses, bird watching, wild flowers, and absolute peace and quite, then this is the place. An oasis in the middle of some very dry desert, Ram Horn ( also called Ramhorn) has been described by folks we’ve met while camping there as "heaven". It all depends on what you’re looking for I guess!


At any rate, we enjoyed our two full days there, and as usual met some interesting folks. The campground has never had more than 2 or 3 inhabitants when we were there, but we heard from the BLM worker that at least one weekend in May it was so full he couldn’t drive through the campground! This time we met a couple who arrived late one afternoon with a truck and SUV full of young girls, whom they dropped off up the canyon and then drove back to the camp to wait for. Intrigued we had to ask…."is this a field trip or what?" Turns out they run a group home for troubled girls and the experience of walking and observing in the canyon is one of the experiences they plan for every group of girls they’ve had. They’ve been doing emergency housing, foster care and group home services since 1980. An amazing couple!

As usual Daph took way too many photos of wildflowers – you’d think she’d never seen them before! Steve was the one with sharp eyes that noticed all the scolding we were getting was caused by placing our lawn chairs too close to a wren’s nest in one of the trees at the edge of our site. By moving about 10 ft. further away we seemed to reassure the folks, as soon both mom and dad sat on the rocks that anchored our outdoor carpet and looked us over. ‘Guess we passed inspection as they stopped screaming at us and went back to feeding the kids.





A short drive up the road, heading east toward the Nevada state line, we encountered a small heard of wild horses... picturesque as they raced across the hill tops. When they saw our truck they worked their way down to the road. They were tame enough to come close, hoping for a handout I suspect!



There's something about the geography of this area that attracts thunderstorms. We've often encountered them here, and even if there's no storm, the clouds produce amazing sunsets. 

Here's a short slide show - representative of the area but not enough to bore you I hope!

We left Ram Horn for a brief visit with long-time friends Nick and Sue in the Highlands above Virginia City. We had a great time catching up, watching the local herd of wild horses, and checking out their place (they’ve only been in the house about a year). Then it was on to Fish Springs for the annual Happy Birthday America BBQ. High fuel prices and family obligations resulted in a smaller than usual crowd this year, but that didn’t dim our enjoyment. The three days there seemed too short, but we had to head home so Daph could hop on a plane for a meeting in Kentucky.