Houston

Got in to Houston at 5:30AM...train station was in a creepy downtown location. Not a nice welcoming view. Peter picked me up at 6:45AM and I have spent the day at his home - catching up with his family....All too quickly the day passed by and soon it's time to hit the sack as we are leaving early in the morning for Austin....Highlight of he day was loosing to his daughter Rachel at Guitar Hero on XBox...

Happy Thanksgiving

On the road...spent the night at the Antelope Lodge in Alpine...couldn't find an internet connection until this morning at the Alpine Chamber of Commerce....My train leaves at 2:30 today and I get in to Houston tomorrow at 6AM...Probably a good thing that I got out of my desert yesterday as it's raining today. UPDATE: found a weak signal after midnight thanksgiving night...Im in San Antonio waiting for the train to take off for Houston at 1AM....good train ride today...now for some sleep.

Paris Hilton

First half of the day was driving around looking for Benita...no luck - but came across some great rocks to add to my collection. Half time was spent making a visit to my friend Ara...he had just returned from Odessa. His blog... http://theoasisofmysoul.com/ We hung out for about an hour and got to know one another. His place is about 5 miles north of mine.

Came back home and FINALLY cleared my garbage pile I started when I got here....I have a few other things of vital importance to attend to before my one year anniversary out here. Been keeping an eye on the weather and made the decision to stay at the Antelope Lodge tomorrow night as we have a 30% chance of rain that might get me stuck out here and preempt my departure to Houston. Good new is, I have a Game Warden staying at my place while away - just in time for the beginning of hunting season.

Packsaddle Mountain

Got up at 5:30 AM this morning....just couldn't sleep any longer. Probably because I average about 9 hours of sleep per night. Killed time on the computer till 8 then the sun rose and I cooked breakfast outside. I'm pretty sure this is what they call "the good life". Headed over to Chucks to bid farewell to his weekend guests. Finished up and installed the new vents to cover my ugly fan pipes that circulate the air through my house. Now that I am on official countdown for departure - having trouble getting motivated to start the next project, whatever that is... Took a drive in the late afternoon to look for my longhorn buddies NW of me. Not a sign of them, but found lots of new interesting rocks'n'fossils. Just happened to be out in the north view of my neighbor Capt. Kirk's house and he drove his quad out to see what I was up to. I must say that we are both happy to be neighbors - especially in that we cannot see each others house and rarely see one another. We chatted about what's new and where to go for some good rock huntin'. He thinks he spotted Benita 2 days ago not far from his house. I will take a drive out to Terlingua Creek to look for her tomorrow. Above photo is the view looking back SE toward my property - Packsaddle Mountain in the background just before sunset.

soft light

Started the day with an early morning visit from my friend Guy who just returned from South Dakota. He is a real scavenger and come back with a van load of stuff from scrap yards. Ronald called to see if I was interested in a trip to Ft. Stockton....I wasn't but Guy was so he headed home to meet up the the free ride north.

Cooked up a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich for breakfast. Cut up some OSB board for some parts I needed for the moulding I'm installing over my ceiling vents. Gave them 2 coats of polyurethane as well as two coats to the diffuser frames I built yesterday. Got out the long roll of silk I've been carting around for 10 years. Found out that most of it was stained but found enough to cut out the two pieces I needed. Still a little dirty so I hand washed them and hung 'em up to dry.

Chuck, Kathy, Rhonda, and Frank came out for a visit...gave Rhonda and Frank the grand tour. They were planning on dinner at the Starlight Theatre tonight so I said I would finish up and meet them there later. Got the silk mounted on the frames and mounted my diffusers. Changed clothes and headed south for dinner. After me chowed, we all headed over to LaKiva for drinks. I left them at 8:15PM and headed home. Since Chuck is a professional designated driver - I reckon the drunk ones will get home safely tonight.

HWY 118

Heard coyotes just outside last night for the first time this winter. Began the day with no real plan in mind. Coldest morning so far at 24 degrees. This time the sun began to warm up the desert right away. Met up with Chuck and Kathy and her daughter Holly and b-friend Todd at the Grub Shack at 10:30. They were on their way to Alpine for the ArtsWalk Festival. Decided then that I would head up a little later.

Came home and loaded up my solar shower bag with some water to heat. While that was underway - I cleaned my solar panels and built two frames to stretch silk across that will be diffusers for some of my interior lighting. Gathered up a couple of garbage bags of trash to unload up in Alpine. Was able to eek a semi-warm shower out of the bag and hit the road at 1:45PM. Took all of 5 minutes once arriving in Alpine to find the Terlingua crew along with Kathy's other daughter Rhonda and her husband Frank. I wandered through the area with them for awhile then went out on my own. Some very nice art on display but mostly crap. Found my buddy Ara scoping the crowds with his Canon Eos....going by to visit him when he comes back south on Tuesday.

Grabbed a few groceries and headed home. Was hoping to photograph some abandoned dreams (derelict homesteads) along the highway but the low setting sun was obscured just enough by clouds to ruin the light. Did manage to get this shot of the view toward my land from about 10 miles away. My estate is just about where the sign post crosses the horizon in the far background. To the right of the sign is Agua Fria mountain. The range to the left of the sign is comprised of Panther, Hen Egg, and Packsaddle mountain. Amazing that I can see this silhouette of my backyard backdrop from over 20 miles away.

crazy yucca

Well ...we did not have one of those days where the temperature jumps up after sunrise....cold and windy all morning. Only up to 48 by 11AM. Was planning on a trip to Alpine today but with the temps tending to be 10 degrees cooler there, I decided to stay down south. Took a ride to Study Butte with Ronald for lunch. Also stopped in the hardware store there to book my Uhual for next week...Tom at Study Butte Hardware gets a cut of the action if I book it through him. That is where I will drop off the truck after I unload. Now I'm all set for my trip.

Was 2:30 by the time I got back home. It's really hard for me to start any projects that late in the day. Managed to get back on the computer and figure out the weather station software I loaded yesterday. First thing I found out is that the software will run on Vista also - so shut down the desktop and loaded the software into my laptop. Got most of it figured out....will take a couple of hours to download the stats from my weather station back to late May. It can also give the current weather info to the laptop in a window. Lots of different options to explore. So much for today...last item I twisted my arm to do was wire up one of my ceiling vent fans to the circuit breaker.

Low this morning was 29 degrees. We only reached a high of 59 with wind all day. Right now at 7:45 its already fallen to 43 degrees. My heater works like a charm! Tomorrow is supposed to warm up a bit - to the mid 70's for a high. Photo of the day from the archives.....my favorite crazy yucca growing on my property.