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Working late at the computer (yet again) (365:306)
I’ve fallen behind with this project, over a month behind (today’s December 4th). My computer decided to go slow making it almost impossible to process pictures. I’ve kept on taking them, I just couldn’t process and upload them. To make matters worse this coincided with a lot of work (which is continuing). I’ve now got a nice shiny new, custom-built fast computer, which is helping me clear my 250+ picture backlog.
I’m planning to catch up over the next week or two. I hope so; it will be nice to finish posting my 365 days on January 1.
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Autumn color on the road to the South trailhead at Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area
Autumn color of the road from the South trailhead at Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area On leaving Busiek I spotted this scene on the track out from the trailhead.
Fall color at home We arrived home from our hike at Busiek to see these wonderful colors in the trees outside our house. Of course all those leaves are going to have to be picked up, bagged and gotten rid of.
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Fall color at Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area, Missouri #2
Looking up I saw these wonderful colors… -
Fall color at Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area, Missouri #1
Fall color at Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area, Missouri We hiked the Yellow and Silver trails at Busiek today – a little over 4 miles and around 624 feet of elevation climbed.
The color of the trees on the trail by the Carter Cemetery were breathtaking.
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Gary and Ginger stopped for lunch on Woods Fork, Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area (365:305)
Gary and Ginger stopped for lunch on Woods Fork, Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area The fall colour at Busiek was stunning
We hiked the Yellow and Silver trails at Busiek today – a little over 4 miles and around 624 feet of elevation climbed. Now we’ve started getting out again, we’ve just got to keep it up and get out a couple of times a week. This coming weekend we’re planning on going camping. It’s really good to be getting out again.
The the colour of the trees on the trail by the Carter Cemetery were breathtaking. I took this picture when we stopped for lunch by Camp Creek. We finished the hike in plently of time to visit one of the Flea Markets in Ozark before collecting the big kids from school.
Woods Fork Crossing 
Woods Fork, Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area 
Berries on the Yellow Trail at Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area -
Railroad Bridge over the James River at the Springfield Nature Center
Ginger Kayaking near the Railroad Bridge over the James River at the Springfield Nature Center -
Relaxing in the Kayak after lunch at Lake Springfield (365:304)
Relaxing in the Kayak after lunch at Lake Springfield, Missouri Today we took the Kayaks out on Lake Springfield
The fall color has been magnificent this year. Thus far we’ve not had an opportunity to get out to enjoy them. So, we’ve decide to take a couple of days out and enjoy the weather and the color while both last.
We saw several deer, a bald eagle, more coots than you could shake a stick at, some grebes, herons and a few cormorants.
Railroad Bridge over the James River at the Springfield Nature Center
Ginger kayaking under the railroad Bridge onthe James River at the Springfield Nature Center
Ginger kayaking under the railroad Bridge onthe James River
Ginger kayaking on the James River, Springfield Missouri
James River, Springfield Missouri
Cooking lunch in the kayak on Lake Springfield -
Trunk or Treat (365:303)
This evening we went to the Church Hallowed Carnival
Lanie wanted to take part in the ‘Trunk or Treat’. After a lot of head-scratching, we came up with the idea of making the back of the van into an ambulance with Lanie as the patient, tended to by Katie as Nurse D’eath. We even managed to find a hospital IV bag hanger for $1 in the Habitat for Humanity Restore Center.
I forgot to mention that we won the best-decorated trunk award!
I took today’s picture while I was handing out candy. We’ll pass over how I frightened one kid by making them think the candy finger they’d picked out of the box of human body parts was really my finger. Oh, how I laughed … later. 🙂
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Tubby (365:302)
Tubby (365:302). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Look closely at his eyes
Tubby is a Burmese cat of many names: Rotters, Rot-row, Tubster, Tubmeister, Irritant, and Pokey Paws. I suspect he is harboring an ambition to get his paws on an ‘Uzi 9mm’ (Must be said in the voice of Arnold Schwarzenegger) and get his revenge on us.
His eyes have been like that since birth – he can see, but not perfectly. He’s annoyingly hesitant, but I suspect that’s more due to his personality than his eyes. He hates having the top of his head touched – possibly because he can’t quite properly see your hand coming. More likely he’s just contrary.
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A bit of essential beard maintenance (365:301)
A trim was overdue
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Left Profile (365:300)
It’s been said that I’ve not been showing this profile view
So there you are.
BTW today is day 300! 65 days left.
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Another old Radio (365:299)
Another old Radio (365:299). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. My second Valve radio
now I know it’s a similar shot to the one I used the day before yesterday (day 297), but this was a ‘no brainer’ for a late-night quick picture.
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Breakfast at Aunt Martha’s Pancake House (365:298)
Today we did a lot of running around
Our plan had been to go grocery shopping and visit the library. But then we popped into Ozark Adventures to look at rope (I need more rope for my huaraches) and backpacking gear. So we made a day of it and treated ourselves to a late breakfast, which is where today’s picture was taken, before going to a couple of other places before finishing the shopping.
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Lanie’s Halloween Pumpkin
Lanie’s Halloween Pumpkin. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Tonight Lanie made her Halloween pumpkin and here it is in all its illuminated glory.
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Old Radio (365:297)
Old Radio (365:297). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. I have a passion for valve radios and amplifiers
Ginger found a couple of old vacuum tube radios in the house in Chicago, and I brought them home with me. I can’t see an iPod working in fifty years’ time but both of the radios, well over fifty years old, are in working order – which is fantastic.
Now I need to find out how to restore them to an ‘as new’ condition.
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Relaxing in the backyard (365:296)
Today comprised church and sitting in the backyard,
that sums up my day. I must have still been tired as I slept away part of the afternoon.
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Gary and Lanie down by the creek (365:295)
Today we relaxed at Ginger’s parents
I relaxed so much I spent a good part of the afternoon fast asleep sitting on the porch of the guest house.
This morning Lanie decided she wanted to go fishing in the creek. That would have been fine if I’d known the day before and had packed our fishing gear. Jim rummaged around and found a small portable rod we couldn’t get to work, and then turned up with a proper fishing rod and some bobbers. No hooks though. So he made one from a sewing needle. Lanie packed some of this mornings wonderful breakfast sausage for bait and we headed down to the creek to fish.
At the creek we saw a beaver swim under the bridge, and we found a small lure and a large fish hook – tripling our fishing gear. The fish loved the sausage but the needle hook wasn’t very effective at catching them. Lanie caught one fish on the huge hook we’d found up in a tree over the creek.
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Family cookout (365:294)
Tonight we’re camping at Ginger’s parents
After school the we loaded up our camping gear and drove down to Thornfield for a family cookout. We took the girls with us, and Katie drove part of the way, which was a bit nerve wracking for me in the co-pilot’s seat.
The main purpose of our visit was to meet Ginger’s aunt, who’d been staying with her parents this past week. Jim had cut wood and we had a great time roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. We took our dutch oven and cooked up some very tasty veggies too.
Ginger and I took the tent and spent the night camped out near the house.
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Tired (365:293)
Tired (365:293). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. I got to bed at 3 am, and was up again at 7.30
I met with Tom at 10 am to help unload the truck and return it to U-Haul. He treated me to a very nice breakfast (That would have probably made a much more interesting picture), after which I went home and did my EfM coursework.
By the time class started (six pm) I was tired but managed to get through the evening.
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Waiting for the trash man (365:292)
Things didn’t go quite as planned
The plan was to get the work finished on the house, get the work inspected, have all the rubbish taken away, hire a trailer for the pick-up, load everything to go back to Springfield, and drive home – a day early. Great as this means I can attend EfM tomorrow.
It all slowly fell apart as the day moved on. The builders arrived, did their stuff and the inspector approved the work. The recycling guy turned up by 10 am, and then nothing happened. Tom tried (and failed) to get rid of the TVs and I sat and waited for the trash man to come. It started raining. The drive from Chicago to Springfield takes 8-9 hours so we were keen to get moving. Finally sometime after two pm the trash man arrived, took everything and we were free to go.
Then we discovered that there was a fault with the pick-up’s electrics which meant that U-Haul couldn’t let us have a trailer for safety reasons (no right indicators on the trailer). We decided to rent a truck and I’d drive the pick-up back to Springfield. Of course the U-Haul branch we were at didn’t have a truck available. Off we went to another branch which did have a truck available. By the time we’d got the truck, loaded it up (in the rain), given the house a final check over it was around four-thirty. We’d not be getting back to Springfield until after one am.
And so it was. The trip was almost without incident. Almost that is apart from while driving out of Chicago the Pick-ups speedometer went on the blink. At first I didn’t notice, but when a truck overtook me when I was apparently doing over 90 miles an hour my suspicions were confirmed. I called Tom and jokingly suggested we slow down, as the best I could tell we were travelling at over 140 mph – the speedo needle had by now gone right off the scale.
Coming up on 110mph – not quite what it appears Apparently, this is a known GMC fault, and at our first rest stop Tom managed to reset the speedo to 0mph and it worked perfectly for the rest of the trip.
I arrived home around one-thirty, but couldn’t settle down to sleep until around three am.
