I Need A Vacation After My Vacation!

I'm baaaaack. Did you miss me?

I've been cruisin'. My sister-in-law and I went on a 2 week vacation to HAWAII! I know, it's a thankless job but someone has to do it. We took it upon ourselves to try and help the economy in the islands. Lord knows there's a gift/souvenir shop every 6 yards every where we went and we hit 'em all and did a fair to partly cloudy job of helping to get Hawaii out of their financial slump!

We flew to Oahu first and stayed a couple of days with my cousin and her husband. They were the best host/hostess imaginable! As a rule I go out of my way to keep from "bothering" friends or family....I prefer to get a room so as not to impose. It was pointed out to me recently that sometimes people might really want to show you a good time and you should allow them to do so. I told them the day that we left that they might never get rid of me now they were so gracious!

Both my cousins (I have two cousins that make their home on Oahu) made sure we went everywhere on Oahu that we wanted to go. They also keep hydrating me so I wouldn't have a "Vegas" episode and end up in one of their hospitals.

We boarded the NCL's Pride Of Aloha on the 15th and sailed on the 16th until the 27th. More about the boat later. During that 11-day cruise we visited Honolulu, Hilo, Lahaina (Maui), Kona, Kahului (Maui) and Nawiliwili (Kauai). We had two day of cruising where we saw the islands of Molokai and Oahu's Napali coasts. We had an excursion to the island of Lanai. During the cruise days we were all onboard and fought for every available deck chair and crust of bread! More about THAT later too!

We had a wonderful time. We expected to have a wonderful time. We had some speedbumps along the way, but how could anyone be upset for long when you're in Hawaii!? We saw Kilauea's active lava flow at night from the deck of the ship and our own balcony. It was truly the highlight of the trip. All your school life you read about volcanoes and see pictures, but it's not the same as seeing it with your own eyes. Nature and Madame Pele showing off for the tourists... it just doesn't get any more exciting than that!

I'm in the process of 1) getting my laundry done, 2) getting 10 GIGS of pictures sorted, 3) trying to catch up with my e-mail and blog reading and 4) trying to get used to being back in my rut with the five hour difference in sleep and appetite. I managed to lose weight on the trip and that wasn't from not having an oppourtunity to eat non-stop for 24 hours a day....it was from walking and climbing every day and burning up those extra calories.

I'll be back with more on the cruise and provide the link to my photos.

For now, it's good to be home. I love to travel. I love the Hawaiian islands. I love my sister-in-law and my cousins, but I sure did miss my own bed and my kids and my little dog.

Hugs.....

More Wildlife On The Prowl!

It's beginning to be like some kind of Twilight Zone around here. At the rate I'm going I'm thinking I should apply for a grant or something and become a wildlife preserve! Here's the latest....



When I met the deputy in my driveway I told him that Lucy had treed a RAT! Well once he shined his mega wickedly bright flashlight on the critter it was almost a rat, but not quite. Aren't his ears weird? I've never seen a possum up close like this one!



The deputy, who I call "Trouble", has been my hero on more than one occasion over the years! Thanks, Trouble, for taking that critter off my hands! Lucy might never recover. She wanted to kick some ass and there was no good end in sight. The possum couldn't get up any higher or down where he could run away. Lucy wasn't going to give up the hunt until forced to. She was jumping as high as the top of the bush the possum was in and barking like she was possessed....




Obviously the word on the bayou is that it's fun to visit my place and see the old lady jumping up and down shrieking along side the little white dog who's having conniptions in her own right! I'm better than HD TV to the creatures of the night!

Lucy And Ricky Together Again!

Well as you may know, my new adopted dog's name is Lucy. I tell people I named her that so that when I come home I can say "Lucy, I'm home" in my best Ricky Ricardo imitation. Well tonight RICKY came to visit with LUCY and he thought he really was home!




We were out for our walk and saw something run across the street and up my driveway and then up in my tree. At first I thought it was just a cat, but then it dawned on me that it ran "funny" for a cat. My neighbors were backing up and down in their driveway and they called out to me to be careful because it was a raccoon! When they got home it was in their driveway and ran under one of their parked cars.




It never ceases to amaze me just how much wildlife is right outside my door! No wonder Lucy cries for what I considered no good reason when we go outside at night. I figured she smelled cat tracks or even the possum that likes to poop on my porch. I had no idea a full grown raccoon was on the prowl! That thing probably weighs twice as much or more than Lucy does.





Hopefully I terrorized it enough with the flash on my camera to make it find new hunting grounds or another treetop motel. It probably scared it to death too that I was jumping around saying "sh*t, sh*t" for a good 15 minutes.

My Weekend Peak Experiences!

The Memorial Day weekend was fated to be just another holiday weekend, but then a friend stepped in and invited me to join the group hiking up Harney's Peak in South Dakota. I laughed and said something like "yeah, right", but he kept at me telling me it was easy, a hike rated "moderate" so that even little kids did it. The more I thought about it the more attractive it sounded. My possibly last chance to see areas of the country that I'd otherwise never get to see. We'd fly to Denver and then drive through Wyoming, Nebraska and South Dakota.

I said I wasn't in any kind of shape for trekking through the wilderness, but he kept saying the trail to Harney's Peak was "easy", a moderate climb, even little kids, blah, blah, blah. I finally said "okay", but don't expect much of me in the way of stamina. He sent me to SummitPost.org to read all about the climb. I was truly hooked when I saw the photos!

Sure enough, little kids were scampering around like mountain goats.

So I started accumulating gear. First I went to Sun and Ski Sports and got a good pair of hiking boots. Then I bought some stuff online like hiking poles - one for each hand! Ultimately I wandered into REI and fell in love with their clothes! Who wouldn't love pants with more pockets than you could ever fill up? I spent a couple of hundred bucks in there without breaking a sweat. I forced myself to get on my recumbent bike and peddle during Astro's ballgames. I used the "mountains" setting and never did climb one of those for very long, but I was feeling like I was doing something to make life easier on the trek.

Thursday, May 24th finally arrived. D-Day. Departure into the great unknown. Ready or not, here I come! The plane ride to Colorado was delayed an hour due to bad weather elsewhere so we arrived an hour later than planned. By the time we got the rental Jeep and started out for Cheyenne it was dark. I didn't get to see anything of Denver except the inside of this really cool diner. I don't recall the name of it, but it was straight out of Happy Days. It took awhile to get everyone fed, but there was so much to see on the walls that it was fun waiting.

We spent the first night at The Plains Hotel in Cheyenne, Wyoming, a town I fell in love with at first light. The hotel was comfortable enough except that the curtains didn't cover the windows, they just looked nice! I did the best I could, but the street light shined in all night long. Next crack of the whip the sun came crashing in at, I swear, 5-something! WTF! I'm positive I didn't sleep a wink. Not even one of those nights where you think you didn't but you actually caught the odd hour or so and woke up 90 times. Luckily a shower and coffee and the excitement of impending adventure kept me awake and kicking all through the very long day.

I've put my photos of the trip up at SmugMug so go and see them if you like.




The round trip up the mountain usually takes fit folk about 3 hours. "Ranger" Rick, the Pied Piper of Hikers, ran circles around me. He'd gallop off down the trail, next thing I'd know he was on top of some big outcropping wishing he was free to climb like the monkey he is! He urged me, but never nagged. He was bored with all the rest stops I HAD to take in order to catch my breath and regain some kind of normal heartbeat, but he never said....much. The rest of the group was not as patient, they were there to have fun, not nursemaid an old lady who's idea of exercise is right clicking on a mouse's back! I almost never saw them again!



Sure enough there were kids on the trail! But someone neglected to say that a LOT of those kids were being toted by their parental units! The ones that were Free To Be were hyper little turkeys that probably had sweetened cereal for breakfast and chocolate along the way. The kind of kid that never walks when he can hop. We were passed by folks who later passed us again on their way back down! They were all nice and must belong to the secret society that says "not much farther, just a little bit more" when they were lying like sumbitches!

At the first mile I thought I'm not dead, but I'm not enjoying this either. At the second mile I thought just kill me now and get it over with. By the time the view of the last remaining stairs before you get to the last possible stairs before you get to the killer stairs to the orgasmic culmination of the Peak experience became visible I thought they'll find my body on the stairs and bury me here. I told one couple that my services would be at 2 the next afternoon!

To add insult to injury people were riding HORSES up the trail. I offered one guy 100 bucks for a ride and he just laughed. I guess he thought I was joking. On the down side, bad enough was walking over the uneven ground and rocks, but add to that joy avoiding horse droppings that perfumed the air with their very freshness! We were picking up the odd bits of litter along the way but there was no way I was doing parade patrol behind the Calvary! Peeeuuuu.

I made it. 7 miles total. 8 hours and 20 minutes. Only one pee in the morning before I left my motel room! I am woman, hear my labored breathing! But you knew that or I wouldn't of been writing this long post! If you've stuck with it this long, God love you! Your name must be Betty because I can count on her to wade through my prattle! I'll probably write something on the rest of the trip as this is my online diary and it's good to record things like this so that once you're completely recovered you can look back and say "it wasn't so bad after all. I did it! I'm good! I might consider something like that again, but only after I get in better shape".....



I think maybe the bottom line is that if you want something badly enough you should die trying to attain it. No, oops, that's not right. Hmmm...where there's life there's always a chance? Move it or lose it? Just do it? Haste makes waste? Never invite old ladies on the trail? Oh, hell, I'm not sure what the bottom line is, but I'm so honored to have been along for the ride and I just hope they all know I didn't mean a thing I said in the heat of the ordeal. I have to run my mouth in order for my feet to work...honest...it's hereditary!

Stay tuned for more "peaks" and a few valleys!

25 Cents A Roach?

No I don't mean a joint either. I mean cockroaches! Euuuu.....

Check this out.......

CLAIM YOUR COCKROACH LOOT

Houstonians may contribute cockroaches by coming to the entrance of the Cockrell Butterfly Center on the following Saturdays and Tuesdays, and asking for a museum entomologist:

When to go

• Noon-3 p.m. Saturday, May 12 and May 19

• 4-7 p.m. May 8 and May 15

What you'll get

• Reward: $0.25 per cockroach for the first 1,000 received; after that, donors will be given passes to return and visit their friends when the redesigned Cockrell Butterfly Center opens May 25.

The good part is they limit it to 1000 TOTAL. When I first read it I thought it was saying 1000 per person, limited to 1000 people. I wouldn't of been surprised with that either.

I think they ought to have a contest for the largest one. They say they max out at 2 inches, but I KNOW I've had some that wore army boots and marched across the floor....in cadence!!

Only in Texas would you find people paying for bugs!

My Backyard Bird Photos - Best Ever!

This is the male red-shouldered hawk. His mate is below. Red-shouldered hawks mate for life. Too bad you can't say that about most humans!



This is as good at it gets! It's as if they posed just for me and then the next day they went back to keeping their distance. These are just two of the ones I took. These and all the rest of the pictures are in my photo gallery at http://ediegoodwin.smugmug.com/. Enjoy!

While I was watching her through my kitchen window I used my laptop to search for information about them and was delighted to learn such things as:
By the time they are five days old, nestling Red-shouldered Hawks can shoot their feces over the edge of their nest. Bird poop on the ground is a sign of an active nest.

Their enemies are Great Horned Owls, raccoons and man who clears the land and is destroying their natural habitats and causing them to come and sit on my fence! Their idea of McDonalds is to dine on small mammals, small birds, reptiles, amphibians, large insects, and crayfish. I wish they'd eat some of the young squirrels that are living in my yard! Say what you will, squirrels are still rodents or just RATS with a better tail! Why on earth anyone would feed and encourage them is beyond me!

Spring has sprung! Er....we didn't even have a proper winter, but I'm not complaining about the lack of ice in the greater Gulf Coast area!

More Red-Shouldered Hawk Photos!

Go and see them all ..... just click on either picture to see the whole collection.



I'm just amazed that he got so close and the pictures turned out half decent!

In My Own Backyard

When I went out to get my mail awhile ago I saw this on the telephone pole right behind my house. I figured he'd be long gone by the time I got my camera, but he waited for me!








I went in my neighbor's driveway to try and get closer. I sure wanted him to turn around, but he was watching the bayou for dinner, I guess.
















I ended up in my own backyard and shot a half dozen or so before the sound of the shutter made him take flight.







We see some very interesting birds right here in my neighborhood and according to my mailing address, I live in Houston. 6 million people and counting and the wildlife all trying to live in peaceful coexistence. Scratch that, the people are killing and maiming one another constantly...


























After I downloaded the pictures to my computer I "cheated" with some color enhancement, cropping and magic.