March 1-15, 2015 Camping, Kayaking, Barbecues, and Yard Sales

It's been a busy two weeks.  I finally got our taxes figured up and mailed.  Between the business (Federal and State) and personal (Federal and State) forms, schedules and worksheets I used up half a ream of paper just to print my copies for my records.  We submitted three of the four electronically and mailed one.  We paid one electronically and two by check.  I'm glad that's over!

Other than that we've been busy doing more fun things.  The weather has been mostly good and the nights are warmer now so we've spent most of our time outdoors.

Scott after a hard day at play.  He refuses to accept that he's tired so sleep has to kind of sneak up on him!

Okay, he isn't sleeping here.  He's just gazing at the clouds from his robot costume.

And what else would a robot paint except for another robot.

Stuffed peppers for dinner tonight.

We spent one day at the Red Rock picnic area.  We all like climbing on the different sandstone rock formations and checking out the caves and hollows.

One of Scott's observation posts.

Susan soaking up a bit of the sun (while I was looking for shade!).

Susan and Scott doing some exploring.

Scott was an expert at finding the caves with deep sand on the floor.

The sun was getting low as we headed back to the car.

Scott has been wanting to go to our "snow house" (Montana home) so we took him to the ski area outside of Las Vegas.  It is beautiful up there and they still had a bit of snow left.

Scott fell in love with several of the snowmen there then he and 

Susan built one of their own.  He had so much fun playing in the snow.  We almost had to drag him to the car to go back home.

We finally patched up his broken heart with a promise to find him a fishing pole so we stopped in Sportsman's Warehouse where he found one he liked.

Every spring Overton has their community yard sale.  We have a storage unit so we had some leeway on how much we could buy.  Scott picked out a toy at each stop of course.  I picked up some more hand saws and a couple of hand drills plus a set of 30/06 dies that had never been used.

Susan bought a guitar as part of her loot so we got to hear her play it when we got back to the camper.

We've been out in the kayaks several times the last couple of weeks.  This is one of Susan's favorite ways to sit in her kayak.

I was in the double kayak with Scott and Odie.  This was the first time Odie got to ride in the kayak and she did very well.

Dinner time!  Scott would prefer Raviolis over real food so I sat the can on top of the grill to warm it up. Taking up space around Scott's food is chicken breasts and sliced sweet potatoes (in the foil).  We've made a lot of use of the grill and open fire for cooking lately.

Camping time.  We're hoping to take a week to ten days camping around the lake using a kayak and canoe.  We'll take a canoe and the double kayak for the real thing but we made an overnighter using kayaks only.

We found the perfect beach.  The sand on shore is deep and soft.  The beach under the water is packed sand and has a gentle slope towards the lake.  Fifty feet out it's still only up to my knees.  We had an unobstructed view of Scott so he could safely play in the water while we set up camp.

I gathered up firewood and started a fire.  I had purchased some magnesium fire starters from Harbor Freight Tools and wanted to test them out.  They come with a section of hacksaw blade for making shavings and striking sparks.  However they're painted heavily so I sanded the paint off the edge using a sandstone rock.  The finish on the bar is rough compared to more expensive bars but it didn't seem to affect making shavings.  I broke the hacksaw blade rather quickly and finished up with a knife.  They will throw an incredible display of sparks and worked as well as the more expensive magnesium bars.  I did use my knife after the hacksaw blade broke though.

I'm not a huge fan of magnesium bars but they'll work when they're wet which is more than a butane lighter will do.  Since we spend so much time around water I carry one in addition to the butane lighter I always have in a pocket.

This photo was supposed to be after the next one.  Here it was getting dark and Scott was still running in the water.  Someone went by in a boat to create a wake.  Other than that it was dead calm and the lake's surface was about as smooth as glass.

Scott is supervising while I bring the fire to life.

We saw and heard coyotes and wild burros near our camp.  We got Scott to stay in bed by putting a DVD on his portable player.  He was asleep within seconds.  We didn't bother with a tent but just threw a tarp on the sand and rolled out the sleeping bags.

We had a sentinel for a couple of days.  He would fly around a bit then take up residence on the hill top near our camp.  The birds like to perch there because they can see all around and watch for danger and dinner at the same time.

We figured we'd have a show when we saw the plane go by the first time.  They were out a couple of times last week but the photos are from the first jump. They jumped from a higher altitude than usual on this jump.

I'm assuming this is cargo of some kind.

Note the bulge on his left leg.

The bulge is gone when he nears the water and he now has flippers on.  Do these guys put the flippers on while they are parachuting down?

There was a boat waiting for them so they didn't spend a lot of time in the water which was good.  The water is really cold yet!