13 March, 2016 More fun in the sun and other places.

Just a recap of some of the things we've done the last couple of weeks.

Scott loves Story Time at the library.  The staff reads books and has all kinds of activities for the kids.  Afterwards the kid are allowed to play with the room with their friends.

We moved the motor home to a new location.  It's only about 500 yards from the old location but we have much better cell service at the new location.  

We made an excursion to Las Vegas to have a fun day for Scott.

He was delighted when we got the front car on the Tram and was pretending to "drive" the tram.

This is one great location for kite flying with lots of wind and no trees or power lines.

We're winding down on our weed pulling.  We'll make the last foray this afternoon.  By the time we finish we'll have pulled over a thousand pounds of Sahara Mustard this season.  The next project: fixing the fence around a spring!

We bought some training wheels for our kayaks.  Actually they're portaging dollies.  They fold out and we put them under the kayaks so that we can roll them to the water.  Where we're now parked it's about a half-mile each way but we can't get any closer with the motor home.  As always, Scott's favorite position is with Susan so he can play in the water as we paddle.

Scott and Susan utilizing Scott's sand pile.  It surprises many people to know that the desert is not all sand.  In our new location there's a large patch of deep sand in front of the motor home.  We have to rake out the debris but once that's done it's a great place for Scott to play.

The reason for our trip to Vegas was to take Scott to the Shark Reef at the Mandolay Bay Casino/Hotel.  It's a huge aquarium with all kinds of salt-water critters including this White Crocodile and countless sharks and other types of fish.  In some places the path tunnels under the water and you walk on glass floors so you have fish swimming above and below you.

Scott was enthralled with all the colorful fish.

One of our neighbors.  This old bull has a problem with horn growth.  His are curving around into the side of his head.

This area has some of the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets in the world. (This is the sunrise!)

Scott, being five-years-old never sits still ... or upright!  He's like a perpetual motion machine.

Now it's time to get serious about getting our taxes figured up. Yuch!

January 15, 2015 - Company, Inverters, Coyotes, and Taxes (yuch!)

Welcome to the new year!  As usual I'm at the computer working on tax records.  I did much better on my record keeping this year which should make the process quicker than last year.  It's hard to imagine a more tortuous way for a government to extort money from it's citizens than this.

My preference would be for an amendment in which the government could only collect a sales tax to fund their activities.  It could be made friendly to the "poor" (or frugal!) by exempting necessities like food, fuel/energy (of all kinds), and medical expenses.  Large ticket items like vehicles, homes, etc. could be prorated with no tax on the first $$$$.  If a low income person bought a cheap car or house they would pay no taxes yet those wanting the expensive items would pay more.

Sales taxes are ridiculously easy to figure plus they are a consumption tax meaning they do not negatively impact the producers (penalizing them for their productivity) of the nation.  They'll impact those receiving government aid (they'll be paying taxes too) any time they purchase non-essentials.  In fact the card for food stamp and other government aid devices could be set so that it was impossible to use them for non-essentials.  (Of course someone will figure out how to get around this but no system is perfect and this would be better than what we currently have.)

The bad side (from the government angle) is that they are extremely apparent every time someone spends money so any tax increases are immediately obvious and hopefully the sticker shock of how much the government extracts would lead to a long deserved tax rebellion. It would also put a lot of IRS employees out of a job.  They might not appreciate that either.

Anyway, that's not likely to happen.  So I'll continue to lose more hair trying to comply with the massive bureaucracy of the IRS.

Taxes ... yuch!

Scott decided he wanted some snowshoes.  (He's been saying he wants to go home and play in the snow.)  Obviously snow shoes are in short supply in southern Nevada so he improvised.

Okay, they're a little awkward on sand and hard clay.

But, hey, what can you  expect from using shock cord for tying on a plastic coat hanger and a do-hickey for throwing balls!  You have to admire his creativity!

Firewood cutting with the bow saw.  Sometimes I don't feel like firing up the chain saw so I use the bow saw to cut a couple of days worth of firewood.

One of Scott's favorite activities is swinging from the rail around the upper bunk (over the driver's section).  I think he's watched too many Curious George movies.

Time for a little excavating.

And playing with stickers.

And "reading" a book while snuggled into a down sleeping bag on a cold day.

We've had times when the wind was blowing that we've had to run every light in the motor home to burn off some of the excess electricity being produced.  We finally got the idea to buy a larger inverter so that we can at least run one of the electric heaters on low.  It seems a much better use than just turning on more lights.

This is our new 3,000 watt inverter.  It has two 15 amp outlets.  You can also wire it directly into the breaker box with the center connection.  That way you can take advantage of the full output of the inverter for things like AC and electric heaters.

As usual the air force is out on the lake "playing."  Scott hasn't got them to stop and give him a ride yet even though he waves vigorously every time they fly by.

Odie took off growling/barking one morning at this guy.  He was about 50 feet from the motor home when she took off after him.  I called her back and by the time I got the camera out and snapped this photo the coyote was probably 200 yards away.  He looked pretty healthy with a good size and nice, fluffy fur.  We've also had burros within a fifty feet of the MH.

Our wood stove works well for cooking.  We've saved a bunch of propane by cooking on it instead of the gas range.

Scott's mom and dad with their new baby, Benjamin, (2 months old).

Scott wearing his Batman cape getting ready to pounce on the unsuspecting victims on the swing.

Ah, Vegas!  Of course we took the kids to Vegas for one night.  They'd never been there before and like most tourists were pretty amazed with all the lights, casinos, hotels, etc.  We spent the night in a motel room at Circus Circus before putting them on a plane the next day.

Can you imagine washing the windows on this!  It's probably an acre or more of glass and they're tied to the top of the dome.

Vegas is a nice place to visit but we're back home now and enjoying the peace and quiet.