Photo Blogging Challenge (November 2018): Nom Nom Nom

Nom nom nom, I like food. A lot of times it's the prettiest photo I have for my daily selection so I have a lot of 'em. Now's the time to share!

Soft Shell Crab Po'boy


A dog's gotta eat. Check out her tongue!


Beef Pho, from the same place as the Po'boy. They do it all and do it well.


Pecan Pie ready for Thanksgiving.


My dad cooks a mean steak.


Happy Onion approves!

Photo Blogging Challenge (October 2018) Oh the places you’ve been!

Y'all, October was busy. Our drought broke with almost 12" of rain for the month. But we were still able to get out and about some.

October is fair month and I love the fair. We started it out with our county fair. Heart of Texas Fair and Rodeo suffered a bit due to rain but was fun nevertheless.

I had given up hope of making it to the State Fair of Texas this year. Every weekend saw rain. We finally caught a break on the closing weekend and got to enjoy a corny dog with my mom, sis, and niece as well.

I got out of the crummy weather for some business golf in Southern Pines, NC. It was perfect weather for a couple of days.


I followed that up with a quick trip to Tulsa.


And ended the month at Miami Beach. This is the Fontainebleu. James Bond was here in Goldfinger, Jerry Lewis was The Bellboy here. Neil Young wrote a song about it. It was nice. It was expensive. And I may be too old to hang out at Miami Beach. I was in bed long before the club opened.


There is October in a nutshell. November will be mostly home but the end of the year still come hard and fast.

Photo Blogging Challenge (September 2018): Colorful

September brought some unique and many very colorful Skies of Texas. Please enjoy a few:



I'm not sure what these are but they always seem to pop up after the first good rain after a long dry spell.

Photo Blogging Challenge – Photographer's Choice (August 2018)

We had the opportunity to visit a friend of a friend this month. My dad, the boy, and I, along with a couple of friends went to check out this amazing car collection. It was impossible to choose five so if you like cars and one of the craziest home theater setup I'd ever seen, take a look at the full album over on Flickr.

He has about four barns worth of cars, this is the smaller but maybe most valuable monetarily at least. The Shelby front left is autographed by Carroll Shelby and the Challenger on the right is autographed by Richard Petty. 


I've always liked DeLoreans, the boy shares my fondness. This guy has two.


Here's a better look at the Shelby. It's a bid-engine so you have to kick your legs off towards the door. For $100,000, I'd like a little more comfortable ride.


This is the movie barn, he's built a replica of the Blues Brother car, the Little Mule from Romancing the Stone is a real Ford Bronco sitting on top of the equipment room, the dragon is from a Disney property, and the 38 Special custom van rounds it out. I'm standing in an area full of vintage arcade machines.


He built this facade to emulate an old service station complete with attendant.


There are so many more unique vehicles. The guy just buys and doesn't ever sell. So, again, take a look at the full album. Take a look at a lil hoohaa for more.

Photo Blogging Challenge – Staying Cool (July 2018)

Staying Cool was just what we tried to do for July. We left the Texas heat for a long weekend in Chicago. It was cool!


The aquarium offered some cool views, as well as some nice A/C.


The Crown Fountain is a cool way to keep cool. The kids enjoyed playing in the water.


Headed to Navy Pier to watch some cool fireworks.


I though this sign was pretty cool.


The EL is a cool way to get around town.

Photo Blogging Challenge – Fun (June 2018)

The hardest part of this month's challenge was choosing just five photos. We spent about a week in the Boundary Waters between Ely, Minnesota and Canada. Five days total and about 50 miles paddling/portaging out on the water before returning to base camp. We had a blast and enjoyed the cooler temperatures.

Headed out for our adventure. There were five scouts, two adults, and our guide in three canoes.


These two goofballs found these Frozen-themed sunglasses in the park in town before we left. They got plenty of goofy looks.


A little late evening fishing.. John was skunked on fishing when we were last here, this year he caught a nice rainbow, a small-mouth bass, and a something little bitty.


Eddy Falls - we passed this way in 2014. It was fun to see again.


Even in the wind and rain of a surprise storm they find a way to smile.


We had a great trip. It was more than likely my last with the Boy Scouts. John starts college this fall, William has a lot of other interests, I have resigned my position as Scoutmaster, it's time for some other folks to step up and enjoy these experiences. I wouldn't trade them for anything, especially these last few years getting to enjoy both of my boys. Take a look at my entire Northern Tier 2018 album, if you'd like. I invite you to participate in next month's challenge, posted at a lil hoohaa soon. And check out every one else's contributions.

Photo Blogging Challenge – Outdoor Activities (May 2018)

I almost forgot all about this! Here's the quick and dirty May Challenge - Outdoor Activities

We had a fun little canoe trip with the Scouts that are headed to Minnesota this summer.


The pool is open and our baby boy is now 16!


John is now a High School graduate. Last day of high school for him.


Jumping feet first into summer.


Annual get-together with a bunch of good friends.

Photo Blogging Challenge (April 2018): One person

April's challenge is one person. I had a couple of ideas, I thought about 5 of one person, but ultimately wanted to share some others. So here we go:

My nephew is a senior this year and getting ready to graduate. I took the opportunity of an Easter visit to get some shots of him for his announcement.


It took a little work to get him to loosen up though. I think we finally got him to relax. :)


Will is just a sophomore but wanted in on the action.


John is also a senior. He had a tux rented for the weekend for an event so we decided to make the most of it.


The boy loves his Jeep!

Photo Blogging Challenge (March 2018): Five

My only real problem with my plan for FIVE was my project started a while back so I've only included March photos, but you can check out the whole album on Flickr as it grows.

On September 13, 1979, my dad came home with a Silver Anniversary Jeep CJ5. It's been here ever since. For the last 30-35 years it has sat out in the elements at our ranch, used to get us around the pasture. I learned to drive a stick in it, as did my sister, and both my boys. For some reason, late last year, my dad decided it was time to clean it up. He talked about several plans, the worst of which was just to coat the entire thing in bedliner material. That stuff is pretty much permanent and we would never be able to restore the Jeep to anywhere near original. So John and I started a campaign on two fronts: John kept showing him pictures of restored Silver Anniversary's and I directed him to this website created as a registry of Silver Anniversary's. Jeep didn't keep a record of how many of these were made, so this gentleman created this registry of confirmed finds. Less than 125 have been found. Fast forward to March. It spent much of March in the paint shop and a detail shop getting her stripes back. I think she turned out as nice as I remember when new.

At the end of February, we bought Amy a new vehicle. When I picked up the Silver, it needed to be protected from the elements. I couldn't resist our garage full of Jeeps (even if the middle one is a Fiat :) ).


My dad got back to town so I needed one more DURING shot before we rolled it down to the shop to start reassembly. He drove it while I followed, it has no lights currently, and now we pull out wiring diagrams and old parts and see what we can do to get it put back together.


Just for grins, here is my sister and friends circa April 1996 driving it at the ranch.

Photo Blogging Challenge (February 2018): Simple

February has been anything but simple. I'll spare you the details but we've been busy. I almost skipped out again but I didn't want to miss two months in a row. So here we are.

Air travel makes managing my folks in Tulsa pretty simple. The fact that they are all good people helps the most. If it wasn't for the plane, I'd be away from home three days for one day of work.

The First Saturday of every month the little community of Pearl, Texas holds their Bluegrass Festival. While the lack of drums and electric instruments simplifies things, the harmonies and melodies are often far from simple. But it does hearken back to simpler times. I get down there as often as I can. http://www.pearlbluegrass.com/

While perusing my stream, I noticed a lot of my daily posts were sky shots. Pretty skies make photos pretty simple.

You would think it would be simple to ship a parcel without beating the box and the item all the way to hell. You would think...

Sometimes, something as simple as moving our regular Troop meeting to the bowling alley is what it takes to re energize these younguns.

That's what I have for this month. Hopefully, March will be a little more... simple and I will be more inspired. Take a look at the other submissions if you'd like and, heck, join in, won't you.