Random wanderings of the free and easy

Cody's new apartment.....living room, den and the back porch

During the 2 1/2 weeks after our return trip to Billings, we visited many of the people that I had worked with at the tower as well as friends in the area. It was so nice to see them again. While there, we also helped Cody get situated in his new apartment and even stopped over at his work to see him do his stuff.

A friend and Cody hanging siding on a new home

Jeff Enck and I traveled to Canyon Ferry Lake and met another friend, Ron Mentzer to go fishing. We had pretty good success with the rainbows, but no walleyes of legal size.

Jeff isn't pictured...he had to take the pictures while Ron and I did most of the hard work looking like fishermen. We used Jeff's nearly-new Alumacraft 19' boat. Wow, what a nice boat.

Whew....after all of this, and some of the mega-repairs on the 5th wheel I had to do, Karen and I finally got to start the "actual traveling" part of our summer...heading to Oregon and California. On the way we stopped at numerous sights...one was the Preston Winery, just north of Pasco, WA.

That's Karen next to the large wine barrel

Then there was the John Day Dam on the Columbia River (between Washington and Oregon). Notice all of the wind generators on the surrounding hillsides...there must have been a thousand of them. These are probably 300' tall. Lately, I hear rumors that people have complained that they tend to ruin the ambiance of the local scenery, not to mention a danger to sage grouse...which only fly about 10' off of the ground. Hmmm....dams cause hazards for fish...wind generators cause problems for scenery and birds...maybe we should start using candles and fireplaces...oops...smoke...not to mention "bad loggers". Nuclear...yeah, right. Solar...probably not efficient enough. What is an environmentalist to do?