Right before we left for Africa, OAT was offering a last minute deal for a tour of Australia. So we jumped on that offer. 3 weeks after getting back from Africa we flew to Sydney Australia. As we did in Africa we went over a few days ahead of the organized tour. We hopped a train for the Hunter valley, a wine country area north of Sydney. There we used the hop on hop off bus to visit a number of "cellar doors", their name for tasting rooms.
While we were in Africa, not looking forward to that 16 hour return flight. And we knew we had another long flight to Australia. Well what the heck, let's do New Zealand at the same time. So when we got back to the US, I changed our return flight from Sydney to Auckland. And I setup a 3 day stay in Auckland and a car rental (with Scotties was the cheapest part of the trip). And that was the extent of the planning.
We traveled for safari with OATtravel to South Africa (Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Botswana)
We headed out ahead of the trip and spent 3 days in Franchhoek, SA, one of the wine regions near Capetown. This gave us some time to relax and get use to the time zone change (6 hours).
This area is a ferti...
We went to the three sisters spring in Crystal River about a half hour north of us. We got an early start and got to the spring outlet just after 9. I have never seen so many manatees at one time. On any given day you will see 2 or 3 at a time. This time we saw 1 or 2 dozen at a time.
I have been volunteering at a local elementary school for their Robotics Club. They build and drive robots from Vex IQ, a combination of lego-like pieces and motors, gears, tractor tracks. Recently we went to a competition of 30 teams, at least 6 schools, most were middle schools, but our students from 3rd,4th and 5th grade. Our class wore blue.
OK so I really had not heard of this before, but we came close to this by accident before. At what we considered an above average sushi bar in Reno we liked, one time for their special all you can eat night, we told the chef, surprise us. Also while working in San Diego we had a visiting engineer...
While you would never see the Northern Lights here, we have some pretty impressive thunderstorms. This storm was parked about 20 miles east of here, too far away to hear the lightning, but the flashes caught my eye inside the house and went out to watch for a bit. It went on for about a half an...
Well this summer has been hotter than normal and also drier. So nothing was on the schedule for a couple weeks, so let's get out of here and head for the Blue Ridge Mountains.
We escaped the heat in FL for a couple weeks, by traveling to Canada. We flew into Vancouver to start the trip. This trip was on our own, but we had scheduled small group tours along the way.
So we went down to the Everglades right before they close for the season (closing for summer rainy season)
Having sisters and nieces that are into horses and having the world equestrian center nearby, we get to do horsey bits. We went to a polo match.
We are done inside.
Getting the outside painted, and planning garden enhancements.
Living room before (left) and after, note Mango was supervising back then. We had to finish without his help.
We just returned from nine days in Iceland. Some friends from Tahoe had scheduled a trip before Covid, and it was delayed until this year. So we joined them, plus all Covid restrictions have been gone in Iceland since the spring of 2022, only tourists were wearing masks.
We are close to the halfway point (I hope), and I will start posting pictures as rooms complete.
Living room before (left) and after, note Mango is supervising.
Our second trip to the Hills Executive Course at Timber Pines (one other executive, and one regulation). Out with my sister on Tuesday, and joined my mom on her weekly 9 holes today.
So Wordle is running more rampant than Omicron. I got hooked after reading an article in Popular Mechanics on the mathematics of Wordle. That intrigued me, so I started playing at wordlegame.org
After buying a Tecnam P2010 back in April of 2021, I can finally fly it after all the paperwork, inspections, more paperwork and . . .
That's me and my land lady (renting me a hangar) and maybe I'll call the plane Gwen, as the ATC designator is TWEN/G
With apologies to Dickens --
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the winter of despair, it was the spring of hope. we were the fools
Well Christmas has past, hope you all had a Merry one. We had about half the family here - Mom, sister, and her daughter Stacy, Nancy and I.
We came together to celebrate Ruth's 95th Birthday at the lodge patio at Timber Pines
Some pictures of the event
Most of you know we made our escape from CA. Bay area people discovered working remotely and started moving up to Tahoe, wait til the first big winter to see how that shakes out. When the crowds were in town for holidays Tahoe became unlivable, unfortunately with the increased full timers, that was becoming the norm. Crowded roads, stores, restaurants...
Time to part with my M20E
This 145 knot 10 gal/hour airplane commuted me to the bay area and San Diego, along with trips to Seattle, many places in Oregon, Phoenix, Colorado Springs, Dallas, Kalispell, Sedona, Santa Fe, Death Valley, Mammoth Mt, Winter Park, Las Vegas, Provo, Canyon de Chelly, Winslow, Page, Roswell, Boise, and now to a broker in Oklahoma City.and sold to a new owner in FL.
It's been almost a year, so finally restoring much of the information from the old Eisenhard website.
Welcome to an Eisenhard's page.
...the story continues
a good place to stash pictures or videos
videos should stored at youtube (they have bigger servers) and
Welcome to the new Eisenhard.net website, I finally joined the modern world. Got one of them thar smart phones :)
Thanks to
- phpbbservices.com
- flatfiledeveloper.com
- activeebiz.com
- and proof readers Mike and olzeke
- and Grav CMS
- and our web sponsor Coridium