Pismo Beach Butterflies

Traveled down the coast to Pismo Beach today, about 12 miles, to see the Monarch butterfly grove. Thousands of them migrate from as far north as Canada to this same grove every year. It is really fascinating. There are about 15 to 20 thousand of them hanging in clusters off of the limbs and leaves of the eucalyptus trees.

The picture I attached doesn't do them credit. Make sure you click on the picture to enlarge it. They look like big, bushy clusters of leaves.

Friends In Cold Places

Thank god for good friends. Our home in Spokane is slowly becoming buried in snow. Got a call yesterday from our housesitter who was finally able to get back to our house. When he called, 2 of our other friends Craig and Rick were at the house. using a snow rake to reach about 10' up the roof scraping snow off. They were also knocking off giant ice dams from the rain gutters. They said they were drinking Coors beer and throwing the empties in the snow on the front yard so we would have something to remember them by.
I have a feeling we will be calling our insurance company when we get home. There is bound to be some damage as the snow melts.

Let It Snow!

Spokane is buried in snow. Our housesitter lives in Orofino, Idaho and works for Bonneville Power in Spokane 3 days a week. For over a week now, he has not been able to get to our house because of road closures. He finally got in yesterday and called another friend of ours who came over with his tractor and cleared 3' of snow out of the driveway! They just called me a few minutes ago and were outside raking 5' of snow off of the lower portions of the roof.

We are so glad to be gone!. It was 2 years ago today that I retired from the control center. They had to evacuate it today because the roof began collapsing from the snowload!

I attached a picture of our house taken by the neighbors this afternoon.

We look forward to getting home in May, just hope that all the snow has melted by then.

Oh, that's the tip of our mailbox in the front of the picture.

New Years In Porterville

We went to Porterville new years eve day and spent the night with Wanda's daughter Kristy and those 2 little stinkers Jacob and Cody.

We had dinner with Kristy and the kids and Wanda's oldest daughter Paula and her husband Donny. Had a ball.

Jacob is always cracking up at something. He has a great sense of humor. I attached a picture of he and his nana laughing about something.

It was a little foggy and cold while we were there. 44 degrees. Coming back, we broke out of the fog into nice warm sunshine and 60 degrees.