I am not the Devil's Advocate... I am the Devil.

After dropping my travel companion at the convention center for the business conference, the reason she had come out here, I headed up the interstate towards the Gold Butte area. I had found this place when scanning the Vegas area with Google Earth when planning the trip and decided to check it out. Previously when I had rented a compact, I got something like the PT Cruiser, but this time it was a small VW bug with pretty much the most minimal ground clearance possible. I think a Segway could go over larger rocks than this car.

It was a long dirt road drive just to reach this pretty well known geologic feature. Devil's Throat didn't end up being much more than a sinkhole-style hole-in-the-ground, but it was pretty big at least and interesting enough for me. I had wanted to visit a nearby area known as Devil's Fire (also called Little Finland or Hobgoblin's Playground). The pictures that were posted on Panoramio and displayed on Google Earth reminded me a bit of the Escalante area when I traveled the mid-west in mid-2007. The shortest directions had me driving along a small trail from Devil's Throat until I got to a mud wash and then driving along it for a good bit further. Due to the lack of ground clearance, I wasn't even able to go that far before I had to turn around. The GPS had another route that seemed to take me closer, but it involved another 40 miles of dirt road around a mountain range, but I decided to give it a try. After traveling all the way around I got to another road that would lead me up to the place I wanted to go, but that too was pretty much blocked after a short distance by just a few rocks less than a foot tall; uggg. I ended up just exploring a few side roads and then hiking up some random hill near Gold Butte itself and taking a few panoramic pictures. After hitting a couple of geocaches in the area, I headed back to Devil's Throat. I really wanted to get to Devil's Fire, so I ended up parking near Devil's Throat and just hiking my way in. The GPS had a straight line distance of a little less than 4 miles, but unfortunately a few mountains would end up getting in the way. It took about 5.2 miles of cross country hiking and route finding to finally reach the area I intended.

After finally getting to the area, and taking a lot of pictures along the way, I spent a little time exploring the area and found myself constantly back tracking when I got to a fragile area. On the way back I decided to simply walk along the Mud Wash so I could cover ground a little faster as I didn't want to be caught out after dark without additional water. The walk back was a bit faster and neat since I could see some of the petroglyphs that were on some of the rock walls. After finally getting back to the car, I headed out of the Gold Butte area, stopping around Whitney's Pockets for some last shots as the sun went down and headed back towards civilization to get resupplied with food and water. Overall it was a moderate 11-12 mile hike (on top of the other bits I had done that day), but it was worth the effort.

Here is a Google Earth KML that shows the hiking route I took; Devil's Fire Hike.

Famous last words in Las Vegas..Give me the money I told you not to give me!

A month or so ago I had planned on going to Vegas for a few days to hang out for a little while and until just a couple of days ago I wasn't sure if I would end up going. The plans I originally made changed a bit, especially in light of a new potential job coming up, however it was still a good opportunity to enjoy some of the activities I had planned and maybe have a surprisingly relaxing time (as much as one can in a city that doesn't sleep and only turns out the lights for 5 minutes during Earth Day). After getting to the airport, my travel companion and I had to wait what seemed to be the longest amount of time I can ever recall for the bags to start showing up. After what seemed like 30 minutes, I finally decided to take the transport to the car rental agency and let my travel partner grab the bags so that I could deal with the paperwork and selection of the car in order to reduce total waiting time. Timing worked out well since just as I finished my travel companion arrived with the bags and we were ready to go. We headed to the Monte Carlo where a room had been booked as part of my friend's business trip, dropped off the bags, and then headed for a quick bite to eat on the strip. The last time I was in Vegas it was over 100 degrees out, so the cool weather was a nice change. After dinner and a few drinks, I decided to head out for a few hours to take in the sights and do some photography and play with some of the setting on the camera. I headed over the Bellagio to watch the fountain show and then over to the Luxor for a few shots, taking time to sneak into one of the hotel elevators so I could get a nice few of the inside of the pyramid structure.

Since I only planned to be in town for a few days, I didn't want to drastically change my sleep cycle so I turned in relatively early so I could get a fresh start in the morning and dome some hiking before it got too hot.

My machine isn't old, the relays still do the job.

This was the weekend for the annual American Cancer Society 'Relay for Life' event in Temple Terrace. The hashers have had a team for a long time and worked hard to raise money this year with the auction, fundraisers, and team meetings. The event usually involves a 16 hour walk where one person from the team has to be on the track at all times. I wasn't involved with the team much outside of assisting last weekend with construction of the pirate ship for their pirate theme and also in providing transportation for a few supplies. I did decide to hang around for a while and check out the festivities and different events. I wasn't much in the mood or energy level to stay up the entire evening, but did somewhat enjoy seeing some out-of-town friends and watching the overall chaos.

Team Go-Go, and as part of that Kristen, was extremely active in every event held and was competing in about everything possible including scavenger hunts, hula-hoop contests, and costumed laps around the track. Besides raising the most money, over $15,800, they also won for the umpteenth time in a row, the coveted 'Spirit Award', which is a pretty big deal in consideration of all the hard work that went into it all. I did end up going home Friday evening and returned Saturday to sign-up for my own lap and help break down and transport the supplies. The team donated the pirate ship to a nearby community theater for an upcoming children's production of 'Peter Pan', so that just add to the overall generosity of all those involved.

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.

Does pirate software come with a treasure map?

Several of the folks from Team Go-Go came over the house this weekend to use the garage space and tools to construct and put together a pirate ship for the 'Relay for Life' event next weekend. Other than helping to do some cutting and pulling out tools, I really wasn't much involved in the construction, however Kristen did do much of the concept design and outlining for the prop. After the team was finished Sunday they put the pieces up so the paint could dry, so I spent a little time today doing some touch-up and building the framing support so it would be free standing. It took a few hours, but it was kind of fun to be able to work on a project like this since all i had to do was put a few pieces together like a large-piece puzzle.

Every new project requires a tool that you don't have.

Today was a day of working on some home projects and catching up on overall tasks. Kristen decided to repaint the bird cage for Zoey and to pressure wash the bird stand while I worked on a few things. I finally got the backyard fence readjusted since a corner of it was over the property line and the neighbor behind the house recently decided to put up a privacy fence and thus needed to be moved, which was fine.

I'll trade you two red M&Ms for one green one!

On a last minute decision, we decided to hit the annual hash green dress run that was set for the downtown Tampa area. It was a pretty hustling day as there was no only a big art street fair, but also some kind of running scavenger hunt going on at the same time. C-Artist did a great job setting it up and after a while we had a pretty decent turn-out. Like usual, it was kind of fun walking around being noticeable as part of the group, though most people seemed to be good-natured about it. Overall it was a pretty decent time.

Sign on Closed Nuclear Power Plant: "Gone Fission"

I had to go to Apollo Beach today for a doctor's appointment, trying to get rid of this damn cough that has been with me for over 3 weeks now, and decided to stop by the Teco Manatee Viewing Center. Manatees tend to hang around the power plant's discharge tubes in the winter since the water is considerably warmer that the chilly Gulf of Mexico or Tampa Bay temperatures. I walked around for a short bit and took a few photographs just to putz around for a short while. I may want to come back here sometime during the evening, if possible and eventually play with some long exposures of the lights or maybe HDR.

Finally finished that dam project!

One of the neat features of the place my father got in Riverview was a creek running through the tail end of the property edge by the river and flowing under the boathouse. It had a flowing spring with a small cavern (I checked and could only squeeze in about 6 feet) right on the property line and just downstream of a dam the neighbor put up early last year. The creek and river are tidally influenced and would fill up and drain a few times a day. The irrigation pump had the intake in the creek and dad already once forgot to turn the pump off and sucked in air so the impeller had to be replaced. He decided to put in his own dam so to better increase the aesthetic value by having not only a constant bit of standing water, but also a waterfall effect as well.

We spent a while getting supplies and designing the dam and worked on it over several weeks. It was a tough, tough project where we had to dig into the banks a few feet and through the creek mud into the hard bottom so to build the foundation. After pouring the foundation and having it set, we came back in to put in the block to build up the rest of it. We had to wait until the early part of the year when there are the longest periods of time between the tides and were still always working against the clock. Finally after the blocks were poured, empty cells filled in with concrete and everything had cured, I had to go in to put in the limestone and slate pieces to create a more natural look. I already designed the dam so there was a 4 inch drain pipe, but I also put in a small 1/2 inch pipe, further reduced to just a small hole drilled into a cap pointing up, so that there would be a fountain effect whenever the tide was low, and a boiling look whenever it was high. Overall I am very pleased with how the project turned out. Whenever the rains return, I suspect there will be a fairly decent water flow through the spillway at times. I got it measured so that our spillway was just 2-3 inches below the spill way of the neighbor's dam so that there would be two flowing waterfalls during periods of high flow.