After a lukewarm shower Friday morning, I investigated the possible cause. It turned out that the water heater pilot light had gone out. After several unsuccessful attempts at relighting it, I gave up and headed off to work.

Later on Friday, I finished my chores at work and headed home early to address the problem. After a couple of calls, I found out that there was a service bulletin to fix a common failure for our water heater. A ‘kit’ to fix a well-known failure was available from the local Lowe’s free of charge. I headed off to get the ‘kit’ and brought it home to install.

I struggled with the installation and finally got the water heater back to doing its business as usual. Of course, there had to be the requisite ‘blue smoke’ and red blood imparted to validate the installation.

The good news and bottom line: no cost to me dollar-wise and the water is hot again.

Isn’t this a magnificent locomotive? This beauty is located in Kingman, AZ, on Route 66. Verna and I stopped there in December while we were on our winter RV cruise. I stood about twenty feet away from the locomotive and snapped a pair of images to merge into this nice 3D picture. Click on the image to see the full-sized 3D picture.

The travel attractions website What-Where dot Info has this description of Kingman’s Locomotive Park.

Across the road from the old Powerhouse, famed steam locomotive #3759 awaits your inspection. Designed as a coal burning engine, it was converted to burn oil in 1941. It was the last of the big steam engines to traverse the Santa Fe line to Kingman. It was finally taken out of service and presented to the city in 1957. Old #3759 was joined by a brightly decorated caboose in 1987.

You will need a pair of 3D glasses to view the stereo image. If you don’t have your pair yet, you can see the large 2D image here.

These bright little flowers were blooming in Mom’s garden when I was there today. Very pretty. I have some of these at home too, but they are bright pink. Mom also has orange and yellow - I can’t remember the name of them but they sure are nice. Click for larger image.

Coming soon - the Kaffir Lily has sprouted several buds destined to become bright-orange flowers. I’ll post pictures when they come into their prime. Stay tuned. Click for big.

Canyon de Chelly National Monument was established April 1, 1931, as a unit of the National Park Service and is located in northeastern Arizona within the boundaries of the Navajo Nation. The monument covers 131 square miles (339 km2) and encompasses the floors and rims of the three major canyons: de Chelly, del Muerto, and Monument. These canyons were cut by streams with headwaters in the Chuska mountains just to the east of the monument.

This image comes from a pair of images I took last July 22nd during our visit to the del Muerto side of Canyon de Chelly. Click on the image above to see a larger version. If you don’t have your 3D glasses handy you can see a version of Canyon del Muerto in 2D by clicking on the link.