The Mama and the Daddy took me to my new yard today. My new house is not there yet but I saw some lizards and a kangaroo rat to chase. Maybe I’ll catch one sometime.
Date Palms
I took this photo of some date palms growing in an orchard near Blythe, California, as we passed along I-10 on our way to Arizona. We passed this orchard last month before the date clusters were wrapped in burlap. I thought the integrated ladders on the palms trunks were an interesting feature.
Click on the image to enlarge.
Eleven Cereus Flowers
I don’t think it a record, but the cereus was sporting eleven flowers this morning. Click on the image to enlarge.
Asian Lily “Sumatra”
Last week in the supermarket flower concession. I picked out these “Sumatra” Asian lilies. They are very similar to the “Stargazers” that I love, but have a deeper red pigment saturation. Click on the image to enlarge.
Barrel Still Life
We were in the garden shop today to pick up a few things for the garden. In front of the store, the staff had stacked up a bunch of whiskey barrels. I took a photo of them and fixed it up to look like an antique photo. Click to enlarge.
Treasures Among the Trash
As we continue to sort through all the old junk in the closets and drawers, we find little nuggets like this ancient photo of me sitting at the controls of The Spruce Goose. It was on a slide when I found it last week so I took it to the photo shop to have it scanned onto a CD ROM.
Image – Bob at the controls of the Spruce Goose – Click to enlarge
The story dates back to 1982 when I and a contingent from the Hughes (Aircraft) Radio Club were invited to take a private tour of the H-4 Hercules in Long Beach, CA, prior to opening the exhibit up to the public. The huge wooden airplane was in a dome adjacent to the Queen Mary.
We got the whole deal. We walked out into the wings of the plane where an engineer was stationed behind each of the eight giant R-4400 Pratt & Whitney radial engines. I even got to climb up on the top of the Goose (covered in plastic tarps) and walk on the wings and fuselage. It was incredible! Everything was there – the 20 passenger seats behind the cockpit, the radio rack with all of the original ARC radios from that era and the cockpit itself in its original condition.
Of course, I wasn’t the only guy to sit in the same seat occupied by Howard Hughes that day, but I was the best looking (according to Verna, that is).
Image – Howard Hughes seated in the pilot’s seat in 1948
My Mom (still around at age 90) says I was present the day Hughes lifted the Hercules off in Long Beach Harbor in 1948. My Dad had taken the family, Mom, me and my two brothers, to witness the taxiing-turned-test-flight. Sadly, I was taking a nap in the car and can’t remember the event. I was five at the time.
