The Adventures of Sunsette -- Texas again y'all! - Feb. 20

[Alliecat]

“Sunsette at sunrise! Hahahaha!!!
“Nah, we’re not amused. We’re really, really, REALLY, _Overrr Ittt_ with the ferry. Mum says she can’t wait till we live somewhere where we don’t have to do this. Imagine someplace where leaving just 10 minutes later doesn’t mean you don’t get to go at all.
“We’ve been up 8 1/2 hours already, and we’re barely getting underway.
“This better be worth it.”

“zzzzz, Sunsette”

[davidd]

Fun sunrise sailing pic, but yeah, I'm finding any kind of travel involving "public transportation" almost makes whatever I'm traveling to not worth the effort and unpleasantness.

I hope things are better once you make landfall on your Voyage of Mystery!

[Alliecat]

“Whoaaaa, we’re haaaaalfwaay there, whoaaa ohh, travellin on a prayer…”



“Can you say you’ve been to New York City if all you’ve seen is the airport and a foggy smoggy glimpse in the distance at dusk? Mum says it doesn’t count.”



“We are soooo cool and everybody knows it. That’s why smart airlines give us our own seat.”



“Wait, we’re in orbit? Pilot done messed up…”



“Talk to me, Goose.
“… Yes, we do have to do one of these on every trip.”

“Having been awake 21 hours, Scarlett and I are staying in our travel case and Mum is pretty wrecked. We’re aaaallllmost there. Just another hour or so tomorrow.”

“zzzzzz, Sunsette”

[davidd]

I've been to New York City in my pre-doll days, but not since the Pinkys and friends began traveling. That is, we've been to the NYC airport -- just last week in fact -- and that's honestly as close as we care to be. The Big Apple has lost its luster. There are way more cool places out there.

And it looks like you're heading to one of them! What, did Space-X recruit Scarlett and crew for an orbital crew capsule test?

What's the deal with a flight that isn't completely overbooked?!? Or are y'all flying Snob Class?

(Oh, and, I'm super mega impressed after noticing your "edit" reason, because I can't even begin to assemble a post like this on a little phone. Did you crop and edit photos and everything and then post them to a hosting service and then copy and edit the image URL and then post all that to the forum using a phone? You have infinitely moar skillz and patience than I have! And better eyesight and significantly better manual dexterity!)

[fishy]

Welcome to the US! (Some great photos!)

[Alliecat]

"Thanks!  This may be our last hurrah for a while if things get any weirder between our countries.  But with at least a foot of snow at home and more on the way, we hear, and 'sunny and 75' here today, Mum really doesn't want to live in the frozen north anymore.  But then, that's our whole trouble -- where else can we go??
"Nope, Mum doesn't edit any of the phone photos.  You can't do much with them, and certainly no watermarking.  Yes, she copies and pastes the URLs.  And it takes forfreakingEVER.  We're borrowing the house computer right now."


"So here is the reason for our travels!  Mum's southern gentleman again!  His people -- from the April eclipse housesit -- asked if Mum would come back and kitty-sit again.  And because it was a chance to get away from the cold and the $(*#&*@ neighbours, she said 'why not?'  We think he remembered her, because he let her pick him up and put him in her lap right away and he started purring.  He's such a sweetie.  Except for right after this photo, because Scarlett got grabbed.  He was really gentle last time.  To be fair, Mum probably confused him and he thought she was offering a toy."



"We were really happy to visit Amelia again at the Dallas Arboretum today.  This is such a wonderful statue."






"February, are you kidding??!?!  This is more like it!"



"Did Sally name her garden after meee??  When we get a new house and Mum makes a new garden, I'm going to ask her to name it after me too!"



"There are four cool 'water walls'.  The water looks better in the photos with the real camera."

"Thanks for reading!  More adventures to come!"

"Love, Sunsette   "

[TrueFan]

What's the deal with a flight that isn't completely overbooked?!? Or are y'all flying Snob Class?

No kidding, I haven't been on a plane with an empty seat in forever.

We got snow and cold in Illinois - Texas weather looks nice.

[davidd]

This may be our last hurrah for a while if things get any weirder between our countries.


"Did Sally name her garden after meee??  When we get a new house and Mum makes a new garden, I'm going to ask her to name it after me too!"

But just think: when Canada becomes a US state, you'll be free to head south any time you like, and you could even move down south without all the hassles!

(I'm guessing if such a thing were ever to happen, most of Canada would move to Texas and Florida in a trice! Florida is about thirty percent Canadians in the winter already -- probably a slight exaggeration, but only slight.)

Speaking of Sunset(te) Gardens, I was just, like ten minutes ago, looking at vintage copies of the "Sunset Western Garden Book" on eBay after reading an interesting blog post about it.

https://gregalder.com/yardposts/reading-...e-changed/

Naturally, when I saw a 1954 spiral-bound first edition offered for $4 USD ($9 including shipping) I clicked Buy-It-Now. 

[Alliecat]

when Canada becomes a US state,....., most of Canada would move to Texas and Florida in a trice!

"Mum says, Wash your mouth out, Canada is not for sale.  And we've heard lots of Canadians are selling their Florida houses and/or choosing to vacation elsewhere this winter.  We do not think 'most of Canada' would move.
"How about, y'all just give us Hawaii instead."




"Scarlett and I went dinosaur hunting today!"



"We're at Dinosaur Valley State Park."



"This is actually quite a high viewing deck.  There are two signs that say 'Do not jump off viewing deck', but no fence or railing or anything at all at the edge.  We couldn't help thinking that if it was in Canada, there would be a huge fence.  Maybe here the thinking is if you're dumb enough to do it anyway, then you deserve to go splat?"



"The river valley was pretty, and it wasn't excessively peopley, and the ones we did meet were all polite.  Even the scruffy character in the grubby ball cap said, 'How are you today, ma'am?'" 



"Two of the sites were underwater and you couldn't see much.  This is the 'main track site' which was really small and a bit underwhelming.  However, the discovery of all the tracks here in the Paluxy river was really significant for the understanding of how dinosaurs moved and how they were built."



"Scarlett and I hoped to get our picture taken sitting in a dino footprint, but, these were in the water too and the little patch was roped off."



"We went on up to the lookout at the highest point.  That was pretty spectacular.  Lookit all that open space."






"It would be pretty nice to live someplace like this, huh?"
"Yeah...."

"More adventures to come.  Thanks for reading!"

"Love, Sunsette    "

[davidd]

Open space, not very peoply, the few people there are polite, and warm in winter! Yeah, it would be nice to live someplace like that! Go for it... Tex!

Plus, dinosaur tracks! And space!

Drumheller is kind of like that -- if you insist on not becoming a state (yet). It's not as warm, but there are more dinosaurs than people, or so it seemed when I was there.

As for not fencing off every viewpoint, when I was a kid in Oregon you could get yourself killed having fun climbing on rocks and going close to edges. Then the state started becoming a "nanny state" and fencing things off. They even blew up, with dynamite, a large rock on the coast where people used to climb from one rock to the next to the one furthest out at sea and climb to the top.

I was able to escape and move to Hawaii, where again -- no fences! It was awesome! In Hawaii they figured, "if you dat dumb, brah." But then, after some stupid tourist got killed at the Halona Blowhole on Oahu, the state decided to start fencing off freakin' every'ting! First the blowhole, then they put guards at the Haiku Stairs, they put lights inside the dark tunnels at Diamond head and added railings and started charging admission. They started fencing off beach access points, and then the state sold the state land at Velzyland Beach, one of the most famous surfing spots in the 1960s, to a developer to build a gated community. Oh, and there was the gate they built, at a cost of millions of dollars, trying to fence off the entire Ka'ena Point area -- to protect albatross chicks from feral dogs. Being by the ocean, the fancy multi-million dollar gate rusted out and was inoperable within two years, and the dogs just went around it. Nobody told the dogs they were supposed to use the gate.

Now I'm in Utah, where you can still get yourself killed by falling off a cliff pretty easily, but the fencing is ramping up. Horseshoe Bend was a free stop up until three or four years ago. Now there's a parking lot, it costs ten bucks to get in, and, yup, fences. The national parks have lots of fences because they have lots of visitors, and the more people the more stupid. State parks have fewer fences, although it depends on where they are. At the moment there's still public land where it's pretty easy to die if you're an idiot, but even then, there are tons of signs trying to warn idiots to not be idiots. But the same way dogs don't use gates, idiots don't read signs.

I'm glad you found a spot with few people and fewer gates and fences.

[TrueFan]

Please, Canadians, keep protesting and booing, since the US Congress isn't pushing back against Trump. Someone needs to.

[fishy]

Please, Canadians, keep protesting and booing, since the US Congress isn't pushing back against Trump. Someone needs to.

Watching American politics the for past few years has been the most surreal experience of my life. (I hope they don't take over Canada in case Americans have to Follow The Drinking Gourd to flee to Canaan-land.) (;__;)

[Alliecat]

"So winter followed us, and it's been bleepin FREEZING for a couple of days.  Literally, freezing.  And below.  Mum finds it amusing that they closed schools for -5C, but they're not used to that down here.  Someone today said it was 'the coldest ever'.  Figures.  We're trying to stay warm.  Of COURSE it's going to be summer again just in time for us to leave.
"Before it got really cold we went to the Fort Worth Zoo.  Scarlett & I didn't get a lot of pictures, and we kinda ran out of time to see everything, but there was a cool hippo tank where we watched 'Bubbles' swim back and forth through a school of fish and then get fed."





"And this penguin posed with Scarlett."



"Today's adventure was the Frontiers of Flight Museum at the Dallas airport.  They really need a better website -- this doesn't do justice at all to the amazing museum and all the cool stuff.  Sooo many planes and you can peek right in and touch stuff.  Once again, we ran out of time to see everything."



"We found this bunch of cool guys (and one gal) modelling pilots' wear over the years."



"This is the actual Apollo 7 capsule!"



"In his Air-Force engine-mechanic days, Mum's dad might have worked on something like this."



"Got our own seat again, hahaha!  We are soooo cool!"



"We're all a-squee over this one.  Isn't it pretty?  Can we take it home?"



"This is a Prowler.  And do I look cold?  Did I mention it was COLD??"



"The museum map is..."



"...a plane!
"I wonder if this is a bit overloaded?  We'd love to have brought home one of the musuem's fazillion cool models.  They wouldn't let us."

"Thanks for reading!
"Love, Sunsette  "