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Altaira
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Fri, 4:11pm
Post #1 of 13
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Let's have some Fiesta Friday fun!
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Greetings, everyone, and welcome to Fiesta!
This is the 3-day Memorial Day weekend here in the U.S.. B.G. and I will be enjoying a BBQ with my brother's family. We spent much of the week at their house pet-sitting while they went on a short 'beat the holiday crowds' trip. Included in my brother's and sister-in-law's bucket lists is visiting as many national parks as they can. This week they went to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison (as in Gunnision river) in western Colorado.
I haven't been to that one myself, but I'd very much like to. So, we're looking forward to hearing about it at the BBQ.
What plans do you have for the weekend? Did the past week treat you well? Take a pass at the bountiful, BBQ buffet, grab a drink from the bar, and let us know!
*puts quarters on juke box* play us a celebratory song!
Have a wonderful weekend!!   
(This post was edited by Altaira on Fri, 4:13pm)
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dernwyn
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Fri, 5:00pm
Post #2 of 13
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Happy Memorial Day, to all who will be celebrating the long weekend! I'm not familiar with the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, it looks deep and dark - and dangerous! I hope your family has some good stories to tell!
Let's see, any chicken shishkebob on that grill? I need to make a potato salad and decide on whether to have sausage dogs or hamburgers on Monday. There's lots of tag sales going on around here on Saturday, always fun to browse at. Sunday it's supposed to be cool and rainy here, but Monday should be fine weather for the parades and cook-outs.
This coming week we're going to take another senior citizen day trip, this time to the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts for lunch and a history tour by trolley. This area is very familiar to me, it's right along the road we'd take between my parents' house and hubby's parents' house. The reservoir was created back in the 1930's to supply the Boston area with water. It "drowned" four towns - one of which was where some of hubby's ancestors lived, so we're very familiar with the story.
We'll be singing this on Sunday, I always need a tissue when rehearsing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQx8A69rOQg
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"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
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Altaira
Superuser
Fri, 5:16pm
Post #3 of 13
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Can you have *both* sausage dogs and hamburgers? Is a sausage dog essentially a sausage link, or some kind of sausage hybrid? B.G. wouldn't care, lol.
The sales, parades and the trip next week sound fun! I bet it's a nice drive to the reservoir. Do you stop for lunch along the way?
That song gave me chills. My father is buried at a military cemetery, so I'm very familiar with those white stones.
Have a wonderful weekend and trip next week!
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dernwyn
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Fri, 5:29pm
Post #4 of 13
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Have both the 'burgers and the 'dogs! We like the chicken andouille sausages from Costco for a nice bit of spice, and they fit well in a bun.
We'll be having lunch at an old renovated train station in that area. I'm looking forward to seeing what their chicken pot pie is like!
Is your father buried at a local military cemetery? Bless them all - it does give one a feeling for the enormity of their sacrifice.
Have a great weekend with everyone! 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
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Altaira
Superuser
Fri, 6:06pm
Post #5 of 13
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Yes, the Costco chicken sausages are delicious. Good choice. What a fun addition to the trip to eat at that train station.
My dad is buried at Ft. Logan National Cemetery. They'll be having flyovers by the Colorado Air National Guard F-16s on Monday. I've gone to it a few times. They give out little American flags to put on the graves, and make sure they all have a flag. My mom is buried there too, above him in the same lot, which is something they offer to military and ex-military wives.
It's humongous (over 148,000 people buried there so far) and old, having Civil War veterans buried there. It's quite the impressive sight with all the flags on the headstones:
As a teenager I used to walk there occasionally and take flowers from my mother's garden. I'd put some on my dad's grave, then go to the oldest grave and put some there too, figuring it had probably been a long time since any were put there. I don't remember the details of that person, but they were definitely Civil War era. It's a bit of a drive now, but maybe worth another visit.
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dernwyn
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Fri, 6:49pm
Post #6 of 13
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That is quite a cemetery! May they always be held in our hearts!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
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Ataahua
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Fri, 8:02pm
Post #7 of 13
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Not a bad week - I bought myself a new car.
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It's a 2020 Toyota hybrid, replacing my 2003 Corolla - and crikey there's a lot of tech for me to get my head around. I loved my old car - I had it for 14 years and I travelled around the North Island in it - but everything has a time limit, unfortunately. This new Yaris is smaller than I'd like but it's definitely zippy - and, most importantly, within budget.
I'll be heading to Rotorua for a break in a few weeks' time and I'm looking forward to taking it on a long drive.
We've had yet another week of sunny, dry weather. It's got to be three or more weeks in a row now, which is remarkable at this time of year. I'm not complaining! Long may it continue. (It's also starving the weeds of any water before winter eventually arrives, when the cold will knock them back further.)
Meanwhile, I've had a few handfuls of tamarillos from my trees and man, home-grown tastes better than store-bought. (Also, they're dead expensive to buy.) After all these years of failing to get the trees to year two so they could fruit, I finally have the answer: *tying the branches to steady structures* so that the trees don't get whipped around in high winds. It looks ugly, but it works!
Have a great weekend, everyone.
Celebrimbor: "Pretty rings..."
Dwarves: "Pretty rings..."
Men: "Pretty rings..."
Sauron: "Mine's better."
"Ah, how ironic, the addictive qualities of Sauron’s master weapon led to its own destruction. Which just goes to show, kids - if you want two small and noble souls to succeed on a mission of dire importance... send an evil-minded beggar with them too." - Gandalf's Diaries, final par, by Ufthak.
Fantasy novel - The Arcanist's Tattoo
My LOTR fan-fiction
(This post was edited by Ataahua on Fri, 8:02pm)
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Kimi
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Fri, 11:34pm
Post #8 of 13
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Our car's getting on in years, but we're hoping it doesn't get to that not-worth-repairing stage for a year or two more yet. Our next one will definitely be an EV.
Tamarillos seem to be one of those fruits that's barely grown commercially, so they're always really pricey - and not as nice. Who is it who buys those $10/kg feijoas? We must have processed literally $1000s worth this season. Persimmons, too (though we don't grow nearly as many) - really pricey, and woody compared to our homegrown ones. Our tamarillo tree has done modestly well, but it certainly needed staking.
Lovely autumn weather here, too - probably the nicest autumn I can recall up here, at least for many years. Enjoy the sunshine while it lasts!
The Passing of Mistress Rose
My historical novels
Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?
- A Room With a View
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Kimi
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Fri, 11:58pm
Post #9 of 13
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Enjoy your family get-together and long weekend!
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That canyon looks very atmospheric.
We're still enjoying an unusual (for this time of year) amount of warm, sunny weather, which is really nice. We've even been having some Camelot weather, with rain overnight keeping the garden fresh. The broad beans are continuing to grow, and as there are still a lot in the freezer from last year we've been eating a lot of broad beans :) Also a fair amount of beetroot, which the garden currently has a lot of. That's inclined to be a colourful experience a few hours later.
Our macadamia trees (only three of them, and one barely bears at all) are having their best-ever season, and I have bags full of them drying off in the conservatory. Just this morning we wandered out and in two minutes gathered what seemed just a few, and when I counted them it was 45! We must have several hundred now, and they're so nice.
In the week's book progress: I said goodbye to the prison (hurrah!), and have been making my way through a morass of information on a set of complicated schemes of land settlement in the late 19th century. Yesterday afternoon I whooped when I discovered (after many, many hours of searching various archives) an obscure bit of information related to one individual that really helped things fall into place. So the week ended on a high note!
Nutmeg cake for morning tea, and chicken sate for dinner. The weekend is going well so far.
Wishing everyone a pleasant weekend.
The Passing of Mistress Rose
My historical novels
Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?
- A Room With a View
(This post was edited by Kimi on Fri, 11:58pm)
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Annael
Elvenhome
1:17am
Post #10 of 13
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my youngest sibling came by last night for a late birthday celebration (hers). I'd done a pencil sketch of the beautiful ketch we used to sail on, which they were allegedly conceived on, and I was a bit unsure as I'm no artist, but they loved it. They are just back from driving all around Vancouver Island, the last of many adventures (driving the Continental Divide as best as they could, visiting every national park, and driving the Alaska-Canada highway) on their bucket list.
This weekend I'll probably just putter around. Maybe clean up/get rid of that box of random art supplies I never even get off the shelf in the garage. And wash the car. And do a bit of language learning.
I had signed up for a one-way trip up the Norwegian coast next year, but the more I read about it - and looked into the cost - I realized it wasn't that much more to do the round trip, especially as then I wouldn't have to spend a night in a hotel and then fly back to Bergen. So I called the company to change my reservation. Turned out they had a special offer going and I ended up paying LESS for the round trip than I would have for the one-way! Plus, she moved me to a cabin she assured me is "much better, much quieter." So that was nice. The agent was in Estonia and when I said "oh, I know all about your singing revolution and your great choral concerts, in fact my choir has sung some of your most famous songs," she was delighted, and I think she decided to take very good care of me. So that was a lovely thing. And who knows? Maybe I'll go to Estonia after my cruise.
I've been to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Very deep, not wide. Not well known so the campground was pretty empty (this was 1980).
Speaking of 1980, this last week was 46 years since Mount St. Helens blew up - a big event in our parts. I'd climbed it four years before, something I'm still quite smug about. 
I am a dreamer of words, of written words.
-- Gaston Bachelard
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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grammaboodawg
Elvenhome
12:01pm
Post #12 of 13
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I'm doing a little road trip today
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But it's to retrieve my up-north daughter for an appointment down here. Yes... dr visit on a Saturday! But I'm taking my chainsaw and measuring tape to clean up the winter ice-storm-downed branches and figure out what she needs for some gutters along the back of the house/garage where water is flowing into the garage. Three roof-lines converge over the 6-ft walkway between the house and storage area and the garage roof that joins the 2 in a nice box pattern. Anyway... me doing the math right now is going to either be fun to watch or a time to just walk away ;) I always save one day for quiet reflection.
Have a GREAT weekend everyone! *grabs rootbeer float* Thanks for taking such great care of us, Altaira!!! :D
We have been there and back again.
TIME Google Calendar
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
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5 mins ago
Post #13 of 13
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Congrats on the new set of wheels!
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Yes, the newer tech does take a bit to get used to; about five years ago when my beloved Corolla was dying, I replaced it with a 2014 Forester. Loved having a heated driver's seat, but did miss my beloved cassette player. Have fun taking the Yaris for a long drive to "stretch its legs"!
And how nice to have happy tamarillo trees! Mmm!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
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