Category Archives: Family Life

2nd Day in the snow …

September 11, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

For our 2nd day in the snow, again it was a typical spring day with warmish weather (11C), clear skies and no wind.

We headed over to the Summit for the morning before spending the afternoon over at Scotts and Ruined Castle.

The snow held up a lot better today than yesterday and you could find somewhere to ski with reasonable snow up to around 3:00. A big day distance wise with 66kms on runs and lifts. 🙂

Rachael decided to try out snow boarding and it looks like that some more lessons are required.

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Family Life, Holidays, Skiing

Back in the snow …

September 10, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

Well after a 2 day drive, we have made it back to the snow at Falls Creek – and there is plenty of it. It has been said that it is the best in 8 years and I would have to concur it is pretty good for this late in the season. There is plenty of snow on the sides of the road coming up and the roads in the village are still covered. It has been quite a while that we haven’t been able to drive to our accommodation.

It is probably lucky that the roads are covered as the Lift company replaced all the Oversnow vehicles so they needed to recoup their outlay. I just wasn’t expecting to have to allow them to recoup their cost in the first year. They charged me for Rachael as an adult as they thought she looked older than 15. Not happy Jan 🙁

We arrived at our accommodation to find a lot of familiar faces staying in the lodge. We are almost becoming part of the furniture at Schuss Lodge. It has a great atmosphere and is a friendly lodge. One day we may even become members. 🙂

Today was our first day on the slopes and there was certainly a lot of snow. There were a lot of brown patches but it was not the dirt coming through but dust that blew over last week with the storms.

No matter what slope you chose the conditions were good but unfortunately the weather was warm (12C) so the snow became slushy around 1:30. Still managed to get in around 42 km of runs and lifts for the day so wasn’t too bad.

Another good day is in store for tomorrow.

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Family Life, Geocaching, Out and About

Did you miss the leap second ….

July 1, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

Every now and then, due largely to the action of the seas on the surface of the earth, an extra second has to be slipped into the calendar because the earth’s rotation is being hindered by the friction. The days ARE getting longer. The latest one happened at 23:59:60 UTC on 30th June (09:29:60 CST July 1). One second later it was 00:00 (09:30:00 CST July 1).

The first leap second was in 1972 and the most recent in 2008.

So to see if we could feel it or see it I organised something of a flash mob event, Probably the World’s Shortest Event – 09:29:60 for the local Geocaching community.

And it was not a bad turnout for 9:30 am on a Sunday Morning with around 75 people turning up. This event was the first of a challenge today to get 10 different cache types culminating in a CITO Event, 10/10.

My personal tally was only 7 different types:

Traditional Cache – Life of the Beach – SLSSA Headquarters
Multi-Cache – Frequent Flier Mach Two
Mystery Cache – Nearly Gone
Wherigo Cache – Beware Drop Bears!!
Event Cache – Probably the World’s Shortest Event – 09:29:60
Cache In Trash Out Event – 10/10
Webcam Cache – Sailing the Web

To finish up the day, we had the family around for afternoon tea to celebrate Rachael’s 15th birthday (where did those years go)

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12 of 12, Family Life, Geocaching, Out and About

May 12 of 12 – quiet sort of day …

May 12, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

It was a funny sort of day today. Bradley had his Year 12 formal last night and was needed to be picked up at 4:00 am. As I was on call, there was no guarantee I would be around the place so Jenny headed out to pick him up.

I had a few projects to do today.

The first project: Waeco Battery Pack. Our battery pack is a few years old and doesn’t hold the charge too well. A replacement is $335 so I bought a couple of replacement batteries for $150 but my soldering iron wasn’t up to the task. First stop was Jaycar Electronics for a soldering iron with more power and then replace the batteries. Both tasks completed OK.

Second Project: Sleeping Bag zip. One of our sleeping bags has had issues with the zip with the slide breaking. It should be easy enough to get a new zip slide. Headed to Spotlight but they only had zips. So grabbed a short zip with the right size zip and took the slide and put it on the sleeping bag. New slide on OK but there seems to be other issues with the zip. 🙁

On my travels, I returned the suit that Bradley wore last night for his formal. The suit had been hired from Ferrari Formal Wear.

It was a good afternoon to be out and about and there were a few new geocaches around the Edwardstown and Morphettville areas and I made 9 geocache finds. Even one down near Morphettville Racecourse while the historic race with Black Caviar was being run.

Third Project: Film Canisters. South Australia is starting to get a reputation of having geocaching power trails. These involve many geocaches hidden close together along a road in a country area. There may be 50 to many hundred geocaches in a power trail. I recently completed the ET Highway Power Trail in Nevada which had 1500 geocaches. I have plans for a couple of trails but not to the size of the ET Highway power trail. Today I readied 220 film canisters for this task. It involved printing log sheets and putting one in each canister, then printing labels and labeling each canister. Task complete now to go out and hide them 🙂

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Family Life, Out and About, USA 2012

Skiing at Stevens Pass …

April 15, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

Another day and another battle to get the kids out of bed and even with us heading to the snow at Stevens Pass. We eventually got on the road and heading through some breathtaking scenery as well as a few of those little US country towns you see in the movies.

By the time we got our skis and lift tickets it was midday. We were lucky enough to get some ski hire coupons from one of Chip and Joans sons, Bill and the ski hire cashier gave us one more as well as it was her last day on the mountain.

This meant that we got top of the line skis and boots for $22 each for the day.

Being a Sunday meant that we had to share the mountain with a lot of others but this wasn’t an issue as the runs and snow was plentiful so the lines moved quick at the lifts.

Today was one of the last days of the ski season for Stevens Pass (Australian ski fields would kill for these conditions mid season) so some novelty events were held. This kept the runs less crowded as well.

The events were the dummy run and the pond skimming. Both involved skiing over a 30 metre pond at the bottom of a run near the ski lodges.

The first runs were dummies set up on skis. It was then extended to anyone and around 200 took the challenge. Some were successful and others got horribly wet.

At the end of the day, we headed down off the mountain to a little village called Skykomish. Chip and Joan had a cabin (although it was more like a house :)) in town and spent each Sunday up here. Chip is also the Captain for the Skykomish Valley Fire & Rescue.

Chip took Bradley and I on a tour of the Fire Station then we went over to look at one of their unsuccessful saves. Only last week, there was an arson attack on the Whistling Post (the local pub) following a raid on the ATM in the wall. Even though the building was lost, they did prevent the fire spreading to adjoining buildings, remembering that all their buildings are old and made of wood.

A walk next door to the Cascadia Cafe for dinner and once again, the kids had eyes bigger than their stomachs.
Bill, Lorri and Sean made it down off the mountain to meet us then it was time to head back to Seattle.

One last “highlight” for the day was being pulled over by the King County Sherriff. I had the setting wrong on the lights (not on automatic) so as it go dark I had lights at the front but no taillights. He was good about it so no spending a night in the cells with Bubba.

It turns out that Chip knows this sherrif so is going to give him a hard time for pulling over the “Aussies”.

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Family Life, Geocaching, Out and About, USA 2012

From New Planes to Old Planes at Paine Field ….

April 14, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

After spending a day on Thursday looking at the latest aircraft being built at Paine Field we ventured back to Paine Field but to the other end to visit the Flying Heritage Collection.

Paul Allen of Microsoft fame began acquiring and preserving these iconic warriors and workhorses, many of which are the last of their kind. Allen’s passion for aviation and history, and his awareness of the increasing rarity of original WWII aircraft, motivated him to restore these artifacts to the highest standard of authenticity and share them with the public.

We were lucky enough to be shown around by a World War II veteran (Chip Davidson) that flew many of these planes and was also stationed at Paine Field at the time. It is complicated but we met Chip through another Australian that stayed with him and his family many years ago on a Rotary exchange.

Chip took us on a very comprehensive tour of the collection and provided a detailed background of each of the aircraft. We were then taken to sample some local cuisine at the Speedway Cafe. This consisted of burgers you couldn’t climb over as well as drinks topped with “real” cream. 🙂

While we were out and about, it was time to check out a beach at Mukilteo Lighthouse Park, although the beaches aren’t what we are used to as beaches. Instead of the fine white sand we have at home, the beach is covered by small rocks. This park had a historic lighthouse and was the landing for the ferry to Whidbey Island.

One more stop for the day. Jenny and the kids wanted to get into a Costco and Chip was a member, so they got their chance. While they checked it out, I managed to grab a couple of geocaches in the car park. After they were kicked out at closing time we headed out with Chip and Joan to Chan’s Place at Woodinville for a Chinese meal.

Chip and Joans hospitality did not finish here. One of their sons is tied up with Stevens Pass ski field so after tea, he gave him a ring to see if we could be fixed up with some deals for tomorrow. We managed to get some vouchers for reduced ski hire. 🙂

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12 of 12, Family Life, Holidays, Rally, USA 2012

April 12 of 12 – Boeing Plant and the Freemont Troll

April 12, 2012 Scott 1 Comment

For our 12 of 12 this month, we were in Seattle Washington and made a visit to the Boeing Assembly Plant in Everett and then went down to Freemont to visit the Freemont Troll.

Despite leaving our digs at University Motel Suites around 1/2 later than planned (nothing unusual for us), we arrived 1/2 an hour earlier than expected for our Boeing Tour so we managed to get onto the earlier tour.

We visited this plant 20 years ago and it has expanded a lot since then and they are producing another different aircraft since then. Back in ’92, they had just begun on the Boeing 777 range and now they are now just beginning producing the Boeing 787 range. I wonder what they will be making if we come in another 20 years time. 🙂

Again it is pretty mind blowing the sheer size of this sort of operation particularly with the number of staff working in this facility (17000 at Everett) but it looked like most of them were just walking around. The kids were also suitably impressed.

Rachael would like to have one of the Boeing Business Jets to travel around in but I don’t think that is going to happen anytime soon. Also I don’t think we will be buying a 737, 747, 767, 777 or 787 anytime soon – my bank balance just wont go any where near.

The tour of the plant took 1.5 hours and of course the kids were hungry so it was lunchtime in the carpark – a bit like an American tail-gate party in the parking lot 🙂

Back inside to the Future of Flight to have a close up view of jet engines, the new composite 787 and even got inside the cockpit of a 727.

Looking across to the mountains, we were glad that we didn’t go skiing as it looked like the rain was pelting down – hopefully it hasn’t washed the snow away but with a 5m base, you wouldn’t think so.

We headed down the 99 towards Freemont but got way-laid as Jenny and the kids wanted to go into Costco but they couldnt spend any money as there are no longer visitor cards. 🙂

The temperature had dropped down to 10C as we arrived at the Freemont Troll. Jenny said “Oh it is an actual troll”. It is a sculpture that looks a bit like the Bunyip at Murray Bridge but this one doesnt move. Of course there was both a Geocache and a Munzee here to be found.

That was almost it for the day. We spent 20 minutes driving around Freemont scouting out Groundspeak only to find it about 100 metres from the Freemont Troll. We have a visit scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

Another stop at Safeway for provisions and back to our digs.

So ends another 12 of 12. I know there are 14 photos but I had to prune it down from 34 so there are a bonus 2 for this month. 🙂

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Family Life, Out and About, Skiing, USA 2012

Skiing at Snoqualmie ….

April 11, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

After a slight miscalculation on the right exit to get from the I-5 to the I-90 we were on our way east of Seattle to Snoqualmie Pass for some skiing. (Well it did allow us to take in some more sights of Downtown Seattle. 🙂

This is the way to get to a ski field – on a 6 lane freeway at 110 kph for an hour – wish Australian Ski Fields were like this.

Taking the exit off the freeway through 5 metre snow banks was amazing given that the ski season is about over here. Back home we would kill to have conditions like this at peak times.

Driving through Snoqualmie East, we were wondering if the resort was actually open today. We arrived at Snoqualmie Central and saw a couple of lifts operating, not very many people on the slopes and a virtually empty carpark.

Because the conditions were not ideal with fog and light rain, it must have scared the locals off. After getting skis and lift tickets we proceeded onto our “private” ski mountain. There were probably only 200 people on the mountain, if that.

The snow was certainly different to Aussie snow, even with the rain, it was not slushy and was fast. There were a couple of exceptions near the edges of the runs which hadn’t been groomed and were a couple of metres deep. Rachael found out the hard way of the consequences of skiing this stuff with a couple of face plants. The snow was soft so no damage was done.

We persisted until closing at 4pm, by which time we were fully saturated but had had a good day out. Cranked up the car (Ford Edge – similar to the Ford Territory in Australia) to 28C including the heated seats and we were on our way home through some heavy fog and rain.

I even attempted to find a geocache but it was under 5m of snow so wasn’t going to happen.

A quick stop at REI for the second time to grab some waterproofing stuff and a US/AUS Power Plug Adapter (had a win on the waterproofing but not the plug) then headed back to the University Motel Suites to dry off.

Tomorrow we are off to Everett for the Boeing Factory Tour and it is a “12 of 12” day as well.

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Family Life, Out and About, USA 2012

Skiing in Seattle – not today, it is shut down …

April 10, 2012 Scott 1 Comment

The plan today was to head east of Seattle and go skiing, however, the locals have had such a good season that they are over skiing so the resorts have all shut down for the start of the week. So no skiing today for us. 🙁 We will get out there tomorrow though. 🙂

So what to do. Why not visit Microsoft – it is only just up the road. And what a huge complex it is – it is almost a city in itself. We spent a couple of hours in the Visitor Centre even though the kids didn’t want to go there. I had to drag them out.

Next it was into Seattle to the Space Needle. Even though visibility wasn’t too good, it was still a good view from up there. Rachael wasn’t too happy going up in the external lifts to the observation area but it wasn’t too bad as we didn’t need seat belts like Disneylands Tower of Terror. Met up with a couple of college freshmen that gave us a good explanation of what was around – we are not going to have enough time to see it all.

After getting back on ground level, a quick visit to the International Fountain, REI with its internal climbing wall, mountain bike test track and park then onto Lake Union to look at the floating houses. These are actual houses that float on Lake Union. Some have been there for a long time and there are now a lot of new expensive ones as well.

Back to the Universtity Motel Suites for tea and prepare for skiing tomorrow at Snoqualmie.

Interesting fact: I have been wondering why we seem to have a lot of fire trucks with sirens around. It appears we are just 100 metres from Seattle Fire Department Station 17 and I didn’t even realise it.

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Family Life, Out and About, USA 2012

Beverly Hills and beyond …

April 6, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

Today was a little bit different to your normal tourist type day in Los Angeles. We headed north towards Simi Valley and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Rachael wanted to do Beverly Hills along the way so we did a “mainy” along Rodeo Drive before stopping for photos at the Beverly Hills sign.

The kids wanted to see some of the stars homes so did some driving around the roads looking at fences and security cameras – that is about all you can see of them. 🙁

It was then onto Simi Valley but not before stopping at In-n-Out Burger for lunch. It wasn’t long before we were heading up Presidential Drive to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. What a great spot for this library with some great views to the north and west.

Prior to this visit, we only had a general knowledge of Ronald Reagan and this was certainly an interesting place to visit and find out a lot more. He certainly was a remarkable man. No wonder a lot of Americans would like him back. The kids got a lot out of it especially Rachael who read just about every panel during the walk through.

A highlight of the visit was to get to go aboard Air Force One. Of course this is not the current one but the Air Force One that flew from 1973 to 2001. This one is a Boeing 707 which had the callsign SAM 27000. It is not as big as the current Boeing 747’s but they still jammed as much into it as they could.

We stuck around until closing time, checking out the section of the Berlin Wall and Ronald Reagan’s grave.

It had been a long day and the plan was to head over to Malibu for dinner at Paradise Cove but not tonight – it will have to wait for another time. Time to make the long slog back to Anaheim.