Jupiter Closest Now!
The planet Jupiter is the closest to the earth that it has been in 47 years. Watch from sunset to midnight to catch the clearest glimpse you will get in your lifetime. I found this on AOL Science News where you can read the entire article:
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Sept. 19) – Better catch Jupiter this week in the night sky. It won’t be that big or bright again until 2022.
Jupiter will pass 368 million miles from Earth late Monday, its closest approach since 1963. You can see it low in the east around dusk. Around midnight, it will be directly overhead. That’s because Earth will be passing between Jupiter and the sun, into the wee hours of Tuesday.
The solar system’s largest planet already appears as an incredibly bright star – three times brighter than the brightest star in the sky, Sirius. The only thing brighter in the night sky right now is our moon. Binoculars and telescopes will dramatically improve the view as Jupiter, along with its many moons, rises in the east as the sun sets.
“Jupiter is so bright right now, you don’t need a sky map to find it,” said Tony Phillips, a California astronomer under contract with NASA. “You just walk outside and see it. It’s so eye-catching, there it is.”
Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder
Before we left on our 5,000+ mile trip to Seattle and back, we bought a bird feeder. I found it at Home Depot, and didn’t pay much, but it said it was squirrel-proof. It wasn’t. It deterred the squirrels for maybe two days as they figured out how to climb the thin pole and lean over to nibble at the bird-goodies.
When we got back, the feeder was ripped apart; the squirrels had torn out all the bird perches, so we got a new one, a more expensive one, ‘totally squirrel proof.’
Yeh. Right.
The good news is that we also bought a hummingbird feeder. A hummingbird had been by, and we could tell he was looking for a feeder, and figured there had probably been one before, when the previous owners were in the house. As I was waiting to catch a shot of the squirrel, he came back and found the feeder, where he is a regular visitor. He also visits our garden, full of hummingbird-friendly flowers. 🙂
Mediterranean Plus ReVisit
One of the very first places we head once we are back in Pensacola is Mediterranean Plus, because the food there is always good.
This time, we order the Vegetarian Mezze (appetizer assortment) and I had the Seafood Soup.
The mezze is as good as anything we have ever had in the Gulf, or in Jordan. The Seafood Soup is spectacular, oh, sooooo goood.
If you are in Pensacola, you go to where 9th meets Creighton. On the north side of Creighton is the Walmart, across Creighton is a large strip mall. In the section closest to Creighton, in the same section with Four Winds Market and the liquor store, and Rob’s Cameras – is where you will find Mediterranean Plus. Parking is plentiful. The food is fabulous.
7 Million Pounds
Many thanks to my Kuwaiti friend for sending this; if this is true, it is hilarious, and a wonderful story of the ingenuity of the human spirit:
Outside England ‘s Bristol Zoo there is a parking lot for 150 cars and 8 buses. For 25 years, its parking fees were managed by a very pleasant attendant. The fees were for cars (£1.40), for buses (about £7.00)..
Then, one day, after 25 solid years of never missing a day of work, he just didn’t show up; so the zoo management called the city council and asked it to send them another parking agent.
The council did some research and replied that the parking lot was the zoo’s own responsibility. The zoo advised the council that the attendant was a city employee. The city council responded that the lot attendant had never been on the city payroll.
Meanwhile, sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain or France or Italy is a man who’d apparently had a ticket machine installed completely on his own and then had simply begun to show up every day, commencing to collect and keep the parking fees, estimated at about £560 per day — for 25 years.
Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to just over £7 million pounds……. and no one even knows his name.
The Naughty Volvo
This is hilarious. It is so daring, so counter-intuitive, that I would love to see it work.
I drove a Volvo for 13 years – the same Volvo. It just wouldn’t wear out. It was a SAFE car. Half the people in the Pacific Northwest were driving Volvos; we all had kids, it was the responsible car to buy.
But a naughty Volvo? The very idea is just hilarious!
Lafayette to Baton Rouge, Google Maps
I wish I could show you photos of this stretch of road. I saw so much beauty on our trip – which exceeded 5,000 miles. This stretch was my favorite. We were on I-10, but I am also thinking there are some really cool back roads here that can be explored.
One of my favorite authors, James Lee Burke, writes some very brutal mysteries set in this part of the country. As I drove through, I could imagine his mists rising off the Atchafalaya Bayou and I know what it is like when the thunder clouds gather before all hell breaks loose. Here and there you also find some settings which are perfect for the louche True Blood.
Welcome to Louisiana
We have had some beautiful drives on this road trip, but I would have to say that my absolute favorite drive of the trip was from Lafayette to Baton Rouge. About 18 miles of the drive was along a 1930’s era freeway over miles of bayou and swamp land, it was beautiful, just lovely. I was driving, so I couldn’t take any photos, and the lanes were a little narrow so I was truly focused on the driving, but couldn’t help but notice the beauty we were driving past.
Our stay in Baton Rouge was a little noisy, there were LSU alumni gathered in our hotel to watch a football game, which is great except their children were running up and down the halls and screeching, oh aarrgh.
Our drive home was uneventful – about an hour across the rest of Louisiana:
Another hour crossing Mississippi, then another hour crossing Alabama, about a half and hour and we are home in Pensacola! It is barely noon, we unload the car and go to pick up the Qatari Cat, who moans loudly to tell us how annoyed he is with us for abandoning him. Once home, he is quickly settled and happy again.
It’s been a long, fun, trip and we are glad to be home. AdventureMan is airing out our old carpets, cleaning some which our cats threw up on (previous cats, not the Qatari Cat. Big Nick. Morganna. Cinnamon. Merlin. We’ve had a lot of sweet cats.) There is work to do, bills to catch up with, doctors to see (oh aarrgh) and meetings to attend. We have to catch up from our trip AND we have to catch up with our ‘normal’ lives. The best part is catching up with our son and his family and Baby Q. 🙂
Baker’s Ribs and Fried Pies
Texas is a lot of fun! As we are driving through Ft. Worth and Texas, very early on a Saturday morning, the highway closes and all the traffic is diverted off, and then back on. Time for some major work, I guess, and early Saturday morning is probably one of the best times to do it.
Around mid-morning, we start seeing signs for Fried Pies. I have no idea what a fried pie is, so AdventureMan explains it to me, it is a round pie crust with a filling, usually fruit, folded in half, crimping the edges, and then deep fried.
Sounds like a lot of calories, LOL!
Then we start seeing more signs, and we decide it is a good time for a stop at Baker’s Ribs and Fried Pies.
We have to walk through the barbecue section to get to the pie section. Our downfall.
There are a million kinds of fried pies, so we buy an apricot, a peach, and a cherry, and we take a few bites, but we don’t want to eat the whole thing because it will spoil our lunch. Lunch . . . we can’t resist the barbecue. We buy a couple of smoked turkey sandwiches for later, the smell is just irresistible.
These girls were just so nice, and helpful. 🙂
This gal is making the pie crusts:
And this lady has just pulled out a batch of the fried pies (to the right)
Fried pies are delicious, and I learned you have to eat them fast or the liquid in the fruit makes the crust start to crumble. The smoked turkey was even better, maybe the best smoked turkey I have ever had. The sandwiches were a wonder.
Update: AdventureMan says choosing to eat fried pies is part of How Do You Want to Die? and that he is willing to sacrifice the few minutes those bites of fried pie might have cost him. (We don’t eat fried pies; this was an exception. Don’t do this at home!)
Entering Texas
We needed to stop to gas up and stretch shortly after entering Texas, so while AdventureMan was picking out some CrackerJacks, I took a photo. I have a hard time imagining staying at this motel:
The climb up the volcano was a good thing; even though this is a long driving day, we are feeling good as we get close to Wichita Falls, where we will spend the night. The sun is setting behind us, so I capture it in the rear view mirror:
Tacos Y Mas in New Mexico
Shortly after our hike up the old volcano, we stopped for lunch in a small town. Sadly, many of the small towns we passed through were shells; old stores, old restaurants, old gas stations, all closed now. We saw this all across the United States, the center of the small towns dead or dying, and most of the remaining industry along the major state roads.
As we looked for something acceptable for lunch, we saw a Subway (‘think fresh!’) off in the distance and we can always settle for Subway, but just before we got to the Subway, we saw Tacos Y Mas:
You’re always taking your chances when you eat street food (this was not a restaurant, but an order-out trailer. The menu was fairly large for a small operation, and they had a steady stream of customers. We ordered the taco lunch special, drove down the road a few hundred yards and came to a rest stop with covered picnic tables, where we had a taco feast:
It was really delicious, but heartburn city later, LOL.
One of the funniest things in New Mexico and Texas were all the signs saying “do not pick up hitchhikers” near all the prisons. LLOOLLLL!
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Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 