Eastern Oregon drive

It is a 5 hour drive between Prineville and Ontario via Burns. Most people think the drive is flat, straight and boring. But I don't think so. On the drive over I saw 3 bald eagles, a flock of snow geese and a rabbit. Many times I see deer and antelope and once in a while a coyote. Here are some pictures of the drive.

Kid-sitting

I am kid-sitting our 3 Oregon grandsons this weekend. They are spending the night tonight at Gramma's house and tomorrow night I will be at their house. We had fun playing a new board game - Richard Scarry's Busy Town and playing video games. Keon was able to keep up with the older boys pretty well. We had scrambled eggs and ham for dinner and toast. It was delicious and they all ate good. No fights all evening and the little ones went to bed without a fuss. Gramma spoiled them and let them stay up an extra hour and read Dr. Suess' Red Fish Blue Fish to them. It was a very nice evening. Bogey and Birdie were busy keeping track of all 4 of us so now are taking a much needed "pre-bedtime" nap. James and Amy are at a retreat until Sunday afternoon.

Mini-vacation

Terry and I had a mini-vacation (which was really just a long weekend). We traveled to Reno for some much needed R&R. The roads from Silver Lake, Lakeview and Alturas were packed snow and sometimes slushy. We stopped in Lakeview to have lunch with Aunt Marcie & Uncle Glen. The slushy roads made the snow and ice cake up under the tire rims and it got so thick we heard it grinding when we made a turn so stopped and tried to knock it off. It was extremely hard but we were able to get enough off so it wouldn't grind. After we got to Reno, it took two days for it to finally melt. We stayed at the Nugget and I found a John Wayne penny machine that was pretty fun and I won some on it. We also played Pai Gow Poker and I even tried Let It Ride Poker. I like Pai Gow better. Terry got a royal flush in Pai Gow but as usual I was not playing when he got it, so I missed seeing it (I did get to spend some of the money later though!!)
Terry also made some points with me by taking me to see the Nevada State Museum in Carson City but it was his good luck and my bad luck that the Museum was closed on Mondays. Oh well, he tried!! So he gets credit for that. Another nice thing about the trip - I did not worry about work this time, since our plant is now using the corporate software system I am not the sole support, and so there are other people that can help if someone gets stuck on something. Quite a different feeling after being the only one that knew our old system. So, for the last 6 1/2 years even when I was on vacation I still had my work laptop with me and checked e-mails and got phone calls. This time I did not have to "stay in touch" so it was quite a refreshing change.