Caught in Homer Alaska by the Google Camera and other

To our blog following friends,

Some of you may remember a picture of the Google camera car that I took while in Homer Alaska. Barbara and I were walking in downtown Homer and the Google car drove by, so I took a picture of it. We later passed it on another road. I was sure that it was taking pictures, so I checked the street view and I found myself.

Just to do a quick update...
Our last outing was the first of November 2009 at Davis Mountain State park. We had several home projects and then a trip to Dallas for Thanksgiving.

While in Dallas for a few day, I got the opportunity to go for a ride in Scott Carter's new experimental Extra EZ airplane. Very nice and a ~200MPH 4 seat plane. For pictures and descriptions of the plane click here. Some of the first pictures were taken by my son Jay, from a chase plane. Jay took this one for the cover of October 2009 Contact Magazine. His plane won Reserve Grand Champion at the Oshkosh flyin in October 2009. Scott started his Extra EZ in 1997. This was his second home built with his first be a Long EZ that began around 1980.

After that, we were back in Lubbock and back to the home projects. I finished a long standing tile project, did some painting in the utility room and repairs to a backyard deck. I still have several remodel projects but they are not pressing. The end of 2009 has come and gone and we are making plans for 2010. We have plans to spend time on the road again, maybe traveling to the eastern part of the country. Our first trip will be to the annual Bluebonnet Rally in Bandera and then to Dallas for a few days.

I have a hard time with the idea that I have been retired for over 13 months. The time has disappeared very quickly. I just don't know how I ever had time to work a full time job.

I've been upgrading the suspension on the Bigfoot, along with replacing the tires. I figure I had around 28K miles on the Marathons. I also replaced the worn spring shackles with heavy duty ones. I also replaced a broken window glass and a rearview camera.

We look forward to the Bluebonnet rally this year and visiting with friends from all over the country.

John and Barbara from Lubbock