Valley of Fire

Jill's Journal: About 50 miles north of Las Vegas is a truly stunning place. It’s easy to see why Valley of Fire State Park is Nevada’s oldest state park, dedicated in 1935. The name is derived from the red sandstone formations which rise out of the ground in striking fashion at nearly every turn.

The girls preferred to think the name “Valley of Fire” came from the heat and they had a point. It was mighty hot during our visit and our planned hikes quickly wilted into much shorter little walks at various stops as we braved what felt like a furnace.

Victoria had the cutest comment, “I like it when the car does the hiking for us.”

And on this day, in this heat, most of us agreed with her. Sometimes it is nicer to drive than walk, particularly when one is in a Valley of Fire. :)

These unusual formations are called beehives.

With the girls in the photo for perspective, you can see the beehives are clearly bigger than they look.

Arch Rock.

At Atlatl Rock, a great variety of petroglyphs can be seen. This art on the rock is believed to have been here for 4,000 years, left by ancient Indians. Although the meaning of these drawings has died with history, that notched stick near the top of this first one is known to be an “atlatl,” which was used to thrown primitive spears. An atlatl is considered to be the ancestor to the bow and arrow.

Beautiful, beautiful, just beautiful all over. No wonder the ancient Indians spent time here and left their mark.

What a lovely, lovely place.

As promised... Victoria's Gallery

As I mentioned last week, Victoria wondered (aloud again, just this morning) why her photos were not up on the blog just like Madelyn's. I pulled her whole camera and wanted to post a few of these as well - what a treasure trove. These are untouched - raw from the camera.

 

About 80% of the pictures in Victoria's camera had to do with the latest books the kids have been reading for school.  She loves to take pictures of all the illustrations.  Here are but a very few of them.

Victoria is clearly very excited to have finished her week's work in school.  Note the red scribble over her entire to-do list.  Obviously she was excited to document the occasion.

The pattern pictures below were some of my favorites - books and pencils, and their structure - there might be an entire semester in  Art College about these pics...

Below - it is apparent that Breyerfest is on the girls' mind.  From these posed pictures (best friends), to the monetary goal in the third picture, they are excited that we might be able to attend this year.

 

I had no choice but to finish with these two pictures.  Something tells me that the camera is in Madelyn's hands, but I don't care - what amazing photos.

Laugh for the Day

Jill's Journal: It’s been all about babies around here lately, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before Victoria picked up an “Understanding Birth” magazine at Kristi and Adam’s house. We don’t know what she saw in there, but isn’t that expression on her face priceless?

USS Midway

Jill's Journal: Even with Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, and a host of other places to visit in the San Diego area, the #1 attraction here is the USS Midway. This naval aircraft carrier was commissioned as the largest ship in the world in 1945. She was the first ship to be too large to fit through the Panama Canal. Her flight deck alone is just over four acres. Four acres!

She’s been all over the world, including the sub-Arctic, and has done some amazing things, including during wartime in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf. She’s got 18 decks, held a crew of 4,500, and has a fuel capacity of 3.4 million gallons. The USS Midway is so big she used 260 gallons of fuel to move a mile. A mile!

As the longest-serving carrier of the 20th century, she was decommissioned in 1992 and opened to the public in 2004. Time on board the USS Midway is a fascinating glimpse at our military and the lives of the over 225,000 sailors who served on this city at sea during her 47 years in service. In addition, about 25-30 retired aircraft are on the Midway’s flight deck and on her hanger deck and are also open to visitors.

This is “the island” on the flight deck. In here are the bridge/command center for the ship, the control tower/primary flight control for the flights, and the navigation room. This is the only area of the ship with a guided tour (the rest is self-guided) and it is just fascinating.

Our docent (one of over 700 hundred who volunteer on the Midway) served on the Midway himself in 1958. How cool is that?

Getting around the island (and actually, most of the ship) requires the navigation of lots and lots of very steep ladders. Luckily, Victoria just barely met the height requirement.

The docent had the girls sit in the “boss” and “mini” chairs in the control tower. These were the spots which controlled all incoming and outgoing flights.

The control tower’s view of the departing runway. It defies logic how planes can take off in such a short space (the arriving runway is longer, but also short). Cables help catapult planes into the air; they also help “catch” landing planes and slow them down in time. What a ride that must be.

There’s a nice view of downtown San Diego from the flight deck.

This is a F-14 Tomcat, the aircraft brought into the nation’s consciousness in “Top Gun.”

Here’s a Sea Knight helicopter, only one of the many aircraft available for viewing on the Midway.

This is inside the Sea Knight.

This sounds silly, but I always wondered how planes didn’t just bounce off the deck in rough seas. They’re tied down…duh!

The Midway is treated to a nice view of “The Kiss” statue on land.

Inside the ship, one gets an intriguing glance into sea life.

Look at those bunks and lockers. Sailors are not afforded much space. Each bunk has a small space underneath for the men’s incidentals.

Look how tight these quarters are! No privacy here.

One of the mess halls.

This is the post office for the whole ship.

The girls each answered questions about what they learned on the Midway to earn their “junior pilot” wings.

The USS Midway is the world’s most visited military attraction. We so enjoyed our time on this amazing aircraft carrier and are grateful our country has opened this up to the public to learn from and enjoy. God bless our military!