FROSTY TUESDAY

[Nasoosie]

GOOD MORNING TO ALL!

It's only about 29 degrees here this morning----frosty, but lighter than usual. Each day with frost is dangerous to all my wild bloomers, however. All I can do is hold my breath. I am late this morning, as my alarm didn't go off. Luckily, I turned over and noticed it was daylight! And luckily, I took my bath last night!

Great show on NPR this morning about horseshoe crabs and how they are so useful to us for testing drugs. I have always loved these ancient creatures who hae remained pretty much unchanged for millions of years, and at long last, scientists have discovered a use for their blood which they can extract without killing the crabs. They used to take the crabs to use for fishing bait, and caused the crab population in Delaware Bay to drop by over 70%. Luckily, there is now a moratorium in taking crabs from the Bay area to allow them to make a comback in their population. A bird called the Rednaught (Red knot?) eats the eggs of these crabs on their migration route to the Arctic, and their recent decline was the indicator that brought the decline of the horseshoe crabs to the attention of everybody. It takes the crabs about 10 years to mature enough to mate and lay eggs, so they are hoping this will eventually pay off. The blood of the horseshoe crabs has the ability to fight off impurites and e. coli, and so is used to test all our drugs in this country for impurities. When I was a kid, this was not known. We always threw the crabs back into the sea, not realizing they were probably out of the water to mate and lay eggs. I am always happy to see that we humans are making some strides in at least a few areas---it gives me a glimmer of hope for mankind and our Earth.

Coffee time, so come on in and have share a cup as you type a few words about whatever moves you! Happy Tuesday in May!

[ali1257]

Good early morning to everyone. It is 5:50 a.m. and I woke up about 30 minutes ago and couldn't fall back asleep so thought I would get up and post here.

Sunday and Monday were good days for us. Ron worked till 6 a.m. on Sunday doing tear down in Port Townsend. He slept till noon and then we got up and did laundry. We went for a walk through a local campground and then visited with others in the bone yard. The weather while in Port Townsend was just beautiful. The bone yard was right by the ocean. We saw ferries and boats of all kinds throughout each day. The carnival was only a three day affair so we had the previous Monday off and didn't start till late afternoon on Thursday and Friday so we walked into town a couple of times. It was neat to see all the old houses and buildings. Port Townsend was started in the late 1800's and many of the original structures are still there.

We got up fairly early on Monday and was on the road for our next jump at 8:30 a.m. We moved from Port Townsend to Ft. Lewis (near Tacoma). We had an uneventful drive (yippee!!). Stopped for gas, put in 56.5 gallons of gas ($188). We had never put that much gas in the rig before. Ron said he knew we were very close to empty but yowee...but then again we had not gotten gas since Wenatchee which was two weeks ago. Also filled up with propane. Hadn't done that since leaving Blaine on 3/21. This was a pricey jump for us but then again we are still under our budget for the month on both of these items.

We cleared through the base gate and found our way to the PX and then the bone yard to set up for this week. The carnival runs Thursday through Sunday here so that is a good thing. The last two week we have not had as many hours as previously. We hope that improves this week. We are trying to play catch up since repairing the drive shaft.

It is rainy here this morning. It started raining last night while we watched Marley & Me. It was a great movie but had both of us in tears by the end of the movie. Ron doesn't have to be in to work till noon today and I am off. I hope to upload some pictures to my blog since I have better internet connection here on base. I will make a post when I get them loaded and labeled. I tried to use photo bucket but could not get it to work. Don't know what I was doing wrong.

Well I hope everyone has a great day. Think I will go and crawl back into bed, the toesies are getting a little chilled.