Weekend Round Up

After Friday's intense series of calls and debates Saturday was a welcome blank on the calendar. TP was taken to a local carnival where he was playing Touch Rugby as part of a recruitment drive for his club. 30% was down at the workshop having her hair done so I was left to my own devices.

I am proud to say that I frittered away a good few hours drinking coffee, watching TV and reading the on-line edition of the New Scientist. After lunch I took T&M for a short walk. The weather was atrocious and there was no way that I would manage the Three Miler without a soaking so I did a much abbreviated route and managed to avoid anything more than a few drops of rain.

Later in the afternoon we both collected TP from the carnival and then returned home and finished our slothful day.

Sunday was marginally more productive. I extracted the two pork loins that I have been dry curing; soaked them for an hour and then liberally massaged them with black treacle before returning them to the fridge. In another six or seven days these will be fine pieces of Black, Back Bacon.

We also spent a couple of hours making preparations for our holiday. 30% booked our first night's stay in Las Vegas and I completed the on-line Visa waivers for TP and 30%. We then started to break up the long trip from Las Vegas up to Yellowstone in to reasonable chunks.

The chosen route will take us over to Bryce Canyon National Park and then on to The Arches National Park. We will then leave Utah and visit the Dinosaur National Monument which straddles the Utah / Colorado State Line. From there it is a long haul up to Jackson, Wyoming for the Grand Tetons National Park  which is at the Southern end of our destination; Yellowstone. This is in the region of 1150 miles, excluding any trips off the beaten track, and we have seven days to complete it. We have chalets booked in Yellowstone for four nights and then will take the more direct route down the I5 back to Vegas. This is around 800 miles and we have three days to reach Las Vegas for a final night on The Strip before we fly home...

... so that's the theory, lets see how it all pans out.

I also finally committed myself and ordered a new zoom lens for my digital SLR. I have been mulling this over for several weeks and have steered away from my "never to happen" fantasy of buying a Canon professional lens and went with the sensible option of the Canon EF 75-300mm f/4.0-5.6 III Lens at a very reasonable price.  I was tempted by the latest, image stabilised model but much of my photography nowadays is with a compact as I usually have two dogs which deter me from lugging an SLR camera around.  I decided that potential use would never justify the price of the latest model ...

... and I also have my eye on a fine carbon fibre Hugger that will sit nicely on the swinging arm of the Ducati.

That pretty much summarises the weekend; relaxation and holiday planning. Roll on August.