Memorial Day Weekend

We had a great weekend, the weather was just right, plenty of sunshine but not too hot.

On Saturday we completed the Missy proofing of the front yard by adding a six foot tall vinyl section of fence between the house and the wall which separates us from the next house.
Later in the afternoon Aussie Glen stopped by to say hello and catch up with things.

On Sunday we rode down to Laguna on the scoot, a very pleasant ride, there was not too much traffic.

When we got back from the ride,  we walked down to Sunset Beach to King Neptune's.
The usual crowd were there, Lupe was tending bar and later Juan, the guy who owns the joint came in to socialize.

 

 

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I guess that it takes a while, but yesterday I felt that after more than thirty years, I fit in.
When you go to a place like Neptune's, and you are wearing shorts, you have a grey beard and hair which is longer than normal, you are definitely "accepted".
Of course drinking Budweiser doesn't hurt either.
If you are with a blonde wearing a trilby, then she is instantly accepted too.

Check their website.
http://www.jkingneptune.com/
They had a really good band called Tightrope playing, fantastic beach scene, and a sax player who could really hit it.
The lead singer reminded me of Raul Malo of the Mavericks.
We had our favorite cab guy Byron pick us up for the trip home.

On Memorial Day we fitted in with tradition and fired up the barbecue.
I decided to cook some chicken whilst I prepared the real barbecue fare, steak and sausage for me and salmon for the lady of the house.
Part way through we decided to switch gears and have chicken curry!
So...
Here I am barbecuing chicken curry!

It actually worked out very well, I might add a few firebricks to the barbecue and make it into a Tandoori oven.

Weekend Happenings

Lots going on this weekend.

Barb and Leon came in from Arizona for their granddaughter Heather's birthday.
We met up and went to the Seaside Grill on Thursday so that they could meet up with some of the crowd there.

On Saturday we had the birthday party in our backyard and it was a great event.
It was very well attended, the usual suspects were all present.

Anne did a fantastic job with the decorations, all in Heather's favorite color, mint green.

 

 

 

Hector won the prize in the history quiz relating to events which took place in the year of Heathers birth, 1992.

It went to a tie breaker but he hung on for the win!

 

 

 

Today, Sunday, we decided to have a little barbecue so that Anne could have her annual hamburger.

 

We washed the hamburgers down with some Belgian beer!

 

This is beer brewed in an Abbey, and the brewery was founded in 1240 AD.

UK Trip

In about 6 weeks I will be headed to the UK.
4th of July is the day after I arrive and I have planned to visit a few places with connections to the USA.

There are four places which I will visit which either have US cities named after them or are  named after US cities.

To visit all four places in the US would be a trip of about 500 miles, my trip to the four places will be less than 50 miles.
Here are some clues, one of them is a gimme as I could not find a picture of anything that was relevant.

 

 

 

 

This one is the GIMME!

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy!

Connections

How wrong can you be?

I had watched a TV show hosted by Lady Lucinda Lambton, daughter of the major land owner of the area in which I grew up. She stated that the stone for the bridge was quarried in Penshaw next to the Monument and taken to London by barge.
However further research came up with the article below the picture.

This London Bridge was built out of granite which was quarried on Dartmoor. It was a structure of 5 arches, overall dimensions were 928 feet long and 49 feet wide.

When the new bridge was finished and opened by King William and Queen Adelaide in 1831, traffic switched to the huge new structure and the demolition commenced on the old bridge. John Rennie was then knighted for his work.

So Sir John Rennie's bridge lives on in Arizona.
I guess that there is a connection as both structures originally resided in the UK!

A guy by the name of McCulloch bought the bridge for about $2.5 million and reconstructed it in Lake Havasu.
More from the research article is below.

However, John Rennie's bridge was not to survive as long as Peter de Colechurch's and plans were afoot in the 1960's to replace the structure by a modern bridge. The old bridge had sunk twelve inches at the southern end even on completion and had continued to sink unevenly by an inch in every eight years thereafter and could no longer cope with the extent of modern traffic.

Over in Arizona, USA, Robert McCulloch learned that the British Government was putting the bridge up for sale. He put in the winning bid for $2,460,000 and plans were drawn up to move and rebuild the bridge in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

Each piece was marked with four numbers. The first indicated which span, the second noted which row of stones, and the last two numbers indicated which position in that row. It was discovered, while dismantling the bridge, that there were code numbers on each stone when it was originally built: Rennie must have used the same system when the sections left the quarries.

The numbers are still discernable on the bridge structure. If you can't see them you will just have to take my word for it.

Just as a matter of historical interest, Lady Lucinda was left nothing by her father but her brother received more than twelve million pounds, about $20 million at todays exchange rate.
Go figure...

There will be more trivia about my trip soon.

There will be some cryptic information about where I will spend 4th of July, it may come as a surprise; but not to those of you who live in Surprise!

 

Below you will see my favorite pictures taken from London Bridge!

 

 

Connections

OK you saw the picture on the last post.
Here is another and there is a link between the two.
Keep reading the blog to find out what it is.

More updates real soon!

Next Trip!

Watch Out For An Update!

My next trip is planned and it will allow one more thing to be crossed off the bucket list.

Here is a visual clue.

Keep reading for more clues in the near future.

An Update on the Seal Beach 5K

Fortunately, I don't feel as bad as I look in the picture!

 

Just a few steps across the finish line and then a two mile walk back to the car.

I bought the picture from the official photography company, I guess that you need to support the sponsors of the event.

 

I plan to start practising for next year at least a week before the event...