Free Water with a Rain Barrel

Saturday I rode the old standby ride with the club, this is the GDB Airport ride which starts 8.5 miles from my house. This works out great as I do not use a car, but ride my bike to the start and end up with 60 miles after splitting off from the group and riding home. This week it was fast paced up front and there was a strong wind leaving me exhausted upon arrival at home.

This week I found out a friend of mine can supply me with free plastic barrels that are not for drinking out of but have had soap in them and are fine for catching rain water. I placed this barrel under a downspout of my gutter that drains about 300 sq. ft. of roof, it should fill up fast with a modest rain.
I framed in a fine screen to keep out debris and prevent mosquitoes from getting in the barrel. This water is going to be used to water the garden and houseplants, they like it better than chlorinated city water. I have one or two more places I can set barrels that are out of site and will provide over a hundred gallons with about a 1 inch rain.

We are going camping and riding at a new to us State Park this weekend and I will report on it later.

Living green

Dennis Starkey

San Diego

This past weekend we went to San Diego for some friends wedding, while we were there we visited 2 lighthouses on the coast. Michele and I have visited a lot of lighthouses and enjoy traveling to them and the history of them. The one in this picture is the old Point Loma Lighthouse and we got to go in and up in it. This lighthouse is on a large high point and was replaced by the one in the next picture because this one was covered by fog a lot.This is looking down on the new Point Loma lighthouse and the Pacific ocean, this lighthouse is part of the military and is not open to the public.

While hiking around the bay we found this replica of the original America's Cup Yacht America.

Below is the Motor Yacht the Resound, the wedding was on this 60 foot 1940 teak wood boat that originally belonged to the Schlitz family. This was a great event with dinner and a several hour cruise around the bay, and the Captain performed a very nice service.

We also visited Torry Pines National Park and hiked the mountains and the beach in this small piece of mostly untouched coastline. We visited Mission Beach, Ocean Beach, Old Town and Seaport Village for a busy 4 days.

I got back just in time to do the night Bicycle ride on Tuesday night and got in a fast paced 25 miles with a few hills thrown in. Our welcome home from sunny California is a rainy day in the 3o's, but the weekend is forecast to be great.

Back from the left coast

Dennis

Country Ride

We had a great day to do the recon ride in preparation for our clubs Bicycle rally, Michele and I led a group on the 40 mile route and found some new road surface and a lot of loose dogs. We made our first rest stop at the Gazeebo in the Ferris Square, this is when Michele noticed she was the only girl on the ride and the pace was brisk.

Michele acted like she was a little tired but when a big dog gives chase she had a supprising amount of energy left to sprint away from the dog and back into the group.
This week has been uneventfull, with a spin class on Monday night and now we are packing for a trip to San Diego for a few days leaving on Saturday.

Not much more work has been done on the boat due to cold wet weather, but I'm in no hurry since I like going down to the yard and messing around with the Yacht.

I've reached another milestone and at my supprising young age I have joined the senior center here in Farmers Branch and get to use the fitness center for free.

The leash law applies to you!!!!!!!

Dennis

Boat repair

We finaly had a couple of warm afternoons and I started applying the West Systems Epoxy, I divided the boat into 3 sections for this. I first brushed on a coat of epoxy and the used a flexible putty knife to squeegee the epoxy deep into and voids or bare fiberglass, after this coat got tacky I applied a microfiber paste additive and faired the first sectioon. We were able to do 2/3 of the boat so the next 70 + day we can do the final third and finish this base coat and be ready do the final sanding. I got this new boat in the mail, when I sell Carrier parts on jobs I earn points and can shop from a catalog for prizes. This is the new dinghy for the O'day 272, it seems very heavy duty and will store in a small area and inflate by pump in less than 10 minutes.

Thursday afternoon I was off early and went for a 35 mile ride on the bike trail system and came across the cowby and his horse, I stopped and took his picture and he and his horse were freindly.

I never did get the cowboys name but this is Wrangler his well manered and well groomed mount.

Michele and I are going to ride our bicycles in Lancaster this weekend to pre-ride the routes for the Rally our Bicycle club puts on each Spring during wildflower season. This should be a fun day and the weather is predicted to be clear and a little cool.

I reached a financial milestone this week when I realized my old truck with 210,000 miles has a Blue Book value of less than I paid for my bicycle, talk about priority's.

Living well on less

Dennis Starkey