Another Step Closer...

Well, we're another step closer to getting the final inspection ok'd on House #1! The inspector came out today and went over the house with us. We ended up with a short punch list of things yet to do. I'm trying to keep pretty good track of all the issues that come up so that the next house will be easier.

But, the really good news is that the inspector is going to allow the homeowners to start moving in (as long as they don't sleep there!). I took some of the young girls from Manitoba up there this afternoon to close up all of the ditches. Three of them decided they wanted to climb up to the cross on the mountain behind the house. The other one didn't want to take any chances at perhaps even seeing a snake, so she stayed behind and actually helped Elsie move a few things into the house.

Forry took this really neat picture of the new moon last week -- it was just before true dark and you could see the shadow of the entire moon behind it.

These two pictures are of a spine of rock that has fascinated Forrest ever since we got here:

It is interesting to note that the hills that were so green a week or so ago are already beginning to turn brown.

USS Midway

One of the retired fellows who builds the sheds our clients have at their new homes is ex-Navy. He had invited us to tour the Aircraft Carrier USS Midway which is permanently retired here in San Diego Bay.

He was able to get the 8 of us long-termers free VIP passes to tour the ship today. We all went to the early service at Jamul Community Church, had a quick lunch at Rubios (Mexican fast food chains that are all over southern California), then met him at the ship at noon.

The Midway is immense. It had 4500 personnel on board when it was on active duty; was commissioned in 1945; was remodeled twice (once to put in an angled runway and the second time to expand its length) and served until after the first Gulf War. The following two pictures are views from "the island" (the helm) looking down at either end of the runway:

The next picture is one of the docents (who were all retired aircraft carrier Navy) explaining to us how the catapults worked:

We spent three hours on board and I'm sure we saw less than half of it. They give you little recorders with headphones and you can stop at any of the numbered spots and listen to the information about it. Then there were several spots like the one above where docents explained some of the more complicated stuff. The ship has examples of all the retired Navy aircraft that ever flew off the carrier.

We tried to stop for ice cream on the way home but couldn't find a Dairy Queen or even a McDonalds that had some. So came home and ate leftover pizza.

We have a large group (19) of volunteers who drove all the way from Manitoba, Canada in a bus. They arrived a little after eight this evening. They have several children with them -- I guess we'll send them out on the job with their parents...